Budget 2009: Their Crisis Not Ours….!

So Gordon Brown acknowledges that people feel ‘real pain’ due to the recession. Bit like someone kicking you in the shins and then exclaims  they feel your pain!

Oh, and to add further misery and further collective kicks in the shins for the working class, Alistair Darling, is expected to announce, pre-Budget, £15bn of spending cuts over the next few years.

Ordinary working class people are going to pay for the excesses of the bosses.

But never fear, Brown explains the method to his financial madness.

“In this new competitive world we have got to do everything in our power to enable businesses to be internationally competitive. No policy can remain exactly as it was five or 10 years ago. Where there are difficulties there are opportunities. We have got to invest out of this downturn.”

Competitive of course means cuts in living standards right across the world. Working class people to be set against each other whichever region of the world they live in. This is not what we want or what we need.

So get to this on Wednesday organised by activists in the Labour Representation Committee (LRC)  – a day of action regarding Budget Day – 22nd April.

11.30am: Line the route on Whitehall where the Chancellor will go from No. 11 Downing Street to address Parliament

5pm: Protest outside the Treasury

7.30pm: We will hold a Question Time event at a venue soon to be confirmed which will be chaired by John McDonnell MP and be addressed by a range of experts, activists and high-profile figures who will answer your questions as to how we got into this mess.

I can’t get to the morning but am hoping to attend the evening protests and Question Time…

See you there comrades!

Passionate Friend – The Teardrop Explodes

Time for a commercial break

I see the piss- poor Ashes to Ashes is back tonight. Why oh why oh why, I lament… Not a patch on its predecessor, Life on Mars. In a former life in a former job, a couple of us would discuss the music to both Ashes to Ashes and Life on Mars (and there would be the inevitable debate 70s v 80s music).

 In an Ashes to Ashes episode, there was a track nobody could name, unfortunately I embarrassed myself by blurting out, ‘It was Careless Memories, early Duran Duran’.. Stunned silence which ended with a chorus, ‘Shoulda known you would know that…’ Alas, tis true….

Anyways, one episode had the wonderful, wonderful, wonderful Reward by The Teardrop Explodes. I couldn’t be bothered with the plot but sang along merrily.

And this specific song from YouTube, Passionate Friend, reminds me of a very long coach journey circa late 1986 organised by B’ham CND to Faslane Naval base. I was listening to a lot of Teardrop Explodes and Julian Cope (I had a teenage crush on him…probably to do with the black leather jodhpurs he wore!). 

At that time, as well, I was strung out on various doses of medication and music gave me some respite from the demons and grind of life. 

Sorry I digress…. Where was I? Oh yes, 1986, B’ham CND and Faslane. An anarchist sat next to me, he started to spout Proudhon slagged off Marx and Trots. I argued back. He argued back. We swapped food, I gave him my sandwiches, he gave me his sweets and Vodka. I think I did the best out of the bargain.

At the end of the two day trip, early morning Sunday, B’ham City Centre he asked me out on a date.

My reply: ‘You’re an anarchist, I am a Trot… I don’t think it would be a good idea’…

The anarchist looked crestfallen and wandered away into the early morning grime of Digbeth Coach Station.

Brief Encounter it wasn’t. I also think I gave him a lecture on Kronstadt to send him on his way.

Gawd, I was an ortho-annoying purist Trot. I probably was ticking off a mental list in my head regarding ‘political positions and orientations’ not whether the person was …..erm…nice. Too subjective and bourgeois, comrade, what is their position on the Soviet Union, permanent revolution and the question of dialectics….far more important.

 Jeeze…….

Looking back at that story I despair at the 16 year old happy shiny excited revolutionary and try not to bang my head on the keyboard in the here and now out of frustration….

But hey, after that long sad convoluted story (hey, wake up at the back!) here’s the wonderful Julian Cope and Passionate Friend.