GEORGE BARNSBY BLOG NO.351 MONDAY 14TH JANUARY 2008
MOREÂ ABOUT THE CHANNEL 4 PEACE AWARDS.
These close at 11.59pm on Friday 18th January. The full list of candidates is as follows: Tony Blair : Ian Paisley and Martin McGuiness : Ken Livingstone : Alex Salmond : The Countryside Alliance :  Anti-War Protestors .
The Anti-war Protestors are sponsored by Stop the War Alliance, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Muslim Association of Britain.: You can vote by phone at 09011 27 27 06, email, or the Channel 4 Political Awards web site.
I invariably have trouble voting on the web, but managed to do so when the email address of Channel 4 Political Awards came up with an email address to respond to which was news@channel4.com and I put in a message saying I was voting for the Anti-War Coalition and off it went.
BRITISH PENSIONERS AND TRADE UNION ASSOCIATION
A new National Travel Pass is being issued in April and the Pensioners are insisting that it should be the same as for OAPers in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Their passes enable them to use long distance coaches as well as local buses. Any restrictions placed on English Older People will in fact make it impossible for many pensioners to travel nationally. We are urged to lobby our MPs to end this blatant discriminations against old people.
Much of the content of Britain’s leading magazine for pensioners seeking a better deal is devoted the shortcomings of the National Health Service and also preparing for the Old Age Pensions Act Centenary. Not only is the Old Age Pension insufficient to live on decently. The School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has worked out that pensioners need £131 a week to survive and an elderly couple £208, figures the present state pension fall far short of. But cuts are in the offing as well for this inadequate sum.
SOCIALIST CAMPAIGN GROUP NEWS.
This is the Group dedicated to the modernisation of the Labour Party, opposed to the war in Iraq and whose editorial board includes Diane Abbott, Tony Benn, and Jeremy Corbyn. The January issue of this monthly newspaper is particularly concerned with the elections to the Labour Party National Executive Committee for 2008. The paper supports candidates from the Centre-Left Grassroots Alliance set up in 1998. To be elected one needs to be nominated by one’s own Constituency Labour Party, plus at least two nominations from other Labour Party Regions. Each CLP can make six nominations. The deadline is 1 April. Other features include Westminster News giving details of non-consultation on nuclear at airports, restoring the link of pensions to average wages, the impact of closure of post offices on OAPers, and opposition to any invasion of Iran. Trade Union activity and the fight against fascism and the BNP is stressed and there is much else. Read it for yourself at www.scgn.org.uk
HURRAH FOR TRADE UNIONS.
It is great to learn of the successes of trade unions when cynics write them off and Labour ministers act like Tories in strike breaking. An example is the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) where the union says the Royal Mail is deliberately misleading the public. They hide behind the word ‘modernisation’ when what they really mean is unprecedented cuts in jobs (over 40,000), major attacks on pay and conditions, over 2,000 post office closures, reduced week day collections and none on Sundays. For latest details visit www.cwu.org
Particularly gratifying is the strike of the Screen Writers of America and their ability to bring current programmes almost to a halt. The rage of producers and presenters who are reduced to showing ever more repeat programmes contrasts with the treatment of writers and others in the 1950s who were victimised, ruined , and in the case of the Rosenbergs murdered by the McCarthy terror of that period. Good luck to the Screen Writers.