Labour Left and the General Election

I haven’t written anything here for a couple of days but normal service will resume soon. And here’s a post I prepared earlier…well a couple of weeks ago which Claude asked me to write  about the General Election and the Labour Left…

In the witness box tomorrow

Am a big bag of nerves at the moment as tomorrow I am due in the witness to give evidence against the G20 police officer who assaulted the woman protester, Nicky Fisher, on the 2nd April 2009. I have been distracted and unable to concentrate during the past month or so since I was initially contacted by the IPCC to be a witness for the prosecution and the date has come ever nearer…now tomorrow is the day. I confess I am very nervous. I don’t know when I will be called just sometime tomorrow. And the waiting around is the worst.

Just take a deep breath and get on with it….

Update on spies and anti-fascism

Update:

Piece in today’s Observer from Hannah Sell and Lois Austin, both involved in the Militant and YRE, where they question (rightly!!) Officer A’s version of events and call for a public inquiry into undercover cops and this specific unit, SDS.

Iraq: seven years on

It is the 7th anniversary today of the invasion of Iraq. War on the pretext of weapons of mass destruction which didn’t exist when the real reason was that the neocons wanted regime change and control of the oil.

In the 7 years of war:

• Fallujah doctors report rise in birth defects
• 2.8 million Iraqis remain internally displaced
• Iraq’s trade ministry hit by £2.6 billion fraud
• Voter fraud allegations
• The number of Iraqis killed in war-related violence increased by 44 percent between January and February 2010
• Iraqi children’s rights violated
• EI (Education International) protests against the continued harassment of union leaders
• Under Saddam Hussein, women in government got a year’s maternity leave; that is now cut to six months. Under the Personal Status Law in force since Jul. 14, 1958, when Iraqis overthrew the British-installed monarchy, Iraqi women had most of the rights that Western women do. “The U.S. occupation has decided to let go of women’s rights,” Yanar Mohammed who campaigns for women’s rights in Iraq says.
• New fraud cases point to lapses in Iraq projects
• An official at the United States Embassy in Iraq has told federal prosecutors that he believes that State Department officials sought to block any serious investigation of the 2007 shooting episode in which Blackwater Worldwide security guards were accused of murdering 17 Iraqi civilians, according to court testimony.
• The USA occupying forces in Iraq have locked up more than 162,000 Iraqi citizens in more than 50 prisons and detention camps including 28 camps run by US occupying forces, in addition to many undisclosed investigation and incarceration centres over Iraq.

So much for liberation!

Carnations

Very rarely do I get requests but Jenny from Labour Briefing office commented that there were no carnations (why do I think of The Jam’s ‘Carnation’) on my Flickr page.

Not to disappoint…. here’s some yellow carnations.

Violent tactics used by cops in Bolton

Unfortunately I couldn’t make the protest in Bolton against the fascist EDL.

So I have been keeping up to date by looking at Luna17, the Sauce (Brendan Montague), Counterfire and Twitter. From what I have seen from the reports the cops are bashing and kettling the anti-fascists, similar intimidatory and violent tactics used against the anti-fascists outside Parliament when the EDL marched the other week.

This short video from John Tipple, legal adviser, sums up the brutal and violent tactics of the cops.

See as well Counterfire

Keep safe as well comrades!!

Solidarity with striking BA cabin crew

John McDonnell on the strike: This dispute is a prime example of the current industrial relations climate, with the employer not only seeking to win but to break the union too. This is an indication of the coming disputes, and requires maximum solidarity. We need to learn the lessons and co-ordinate industrial action across the economy if we are to ensure ordinary people do not pay for this crisis.

Ed’s radical manifesto

So Ed Miliband is promising a new radical Labour manifesto. The shopping list include: end to the era of extortionate credit in its election manifesto, and is considering big increases in the minimum wage, the introduction of free school meals for all and a reduction in the voting age to 16.

Miliband tells us that NL will “reform the market and the state”: this is the whole economy in other words about the biggest reform imaginable. It begs a large number of questions. What does NL think needs such big changes after they have been in charge of these things for 13 years? What intellectual/ideological reasoning is behind the needed reforms? How much will the reforms cost? Who will benefit? Who will suffer?

To be radical means to go to the root. In politics it means to change the fundamental ways in which things operate. If you use the word before an election you need to put forward what would be a wide ranging and deep critique of how things are.

Ian Tomlinson: one year anniversary

It will be the 1st anniversary on the 1st April regarding the death of Ian Tomlinson. To remember his death, the family of Ian Tomlinson want people to lay flowers at the site Ian died.

ONE YEAR ON AND STILL NO JUSTICE

REMEMBER IAN TOMLINSON

PLEASE JOIN THE TOMLINSONS IN LAYING FLOWERS AT THE SPOT WHERE IAN DIED THURSDAY 1ST APRIL 11:00 am

AT CORNHILL BY THREADNEEDLE STREET, LONDON, EC3V (BANK TUBE)
PLEASE ARRIVE AT 10:45 SO THAT WE CAN OBSERVE A MINUTE’S SILENCE AT 11:00

Ian died in tragic circumstances an innocent passer by, trying to get home, who died after a police assault at the g20 protests on April 1st 2009.

PCS members on strike on Budget Day

On Budget Day, 24th March, PCS members will be on strike on that day because of the changes to the Civil Service Compensation Scheme, which in reality means getting rid of people on the cheap!!

Support and show your solidarity with PCS members on strike as they are fighting against the government’s attack on the public sector.

Solidarity comrades!

Further information about the 24th March strike day.