More goings on at heron towers

Young voters’ Question Time…

I just got around to watching Young Voters’ Question Time and it disheartened and more bluntly royally pissed me off. Majority of the panel were white and Oxbridge educated (I mean, you need these clever posh types to lecture the masses…). And the only “yoof” on the panel was Laurie Penny. Again, that panel represented the bourgeois BBC establishment as not one of them really posed any threat or if they did they were successfully argued against (sorry Laurie but you need to sort out your arguments and how to project them because they are easily demolished by the right-wing).

Overall, majority of the panel (except Laurie) were pretty much in favour of Osama bin Laden being executed and some (Tristram Hunt and that Boles Tory) seemed to legitimise extrajudicial execution. Discussion on AV bored me. I will be voting against.

What a waste of time that Question Time was.

I mean, wouldn’t it be great to have ordinary people who haven’t been privately educated or had a Oxbridge education to talk politics with, you know, trade union activists, campaigners and so on. People who have things to say about the world but without the class privilege? I am sick to death seeing people who have only got to where they are because of their class position and the privileges that go with it, it’s so bleeding obvious that ordinary people (many working class) are sidelined. But hey, that’s how the BBC establishment works.

Though it also happens on the Left, more ordinary activists as opposed to media savvy middle class “activists”…please?

‘nuf said

More on heron watch

At heron towers things are progressing. Saw three young adolescent herons lurking around the bank trying their luck at hunting for dinner. I assumed that it must be all three of the youngsters who I have been stalking observing during the past couple of weeks but no as two of them were standing in the nest so the other two must have flown in from elsewhere (one of them must have been from the nest).

Canada geese were screeching and chasing each other around the pond, the ducks …well they seem to have quieten down though the past few weeks have been horrible watching male ducks dragging off female ducks by the neck who are trying to protect their young. I also saw lots of feathers that looked like they had been torn off a female duck

There seems to be more heron nest building. One is being built at the top of a high tree (they abandoned their other one possibly finding a more suitable alternative). Another one is being built in a smaller tree I watched two herons flying around grabbing twigs and branches.

One of the herons scared off one of the adolescent herons who possibly wandered too close the nest. And it is also seems that the hunting skills of the adolescents are getting impressive as one of them caught some prey.

Support Clara Osagiede!

Clara Osagiede is an RMT representative employed by Initial Cleaning Services on London Underground. On 4th March 2011 Clara witnessed members being forced to clean graffiti off a tube train in the ‘acid shed’ at Hainault Depot. Aware that the staff involved had no appropriate training to carry out what could be a very hazardous task she raised concerns with the manager on duty who told her it was none of her business and to get out of his office. 

Clara explained she was a Health and Safety rep and that it was her business. The manager became aggressive and shoved her out of the office slamming a door behind her. She reported the incident to other management and to British Transport Police. The manager was suspended but not for long. A few days later Clara reported for work to find the manager back at work without due internal processes being completed. Terrified she withdrew to a safe place of work locking herself in an office. Clara is now suspended for standing up for vulnerable workers being made to undertake dangerous duties in the acid shed for which they are not trained.

Please send your messages of support for Clara to camden3@rmt. org.uk 

Tomlinson inquest verdict: Unlawful killing

“We’ve got a long way ahead of us. We’ve been let down for two years … We’re grateful that we’re going a step further than we did two years ago … [Hearing the verdict] was nice; a bit of closure for the family. It feels like something is being done by the right authority and I hope we’ll get some answers. It’s been proven that he was killed unlawfully. [Now] we’d like to go to court and continue with the manslaughter charges.” (Paul King, Ian Tomlinson’s son)

The jury from the Tomlinson inquest came back today with an “unlawful killing” verdict.

What was the name of the deceased?
Ian Tomlinson.

What was the cause of his death? Injury or disease?
Abdominal haemorrhage due to blunt force trauma to the abdomen in association with cirrhosis of the liver.

If the person died of injury, what were the circumstances?
Mr Tomlinson was on his way home from work on the 1st of April 2009 during the G20 demonstration. He was fatally injured at around 19.20pm on Royal Exchange Buildings … This was the result of a baton strike from behind and a push by the officer which caused Ian Tomlinson to fall heavily.

The jury said both the baton strike and the push were “unreasonable”.

“As a result, Mr Tomlinson suffered internal bleeding which led to his collapse within a few minutes and his subsequent death.” The jury decided that at the time of the strike and push Tomlinson was was walking away from the officer and “posed no threat”.

What is the jury’s conclusion as to the death?
Unlawful killing.

I must admit when I saw the verdict on the Guardian website I cheered (I was meaning to go back to the inquest but couldn’t make it in the end). The family of Ian Tomlinson have faced an almighty uphill struggle to seek justice; from the lies peddled about his death initially, to a botched postmortem by Freddie Patel where his findings were contradicted by another postmortem, ineptitude shown by the IPCC and to add insult to injury the DPP wouldn’t prosecute Harwood. And now the jury has accepted that the attack that led him to fall “caused internal bleeding” which led to his death. The jury has also said that Tomlinson posed no threat.

The DPP will have a “thorough review” of the evidence. Let’s hope charges will be brought this time and also a public inquiry into the overall policing of the G20 protests as Harwood isn’t just one “bad apple” instead there are barrel loads of thuggish and violent cops. Behaviour like his and countless others are endemic within the police force, a culture of violence and brutality. Harwood’s “evidence” damned himself as he had to admit he lied, lied and lied again. His tangled web of deceit caught up with him as the video evidence contradicted him. He also, shockingly, had the audacity to ask the IPCC to investigate Ian Tomlinson. Trying to pin the blame on a dead man. How low and devious can someone get!

Today’s verdict is only the start. Justice has been denied to the countless people who have died in police custody and no cop has faced criminal charges. And the lack of justice for Blair Peach, Harry Stanley, Jean Charles de Menezes…. all dying at the hands of violent cops. Yet no accountability or responsiblity just cover-up after cover-up.

This cannot go on. For starters, disband the TSG… they are no better than the hated SPG. And the reality of a “unlawful killing” means, to reach an unlawful killing conclusion, the jury were required to have been satisfied to a higher burden of proof than the other possible verdicts, which could have been reached “on the balance of probabilities”.

But to reach the unlawful killing verdict, the jury had to be convinced “beyond reasonable doubt”, the same threshold used in criminal trials.

Let’s hope justice will be served.

This isn’t justice

So the monster has been slain. Is the world a safer place? No. Is this something we should celebrate. No. I agree with the StWC statement about the killing of Bin Laden. I mean, ask yourself, will the assassination of Bin Laden lessen the “war on terror”… Absolutely not. Assassinating Bin Laden has created a kind of martyrdom status him and also this brand of rough justice, death by the bullet is simply not justice. I watched the celebrations in New York on the news last night and it is disturbed me. I can understand why people felt the need, and also the collective release it gave hearing the death of Bin Laden but it still disturbed me. A terrorist attack in the New York where thousands of ordinary people were killed, injured and traumatised but the response by the West was to further instigate bloodshed and death. Revenge, euphemistically known as “war on terror”. But while we are distracted by jubilation and celebrations, ask yourself, who created Bin Laden and al-Qaida? The seeds of al-Qaida were sown by the West during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. With the West supporting and financing them against the Soviets Afghanistan fell. And parallels with Saddam Hussein, Bin Laden turned his attention towards the West (though I doubt whether Bin Laden, a Saudi rich man, gave a damn about the Palestinians before) but this gave him the excuse to wage war against the West. He bit the hand that fed him during the war in Afghanistan. What also has amazed me is the length of time it has taken to track down Bin Laden. With all the specialist techniques, finance, and gadgets that secret service have they still couldn’t find him, it is kinda akin to the Keystone Cops. What took so long?

Also, it also shows how the West, in this case the international imperialist police officer USA, go into Pakistan and execute Bin Laden. Does it worry me? Yes. He may have been a thoroughly nasty piece of work but that thoroughly nasty piece of work was created by the West and given the opportunity to organise. It also exposes the way the West believes they can trample in any other country under the guise of liberation and justice. There are plenty of war criminals and terrorists in this world (and the West is rather selective) with blood on their hands roaming free some worry about the countries they visit due to extradition treaties but nevertheless they don’t have to look over their shoulder expecting the assassin’s bullet. Rather double standards there. Regardless of this I would have preferred to have seen Bin Laden in the dock not shot and dumped in the sea.

A parent who lost his son in the Twin Towers said that he didn’t believe justice had been done. Justice for him would have been for the Special Forces to have apprehended Bin Laden and tried him in a court of law. Though I want to see Blair, Kissinger, Bush….and so in that dock too for all the murder and bloodshed they have unleashed all in the name of liberation and justice. This is not how I define justice, certainly not by the assassin’s bullet and also question the legality of this mission. I would have preferred to have seen Bin Laden tried and convicted of his crimes with life imprisonment as death just creates martyrdom. What also worries me is with this execution what will happen now? UK is supposed to be on alert regarding terrorist attacks, does that mean as well more legislation that will fundamentally attack our civil liberties and freedom? Paying the price of the West’s gangsterism and imperialism? I won’t cheer the death of Bin Laden as this just further proves the West’s own distortion of justice.

Goose in a heron’s nest and cute goslings….

James Purnell taking crap (what’s new?!)

The ghost of bigot of Gillian Duffy lives on resurrected now by former NL minister, James Purnell.

Describing “Blue Labour” as the most interesting element of the current debate within the party, he says it is central to understanding why the party lost so many voters – symbolised by Gillian Duffy, the Rochdale pensioner branded a bigot by Gordon Brown in the seminal moment of the 2010 general election.

And

“This roots politics back in people’s lives and how they can pursue what they want. It’s not that GDP or equality don’t matter; just that they are not the right place to start.” He argues that “Mrs Duffy and millions like her had good reason to be angry. It wasn’t her gratitude problem. It was our ideological problem. “In the name of helping the poorest, we’ve thought too much about what people get out of society, and not enough about what they put in. Too much was to be solved from the centre.”

What is it about people who like to lecture the left on how they have got it wrong? Generally the charge is that we have ignored how reasonable it is for people to have reactionary ideas and blame the powerless in society? Challenge the ideas of the rightwing whether social conservatism or neo-liberalism? No that is somehow a form of intellectual feebleness.

What do people put into society? If you are working class grindingly hard work and being exploited and accepting endless kicks in the teeth from the likes of …James Purnell. If you are a working class woman unpaid domestic labour and when you do work you get paid being fobbed off with 75% of the pittance that your male counterpart gets. If you are working class and Black you do all the crap jobs that the likes of J Purnell Esq would turn their noses up. So your office/home/hospital cleaned, the nice food and wine in the posh shop, the swanky car in the drive, the latest electronic gizmo that impresses your friends at the dinner party. All these things are contributed by working class people. People who quite often fall ill, grow old or get chucked on the dole when the bankers and NL politicians ruin the economy.

The only time that working class people do not attract the sneering or moralising of those who lecture the Left is when they are being racist. At that point they are said to be expressing some sort of fundemental truth about identity politics that the Left in its ideological blinkeredness has missed. Criticise someone for being racist? You blinkered relic of the the 1970′s!

More pix from May Day

May Day 2011 video