GEORGE BARNSBY BLOG NO. 350 SUNDAY 13TH JANUARY 2008
REMEMBERING THE HOLOCAUST.
A multi-faith service marking Holocaust Memorial Day will take place in in Wolverhampton city centre in St.Peter’s Gardens on Sunday January 27 from 10-15am. The Mayor of Wolverhampton ,Councillor Trudy Bowen , wall be in attendance as will city councillors, ex-service organisations, the trade unions and pensioners’ organisation.
The mayor will lay a wreath in memory of victims of the Holocaust and Nazi persecution. Members of the public are invited to attend.
It is good to know that our City council is prepared to promote this commemoration at a time when holocaust deniers still exist and we hope as many peoples as possible will turn up.
CHANNEL 4 PEACE AWARD.
The short list is in for Channel 4 News Award for the most
inspiring
political personality of the decade. Stop the War and other peace
activists
are on the list. Last year it was won by Brian Haw, Parliament
Square’s
permanent peace protester and Tony Blair only received 4% of the votes.
We
now have only a few days to record our votes, closing date being 18th
January.
Please vote for Peace and spread the word among family, friends, colleagues, students, or religious group. There are 5,000 British troops in Iraq and 8,000 in Afghanistan. Let us remind Gordon Brown that this war mongering is not in our name.
How to Vote?: By email it is free. Go to Channel 4 News Political Awards page: http://tinyurl.com/3y19gh. Under Anti-Iraq War Protesters click email.
By telephone (cost 25p) call 09011 27 27 06
SUDDEN DEATH OF RUTH FROW.
Eddie and Ruth were the co-founders of the Working Class Movement Library in Salford. After filling every nook and cranny of their house with books, the library eventually received support from Salford corporation and became the most important library of its kind in the country. Eddie died some years ago in his nineties, but Ruth has soldiered on into the years when the Salford grant has almost vanished and the library is again financed by the Working Class Movement. My Working Class library was set up in the image of WCML, but because it was a Working Class Library, I was always able to operate with a left-wing, anti-New Labour, and anti-Iraq war stance. I had hoped that working class libraries would be set up in many other localities in Britain, but that has not so far occurred. The problem in Wolverhampton is whether our working class movement can sustain my library after I’m gone. My longevity has meant that I have been able to keep it going so far.
The movement owes a huge debt of gratitude to Ruth and Eddie and there is every indication that the library they founded will continue in existence supported by the labour movement and other progressive people and organisations.
SEPP BLATTER’S PROPOSALS FOR WORLD FOOTBALL CLUBS..
This is a summary of a message sent yesterday to the Football Association, the players’ union the PFA, to Arsene Wenger, to the most prominent sports reporters of British newspapers also to Rachael Heyhoe Flint on behalf of Wolves, and to Paul Ince:
There is much merit in wily old Sepp Blatter’s proposal that every FIFA team should limit the numbered of foreign players in its teams to 5. One thing that makes us Arsenal fans queasy about our links to the Emirates. The first is that the Emirates have reactionary political regimes too closely connected to the US and the war in Iraq. Secondly that although one can justify Arsenal teams without a single English player on the grounds that Arsene Wenger’s job is to produce the best team in Britain regardless of nationality, it blunts our criticism of those who have sold their souls to foreign capitalists when Arsenal (and Wolves to a lesser degree) are almost alone in supporting the principle that clubs should be owned by their communities. That criticism would disappear if all teams were obliged to field a limited number of foreigners. For who could doubt that Arsene Wenger who has produced one of the best means in the world could, given a level playing field, continue to produce such a team with at least 6 English players in it.
The purchase of foreign players has exacerbated the corruption liable in most walks of life. Manchester United has been purchased by the US Glazers who did not possess the money to do so and had to borrow it at excessive rates of interest which now imperil the very existence of the club. Most Premiership clubs now regard the possession of unlimited amounts of foreign cash as a pre requisite for staying in the Premiership, but especially in the top four to whom alone the crock of gold is confined.
Recently we have had the examples of Newcastle, who change their managers as frequently as they change their shirts, trying to get into the top four, and Liverpool ( in the year of their city’s Festival) in danger of falling out of it and reduced to desperation as the following exclusive story in today’s Observer reveals.
Liverpool’s present owner, Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jnr bought the club for £350 millions which was borrowed from the Royal Bank of Scotland. That debt falls due next month and the failure of one of the partners to promise repayment has meant that the building of a new stadium has been brought to a halt, together with other capital projects. If Hicks and Gillett do not or cannot repay this debt ownership of the club will fall to a reluctant Royal Bank of Scotland who would want to pass it on as quickly as possible. Enter here Dubai International Capital, who were, apparently interested in buying Liverpool before the Americans came on the scene, are now close to buying the club for £500 million, making a third owner within a year.
Is this what one of our greatest clubs have been reduced to? What has happened to our patriotism?
Of course, it is possible that the limitation of players will be ruled out of order on the basis of a person’s right to choose, by the Court of Human Rights, by the European Union, or whatever. Time will tell.