Scottish Socialist Voice
Issue 305
27th April 2007
—front page—
Transform
How can it be that, while the
richest 100 individuals in Scotland watch their wealth increase
by almost £250,000 an hour, one in three children in Scotland
go without adequate shoes and coats, can’t sleep in winter because
their homes are so cold, sit in classrooms so noisy and overcrowded
they can’t hear or be heard?
Why is it that our government spends millions luring slave-wage
multinationals to our shores, yet drags dentists, doctors, teachers,
mothers, fathers, children, onto planes at the dead of night
to send them back to the war zones and torture rooms they fled
as refugees?
Where is it written that corporations should get bigger and
bigger tax breaks while pensioners and the working poor struggle
to pay their escalating Council Tax bills?
We are the Scottish Socialist Party, and we say this is neither
acceptable nor inevitable.
Poverty is no more a necessary evil than obscene riches.
We can share our wealth, and our resources, and we believe that
one day we will.
We can, and we will, achieve a society in which everyone enjoys
not only equal chances in life, but the support needed to realise
those chances, where rich and poor are no longer distinctions,
where wealth and youth are no longer squandered on strategic
wars, where our borders are open and our minds never closed.
We’re told it can never happen, but that only makes us more
determined.
Our hope is strong, and our fighting spirit tireless.
We cannot transform
A vote for the SSP is a vote of hope, for a better nation, for
equality, for freedom from want and anxiety.
With you on our side, we can change the world.
—page two—
Land sale scandal behind city regeneration strategy
Luxury housing towers over the river Clyde through
The banks of the Clyde are now amongst
But the Voice has uncovered a set of scandalous land sales that
underpin the current ‘regeneration’ strategy in
SSP Pollok councillor Keith Baldassara told the Voice: “New housing in
Land values have risen by thousands of per cent over the past
ten years or so.
The Voice has researched a specific case study in
Today it includes the headquarters of the BBC, Scottish Television
and Scottish Enterprise and luxury riverside housing developments.
Prior to 1986, most of this land was owned by Glasgow City Council
(then known as Glasgow District Council).
All of that council-owned land was sold in 1986 and 1987 for less
than the current price of a one-bedroom flat in one of the housing
complexes on the site - including one plot of land, now the site
of Scottish Television HQ, sold for just £1,200.
This stretch of land was sold off in eight plots for a total of
£130,000 - half the cost of a two-bedroom flat on the
Keith told us:
“This scandal is why we favour a ‘millionaires tax’ on land valued at over £1million, along with
steps to force developers to build one house for rent to every
three for sale.”
Glasgow SSP candidate Rosie Kane added:
“The SSP’s pledge to build 100,000 new
council houses is a policy that matches the needs of
“
Fox calls on water boss to resign
In the wake of the
And he went on to demand answers on why “ancient” pumping equipment,
whose failure caused the crisis, had neither been replaced nor
supported by reserve equipment.
Colin said:
“The more information that becomes available about this crisis
the more concerned I become. For example, I wonder how many
“I suspect even fewer realised that the work was being done under
the discredited PFI system which in this case as others appears
to put public service well behind private profit. All of this
is capped by the smug complacency of Mr Hargreaves’
comments which attempt to portray the whole matter as a minor
incident.
“In every way this affair stinks. It is clear to me that warnings
to the public were delayed initially in the hope that a repair
could be done and the leak into the
“The failure to provide back up pumps or on site spares for 30-year-old
equipment reeks of a complacent sloppy attitude to both the environment
of the Forth and the welfare of local people paying the bills.
“I agree that we need an enquiry into this sorry affair but we
don’t need one to establish Mr Hargreaves’
responsibility and he should resign without delay.”
Workers’ memorial day marked
On 28 April falls Workers’ Memorial Day, marked
throughout the world in commemoration of all those killed at work.
As the slogan goes, it is a day to ‘remember the dead and fight
for the living’.
Despite years of activism, workplaces remain extremely dangerous
and the toll they take on people is unacceptably high.
Already this year, for example, 74 people have been killed on
Commemorative events on 28 April in Scotland will take place in
Edinburgh, at the Commemoration Workers memorial and garden, West
Princes Street Gardens, near Ross Band Stand, from 12 noon to
12.45pm; in Glasgow at the Burns Memorial, George Square, at 1pm;
in Paisley, at the Commemoration Memorial plaque, Abbey Grounds,
12 noon; in Bathgate, at Bathgate Sports Centre, at 12.30pm, with
an International Workers Memorial Day Health and Safety seminar
running from 10am; at Clydebank Town Hall (Lesser Hall), from
10.30am - 12 noon; and in Midlothian, where a simple ceremony
will be held at the memorial flowerbed in George V Park, Bonnyrigg,
at 12.30pm, with an address by Rose Gentle, whose 19-year-old
son Gordon was killed in Iraq.
—page three—
by
After one of the most unpredictable
campaigns in recent history - a third of the electorate still had
not made up its mind how to vote two days before the election - the
result of the first round of
The hard-right candidate Nicolas Sarkozy led the field with just over
31 per cent of the vote, followed by the Socialist Party’s Segolene
Royal with nearly 26 per cent.
So those will be the two candidates in the run-off election on 6 May.
In third place came the candidate of the centre, Francois Bayrou,
with 18.55 per cent.
His strong showing - nearly three times what he got in 2002 - was
a sign of many voters looking for an alternative to the succession
of governments of Right and Left that have been in power for the last
26 years, serving neo-liberal dishes where only the sauce changed.
The far-right National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen came in a poor
fourth with 10.5 per cent.
This represented a loss of a million votes compared to 2002, when
he created a shock by squeezing the Socialist candidate out and getting
into the second round. Unfortunately, this doesn’t really mean that
the National Front’s ideas are less popular.
The main reason for Le Pen losing votes was that Sarkozy took over
large parts of his programme and attracted many of his electors.
Dangerous
Sarkozy is in with more than an even chance of becoming president.
He is a very dangerous man, and he would be the most reactionary head
of state since the Second World War.
His combination of aggressive neo-liberalism, repressive law and order
policies (he was Minister of the Interior in the outgoing government)
and a nationalist, populist discourse that borders on outright racism
would threaten democratic freedoms, young people and immigrants, and
what is left of
Faced with this prospect, Royal represents a lesser evil. But no more
than that.
She would also carry out neo-liberal policies. And she has tried to
compete with Sarkozy on his own ground, from the ridiculous everyone-should-keep-a-French-flag-at-home-to-hang-out-of-the-window
to the not so funny boot-camps-run-by-the-Army-for-young-offenders.
She’s the most right-wing Socialist candidate for many years, but
she would be easier to fight than Sarkozy.
After the ‘big four’, there were eight other candidates, several of
them representing a divided radical Left.
Overall, the forces to the left of the SP did less well than in 2002.
The most successful campaign was that of Olivier Besancenot of the
LCR. It was dynamic and well-organised, with a clear anti-capitalist
message.
The LCR had a brilliant web site and Besancenot’s meetings were on
average twice as big as in 2002.
His result was slightly lower in percentage terms, at 4.11 per cent,
but he won 280,000 more votes, totalling nearly 1.6 million in all,
because of the much higher turnout.
Like the other left candidates, Besancenot suffered from the fact
that many people who agreed with them voted Royal in the first round
because they were so freaked out at the idea of Sarkozy as president.
Divisions
And like the others, he also suffered from the divisions
on the left.
The other candidates did less well. For the Communist Party, with
just under 2 per cent - their worst result ever - the election was
a disaster.
The candidate of the far-left Lutte Ouvriere group, Arlette Laguiller,
also went down, from over 5 per cent in 2002 to 1.34 per cent.
The fourth candidate, former peasant leader Jose Bove, also had a
disappointing result at 1.32 per cent.
Bove came in at the last minute as an attempted ‘unitary’ candidate
after the LCR and the CP had decided to run their own campaigns.
His campaign was hastily improvised, and it showed.
But he was the only candidate who brought together different forces
- ecologists, dissident CP and LCR members, and many independent activists
- and towards the end his campaign was improving and he was getting
big meetings.
But it didn’t translate into enough votes.
All the left candidates have called for a vote for Royal (or in the
case of Bove and Besancenot, ‘against Sarkozy’) on 6 May. But their
failure to provide a credible, united, left alternative in this election
is a problem that will not go away.
It will come up again and again, in future elections and in extra-parliamentary
struggles.
PCS to take may day action
by Gerry McMahon
In the face of the worst assault on
jobs, pay and conditions in a generation, members of the PCS union
across the Civil Service will deliver a clear message to New Labour
when they strike on 1 May. They are sick and tired of poverty pay,
job cuts and privatisation and will continue to campaign until Blair
and Brown see sense.
The scale of Labour’s attacks on the Civil Service is breathtaking.
Every department is now facing major problems trying to deliver services
as the savage job cuts already carried out have made a disastrous
impact.
The 1 May strike has received magnificent support across the entire
union, and will hit benefit services, tax collection, driving tests,
and museums to name a few. This disruption is more than necessary
as workers aim to preserve these services for the future.
This action will be followed by a two-week national overtime ban across
the entire union. This will intensify the pressure on New Labour and
prevent the government using overtime to clear the backlogs caused
by the strike action.
The fantastic support for the action is no accident; members clearly
understand the stakes are high. The need for a strong united campaign
has become even more urgent since the last strike action on 31 January.
Since then Labour have announced a host of attacks on conditions -
plans for further privatisation in JobCentre Plus, postcode pay in
the Department for Constitutional Affairs, further outsourcing in
the MOD/EDS, and, incredibly when inflation is at 4.65 per cent, they
want to impose a 1.9 per cent limit on pay increases across the entire
public sector.
The union’s National Executive Council has a huge responsibility;
it is vital they develop the campaign and intensify the pressure on
New Labour. The efforts to persuade other public sector unions to
join the campaign in a meaningful sense must also continue. If we
stick together, strong, determined and united, we can win. The SSP
has consistently supported the struggles of PCS members over the past
nine years. Inside PCS, the SSP has an unrivalled reputation as the
standard bearer for a strong, democratic, campaigning union.
We have provided solid support to members on every single major dispute,
while the other major parties have been involved in a Dutch auction
over how many jobs they will cut, with John Swinney of the SNP describing
the public sector as “bloated”.
SSP member John Jamieson is standing as a candidate for the union
NEC as part of the Democracy Alliance, and SSP members in the union
are urging PCS to re-elect its fighting, democratic, socialist leadership,
which will continue to stand up for Civil Service workers.
On 3 May, the elections give PCS members the opportunity to elect
a team of genuine socialists to Holyrood, who will fight tooth and
nail to protect public services from privatisation and profiteering,
and the wages and conditions of the hard-pressed staff who deliver
these key services.
Students protest
by Keir Lawson
On Wednesday 18 April students from
Glasgow University Principal Sir Muir Russell has announced plans
to close the campus in Dumfries, the only higher education facility
in Dumfries and
This would mean the loss of around 50 jobs and jeopardising the degrees
of students.
The campus is vital in a region where young people nearly all leave
for work and study, and the age profile is rising steadily.
Crichton students have mounted a strong campaign against the closure,
and SSP students at the main campus in
The latest action was a blockade of the
Campaigners lay down on the street outside the court building to prevent
access by members due for a meeting. Some put cardboard with ‘You’re
walking all over us’ slogans over their bodies.
Security staff, who themselves are involved in a major pay dispute
with the stingy university management, were very sympathetic.
Glasgow University Socialists and the Crichton students themselves
are determined not to let the fight to save the campus rest here,
and the next planned action for the campaign is a strong presence
on Dumfries May Day.
n To tell Sir Muir Russell (who gets a £211,000 salary as Glasgow
Principal) what you think of his cutting agenda, contact:
Sir Muir Russell
Principal of
Email: principal@gla.ac.uk
Tel: 0141 330 5995
Fax: 0141 330 4947
To help with the campaign email: savecrichtoncampus@gmail.com or phone Keir on: 0790 454 5652
—page four—
The Murray Darling runs dry
by Roz Paterson
Climate change has caught up
with Australia, providing a shocking insight into what may
come to us all if we do not take radical action to curb our
carbon emissions.
If there is no significant rainfall in the next six to eight
weeks, the great Murray Darling river that supplies 85 per
cent of
This doesn’t just mean that people could be banned from sprinkling
their lawns but also that farmers would not have enough water
to irrigate their land.
Thus a water crisis would turn rapidly into a food crisis.
The
If it becomes a dust bowl, this will be translated into ruin
for some 55,000 farmers, and escalating prices on the food
shelves.
Prime Minister John Howard has already fired the first warning
shot, saying vital water supplies to crops may have to be
cut off unless there is a sustained and dramatic change in
the weather.
The weather forecasters are optimistic, predicting above average
rainfall before June.
But even this may not be enough.
January, February and March saw inflows to the river at their
lowest level on record for each month - and this despite above
average rainfalls.
Parched
The problem being that the land is so parched with
drought, it just sucks in the rain leaving nothing over to
inflow to the Murray Darling.
Storage dams, designed to feed the river during times of drought
- to which this area is particularly vulnerable, are in trouble
too, with the biggest, the Dartmouth Dam, sitting at below
12 per cent capacity; the lowest level since it was built,
in 1979.
The Murray Darling Basin Committee’s latest report says the
situation is “the worst on record” and that, if their worst
fears are realised, there will be no harvests here next year,
and no dairy produce.
If the fields die, so too will the local economies and towns
they sustain, while farmers will be forced back on Exceptional
Circumstances handouts.
Tim Flannery, environmental scientist and author of The Weather
Makers: How Man Is Changing The Climate And What It Means
For Life On Earth, who was named Australian of the Year in
January 2007, warns that the climate change nightmare has
begun.
“This really is a moment of truth, I think, for all Australians.”
Particularly if you live off the land.
Says Doug Miell, of the
“If we make the assumption that there is going to be no rain
for the season, so we get zero allocation, you are talking
about the decimation, completely, of our wine grapes, our
horticultural industries, stone fruits, citrus, almonds, olives.”
And not just for this year.
Orchards and vineyards will die in the dry heat, and take
five, six, seven years to re-establish.
One town, called Bourke, in the
It has had no water for months and its cotton fields are dead,
its grapes withering on the vine.
Disaster
Howard’s plan is clearly essential, but it is disaster
planning, which means it is late in the day and fails to tackle
the underlying cause.
What brought
Climate scientists have been warning of just such a devastating
drought for years, saying climate change would bring higher
temperatures and reduced rainfall to the region, leading to
reduced inflow to the river and increased evaporation.
But they’ve been ignored by irresponsible government shackled
to vested interests.
Only in January did the Howard administration make its first
move, announcing a (Aus)$10billion plan to bring Australian
water sources under the government’s control, rather than
continue to allow them to be administered by a variety of
agencies,who may be reluctant to relinquish control but agree
in order to avoid paying for expensive new infrastructure.
Flannery welcomed the development, but stressed:
“You can have the best water plan in the world, but unless
you’re getting the rain and unless it’s getting into the river
systems, you’ve achieved nothing...We’ve got to start addressing
[climate change] urgently.”
The Weather Makers is the result of years of research by this
biologist and paleontologist who, at first, just didn’t want
to know about climate change.
It shows how climate change has shaped evolution, but is now
occurring too rapidly, with weather becoming more and more
extreme.
It’s a terrifying read, but ultimately hits home with a buoyant
conclusion: we can stop this nightmare from unfolding.
“The transition to a carbon-free economy is eminently achievable
because we have all the technology we need to do so,” he writes.
“It is only a lack of understanding and the pessimism and
confusion generated by special interest groups that is stopping
us from going forward.”
Change
We must make this change, he urges, or there will
be nothing left of us.
“One thing that I hear again and again as I discuss climate
change with friends, family, and colleagues is that it is
something that may affect humanity in decades to come but
is no immediate threat to us.
“I’m far from certain that that is true, and I’m not sure
it is even relevant.
“If serious change or the effects of serious change are decades
away, that is just a long tomorrow.
Scale
“Whenever my family gathers for a special event,
the true scale of climate change is never far from my mind.
“My mother, who was born during the Great Depression - when
motor vehicles and electric lights were still novelties -
positively glows in the company of her grandchildren, some
of whom are not yet ten.
“To see them together is to see a chain of the deepest love
that spans 150 years, for those grandchildren will not reach
my mother’s present age until late this century.
“To me, to her, and to their parents, their welfare is every
bit as important as our own.
“On a broader scale, 70 per cent of all people alive today
will still be alive in 2050, so climate change affects almost
every family on this planet.”
Let’s hope the skies open over
But let’s hope too that those eyes that have been forced open
by impending horror, stay wide open.
For all our sakes.
—page five—
People not profit
The Scottish Socialist Party’s manifesto
details over 450 policies on which we stand to transform
They are radical, progressive demands which will make a real difference
to people’s lives.
The SSP’s campaigning agenda over eight years in the Scottish Parliament
has already seen us win concessions. We have seen the brutal practice
of warrant sales abolished, and our call to scrap the hated Council
Tax now falls from other parties’ lips as we have forced them to
take it up.
Our relentless effort to win free, healthy school meals has secured
the promise of an extension to the number of children entitled to
free meals. Our campaign to scrap prescription charges has gained
a similar promise.
These concessions are nowhere near enough, but the issues on which
we have fought are now firmly established in the public consciousness
and genuinely within our grasp.
The SSP is not about to win the election on 3 May, and we don’t
think you’d believe us if we said we were. But we have already made
a difference - and with the opinion polls predicting a big defeat
for the Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition, the voice of the Scottish
Socialist Party can have an even greater impact on a new government.
That doesn’t mean we’ll sell our souls and our principles for a
few seats at the ministerial table. But we will work with parties
on an issue-by-issue basis to win real, progressive changes.
The SSP will take six of our own priorities into the Parliament.
Some of them are familiar, some of them are new, but each one is
a crucial reform, on top of which we begin the process of building
a better, fairer
1. An independence referendum within one year.
The SSP is committed to an independent
socialist
But we don’t believe Scottish independence should be based on a
numbers game at Holyrood - it’s not for politicians to decide
2. A Scotland-wide, free public transport network.
The Scottish low pay unit recognise
the cost of transport as one of the factors which push low paid
workers into poverty. Free public transport for all would have a
huge impact on poverty in
This generation holds the future of our planet in our hands. If
we continue to ignore the global warming alarm bells, in just a
few short years it will be too late. We will leave our children
and grandchildren struggling to survive on a drought and flood-ravaged
planet.
We need to take radical action now. Making public transport fare-free
will cost £500million annually - that’s just one sixth of
A total of £1billion a year would also allow us to extend the public
transport network, linking villages, towns and cities across
It’s an idea that’s been tried and tested in the Belgian city of
3. 100,000 new homes for rent
House prices are rocketing across
TV programmes push the aspiration that we all can become property
tycoons, but in reality the only people making a killing are the
big financial institutions, through massive mortgages which will
hang round people’s necks for the rest of their lives.
Decades of underinvestment, combined with the right-to-buy, has
left council housing stock depleted and dilapidated.
Over 200,000 people in
The SSP wants to build 100,000 new homes for social rent in the
next four years of the Scottish Parliament.
4. Nutritious free school meals for
all
The SSP has spearheaded the campaign
for healthy free school meals, as a way of tackling
Free school meals have been a tremendous success in
In
Free school meals for all would cost £74million, one third of the
Scottish Parliament’s underspend last year, and a drop in the ocean
compared to the amount of money we would save from our health budget
if we can start our kids off on a life of eating healthily.
5. The replacement of the Council Tax with a progressive income tax.
One in five families in
Meanwhile,
Goodwin’s salary is approximately 250 times the annual wage of a
worker on the minimum wage. Yet the highest Council Tax band is
just three times the bill on the lowest band.
Tinkering round the edges with an extra band or two will go nowhere
to addressing this horrific inequality, which forces the greatest
burden of paying for our local services onto the shoulders of the
lowest paid. We need to scrap it and start again.
Our alternative, the Scottish Service Tax, is based on income. Anyone
on an income of less than £11,000 a year would not pay a penny.
A sliding scale from there on up ensures that more than three quarters
of households would be better off. Around one in ten would pay more
or less the same as they do just now, and the rest - just the wealthiest
15 per cent - would pay more.
6. Carbon rationing as a fair alternative to green taxes.
We need to curb our carbon habit
fast, because it’s killing us. Global warming is at the point of
absolute crisis.
Some argue for carbon taxes, road tolls or flight surcharges. All
of these measures might make a difference, but across-the-board
charges will fall heaviest on the people with the lowest incomes,
while allowing the richest to pay to pollute. They will increase
the inequalities which already scar this country.
A system of carbon rationing would allocate businesses, organisations
and individuals an annual quantity of carbon credits, taking into
account climate and geography, and access to public transport.
Rationing isn’t a new idea, but sometimes the old tunes are the
best ones. It could help
This is not a ready made scheme and would require development involving
experts and representatives from across society. But we reckon it’s
a step that would take us a huge leap along the road of combating
climate change.
—centre pages—
The final push for Holyrood
The hustings! The hilarity!
The horror! As we enter the final week of the campaign for
the Scottish Parliamentary elections 2007, our top of the
list candidates file reports on life on the campaign trail
across
Rosie Kane
I live in Govanhill, in
But poverty and struggle stretches right across Glasgow, and
our policies, from healthy free school meals to a decent,
living minimum wage, are only going to benefit this city’s
needs.
We’ve been clear in our opposition to the M74 since our party’s
birth, and now our call for free public transport for all
ties up perfectly with that.
The housing crisis in
I’m really proud to stand by our manifesto - it’s by far the
most progressive of any party I’ve heard on the hustings,
and is making practical sense to people.
Our manifesto is comprehensive, but every area we’ve covered
has been presented to us at some point in surgeries or hustings.
It’s tailor-made to combat poverty.
I was at the Carers Scotland hustings on Monday, and we’ve
adapted their manifesto as part of our demands and they’re
very, very pleased about that. It’s not that we’ve just done
a cut and paste job - we’ve genuinely listened to the experts,
the people who are carers, and we don’t pretend to know better.
The campaign trail is a mixture of fun and carnival, but it
can be devastating at times as well. At the carers’ hustings
there were a lot of tears in the room, from people who are
struggling desperately.
One woman came up to me afterwards. She’s in her 60s and looking
after three wee babies, her grandchildren, because her daughter
isn’t able to at the moment.
She told me that with the Scottish Socialist Party it’s not
just all down on paper, we’re saying it from the heart too.
She told me she was glad to know that for the next four years
there would be people in the parliament who are speaking for
the people and with the people. And that means a lot to me
too.
The Lothians
Colin Fox
The signs are that Labour is
set to lose half its seats here in the Lothians. Party insiders
admit they are being squeezed by the LibDems on the one hand
and by the SNP on the other. It is clear Labour’s support
is taking a hammering of unprecedented proportions.
One feature of this is seen at the hustings, where Labour
candidates universally refuse to defend their party’s position
on the war in
Mind you, such political skullduggery is not confined to New
Labour. The SNP and LibDem candidates routinely attempt to
re-write their positions on the Council Tax.
SSP candidates have been reminding them that in fact only
the SSP has ever presented a bill to Holyrood to scrap this
hated tax. And furthermore, on 1 February 2006 - when our
Bill was debated- both the SNP and LibDems voted against it.
Scottish Socialist Party activists have been campaigning throughout
the region in opposition to the Council Tax and in favour
of free public transport.
Last week we visited
In the next few days we will be in Dalkeith highlighting our
commitment to build 100,000 new council houses. Our message
to SNP voters set to elect new constituency MSPs is that they
should give us their regional/list vote to ensure Labour doesn’t
sneak in via the back door.
This threat is especially sharp here since Labour’s top candidate
is Lord George Foulkes.
What would Keir Hardie have made of that, eh? The Labour candidate
in the election is the Lord of the Realm!
Carolyn Leckie
Carolyn has been criss-crossing
Lanarkshire to attend hustings and protest against privatisation
in the NHS.
Not that it’s easy getting about here, where you need “at
least three buses to get anywhere” and there is no such thing
as a cross-rail service.
Free public transport, with an expanded transport network,
would not only facilitate hustings events, but also enable
people to take up jobs, see their extended families, get to
and from hospital (not so easy when the Labour/Lib Dem exec
are busily closing them down) and generally avoid isolation
and social exclusion.
Housing is also key. “In
“Meanwhile, the council is selling off green spaces and allowing
developers to build three and four bedroom luxury homes costing
£250,000!”
One woman, a single mother of three, came to talk to Carolyn
after a local hustings.
“She’s been on the council house waiting list for six years
and has just been told she’ll have to wait another 15 years!”
In such a climate, the Scottish Socialist Party’s call for
100,000 new council homes is a breath of fresh air. “And at
hustings, it’s clear that we’re the only party with a clear
policy on abolishing the right-to-buy.”
Health services, and the privatisation thereof, is another
big issue, following the failed bid to take Harthill GP services
into the private sector.
Carolyn has launched a consultation paper with a view to a
bill prohibiting the putting out of GP services to private
tender in the future, and Lanarkshire Health United, in which
the SSP played a leading role and which protested vehemently
against A&E closures, garnered enormous local support.
South Scotland
Colin Turbett
The sprawling South of Scotland
region is dominated by the vast areas of Borders and Dumfries
and Galloway. Dumfries and Galloway now has the dubious honour
of being the low pay capital of Scotland, with Borders edging
into the top six on the league table of local authority areas.
These figures are from a report published by the Joseph Rowntree
Trust into poverty and social exclusion in Scotland.
Low pay is defined by being below £6.50 an hour.
These figures mask a real poverty trap for workers living
in the South of Scotland.
Present working tax schemes can improve incomes for those
with children, especially single parents, but they are complicated
and often leave crippling debt when circumstances change.
Work can be hard to find, especially in rural areas where
public transport is poor, so the ‘market’ never works to the
advantage of anyone other than employers.
The SSP’s policy for free public transport, and improved infrastructure
in rural areas, will open up opportunities as well as tackle
the threat of climate change.
Our policy of a universal £8 an hour minimum wage in an independent
Scotland, will prove a better safeguard for the low paid than
the present system which perpetuates inequalities.
Our pledge to replace the hated and unfair Council Tax with
the much fairer Scottish Service Tax will remove a huge burden
from the poor and less well-off and place it where it should
be - on the shoulders of the rich.
There is no reason why Scotland’s outlying areas should suffer
disadvantage: the closure of the Crichton Campus by Glasgow
University, in the name of business viability, would be avoidable
in a society built on the notion that people come before profit.
That is our vision for an independent socialist Scotland.
Mid Scotland and Fife
Lorna Bett
I was born in a mining village
in Fife and still live there today. We are lucky here in that
we still have something that is priceless. We still have communities,
in the true sense of the word, where people look out for one
another, where an injury to one is an injury to all. And the
same can be said for most of Mid Scotland and Fife.
But we have our problems too. Unemployment. An acute lack
of local authority housing for those who cannot afford to
buy and very few affordable homes for those who wish to buy.
A drug culture that has taken the lives of so many of our
young people.
Despite having one of the most proliferate and lucrative bus
routes in Scotland, operating in Fife, we still find ourselves
having problems travelling from one part of Fife to another.
That scenario happens all over Scotland. We need a free public
transport service that is fully integrated and brought back
into public ownership.
No longer would we have the private bus companies covering
only the lucrative routes, effectively cutting people off.
Our young people are treated badly, as are our pensioners.
These problems need to be addressed and if elected, they will
be my prime concern.
Locally, a huge issue is looming. Lochore Meadows Country
Park was once the Mary pit. The pit was flooded, the area
restored and is now Fife’s biggest tourist attraction, and
a great, publicly-owned asset. Yet Fife Council, without consulting
the local people, has been in talks with millionaire businessmen
who want to turn the park into a ‘theme park’. This ‘theme
park’ will have 700 private houses and 350 holiday homes built
on it!
Are they affordable homes?
As an old friend of mine used to say - “anyone feel a campaign
coming on?”
Highlands and Islands
Donnie Nicolson
Easter Monday: The Highlands
and Islands election campaign hits the ground running.
Radio nan Gaidheal call, asking me to record our election
broadcast in Gaelic. I agree, then frantically phone round
old friends to help with translation. After a serious bit
of rehearsal, the broadcast is in the can. It’s time to saddle
up and head north.
Saturday - Fort William: Back in my hometown, folk are aware
of our campaign. I rally a few mates and head round the doors
delivering our bulletins. Comrade mum wins the order of Lenin
for most bulletins delivered.
Monday - Inverness: We launch our manifesto in Inverness city
centre, and The Press and Journal are there to record it.
Smiling my best election smile, I get dive-bombed by a giant
seagull, covering me head to foot in its fishy cream.
The P&J runs with the story but not the picture.
Monday night - Golspie: I make the long drive to East Sutherland
for a hustings. The 70-strong audience fires off a volley
of questions relating to the ‘moral outrage of gay adoption
in a Christian country’. I say there’s a lot more in the bible
about inequality than gay-bashing.
There is good feedback afterwards including a young barman
who says he’s ‘definitely voting for you. What party are you
again?’
Wednesday - Inverness: A hustings in the plush Marriott Hotel.
I’m not told in advance who called the meeting, but tweed-clad
hooray Hamishes give the game away; it’s the Landowners’ Trust!
I announce the SSP as unashamedly a party for workers. Well,
you can’t please everyone.
Thursday - Nairn: Free Public Transport is going down a storm.
I’m interviewed and photographed by the local paper at Nairn
station, clutching a giant cardboard ticket. Not a seagull
in sight.
The Highland News runs a cover story about sub-standard housing
in Inverness, where raw sewage is seeping through a wall into
a children’s bedroom.
I go down to the scheme and talk to people about the need
for quality new social housing. The idea is warmly received.
There is just as much need for radical social change in the
Highlands as in the central belt.
Later, at a forum in Inverness, young people get to question
candidates, and our policies go down a storm. We take three
of the 20 votes at the start of the forum - there’s no poll
at the end, but two young women who voted SNP now want to
join the SSP. How many votes do we need to win a seat up here?
Only 10,000? Piece of cake.
See you in Holyrood.
North East Scotland
Felicity Garvie
Thursday 6pm: Arrived at Caird
Hall in Dundee with Scottish Socialist Party supporters for
Lesley Riddoch’s Big Energy Debate.
I felt Lesley gave me a fair amount of air time. She even
wound up the Green candidate with our free public transport
policy and there was clear support from the audience for it.
The Scottish Socialist Party came third on the final vote
with 11 per cent so we were well chuffed.
Friday 10.30am: Met up with John McAllion, who’s second on
the list, for a photocall.
We handed out fake money to show how much people would save
under the SSP’s Service Tax, which would replace the hated
Council Tax.
It was good to see John, who is really well-known and respected
on the streets of Dundee. He’ll be doing the Big Work Debate
on 30 April.
1.30pm: Mock election at
We’re welcomed by Erin Grewar, the SSP ‘candidate’, and treated
to a free school meal (how appropriate!) freshly cooked in
the kitchen.
The dinner ladies agree with us that making healthy school
meals free was the only way to stop the kids walking out the
school gates.
The pupil candidates’ presentations were excellent, but without
a shadow of bias I have to say
Next, the ‘real’ hustings in the Assembly Hall, where I was
applauded for being arrested several times at Faslane!
The SSP came fourth with 12 per cent, and Labour last with
2.5 per cent. By the way, the Labour candidate didn’t even
show because his agent was busy picking up his new Mercedes
that afternoon!
Need I say more?
West of
Pamela Page
It would be easier to, as the
song says, walk 500 miles, than try to navigate your way round
the West of Scotland region by current public transport.
Free Public Transport would have a huge impact in tackling
social exclusion in the communities across the region. One
young man in Saltcoats told us that it would improve a lot
of people’s job prospects if we had a fully integrated fare
free public transport system.
At the moment some communities are actually stranded at certain
times of the day and low-paid workers have to spend money
they can ill afford on private cabs to work. A free public
transport system is radical, visionary and fair.
In the village of Twechar we are spearheading the fight against
East Dunbartonshire council’s decision (without a ballot)
to demolish the existing 200 council houses and replace them
with a mere 80 for social rent with another 40 being partly
sold off to the private sector. This will result in more expensive
rents and local people being forced to move out of the area.
This is not a housing solution to meet the needs of the people.
This is replicated around the region with those areas who
have voted no (including Renfrewshire) to housing stock transfer
being starved of cash.
We in the SSP know that the solution is for good quality social
housing for rent to be built and we will campaign for 25,000
new social homes to be built every year. This should be financed
by cancelling the housing debt for all
It is a beautiful region but one that is also scarred by poverty
and inequality. It would look a lot better in a
—page eight—
Where do the Scottish Socialists stand on the issues that matter to you?
Crime & Communities
The Scottish Socialist
Party is often accused of being soft on crime because
we don’t join the other parties in baying for bigger
prisons and harsher sentences, or other such witless
ideas as ‘naming and shaming’ local offenders.
Why? Because the vengeful approach does not work.
And it’s predominantly working-class communities who
suffer for it.
What does work, however, is building safer communities
and a better, more accountable system of justice.
For instance, as the majority of muggings and burglaries
in
This would also enable drug addicts to stabilise their
lives and navigate their exit from addiction.
We seek to reduce the prison population, by expanding
alternatives to custody, and prison rehabilitation
programmes, including education, training and drug
and alcohol detox, thereby increasing the number of
inmates who go on to lead non-criminal lives upon
their release.
Justice
As for justice, we
would like to restore a measure of confidence in the
police by replacing the toothless Joint Police Boards
with community, regional and national police boards,
which would hold the police to account and would include
elected councillors, MSPs and directly elected community
representatives.
And we would work to make the justice system a little
more accountable by instigating a system whereby sheriffs
and judges can be removed if they have lost the public’s
confidence, and by the restoration of Legal Aid, money
being one of the great barriers between working-class
people and justice.
We want people to feel and be safe, on the streets
and also in their homes.
We urge a zero tolerance approach to domestic violence
and the establishment of a national strategy, including
domestic violence courts and awareness and rehab programmes,
and for sex offenders to be legally required to undergo
sex offender programmes.
Workplace
Work is generally cited
as the most effective route out of poverty, yet what
successive
While one third of all employees in
The Scottish Socialist Party holds no truck with the
myth of the market. What’s good for the millionaires
is not good for the millions.
That one third of our children live in poverty is
proof enough that the current system, which puts profit
first and people last, has failed us badly.
The SSP puts people first. Through campaigning for
a decent minimum wage and a 35-hour working week,
which will create more jobs, enabling more people
not just to work but to spend more time with their
families and in their communities. Through the scrapping
of the infamous anti-trade union laws. Through the
introduction of 12 months’ statutory maternity leave
and one month’s paternity leave.
And we seek to make the profiteers accountable.
Through the confiscation of the assets of the multinationals
that swallow up government subsidies then shift production
to low-wage economies elsewhere. Through the introduction
of a Corporate Killing bill, and the right to jury
trials for all those seeking compensation claims against
employers.
Workers should be safe, secure and decently-paid,
and we stand shoulder-to-shoulder with all workers
in the struggle for these clearly reasonable demands.
The Environment
Friends of the Earth
Scotland have rated the SSP’s environmental policies
second only to the Greens, which is gratifying and
yet irritating!
Gratifying because, at last, our green credentials
have been recognised as far superior to anything you’ll
get from the mainstream parties.
But annoying because, frankly, our manifesto is light
years ahead of the Greens’ and our Free Public Transport
policy is the most radical, pro-environment statement
in this whole election, fairer by far than blanket
flat-rate road charges and ‘green’ taxes, which hurt
the less well-off and encourage the idea that it’s
OK to pollute, so long as you can afford to pay a
premium on it.
Incidentally, another rating of the parties, this
time by WWF Scotland, noted that the Tories and Solidarity,
despite frantic efforts to appear green, have policies
that would actually increase
Rosie Kane, the SSP’s top of the list candidate for
We believe that the Earth’s resources, to paraphrase
the Diggers, are a common treasury for everyone to
share. Hence, when we call for a 90 per cent reduction
in carbon emissions by 2030, we see it as a collective
action, including on the part of government and industry.
Carbon rationing is a means by which we can share,
with as little hardship as possible, the task of reducing
our dependence on fossil fuels.
Free public transport and free housing insulation
and double-glazing support this plan, as well as make
life better and more comfortable for those usually
at the sharp end of environmental injustice - the
poor, low-paid, very young and very old.
We seek to protect people from the detritus of our
industrial past, and toxic present, through policies
demanding the clean-up of contaminated land, refusing
public contracts to companies with a polluting record,
and action to prevent the contamination of our food
sources by GMOs. And we seek to protect the land and
seas by giving communities real power to refuse mobile
phone masts, ship-to-ship oil transfers and any other
detrimental project.
The green revolution cannot happen through piecemeal
policies designed to make consumers feel better -
we need radical action, and the SSP is the only party
not afraid to say so!
War & Peace
The Scottish Socialist
Party has consistently been an anti-war party, opposing
the bombing of Kosovo just as we opposed the illegal,
US-led invasion of
‘Democracy’ cannot be imposed, especially not down
the barrel of a gun. Nearly one million dead Iraqi
civilians will testify to that.
And we despair at a worldview, held by too many powerful
governments, that they have a right to tell other
nations, sovereign peoples, what to do.
Our ambition is not to rule the world, but to be part
of an international community of cooperation, whereby,
together, we can tackle global inequity and climate
change.
We seek a
Where diplomats are drawn from the ranks of the working-class
and paid the workers’ wage, and where we offer real
solidarity to the struggling trade unionists of
Where the tireless fight against neo-liberalism and
war is won, and the people inherit the Earth.
Young People
Who’d be young? Old
enough to die for your country but not old enough
to be trusted in a shopping centre with a hooded top
on. No vote, pecuniary pay, and a once free education
system broken up and sold off, by the very people
who benefited from free education, to save money for
missiles.
We think it is a sorry excuse for a society that fails
to respect and nurture its future, embodied by the
younger generation. That’s why we fight for a decent
minimum wage for all workers, regardless of age, for
the restoration of benefits for the under-18s, and
of student grants, to ensure that it is not just the
wealthy who enjoy access to higher education without
being saddled with debt into their 30s and 40s. Education
is a right, not a privilege, and we abhor its commodification
by big business, who seek to water it down, bottle
it up, and sell it back to us at a profit.
We seek to empower young people, to place them at
the heart of our communities, through youth forums
and youth facilities, run by the people who use them.
The government never tires of telling us that, with
rights, come responsibilities. Yet where are these
rights? The right to get into credit card debt, or
be sent to
Women
We make up more than
half the population, yet we remain curiously invisible,
the problems of unequal pay and lack of status for
predominantly female professions passed over by policy-makers
from one government to the next.
Women were underpaid and undervalued by the Tories,
and remain so under a Labour government. Indeed, it
was mostly Labour councils that oversaw the scandalous
implementation of the Single Status Agreement, which
should have seen women council workers compensated
for years of underpayment, but instead saw men’s wages
“levelled down”.
Providing a stark example, if ever there was one,
of how female oppression also degrades men.
The SSP’s commitment to a living minimum wage of £8-an-hour,
including for those who choose to be full-time parents,
will help address the gender imbalance in our society
and make a woman’s place somewhere she might actually
like to be.
Childcare and birth control are also key issues. Without
them, women are shackled to biology. With them, we
have the potential to live free, full lives, to the
benefit of ourselves and our families.
The SSP fights for free, publicly-funded nursery places
for all pre-school children, and wraparound care for
school-age children, including during holidays and
over weekends.
We also call for the Morning After Pill to be available
free, via NHS outlets, pharmacists and women’s centres,
and for equal access to abortion services across
We believe that prostituted women should not be criminalised,
but instead offered routes out of the sex industry.
And victims of violence, rape and child sexual abuse
should be offered safe refuge for themselves and their
children.
Hence our call for greater funding for agencies such
as Women’s Aid.
Women’s rights are human rights, and we see the woman.
—page nine—
cultural resistance
When 500 walked in defiance
This month, 75 years ago, occurred
one of the most important and effective acts of civil disobedience
in securing public access to
The Kinder Scout trespass may sound, from this safe distance,
like a gentle walk in the peaks, but the ramblers were the subject
of two ambushes, one extremely violent, and two of their number
wound up serving 18 month prison sentences.
The action, which took some 500 hillwalkers from the
The day, 24 April 1932, began in high spirits as protestors
streamed from the local railway station into Hayfield Recreation
Ground.
They set off for Kinder Scout, singing The Red Flag and The
Internationale, armed with nothing more deadly than a few Thermos
flasks and sandwich packs.
But they reached the plateau only to be met by an ugly-minded
welcoming committee of local keepers, drafted-in for the occasion.
Violence ensued, but the keepers, though armed with sticks,
were easily outnumbered and beaten back with fists, belts and
stones. One keeper was concussed, and carried to the road, from
where he was driven to Stockport Infirmary. No others were injured,
and he only slightly.
The ramblers then stopped for a triumphal tea, making sure to
gather their litter and take it all home with them, before marching
back to Hayfield... where the police lay angrily in wait.
They arrested six people in all, and sent the rest packing,
turning what had been a victorious day very sour indeed.
It seemed that, for all their gusto and popular support, the
people had been defeated at last by the interests of the powerful.
But as early as 1939, the laws began to change, culminating
in the 2000 Countryside and Rights of Way Act, which enshrined
at least limited rights to roam.
In 1982, the 50th anniversary was marked with the unveiling
of a plaque at Bowden Bridge Quarry, Hayfield, which has now
become a major centre for hillwalkers. And the occasion is remembered
in Ewan McColl’s song, The Manchester Rambler, which includes
the lines:
He said “All this land is my master’s”/At that, I stood shaking my head/No man has the right to all
mountains/Any more than the deep ocean bed.
Tuned in
Keef Tomkinson
Saturday 28 April
Don’t Look Now, ITV4, 11:30pm
I thought
Sunday 29 April
As the rubble of the Berlin Wall gathers dust, Joaquin Phoenix
is the American GI making a nice living dealing drugs and selling
goods on the black market. Ed Harris is the sergeant trying
to stop them. Kinda Trainspotting meets Sergeant Bilko.
Monday 30 April
Dispatches: The Indian Miracle?, Channel4, 8pm
After checking out Pakistan’s internal political strife last
week Dispatches hops, skips and jumps across the border to examine
India’s economic boom and the Hindu nationalism, poverty, discrimination
and polarised caste system it leaves behind.
Tuesday 1 May
This World: The Fight For
Cuba’s Music, BBC2, 9:50pm
Remember those nice old musicians from the Buena Vista Social
Club? Well, after the documentary of the same name exposed them
to a worldwide audience, they decided to release their older
work - only for American company, Peer Music, to claim ownership.
This is their battle to win back the ownership.
Wednesday 2 May
Coma, BBC1, 11:25pm
Directed by Michael Chrichton, it’s appropriate that this be
shown the night before we vote for those representatives who
will control our NHS. Genevieve Bujold is the doctor who finds
the mysterious comas of some patients just a little too suspicious.
Richard Widmark is the administrator with a unique stance on
funding and shortages.
Thursday 3 May
The Scottish Election, BBC1,
11:05pm
Yes, for free, you can sit up half the night and watch an army
of politicians lying to anyone who will listen. Unconfirmed
reports suggest previous SSP election night representative,
Alan McCombes, may appear fed up with the moronic spin emanating
from fellow panelists.
Any Which Way You Can, ITV4, 10pm
If the election coverage is boring you, or the foul slogans
on Rosie Kane’s palms offend, then escape sporadically to this
epic. You know the score - Clint Eastwood,
—page ten—
international news
‘War on terror’ trial verdict quashed
by Steve Kaczynski
On 19 April, a Belgian
judge quashed a court verdict against four Turkish
people. The verdict, handed down in February 2006,
had seen three people imprisoned for membership of
the banned DHKP-C (Revolutionary People’s Liberation
Party-Front).
A fourth, Bahar Kimyongur, was convicted but not imprisoned
until November 2006, when an appeal against the sentences
failed (see Voice 287).
Lawyers have continued with appeals, citing various
trial irregularities in the way the original court
was conducted by Judge Freddy Troch.
There also was criticism of the way the Turkish state
was allowed to have a lawyer present at hearings,
in addition to the efforts of the Belgian state prosecutor.
Also, since those on trial
openly admitted to being bitter opponents of the Turkish
authorities, it meant that the trial was in part a
government prosecuting its opponents, using a foreign
court to do so.
An appeal hearing took place on 17 April. One of the
prisoners, Sukriye Akar, walked out in protest at
being made to wear a leather harness around her waist
in court.
The prisoners were regularly seen handcuffed, strait-jacketed,
and blindfolded, transported in heavily armoured vehicles.
Their guards have often worn balaclavas, creating
the impression that they fear reprisals.
When the result of the hearing was announced, Sukriye
and Bahar were present in court. About 100 people
demonstrated outside, responding to an appeal by Belgian
civil liberties organisation CLEA.
Judge Forier quashed the verdicts, saying he accepted
submissions by the defence that there were ‘legal
errors’ in the original trial. Judge Troch’s conduct
of the trial in particular was criticised. Forier
said this had done harm to the judicial system and
prevented justice from being carried out.
Sukriye, Bahar and Musa Asoglu gave a press conference
after being released. They were pleased with the result
but said that the essential issue was
Sukriye described solitary confinement and various
forms of petty harassment used in jail and on the
way to and from court, while Musa said that the case
was a political rather than a legal matter.
Media reaction to the case has been extensive in
Hurriyet, a pro-state Turkish daily,
cited conservative and far-right figures in
Belgian politics complaining that it was a “legal
scandal”. The true scandal, however, is that people
spent time in jail for their political opinions, while
the nature of the Turkish state they are opposing
was not examined.
There is another trial in
A final sobering note: if a Belgian court can jail
people for their beliefs under terrorism legislation,
by Steve Kaczynski
On 18 April, assailants
broke into a Christian publishing house in
A fourth man suffered severe head injuries after jumping
from a three-storey building to flee the attackers,
while a fifth survived with stab wounds.
The police made arrests afterwards, and Prime Minister
Tayyip Erdogan and others condemned the attacks. This
is just the latest in a long string of violent incidents
in this country, some of
them attacks on Christians. In January, Armenian journalist
Hrant Dink was murdered (see Voice 293).
Few in
A leader of
Some commentators have presented the assailants as
Sunni Muslim extremists, while others have said they
were ‘nationalist’. Sunni Muslim bigots and chauvinist
defenders of Turkish racial purity and enemies of
foreign influence are two groups who tend to overlap.
There are many unanswered questions about this and
other killings in
But it is equally possible the killers are trying
to undermine the AKP government. Elections are coming
up, and a wide range of political forces have been
whipping up chauvinism of all kinds.
Armed forces generals have been hinting at coup preparations
(there have been three coups in modern Turkish history, and threats of many more).
The ‘war on terror’ also gets a name check, with leading
politicians like Erdogan threatening to send Turkish
troops over the border into northern Iraq against
Kurdish PKK ‘terrorists’, perhaps by the end of April.
The
Malatya has been described as particularly ‘nationalist’
in the Western media. It is more accurate to say it
is a centre of tension, being on the western edge
of
Exactly why the
—page eleven—
international news
Launching world war three?
by Dick Barbor-Might
Will the
By the end of last year, the danger of such an attack had seemed
to be receding. As 2006 drew to a close, the main protagonists
of an attack upon
Bush and Blair had blocked a ceasefire resolution in July 2006,
giving the neo-cons’ Israeli friends sufficient time to reduce
much of
But, despite this diplomatic assistance from
Along with Vice President Cheney and Secretary of Defence Rumsfeld,
the neo-cons had been the cheerleaders for the invasion of
This was despite the fact that in 2003 the Iranians had offered
a comprehensive settlement of differences - an offer that was
rejected on Cheney’s instruction. But after years of useless slaughter
in
The Democrats
The Democrats had surfed the resultant wave of anti-Bush
sentiment and even some Congressional Republicans had joined the
ranks of Bush’s critics. Yet, ominously for the hopes of the American
anti-war movement, it was the right wing of the Democratic Party
- opportunist, bellicose and pro-big business - that controlled
the leadership.
Immediately following the election, Bush felt he had no choice
but to sack Rumsfeld. Meanwhile Cheney’s power base was weakened,
not least through the indictment on felony charges of his former
Chief of Staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby.
To make matters worse for the Bush White House, in December the
bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which had been appointed by Congress
to find a way out of the failing war in Iraq, recommended that
the Administration should talk to Syria and Iran on the grounds
that as two of Iraq’s neighbours they should be drawn into finding
a peaceful solution.
Superficially, it looked as though there would be no attack upon
The Redirection
Then the picture darkened. In January 2007 the protagonists
of continuing war in
There are denunciations of Iranian ‘interference’ in Iraq and
Washington is busy building a coalition of corrupt and oppressive
elites in Sunni Muslim states directed against the Shia Muslim
‘crescent’ that stretches from Iran through southern Iraq to Syria
and on to Hezbullah in southern Lebanon. Most of the world’s oil
reserves are located in the crescent - in
Leading Democrats have finessed their criticisms of Bush’s policies
in
They continue to try and shuffle the discredit for the war onto
the White House but they have approved Bush’s nominee, General
Petraeus, to lead the ‘surge’.
Just over a month ago, on 23 March, the Democrats voted $124billion
for the war to continue - more even than Bush had asked for. Only
eight Democrat congressmen opposed. The Democrat leadership do
envisage an ultimate reduction in troop numbers but not complete
withdrawal.
Enough troops will remain in
The
“As an American strike in
As the general has made clear, the Israeli Defence Forces will,
if necessary, themselves attack
The Democrats are doing just what the
Clinton speaks of the threat from
Clinton is not alone in her belligerence. Her rivals for the Democrat
presidential nomination use the same tell-tale phrasing as she
does for confronting Iran: “no option can be taken off the table”
(Hillary Clinton);”we should take no option, including military
action, off the table” (Barack Obama); “we need to keep all options
on the table” (John Edwards).
There is not the width of a cigarette paper between these three
Democrat contenders and the most hawkish of the Republicans. The
Republican Vice President, Dick Cheney, was singing from the same
hymn sheet when he met
Meanwhile the Iranian government is defying American pressure
and UN Security Council resolutions, neither modifying nor slowing
down its nuclear programme.
Nuclear weapons
This opens up the prospect of a nuclear-armed
Bush’s officials highlight Ahmadinejad’s anti-Israeli rhetoric,
downplaying the more moderate voices that come from
There is no telling whether an attack has been shelved as too
risky, whether it is imminent or is further off, some time in
the future. President George W Bush might still be occupying the
White House or (who knows?) it might be President Hillary Clinton
who some time in, say, 2009 has a video conference with Prime
Minister Gordon Brown, asking him to “be like Tony Blair over
Iraq” and to give “the cause of freedom” his unqualified support,
this time in attacking Iran. Or the attack might come very much
sooner.
Who knows how close we may be to what the military historian Corelli
Barnett has warned us of: “An attack on
“The spectre of war is haunting me now. Recurring nightmares interrupt
my sleep. I see those last houses in my neighbourhood reduced
to rubble and dust, bridges destroyed, homes burned to the ground...
“I wish to tell my students and neighbours of the dream I have
been carrying with me for years.
“I dream, someday, of returning to the place I’ve kept so close
to my heart, of breathing the fresh air in the mountains surrounding
“I dream of buying fresh parsley and tomatoes from the old man
on the street corner next to my mother’s home, greeting the baker
with a smile.”
Behzad Yaghmaian is an Iranian exile living in the
He was born at the time of the CIA/MI6 coup that overthrew a democratic
government and that restored the brutal Shah of Iran