Scottish Socialist Voice
Issue 315
21st September 2007
front page
Labour’s child poverty shame
Brown and Darling deliver nothing for the most vulnerable
Child poverty in
The costs take into account increased crime, public spending and lost economic
productivity.
Measures in the government’s Comprehensive Spending Review fall far short
of the extra £4billion that experts agree is needed to halve child poverty
by 2010, the TUC research finds.
Across the
TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said:
“As the world focuses on the plight of children around the globe, it’s shocking
that 3.8 million children in the
“But the government’s commitment to halve child poverty by 2010 must now
be in doubt, following the failure to step up spending and a deeply unambitious
tax take from the super-rich.
“Hints that the government is thinking of adopting tax breaks for marriage
is even more worrying. Child poverty can only be eradicated by focusing
on the needs of the children, not on the marital status of the parents.
A tax break for married parents is the same as a tax punishment for the
children of lone and unmarried parents.
“An extra investment of £4billion is needed to halve child poverty by 2010.
But the cost of inaction is ten times greater. The government is running
out of time to meet its child poverty pledge. Today, as members of the Campaign
to End Child Poverty, we urge the government to take decisive action.”
Director of the Campaign to End Child Poverty, Hilary Fisher, said:
“Poverty has a devastating effect on children’s lives. It shapes their development,
impacts their education and shortens their lives. The government must act
now to invest the £4billion necessary to improve the lives of millions of
children.”
page two
What’s really hidden in the Posties’ deal
by Richie Venton
As we go to press, postal workers who have staged solid,
courageous and escalating strike action await the outcome of marathon meetings
of the Communication Workers Union national executive committee, interspersed
with ongoing talks with Royal Mail, wondering what the hell is happening.
This follows two powerful 48-hour strikes across the whole of Royal Mail,
use of unelected judges to block the right to strike the following week
- a brutal action taken by Royal Mail’s millionaire bosses in the middle
of the negotiations - and subsequently these talks leading to the union
negotiators agreeing to take a new offer to the union NEC.
Leaks and rumours are rampant, but one thing is absolutely indisputable:
the fact that the CWU NEC has met for the fourth consecutive day at time
of writing proves that the offer is unacceptable to the NEC majority, and
we believe that on the second day of their meeting a majority demanded amendments
to the offer to be taken back into talks with the employers, whilst a minority
on the NEC voted for total rejection of the deal on offer.
If details that have leaked out to sections of the media are accurate, then
the offer falls drastically short of the union’s demands.
On pay, the power of the strikes has forced some minor concessions, but
again if the leaks are accurate, nothing like an acceptable increase to
match inflation. The figure headlined is 6.9 per cent over two years - but
because it is staggered in different phases, at best it would mean 5.4 per
cent - well below inflation.
Another 1.5 per cent rise is conditional on total implementation of the
whole package of flexibility demanded by the cost-cutting Royal Mail bosses.
A lump sum of £175 has been thrown in to sweeten the pill, but it comes
out of the Employee Share Option Scheme (ESOS), a bonus scheme which is
about to be wound up anyway, with payouts of the earned bonuses due regardless
of this pay offer. In short, the £175 is not new money, but cash taken from
a postie’s left pocket to his/her right pocket.
Pensions are another key issue. The details leaking are confused, but it
seems certain Royal Mail want to abolish the Final Salary Pension Scheme
for all new entrants from next year and raise retirement to 65. Those workers
already in the FSPS could - leaks have it - still retire at 60, but lose
thousands of pounds in benefits.
Some reports say a fudge is on offer to existing staff involving protection
of existing benefits for those already in the pension scheme but new payments
hereon into the inferior new pension scheme. Some posties have heard the
pensions issue is being left aside for the future, separate from the pay
deal, but that seems not to be the case; leaks suggest the union is being
offered ‘consultation’ on pensions but only if they sign up to the changes
in principle now.
A major source of the anger and bitterness that fuelled the unity of the
strikes - including recent ‘unofficial’ strikes across the
The bosses want workers at their beck and call, not knowing what hours they
have to work from one week to the next, including their starting or finishing
times. Royal Mail bosses threatened later starting times in Delivery Offices,
to avoid paying modest bonuses, at the early stage of the strikes. They
then unilaterally imposed these the day after the most recent national strikes,
which is what provoked some of the walkouts in
Also they expect posties to cover for workmates off sick or on holiday through
increased workloads, without any additional payments. Likewise they seem
to be demanding that Royal Mail workers be obliged to go to nearby offices
and also work outside their normal duties - drivers delivering, delivery
posties sorting, etc.
Perhaps most dangerous of all aspects of this offer, they want localised
trials of flexibility. The danger is that weaker areas will be bullied into
accepting anti-worker measures that will later be declared as acceptable
nationally. The strength of the union as a protective shield for workers
is that it’s a national union, and that has been the power of the national
strikes.
If the rumours and limited leaks are accurate, and unless talks currently
ongoing produce radical improvements, this offer deserves the contempt of
CWU members and their families who have suffered big wage losses by being
forced to strike in defence of their jobs, pay, pensions and conditions,
as well as the public service they deliver.
The offer appears to offer no protection from Mail Centre closures, wholesale
redundancies or even victimisations, which have been meted out in the past
couple of weeks by local bosses unleashed by their millionaire puppet-masters.
For example CWU union reps with union facility time to represent the members
have been punished in Glasgow,
Coming on top of the use of unelected judges to block the right to strike
last week, these brutal retributions at local level are a harsh warning
of the dangers of localised trials on ‘flexibility’.
As a Scottish postie said to me, “I don’t know what is on offer, but if
it’s as bad as the rumours say it should be thrown out by the members. It’s
not as if we were losing! The strikes were solid and the bosses were rattled.
“Massive backlogs had piled up, and the ‘do the job properly’ campaign [a
work-to-rule] was biting them deep where it was carried out.”
The impact of the strike is well known to any householder. Another illustration
of it is the fact bosses had to hire special storage wagons to cope with
the overflow of mail piled up at the Springburn Mail Centre. And the profiteering
private operators have been proven incapable of stepping into the breach;
they rely on Royal Mail posties to deliver their mail, whilst they stockpile
profits with the help of subsidies in the rigged market.
And the readiness to fight amongst posties is proven by the wave of walkouts
against imposed starting times, unfair deductions of pay, and victimisations
of union reps that has swept London, Liverpool, Yorkshire, Oxford, Tyneside,
Edinburgh, Glasgow and Bathgate.
The power of the strikes forced Royal Mail bosses to the negotiating table.
But they have been emboldened by the brutal intervention of Gordon Brown.
The government is the sole shareholder in RM and could have solved the dispute
in favour of the workforce and the public by Brown making one phone call
to the RM axemen Crozier and Leighton. Instead Brown told strikers to ‘get
back to work’, and to accept pay that ‘conquers inflation’!
This highlights the absurdity of the CWU handing over affiliation fees and
other donations to New Labour, amounting to £277,627 from February to June
this year alone. The link between the CWU and Labour, and especially the
loyalty of some key CWU leaders to Labour, hampers their ability to confront
a government that is egging on Royal Mail bosses to slash jobs, pay, pensions
and working conditions.
If the offer is like the leaks say, it should be rejected in any members’
ballot, and other workers and socialists should continue to build support
for these courageous fighters.
Unions pledge to fight cuts at the BBC
As the Voice goes to press workers at the BBC are once
again preparing for almost inevitable industrial action to defend thousands
of jobs at the national broadcaster.
The £600,000+ a year BBC Director-General, Mark Thompson says 2,800 job
cuts are required to fill a £2billion funding shortfall. The plan was rubber-stamped
on Wednesday by the government-appointed watchdog, the BBC Trust, which
is designed to protect the interest of licence-fee payers. Unions say the
Trust has failed in its duty to protect core BBC services in news, drama
and factual programmes such as Planet Earth and Top Gear by agreeing to
the jobs carnage.
The plans - the second major attack on jobs in less than three years - have
been drawn up and approved by bosses without any consultation or negotiation
with staff and unions. BECTU, the largest union inside the BBC, claims redundancy
letters had been written and printed even before a decision was made.
The proposals include selling off the iconic BBC Television Centre building
in west
After months of controversy at the BBC over phone-in competitions and the
faked-up trailer at the centre of the ‘Queengate’ scandal - which claimed
wrongly that the Queen walked off a photo shoot in a right royal huff -
staff fear Mark Thompson’s plans run the risk of more, not fewer of these
incidents.
The cuts come as the NUJ is preparing for a Day of Action on 5 November
to secure quality journalism and reporting across the
NUJ activists should endorse a similar campaign of determined, workplace-organised
industrial action and political lobbying against the job cuts at the BBC.
BBC bosses claim the cuts are required to offset a budget crisis, but unions
say the organisation has £3.5billion to spend on programmes, so the issue
is not a shortage of money, but of public service broadcasting itself.
“The BBC should look at what its priorities are,” says National Union of
Journalists’ General Secretary, Jeremy Dear, “not by cutting a bit off everything,
but by making some fundamental decisions about what it should do, and at
the centre of that must be quality journalism.”
n You can find out more about the NUJ campaign at: www.standupforjournalism.org.uk
page three
Opponents smell blood from wounded brown
by Ken Ferguson
The spell is broken. The competent, principled,
son of the manse is just another scheming, spinning politician with feet
of clay.
As one tabloid memorably opined, “He’s in the Brown stuff”.
The from-hero-to-zero tale currently pre-occupying supposedly serious political
commentators on our TV screens and the columns of the papers makes for good
soap-style knock about but has little to with reality.
As the polls swing up and down and the
Now we have the truth about the so called troop cuts in
As the Voice has repeatedly warned the scuttle by the Brits from
The troops concerned might get a few weeks in the
We now know that next spring virtually all Scottish infantry formations
will be committed to the dusty slopes of
This is an unambiguous statement of the Brown government’s priorities and
its steely determination to stay loyally linked to the war aims of the Bush
regime.
Thousands of troops will be facing a determined enemy. Millions will be
spent on new weapons and equipment and without any doubt more soldiers will
die and have their names added to the blank space on the newly opened national
war memorial.
It’s a far cry from the sunshine talk at the start of the latest Afghan
adventure when then war minister Dr John Reid spoke of our boys doing their
stuff “without a shot fired”.
Whatever the final outcome of the postal dispute Brown and his partners
in crime around the cabinet table have made no secret of their support for
the fat cats running Royal Mail.
Workers are urged to face ‘reality’, to accept ‘modernisation’ and subjected
to management attacks with the usual claims of feather bedding and soft
conditions - all tacitly backed by Labour ministers bankrolled by the unions.
The dispute underlines the fact that New Labour, Brown version, has chosen
its side and it isn’t workers in struggle. Despite loud squeals from the
pampered bosses they still enjoy some of the lowest taxes in
As on the world stage, at home the Brown government makes no bones about
being on the side of the bosses and big business with only the odd glib
one liner about workers’ rights.
But if things are gloomy in the Imperial capital things aren’t going much
better in the
Lack lustre Scottish Labour boss and supposed super brain Wendy Alexander
is, like her apparatchik brother Douglas, joined at the hip to Brown and
will sink or swim with him.
So far the glum New Labour MSPs have been largely unsuccessful in challenging
the Edinburgh SNP government but have appeared to pop up to make sour criticisms
of the new administration.
The truth is that their right wing policies keep getting in the way!
They are unlikely to be helped by claims of cutting the Scottish government
budget and chicanery around compensation for foot and mouth hit farmers.
It is against this background that the apparent Tory surge and emerging
Blairite criticism needs to be judged.
Predictions of the demise of the Brownites are clearly premature and we
can anticipate a winter of froth about polls, Brown’s nail biting and Cameron’s
greenery.
Meanwhile the real problems of soaring prices, a debt-ridden economy and
looming financial disaster will continue to confront voters.
The desperate need for policies that can deliver environmental and social
justice will remain despite the
Why were the chickens across the road?
by Ken Ferguson
Amidst all the jokes, motorists’ frustration
and cleverly punning headlines surrounding the recent chicken chaos on Scotland’s
roads, one question went unasked - why did the chicken cross the country?
Unlike the tabloid headlines the truth is far from funny. The 3,000 chickens
tipped from a jack-knifed juggernaut in the early morning were actually
on a several hundred-mile journey from Fife to
Having been butchered they would then have been frozen and loaded back onto
lorries and sent around the UK - no doubt some back to Fife.
Long after the traffic jams have dispersed this bizarre fact still hasn’t
merited much comment in the media, yet in so many ways the affair spotlights
the crazy world of contemporary, big business dominated food production.
Fife chickens,
Getting fresh food on to the plates of consumers which helps them stay healthy
is hardly a factor in this process.
Meanwhile as the Tescos, ASDAs, etc, record ever rising profits, UK ministers
are busily telling us that obesity is likely to become a problem to equal
global warming - all of which suggests it might be time to take a serious
look at food policy.
Not only is there a need for to examine the nutritional value of food but
surely, for socialists, the whole question of the need to consume concentration
camp chicken merits discussion.
In all the discussions of exploitation it is well worth considering the
horrific cruelty of the factory farming system which saw the 3,000 chickens
spill onto the motorway.
Factory farming has one objective and that is to secure the maximum level
of profit for the food multinationals and the fact that consumers receive
cheap meat is simply a by-product.
But not only are its products of dubious food value and its systems barbaric,
the factory farming system is inflicting serious damage on the environment.
Earlier this year UN researchers published a report entitled Livestock’s
Long Shadow which indicts livestock production as a serious danger to the
environment.
The report found that livestock contributes to “problems of land degradation,
climate change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution, and
loss of biodiversity.”
And one particularly damning finding from the UN researchers was that livestock
production is a major contributor to global warming emissions, an inconvenient
truth not mentioned in Nobel Laureate Al Gore’s famous campaigns on the
matter.
Appeals to screw in low energy bulbs, switch off lights, etc, are all laudable
enough but just one starling fact puts such efforts in context.
In the
For instance, all the trucks, cars, planes, trains and other transport combined
account for 13 per cent of global warming emissions, while livestock production
is responsible for an astounding 18 per cent of all US greenhouse gases.
The UN estimate that animal agriculture is responsible for 65 per cent of
worldwide nitrous oxide emissions and nitrous oxide is about 300 times more
effective as a global warming gas than carbon dioxide.
Methane, which is burped out by millions of cows across the planet, traps
20 times more heat than carbon dioxide and the American Environmental Protection
Agency has reported that livestock production is the single greatest source
of methane emissions in the
All this highlights the hard fact about global warming - we cannot go on
as we are and all steps need to be taken if the problem is to be overcome.
Sure if you are loaded change to a low energy car, fit windmills, buy a
city centre flat walking distance from your work - all worthwhile choices.
But for those of more modest means it is time to consider the health, cruelty
and environmental impact of the meat industry.
Probably cutting down or better still cutting out meat is the single most
effective personal step that can be taken by individuals in the war on global
warming.
Although it runs counter to many people’s social and cultural attitudes
to food you would have the satisfaction of breaking with the cruel, planet
trashing meat industry.
And who knows, you might avoid another chicken jam on the motorway.
LibDem Mingers
The carefully cultivated Earl Grey and scones
image of the so nice LibDems lies in tatters after the brutal homicide of
leader Menzies Campbell.
Readers can safely dismiss any tales that the
As any close examination of the LibDems shows, behind the all things to
all people image there stands a group of ruthless, ambitious and largely
unprincipled hard nosed politicians.
Just consider their brutal treatment of Charles Kennedy because of his alcohol
problem.
In any enlightened workplace this would have been dealt with by a period
of leave for treatment hopefully followed by a return to work when appropriate.
But that was not the approach of the apparatchiks running the show who instead
leaked to the media on Kennedy’s problems before plunging in the knife.
And ironically the key assassin wielding the dirk was none other than current
victim Campbell.
Socialists may ask: Does the fate of
Given that until May this year they were junior partners in
The effect of such an alliance would most likely be to drive the already
centrist Scottish government further to the right.
Currently there is what passes for a right/left split in the LibDems with
a dominant pro-market faction grouped around their bible, a series of essays
known as the Orange Book.
Both leadership contender Clegg and Scots supremo Nicol Stephen back this
approach, which is now challenged by another book, Reinventing the State
- backed by Clegg rival Huhne.
The differences are of course relative, with both camps firmly backing the
wonders of today’s market economy while debating where to tweek it.
We can now expect another layer of froth and personality driven politics.
What can be safely predicted is that, whatever the outcome, the LibDems
will remain firm supporters of the existing crisis ridden system only pausing
to decide where to place the fig leaves.
page four
Socialism for survival
In October last year George Monbiot used his column
in The Guardian to list the actions he believed were needed to get serious
about combating global warming and climate change.
The
Steve Radford, the Assistant Editor of Green Socialist and a member of
the National Committee of the
Let’s start by giving credit where it is due and saying that George Monbiot
is one of the few commentators who grasps the reality of the catastrophe
facing our planet over the coming century, even over coming decades. His
recipe for action (http://monbiot.com/ - go to climate change articles
and scroll down to ‘Here’s the plan’ from 31 October 2006) is thoughtful,
timely and does not over-dramatise the degree of urgency - though this
would be difficult.
However, Monbiot, like the Green Party, fails to follow the logical economic
and political consequences of his proposals. All his action points have
merit and most could be supported by Green Socialists.
However, Monbiot doesn’t explain that even the limited measures he proposes
challenge the fundamental principles of free-market capitalism - which
all governments and ruling parties in the developed world are fully committed
to.
Therefore, implementing his plan would require a radical, even revolutionary,
shift in power relationships in the
Specifically, Monbiot’s proposals would require taking on, and defeating,
the most entrenched vested interests of the capitalist world order, the
powerful corporations (especially the oil and energy companies) whose
ability to generate profits is dependent on continued exploitation of
the world’s resources to feed ever expanding markets; a process generally
referred to as ‘economic growth’.
These corporations have enormous economic, political and military power
at their disposal and have never shirked from using this power to defend
their interests. They also control the great majority of the world’s media
and thus control global news management and dissemination.
Then there is the, often underestimated, extent to which consumer capitalism
has successfully been sold to the working-class.
We have to try and convince people to act now, and sacrifice some material
consumption, in order that they and their children and grandchildren are
not made destitute and global human civilisation is not reduced to widespread
starvation and barbarism 20, 50 or 70 years hence.
Curbing wasteful competition, overproduction and consumption will inevitably
slow economic growth. This slowdown is necessary as such unsustainable
growth is inextricably linked to the causes of global climate change.
However, slowing down, perhaps halting, economic growth will reduce the
resources available to human societies and require us all to accept changes
in the way we live.
It may not be necessary for developed countries to go back to burning
dried animal dung to keep warm.
However, while a reduction in the quantity of consumption may be relatively
painless in itself - we can live quite comfortably without TV dinners
or motor-cars capable of doing 160mph - it would be naïve and economically
illiterate to assume that cutting out the wasteful and non-essential will
not have a serious impact on all other areas of the economy.
It is likely that numerous projects would be needed to convert our economies
to something approaching sustainability (such as renewable energy and
energy conservation projects) and to allow us to adapt to the changes
which are already inevitable (such as sea defences to protect coastal
and estuarial cities and low-lying agricultural land).
Many of these projects would be labour-intensive and could help to absorb
the unemployment created by the closures of factories producing wasteful
and inefficient consumer goods.
It is also true that switching to localised production and reducing the
wasteful transportation of many products, especially food, would probably
create more jobs than it made redundant.
However, there is little possibility that the enormous effort and expenditure
necessary to allow the human race to avoid the worst effects of global
warming and climate change, and to survive those changes already taking
place, can somehow be self-financing.
Human societies are going to have to re-order their priorities and make
hard choices about investment and development in the interests of our
collective survival.
This will require a massive re-distribution of wealth and power if it
is not to result in the poorest sections of society suffering disproportionately
- and disproportionate suffering in much of the world means hunger and
destitution, not just cutting back on restaurant meals and foreign holidays.
In addition, the capitalist system has become so pervasive that everyone
in the industrialised world, even working people who own no stocks or
shares, has been sucked into its rapacious maw. The viability and security
of the pension funds, for example, which are supposed to support us in
old age, is based on the assumption of continued and never-ending economic
growth
Any list of action points can only be a starting point. If implemented
in just one medium-sized nation such as the
The difficulties and problems highlighted above all go to underline the
reasons why a sustainable economic system has to be socialist, has to
be managed and regulated by collective action - inevitably through and
between states and governments - and has to involve changes in the most
basic priorities and assumptions that people have taken for granted over
many decades.
Economic growth and increasing material consumption are, currently, desirable
objectives and the criteria by which governments and economies are judged
to be succeeding or failing.
An alternative criteria might simply be whether our government and our
economy is laying the basis for a world in which our children and grandchildren
can expect to live as long and as healthily and with as good a quality
of life as we hope to - and at the moment, on a clear balance of probabilities,
the answer would have to be an emphatic NO.
This timetabled action plan is adapted from the proposals by George Monbiot
in The Guardian on 31 October 2006.
1. Set a target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions based on the latest science - not the outdated figures used by the government - aiming for a 60 per cent reduction by 2050. Immediate.
2. Use that target to set an annual carbon cap, which falls on the ski jump trajectory. Then use the cap to set personal carbon quotas. Every citizen is given a free annual quota of CO2 which is largely controlled by the rationing of certain products and services - especially energy of all kinds and high carbon activities such as flying. This ration would be divided into an essential minimum (which could not be traded or transferred) and a non-essential quota which could be traded. This private consumption accounts for about 40 per cent of the CO2 we produce. The rest is allocated for business/institutional use and would also be controlled by a system involving both quotas and green taxes. This system would still provide people with a powerful incentive to demand low-carbon technologies. Full scheme in place by January 2010.
3. Introduce a new set of building regulations, with the following objectives.
a). To impose strict energy efficiency requirements
on all major refurbishments (costing £3000 or more). To be implemented
by June 2008.
b). To oblige landlords to bring their houses up to high energy efficiency
standards before they can rent them out. To cover all new rentals from
June 2008.
c). To ensure all new
4. Ban the sale of incandescent light bulbs, patio heaters, garden floodlights and several other wasteful and unnecessary products. Introduce a stiff ‘feebate’ system for all electrical goods. The least efficient are taxed heavily while the most efficient receive tax discounts. Every year the standards in each category rise. Implement by May 2008.
5. Re-deploy money earmarked for new nuclear weapons towards investment in energy generation and distribution. Two schemes in particular require government support to make them viable: large offshore wind-farms connected to the grid with high voltage direct current cables; and a hydrogen pipeline network to take over from the natural gas grid as the primary means of delivering fuel for home heating. To start end of 2007 for completion in 2018.
6. Promote the development of a new national coach network. City centre coach stations are shut and moved to nearest motorway junction while urban public transport networks are extended to meet them. The coaches travel on dedicated lanes and never leave the motorways. Such a system would need to be integrated as far as possible with the national rail network. Journeys by public transport then become as fast as journeys by car, while saving 90 per cent of emissions. If combined with a reduction in the National Speed Limit for commercial vehicles to (say) 60mph and strict enforcement of all speed limits this would bring enormous savings in both transport and health costs. Commences in 2008; completed by 2020.
7. Oblige all garages to supply leasable electric car batteries. This provides electric cars with unlimited mileage: as the battery runs down, you pull into a forecourt. A crane lifts it out and drops in a fresh one. Batteries are charged overnight with off-peak electricity from offshore wind-farms. Implement by 2011.
8. Abandon road-building and road-widening programmes and spend the money on tackling climate change. Immediate.
9. Freeze then reduce
10. Enforce the closure of out-of-town superstores. Replace them with a warehouse and delivery system. Shops use six times as much electricity per square metre as factories. Warehouses containing the same quantity of goods use roughly 5 per cent of the energy. Out-of-town shops are also hard-wired to the car - delivery vehicles would use 70 per cent less fuel/power. Fully implement by 2012.
11.Devise and implement a nationwide education programme, to be incorporated into the national curriculum (and into higher and adult education) on the implications and likely effects of climate change. This will be hugely controversial and lead to charges of indoctrination by the vested interests, the greedy and the selfish, but it should be guided by rigorous and honest assessments of current scientific thinking. Fully implement by 2010.
This is an edited version of an article which originally
appeared in issue No. 41 (Summer 2007) of Green Socialist, journal of
the
page five
Letters
Defra’s UHT milkshake
Although the government has denied that it’s telling anyone what kind
of milk to drink, the leaking of a Department for Environment, Food and Rural
Affairs (Defra) report suggesting that a move to replace pasturised milk with
UHT milk would be better for the environment has got farmers in a flap. And
rightly, too, cos it’s nonsense.
Defra reckon this would be a way to cut down the amount of energy used in milk-related
refrigeration, from farm to supermarket. Except it won’t. Ultra heat treating
milk uses significant levels of energy in itself, but even if the carbon emissions
were lower than those associated with refrigeration, it wouldn’t matter, because
the supermarkets would still put the UHT milk in the fridge.
People don’t like to buy milk or fruit juice from the shelf - something spotted
by the marketers of Sunny Delight, which, although it would survive a nuclear
holocaust, is sold from the chiller cabinet so it looks fresh. And healthy.
And not aglow with chemicals.
The marketers would just do the same with UHT milk if they were trying to encourage
people to buy it.
Trying to build a bigger share of the market for UHT would also allow the dairy
industry to be even further centralised. The super dairy firms, like Robert
Wiseman’s, who have already swallowed up the majority of independent dairies,
bring milk into huge depots to then be packed off in lorries to supermarkets
and corner shops all over the country.
But with UHT milk more normalised, milk multinationals could happily start shipping
in milk from all over the world without fear of it going off. And that’s really
not going to do your pinta’s carbon footprint any good.
Vegans will tell you the only truly environmentally friendly option is to turn
your back on cow’s milk entirely, pointing to the finding that the world’s livestock
produce more greenhouse gasses than the entire transport industry.
But if we must keep bothering the cows - anyway, in environmental terms at least,
is soya milk from
In olden times, a milk float used to deliver milk in glass bottles in the mornings
from the nearest dairy farm. And the next day, they’d take the bottle away to
wash and reuse it.
And the milk float was electrically powered - this was one of the most environmentally
friendly systems ever developed!
Doorstep deliveries have dropped from 85 per cent of the milk market in the
But with environmental concerns featuring more and more in people’s shopping
basket, it should be a lot easier to get people back to the milk man and woman,
rather than messing about trying to persuade us to drink the mass produced UHT
stuff.
Isobel Sullivan,
Kirkintilloch
Ideas for ACTION
Readers’ views
Thatcher’s anaesthetic
John Miller gives his view of the recent history
of drug sale and use in
It seems clear from any hindsight examination
of the 1970s and 80s that Reagan, under pressure in the USA from his own right
wing, and unable to force down wages because his poor were largely ethnically
identifiable and becoming organised, approached Thatcher with the proposition
that if she could break the power of the trade unions and force down wages then
the stage would be set for a massive influx of American investment to the new
low wage economy in Britain.
Thatcher tried hard to deliver on her part of the bargain, as we are all painfully
aware. The unions were attacked without mercy and have yet to fully recover,
but the inward investment resulted only in large numbers of low-level jobs.
Few top management or highly skilled research or development jobs followed in
the wake of the electronic assembly line, dull, repetitive peripheral jobs.
With a stubborn pride and despite the defeats they had suffered, British workers
said ‘no’ and said it loud, preferring unemployment to gross exploitation.
The ‘lady’ was therefore unable to deliver the wage slaves that she had promised
and as a result, largely because of increasing unemployment benefit claims,
she was to fail miserably in her ambition to “roll back the frontiers of the
state”.
What she had produced, however, was a whole generation who had no knowledge
of work in the real world, however hard she tried to indoctrinate them with
job creation schemes and other ‘imitation of work’ projects.
She had created a generation discontented and ripe for radicalism. They had
learned the power of the people united by participation in protest and represented
a real and frightening revolutionary risk to capitalism.
The response was to allow the lost generation to drug itself. Drugs were allowed
to flourish and to appear ‘cool’. The great and the good of popular culture,
television, music, publishing and the City promoted openly the use of illegal
drugs with impunity and with hardly a hint of condemnation from a government
only too glad to see a society decay rather than go down the road to socialism.
Customs and Excise staff at ports and airports were reduced and police enforcement
was gradually encouraged to turn a blind eye to ever increasing amounts of drugs
even to the extent that many people came to sincerely believe that, provided
it was for their own use, it was only a relatively slight misdemeanour to be
in possession of a substantial quantity of drugs, even hard drugs.
This response was such a success that in formerly industrial areas where there
were large numbers of disaffected youth, the use of illegal drugs has mushroomed
out of all control and Chief Constables admit to certain areas being ‘unpoliceable’,
and we all pay, and will continue to pay the price of capitalism’s fear of real
challenge.
Those responsible have taken their profits and moved on to a lifestyle secured
by their wealth and can only condemn the unfortunates that they created, while
the rest of us struggle with the impossible task of putting the genie back into
the bottle.
Shame on Thatcher and her supine excuse for collective leadership and cabinet
government. Had no one the bottle to say to her, ‘This is wrong! We can’t do
this to our own country.’
They did, after all, have the experience in
centre pages
Whose choice?
“Abortion must be a key to a new world to
women, not a bulwark for things as they are, economically nor biologically.
Abortion should not be either a perquisite of the legal wife only, nor merely
as a last remedy against illegitimacy. It should be available for any woman,
without insolent inquisitions, nor ruinous financial charges, nor tangles
of red tape. For our bodies are our own.”
F. W Stella Browne (1935)
Forty years since the Abortion Act, and with
the legal time limit for abortion now the subject of furious debate across
the media and in parliament, Anthea Irwin explains why socialists defend
a woman’s right to choose, and why we still have a lot yet to win.
October 2007 and March 2008 mark the 40th anniversary of the vote on and
enactment of the bill, introduced by David Steel, that led to safe, legal
abortion in the
Whose terms?
Before beginning to explore the issue, it is important to clarify
our terms of reference. The debate is often framed by anti-choice campaigners
as a simple binary opposition of those who oppose abortion and those who
support it. This is misguided, and misguiding for those who come into contact
with it.
The struggle for a woman’s right to choose is about precisely that: the
right of every woman to have control over her own life and be enabled to
make choices. The choice, when she finds herself pregnant, to continue with
the pregnancy or terminate it, without having to gain the consent of two
doctors. The opportunity to make informed choices about sex and relationships
based on education and access to contraception. The possibility to make
real choices about her own life and the lives of any children she has, choices
that are not constrained by economic inequality, but supported with proper
access to housing, education, employment and childcare.
The struggle for a woman’s right to choose does not claim that the choice
to terminate a pregnancy is an easy one to make; it claims that that choice
should be the woman’s to make.
When the terms are clarified it’s clear that the struggle for a woman’s
right to choose still has a way to go. It is also clear that it fits seamlessly
into the SSP’s broader vision of a better, fairer society.
How far have we come?
The Abortion Act of 1967 was a welcome breakthrough that largely
drew a line under back street abortions. Because of it, abortions in the
UK are not among the 40 per cent of abortions worldwide that the World Health
Organisation tell us are still performed in unsafe conditions and UK women
are not among the 68,000 women who still die each year due to these unsafe
abortions.
Yet, while saying abortion is legal in the UK is true up to a point, there
are many nuances in the law which mean access to abortion is far from being
‘on demand’ for a woman and as such her right to choose has not been fully
met.
Whose decision?
As it stands, the final decision about whether or not to terminate
a pregnancy is not the woman’s to make. She is legally required to gain
the consent of two doctors. Doctors, on the other hand, are not legally
required to declare their conscientious legal objection to abortion, particularly
problematic given that around 10 per cent of doctors are opposed to it.
Although professional guidelines require that a doctor who is not prepared
to sign refers the woman to another doctor immediately, there are many documented
cases of this being unnecessarily delayed or not happening at all.
Doctors themselves have always been among the many voices calling for an
end to this paternalistic practice; a motion passed by a vote of 67 per
cent at the British Medical Association conference in June 2007 called for
the removal of both the two signature requirement and the need for women
to meet medical criteria for abortion.
Equal access?
There is also no law requiring the NHS to provide abortion services.
One of the Department of Health’s many ‘targets’ relates to abortion. It
says that a woman seeking a termination should not be delayed more than
three weeks, but in an under-funded Health Service the target is often not
met: there are no published government figures on waiting times, but research
conducted by the All-Party Pro-Choice and Sexual Health group showed that
27 per cent of Primary Care trusts did in fact delay women beyond three
weeks. Such a ‘postcode lottery’ is unacceptable.
The motion passed at the BMA conference also states that suitably trained
and experienced nurses and midwives should be allowed to carry out both
medical and surgical abortions and that, as long as safety is ensured, premises
do not need to be approved to carry out first trimester abortions. This,
if taken on board by government, would go at least some way to combating
delays.
Stating that ‘abortion is legal in the
The issue was back on the agenda in 1984, but the Northern Ireland Assembly
voted against the introduction of the Abortion Act, or any similar legislation.
The beginning of the ‘Peace Process’ allegedly heralded a shift in political
focus onto the development of infrastructure to improve conditions for people
in their daily lives. The reform of abortion law should be part of this.
The anti-choice lobby.
While pro-choice campaigners argue that abortion legislation has
not gone far enough, and see abortion in the context of wider life choices
and human rights, anti-choice campaigners allow their narrow focus to threaten
wider life choices and human rights. When Amnesty International adopted
what the Pro-Life organisation labelled a ‘pro-abortion’ stance (it was
in reality a stance akin to a woman’s right to choose that focused on the
maintenance of women’s human rights in the face of rape and other acts of
violence), prominent members of Pro-Life withdrew their membership of and
support for Amnesty.
When the Roman Catholic bishop of
This tactic of emotionalising the argument and using ‘human’ words to refer
to the foetus is a common one. The most shocking and manipulative example
of late was Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s likening of the abortion rate to the
equivalent of “two Dunblane massacres every day”.
Time limit is the aspect of the debate that most regularly gains media attention,
yet arguably it clouds the key issues. Not only were the headline-grabbing
claims that foetuses were ‘walking’ and ‘smiling’ in the womb an incorrect
and overly emotive use of language; they missed the point. 90 per cent of
abortions in the
The struggle in Parliament.
MPs opposed to abortion have either not seen these figures or do
not wish to acknowledge them. Conservative MP Nadine Dorries’ bill to reduce
the time limit on abortions in the
The introduction of four-D ultrasound images of foetuses ‘walking’ and ‘smiling’
in the womb may have gained some ground for the argument that a foetus is
just like a born-at-term baby, but Donald Peebles, of the Department of
Obstetrics and Gynaecology at University College London, argues that the
“temptation to associate these movements - sucking a thumb, gasping as if
talking - with adult movements, to think it is sucking its thumb because
it is happy” is “extraordinarily dangerous”. The scientific viewpoint is
that it is a baby’s contact with the social world that develops its consciousness,
and therefore its ability to feel pain.
Also within the past year we have seen bills calling for the removal of
confidentiality for young women under 16 who seek abortion advice (submitted
by Angela Watkinson Conservative MP) and calling for compulsory abortion
counselling about related ‘mental health problems’ and ‘medical risks’,
as well as a ‘cooling off’ period of ten days between a woman seeking an
abortion and having it performed (submitted by Nadine Dorries). All three
bills were defeated by approximately a two thirds majority.
More recently, anti-abortion MPs have planned to submit amendments to the
government’s Human Tissue and Embryos Bill aiming to reduce the abortion
time limit and make access to abortion more difficult for women. The fact
that the initial bill is not directly about abortion may mean that the potentially
obscure wording of amendments makes for a situation where MPs are voting
for an anti-choice stance without realising that they are doing so.
On the other hand, consideration of the bill is an opportunity to reopen
the abortion debate and push for the necessary extensions to provide women
with a right to real choice.
We need to talk.
Clearly language is an issue where abortion is concerned. Emotive
language is used to sway the argument; obscure language can be used to cloud
it. But both of these form part of the political and religious arguments
surrounding abortion. Just as important is what is not said. With figures
that suggest that one in three women will have an abortion at some point
in their life, and the documented gains of the struggle for a woman’s right
to choose, why is it that, in everyday discussion, the subject remains largely
taboo?
Legislation can achieve much, but ‘legal’ does not entail ‘accepted’ or
‘normal’. The struggle for a woman’s right to choose needs to take place
on two levels: the political one to ensure legislation becomes more supportive
of women and not less, that she is finally afforded the full right to choose;
but also the personal one where we talk and listen and allow abortion to
form part of the discourse of women’s experience.
Abortion Law in the
l The first references to abortion in English law appeared in the 13th Century.
The law followed Church teaching that abortion was acceptable until ‘quickening’, which, it was believed, was when the soul entered the foetus. The legal situation remained like this for centuries.
l 1803: The Ellenborough Act - abortion after ‘quickening’ (i.e. when movement is felt at 16-20 weeks) carried the death penalty. Previously the punishment had been less severe.
l 1837: The Ellenborough Act was amended to remove the distinction between abortion before and after quickening.
l 1861: The Offences Against the Person Act: performing an abortion or trying to self-abort carried a sentence of life imprisonment.
l 1929: Infant Life Preservation Act: this created a new crime of killing a viable foetus (at that time fixed at 28 weeks) in all cases except when the woman’s life was at risk. However, it was not clear whether it would be legal to terminate for the same reason before 28 weeks.
l1934: The Conference of Co-operative Women passes a resolution calling for the legalisation of abortion.
l 1936: The Abortion Law Reform Association (ALRA) was established; its aim was to campaign for the legalisation of abortion.
l 1938: Dr. Alex Bourne was acquitted of having performed an illegal abortion, his argument being that the law allowed abortion when the women’s physical or mental health was in danger. (He had performed the procedure on a 14 year old girl who had been gang raped). This set a case-law precedent.
l 1939: The Birkett Committee, which had been set up by the Government in 1936, recommended clarification that doctors could perform an abortion to save a woman’s life. World War II interrupted any implementation of its findings.
l 1967: The Abortion Act (sponsored by David Steel, MP) became law, legalising abortion under certain conditions; it came into effect on 27 April 1968.
l 1975: The National Abortion Campaign (NAC) was established to protect the 1967 Act and campaign for its improvement.
l 1990: The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill introduced specific time limits on abortion, restricting access to abortion to within 24 weeks of pregnancy; it came into effect on 1 April 1991.
n thanks to www.abortionrights.org.uk
Vera Drake: abortion is a class issue
Vera Drake, Mike Leigh’s award winning film
set in 1950, follows Vera, a working class woman who, out of compassion
and practicality, performs abortive procedures on young and vulnerable women.
The legislation of the time means that such women have no alternative.
The film sets up a contrast between Vera’s voluntary acts and a young woman
from one of the families Vera cleans for who, for a significant sum, accesses
the considerably more hygienic
This is not the only contrast however. It transpires Vera’s friend and colleague
who co-ordinates matters is undermining Vera’s compassion by secretly claiming
payment from the women. It is the same ‘friend’ who gives the police the
information they need to charge Vera and devastate her life and the lives
of her family.
So the film explores not just the issue of unequal access to services based
on class, but also the general point that the capitalist system allows for,
indeed invites, women to be objectified and their vulnerabilities to be
profited from. And language is a key theme. The act that Vera performs
so skilfully and compassionately is one that she cannot voice: all she can
say is that she “helps young girls out”.
The struggle for a woman’s right to choose has come a long way since 1950.
But class differences still leave working class women with less ‘right to
choose’ than middle class women; the system we live in with its Health Service
‘postcode lottery’ and remnants of paternalism does not meet the needs of
vulnerable women; and we have yet to reach a point where we can speak freely
about abortion and many other issues affecting women today.
page eight
A night for freedom and safety
by Barbara Scott
If anyone needed convincing that the women’s movement
still exists, they only needed to be in
The revival of the Reclaim the Night march organised by the Edinburgh
Feminist Network was a great success with around 300 women and men taking
to the streets to demand a change of attitudes towards men’s violence
against women.
The march was supported by the SSP and the SSY, as well as Amnesty International,
Rape Crisis, Zero Tolerance and the White Ribbon campaign.
As well as a banner making session prior to the march, a men’s discussion
group was held and from this came a decision to form an Edinburgh group
of the White Ribbon campaign, which exists to involve men in working to
end violence against women. Bob and Neil from Lothians SSP plan to play
an active part in this new group.
The event received good coverage in the local media, both radio and the
Evening News. Unfortunately some of the comments attached to the on-line
version of the Evening News story only serve to highlight just how far
we still have to go to change attitudes.
Even the story itself focused on women’s safety while out walking at night
and missed the real point of the march, which was to demand that the blame
for all men’s violence against women including rape, to be placed where
it belongs - on the perpetrators, those men committing the acts of violence.
Another aim of the event was to highlight the fact that most perpetrators
are known to the women they attack - friends, partners, family
members - and are less likely to be strangers.
The rally following the march, held at the Meadows, an area notorious
for being ‘unsafe’ for women to walk through, featured short speeches
from Rape Crisis, Edinburgh Feminist Network and the White Ribbon campaign,
interspersed with some moving readings which had been written by survivors
of rape.
These highlighted the appalling experiences women have to go through in
the aftermath of being raped, such as being interrogated about their sexual
history in court.
The main theme was that there is no excuse for rape and violence against
women, and that no matter how we dress, how much we drink, where we go
and whatever we do, the perpetrator of violence is always to blame, never
the woman attacked.
Iain from the White Ribbon campaign also highlighted prostitution and
lap dancing clubs as being harmful to women and contributing to the attitudes
in society which excuse violence against women.
At a time when the ‘raunch culture’ intrudes into every part of our lives
through the media; where Lothian buses advertise comedy films using images
of disembodied female body parts in underwear; and where 25 per cent of
teenage girls aspire to be lap dancers and a massive 63 per cent say they
want to be glamour models rather than doctors, lawyers or social workers,
it was truly inspiring to see the great turnout for Reclaim the Night,
especially as the majority were young women and men.
The Edinburgh Feminist Network and the Edinburgh White Ribbon Group are
exciting developments and we in the SSP in the Lothians will continue
to support and work with both groups on many future events and campaigns.
n Check out the Facebook and My Space pages for Reclaim the Night.
White Ribbon Campaign
Hot off the press:
New ‘kerb crawling’ law answers just one side of the argument
by Jo Harvie
New legislation making kerb-crawling illegal in
It has never been an offence to buy sex in Scotland - the weight of the
law coming down solely on the seller - and the new legislation attempts
to redress that imbalance, criminalising those who seek to buy sex, or
‘loitering’ for the same purpose.
“It corrects an unfair legal position where only those engaged in prostitution
could be targeted, while the kerb-crawlers demanding their services -
often harassing the wider community in the process - get off scot free,”
said Justice Minister Kenny McAskill.
“Those who leave their comfortable homes to exploit the vulnerable women
on our streets, without a thought for the damage they do, will rightly
face the full force of the law.”
Reactions from groups working with women in prostitution have ranged from
cautious welcome to severe criticism.
Jan Macleod, of the Women’s Support Project, said, “It sends out the important
message that it is this demand to buy sex which is the root cause of prostitution.”
But she added that further preventative work was required to challenge
the demand from men.
Other groups, such as the Aberdeen Drugs Action team, have expressed concern
about the effect the new laws will have on women’s safety.
Senga McDonald, a co-ordinator of the team, said:
“The biggest fear here is the legislation will move the problem, making
it less visible and the women less easy to protect.
“It may take some people off the streets, but women will go where their
clients are, possibly leading to more dangerous practices in places where
there is a lack of high-profile policing and CCTV.”
The Scottish Socialist Party has supported the criminalisation of the
men who buy women’s bodies for sex, but further calls for the decriminalisation
of those who find themselves working in the sex industry.
“We see [prostitution] as sexual abuse perpetrated, primarily on the vulnerable,
in exchange for payment,” says SSP Executive Committee member Mhairi McAlpine.
“Ninety-five per cent of women working in street prostitution are addicted
to Class A drugs, the average age of entry into prostitution in the
“The current strategy - where the act of prostitution is legal, however
many of the aspects around it are illegal - is simply not working.
“Cornton Vale regularly houses women who were unable to pay the fines
associated with this activity, its twilight legal status means that physical
violence within prostitution is endemic and with minimal recourse to formal
justice procedures and the vulnerable nature of those engaged in the industry
mean that they are easy targets for extremely violent men.”
There are fears that the change in the law may exacerbate the already
manifold dangers faced by women working in prostitution, and women’s groups
need urgent funding to examine that possibility and counter it.
But it is impossible to make prostitution safe for women. Safety will
only be found in its eradication.
That end requires measures which confront the demand for prostitution
- including criminalisation - and help women find a way out of prostitution,
including much greater funding for services aimed at women in prostitution.
The SSP also calls for the controlled availability of heroin free on prescription
to registered addicts, which, considering such a huge percentage of women
are working on the streets to fund their or someone else’s habit, would
have a substantial impact on one of the main reasons women are vulnerable
enough to be exploited in this way.
page nine
A Middle Eastern soap opera
The Bubble, directed by Eyton Fox
by Liam Young
Shown as part of Glas-gay, The Bubble is
a gay love story set amidst the ongoing catastrophe that is the
This is a Romeo and Juliet for the
After a dramatic opening scene where a Palestinian woman goes into labour
at a military checkpoint, Naom returns home to Tel Aviv and his two flatmates,
Yali and Lulu.
Yali, who is also gay, manages a trendy café and comes out with some of
the funniest lines in the film, such as “Did you see any cute suicide bombers?”
Lulu is a female peace activist who enrols the others in organising a rave
against the occupation.
The thing all the characters have in common is their aspiration to lead
as fulfilling a life as possible by trying to escape the political conflict
that surrounds them. The title of the film refers to the term used by many
Israelis for Tel Aviv, a bubble that offers some protection from the violence
that pervades in the region.
Every so often, however, the bubble is burst. As director Eytan Fox says
of the youngsters in his stories, “these people are always part of a political
situation. It’s never just a story about young people’s lives because there
is no such thing here in
When Ashraf arrives in Tel Aviv to begin a relationship with Naom, Yali
gets him a job at his café. To pull this off Ashraf has to adopt a whole
new persona and play the part of a young Israeli, changing his clothes,
accent and name.
For a while things are going just fine in the little cocoon they have created
for themselves. But as the relationship between Ashraf and Naom develops
and deepens, so does Ashraf’s longing to share his happiness with his sister
back in
After an incident at the café Ashraf packs his bags and heads home. The
life of a gay man in a secular, liberal, middle class suburb of Tel Aviv
and that of one from a Hamas-controlled area of
This is a situation that gay men from working class communities will recognise
only too well. It is one thing to come out when you live in an open minded
environment, cushioned with financial or social mobility, it is quite another
if you are poor and trapped in a community that is not as forgiving of your
sexual orientation.
The conclusion to the story feels a bit contrived, with all the ills of
the
While needing to remind us of where the movie is set he maybe overdoes it
a little. But this doesn’t take away from the overall effect of the film
and the issues that the story raises.
by Mike Arnott,
Secretary,
It was attended by over 100 people, including relatives of the 16 volunteers
killed in
Having been involved in organising the ceremony, we recognised that there
was very little information on the city’s involvement with
Sources were sparse - just the names on the Dundee Memorial and interviews
with Tom Clarke and Frank McCusker in the book Voices from the Spanish Civil
War. There, Tom, frustratingly for us, numbered the Dundee dead at 17 and
gave the total from the city who fought in
Information from the International Brigade Memorial Trust identified 50
Dundee names, with their enlistment addresses and, for those who fell in
Most captivating were the individual stories starting to emerge: Tom Clarke
surviving a bullet in the head, later removed by a visiting dentist without
anaesthetic; William McDade, in his 40s, and formerly British Army, IRA
and French Foreign Legion; Arthur Nicoll carrying artillery shells from
a burning ammunition dump at Brunete.
On 4 April 1937, after the deaths of McGuire, Stalker and Tadden at Jarama,
an appeal was launched in Dundee to raise £300 for an ambulance for
“I hope the day is not far away when I shall be able to go and see his last
resting place. That day will be when his comrades have swept the Fascist
murderers out of
Within a week of the bombing of
Money was raised from unions, churches and civic groups. Dundee Dockers
organised a football match with the crew of a Spanish ship berthed in the
harbour. They raised £5.2s.7d at the gate, £1.12s via a collection, plus
a donation of £5.6s.11d from the crew’s wages.
In September 1937, a letter in the Courier appealed for accommodation for
the children and days later the paper announced “Basque Children Find Home
in Montrose - 25 Arrive This Week.”
They would be accommodated at Mall Park House, holiday home of the Dundee
Free Breakfast Mission. Of the 90 ‘colonies’ of Basque refugee children
established in the
As word of our project spread, Allan Craig contacted us from
After assistance from
We have also been contacted by locals who made childhood friendships with
Montrose’s Basque children. Some still keep in touch, after 70 years.
We hope to continue to jog memories and encourage investigation into Dundee
and the Spanish Civil War, so we can mark the International Brigade Memorial
Trust’s AGM in
n http://groups.msn.com/DundeeandtheSpanishCivilWar
The Wild Brunch
Keef Tomkinson
Keef casts his eye across life’s more leisurely pursuits in order to put a wee bit of CULTure into our lives.
Dear Scottish Socialist Voice,
There is a lack of quality war movies in
the cinema. And by quality I don’t mean no liberal pain-of-war-pain-in-the-ass
pish. I’m talking right vs wrong. Computer guided explosions vs 1970s Kalashnikovs.
Films with the spirit of Chuck, brawn of Arnie and bloodthirst of Rambo.
I wanted to go see that new one just out, Kingdom: Ray Charles vs The Arabs,
after its trailer tickled my fancy. That was until I was asked to pay £6.50
for the privilege. For the half the price I could buy a replica gun and
play in
However, laziness and cowardice are harsh mistresses. Instead TV and those
delightful three minutes of selling gave me an even better option. These
are no ordinary adverts. I’m talking about the Royal marine, navy and air
force genre. Have you seen them?
One has a south sea islander loudly celebrating shooting down a Brit helicopter
only for the camouflaged marines to pop up and chase him into the jungle.
Another has a soldier flying a remote control plane for reconnaissance purposes.
There is also something for the ladies. A recent one I saw had a lovely
looking heroine filing and clerking to the max so that the machine of war
and policing could continue unhindered. WAR-TASTIC! Not sure what the hinderer
was, maybe a hippy human rights group like the Red Cross.
However, all these teasing ads stop short of their climax adding, “This
film continues in the Royal Marines.”
Even though they have subscription details on screen, I could not wait for
the DVD so I went to the local army recruitment office. Sporting my best
trackie bottoms, Primark sweater and Puma pumps I buzzed and was let in.
“Morning, how can I help you?” said the burly squaddie.
“I’m here to see the end of one your films, preferably the helicopter one.
What’s showing?”
“Err, what???... oh, the adverts. Well I’m afraid that they aren’t... excuse
me have you got there?”
Looking to where he was pointing I answered. “Well, since I was going to
see a film I thought I would bring popcorn, a bottle of coke and some minstrels.
Do you have Pick ‘n’ Mix?”
He looked angry. “No I do NOT!!”
At that point a smart yet sensual smile came across his face. “I apologise
for my tone. If you sign this form you can get all the Pick ‘n’ Mix you
want.”
As you can guess it was a trick. Yes, I got the Pick ‘n’ Mix but there was
no film.
Rejected I watched and investigated the trailers during their regular appearances.
These were recruitment ads!
Each was asking young men and women to join the armed forces. Furthermore,
each was set in a foreign country. In each the local populace was being
hunted arrested, shepherded, and killed by said recruits, who were themselves
shown as injured and maybe fatally.
Why would anyone sign up to that? Everyone must see past the gimmicky effects
to the illegal warzones this job will take you. Fuck the queen’s army and
fuck the queen.
Anyway I must be getting back to the shooting range.
Love,
3rd Private Keef Tomkinson
Aldershot Barracks. BFPO 13.
Readers Note: Since the Voice received this letter Keef was discharged after he informed his CO that he was black.
page ten
Nobel prize winners head appeal for release of Cuban 5
by Voice Reporter
Campaigners for the release of the Miami
Five who are imprisoned in the
The new appeal has been signed by more than 245 public figures, including
Nobel Literature Prize winners Wole Soyinka of Nigeria and Nadine Gordimer
of South Africa; Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel of Argentina;
and Nobel Physics Prize winner Zhores Alfiorov of Russia, along with artists
and intellectuals, including 20 who are outstanding in US political and
cultural life.
“We add our voices to those of all people in the world who are demanding
an immediate end to this enormous injustice,” the appeal states.
“We must not give up our undertaking until the truth is heard and these
men return to their country and their families.”
The Five have, says the appeal, “remained isolated in maximum security prisons
under cruel conditions of imprisonment, in violation of their human rights
and US law itself.”
The entire legal process took place initially in
The imprisonment of the Five, who helped to monitor acts of terrorism organised
against
An appeal in the Court of Appeals in
Relatives of the Five are urging the international press to circulate the
call and asked for members of the public to break the wall of by writing
solidarity letters to them.
n Get the full story of the imprisonment of the Cuban Five at www.freethefive.org
Write to the Five at the following addresses:
Antonio Guerrero Rodríguez
# 58741-004, USP
South Florence,
Fernando González Llort (
Rubén Campa )
(the envelope should say Rubén Campa, but the letter
itself may be addressed to Fernando)
Rubén Campa, # 58733-004, FCI Terre Haute, PO Box 33, Terre Haute, IN 47808
Gerardo Hernández Nordelo. (Manuel Viramontes)
# 58739-004, USP Victorville,
CA 92394
Ramon Labiño Salazar (Luis Medina)
(the envelope should say Luis Medina, but the letter
itself may be addressed to Ramon)
Luis Medina, # 58734-004, USP Beaumont,
René Gonzalez Sechweret
# 58738-004, FCI Marianna,
Amnesty highlights jailed Iranian union leader’s medical Dire straits
Mansour Osanloo, the jailed leader of the
bus workers’ union in
Amnesty International has launched an online campaign calling on the Iranian
government to allow Osanloo to receive medical attention.
They are urging the maximum pressure on the Iranian government to make them
aware that the world is watching.
The International Transport Workers Federation (ITF), which has spearheaded
the international campaign in defence of Osanloo, has now produced a short
film entitled Freedom Will Come which tells his story.
It can be viewed online on YouTube, and will shortly be available as a DVD
as well.
STRIKE BIKE WORKERS win their incredible battle to keep jobs
by Ken Ferguson
Workers at the Thuringian Nordhausen bicycle
plant in the former German Democratic Republic are occupying their factory
and have restarted production under workers control.
The former Birias factory has, like much of GDR industry, been gobbled
up by Western capitalists interested only in profit and asset stripping.
In this case the new owners are from George W Bush’s
The Birias enterprise originally consisted of two plants - one at Nordhausen
and the other at Neukirch - but the latter was closed by the
Earlier this year it became clear that Lone Star intended that the Nordhausen
factory should go the way of the closed Neukirch plant and that the workers
would be thrown on the scrap heap.
However, despite failed appeals to their union the giant IG Metal and
local politicians the workers decided to fight the bosses’ plans and,
in July, occupied the factory.
Establishment politicians preaching the fashionable ‘market knows best’
gospel, backed by a pliant media, ridiculed the suggestion.
Occupation
But the occupation continues backed by all 135 workers - the
entire workforce - who control the plant and equipment with the result
that bosses have been unable to remove a single piece of machinery.
Support for the workers has snowballed from across
Then, in an echo of the famous UCS work-in 30 years ago, the workers decided
to restart production under workers control.
Help was offered by a local solicitor who took on the task of giving potential
buyers a money-back guarantee in case of failure, while backing also came
from small independent manufacturer Radspannerei Berlin/Kreuzberg and
the small business collective, Cafe Libertad, in
In order restart bike production on the smallest possible scale and for
a short period, the factory needed orders for around 1,800 bikes - all
of them paid up front.
Shop steward Manuela Fischer’s announcement on September 20 that the Nordhausen
workers had just 12 days to find their 1,800 customers sparked another
bout of establishment sneering.
But events proved them wrong.
Support
A massive wave of support swept through
Environmentalists, couriers, bike shops and workers from other factories
placed their orders and a local communist bought bikes to ship to
Tension was high as the deadline for the highly ambitious 1,800 bike target
loomed, but jubilant workers announced that it had in fact been met at
4.30pm on the final day.
Manuela Fischer summed up the workers’ view saying:
“During the last two months, we have learned who is on our side and who
isn’t.
“We are totally overwhelmed by the people’s response.
“We will have to find investors, but, at the moment, we here at the works
control what’s going to happen!”
The Strike-Bike costs 275 Euros. The advertising flyer describes the “28-inch
wheel ladies’ and gents’ bike, stainless steel spokes, hub dynamo in front
wheel, three-speed, steel mudguards painted in the same colour as frame.
Only colour available: RED!”
n To get in contact with the staff email fahrradwerk@gmx.de
To put your name on the waiting list to order a Strike Bike, see www.strike-bike.de
Maoists walk out as talks fail to agree timetable for republic
by Ken Ferguson
The political crisis in
Wedged between
The Maoists fought for ten years to overthrow the monarchy, and ended
their armed struggle under a peace accord last year and joined an interim
government.
They quit the Cabinet last month after other parties in the coalition
refused to immediately declare a republic and adopt a new voting system.
Elections scheduled for 22 November have been postponed indefinitely and
a special session of Parliament to debate the issue was adjourned.
The elections were to be for a National Assembly that would draw up a
new constitution for the nation of 28million people and decide the fate
of the monarchy, currently headed by King Gyanendra.
Peace and reconstruction minister Ram Chandra Poudel, who is also deputy
leader of the country’s biggest party, Nepali Congress, bluntly told reporters
“Nothing remains to be talked about,” and warned of a deepening crisis.
The Maoists say a republic must be declared immediately because supporters
of the monarchy could undermine the election.
Ishwor Pokhrel of the Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist),
which is a member of the coalition government, said the search continues
to find middle ground between Nepali Congress and the Maoists.
The Maoists’ demands aren’t unreasonable because they reflect the people’s
wishes, he said, but added that the way they want to achieve them isn’t
appropriate.
Maoist leader Puspa Kamal Dahal, also known as Prachanda, has threatened
to pull out of the seven-party alliance formed under the peace process
and seek a change of government unless the rebel demands are met.
The
More than 13,000 people were killed in
page twelve
Support the Day care Workers
by Richie Venton, SSP
“
So said Alison Kelly, secretary of the UNISON
Day Care stewards’ committee, as yet another group of workers fought back against
downgrading, pay cuts, job cuts and general contempt for the skills they possess
from the cost-saving Glasgow Labour city council.
The council’s fatally flawed Job Evaluation scheme means these professional
carers face pay cuts from £3-6,000, as they are dumped in far too low a ‘Role
Profile’ for the complex skills and years of experience they have in dealing
with the most vulnerable disabled people in the city.
As over 260 staff in the 12 Day Care Centres launched their indefinite strike,
they had heavy hearts, deep concern for the consequences for the Service Users,
but a resolve to win recognition of the professional, intensely caring jobs
they do. And they were left with no alternative but united strike action. To
lie down and accept these pay cuts would only guarantee the wider cuts to the
service being promoted by the council, whereas to fight back and win would be
a way of blocking cuts, closures and a brutal assault on services already in
motion.
New Labour has reinvented the English language to justify this crucifying cut
to workers’ wages. They call it ‘modernisation’ - but they mean these wage cuts,
and a ‘re-design’ of the service involving 50 job losses, closure of seven out
of the 12 Day Care Centres, and general downgrading of the workers’ jobs and
pay. And in recent times the Council’s uncaring attitude has been revealed in
their removal of the £1 a week allowance previously given to the disabled, and
the cuts to bus services that has meant many disabled people spending from 8am
until 10.30am on buses just to get to their Day Centre.
The city council put up a ‘hardman’ image at the start of the strike, telling
UNISON officers that they won’t meet them for about six weeks - whilst spinning
in the press that they want talks and await an approach from the union! They
wanted to scare the living daylights out of the strikers, but they have seriously
under-estimated these workers, who they probably thought would never carry out
the threat of strike action, but who in fact have been absolutely solid in their
response to the strike.
On the opening day of their action, well over 250 strikers, disabled service
users, their carers and parents marched through
Glasgow city centre, whistles blasting, home-made placards
aloft, lorries and cars tooting their solidarity, in one of the most vibrant
demos to hit Glasgow City Chambers for years. Councillors and chief executives
were left in no doubt about the determination of these people to stop their
savage cuts. “We care - our employers don’t - no pay cuts” was one of the many
banners created and carried by strikers.
Pickets have been greeted with enthusiastic support from other workers, who
have refused to cross for deliveries. At Shettleston Day Care Centre the binmen
refused to go in to collect rubbish after speaking to the pickets, despite their
managers being sent down to the building. Posties driving vans past have heartened
pickets with their support, as have other van drivers, people going past in
cars, and pedestrians giving to impromptu bucket collections.
A worker picketing in Maryhill explained to me why she’s striking. “It’s the
contempt from the council, the lack of recognition for the job we do, the failure
to put us in the proper Role Profile, and the pay cuts. We are not out for gain,
for extra money - but only to protect the salaries we already work hard for.
The council can’t have it both ways. The Role Profile they’ve put us into excludes
half the duties we already carry out. They want a re-design of the service -
but that would not start until 2009. Most of the duties they want the proposed
new super-duper Enhanced Day Service Workers to do are ones we already do. Yet
they want to cut our salaries by £3-6,000 here and now for the jobs we already
carry out, long before this reformed service is in place.”
Another striker, from the east end of the city, had this to say: “This strike
is about equality - that’s what the council’s Pay and Benefits Review was supposed
to do. That should apply to the whole workforce, not just some of it.
As a worker we know things change in any job, and we are open to change. But
we are not being allowed to have an input to plans for re-designing the service
- it’s the council telling us, dictating. None of us are negative about going
forward, so long as it’s discussed with the workers, carers and service users
- it’s their service and they’re the ones who should dictate what they need
and want.”
The strike involves Day Service Workers, Support Workers, Managers and Deputes.
One of the Support Workers on the picket told me, “I am striking in support
of my colleagues, the Day Service Workers. When I joined the service we were
told we’d be put through our SVQ2, but now that’s being abandoned. And if the
re-design that the council wants goes through, we would be expected to do most
of the duties the Day Service grades do right now, but not on their current
pay - there’d be no career prospects for us..”
Pickets from across the whole city commonly use one short phrase to explain
the issues behind the strike: “It’s all about the council saving money”.
And contrary to what the Labour council spin-doctors try to convey, workers
are already facing detriment. A woman went for a mortgage and her future income
- with the wage cut - is what the building society based her application on.
And these workers’ pensions will be damaged by the reduced pay they face under
the Role Profiles they’ve been allocated.
The Scottish Socialist Party has already played a big part in building support
for the strikers’ cause. We held a big public meeting in
We went on to hold a very successful street meeting and collection the Saturday
before the strike, raising funds for both sets of strikers. And on the first
day of the strike we held a lively SSP public meeting, well attended by strikers,
carers and disabled service users. We warned of the potential for council divide-and-conquer
tactics, aimed at vilifying strikers for being ‘heartless’, aimed at splitting
them from carers and parents. Those at the meeting saw those dangers and resolved
to counter them in advance by holding joint activity to publicise and win support
for the strike, with a major street leafleting and collection to start with.
As one of the parents there with her disabled child told the meeting:
“Day Care centres are a good idea and should not be shut down. Some of these
people have been going there together from school days, and they are aged from
18 to 60, so splitting them apart by having only a few centres would be terrible.”
Another carer added, “It’s all about money. The council don’t think about the
service users.”
Mary McArthur, a parent there with her daughter, told us, “I am sick of being
fobbed off by the council leader [Steven Purcell]. When I rang him he said I
know more about the plans for the service than he does!
The council took the £1 allowance off disabled people and yet they still have
them out painting fences and gardening. Is that work in the community, or slave
labour?”
Unity in action is vitally important to winning a swift victory for the workers
against pay cuts and job cuts - as well as defending the service to the disabled
and their carers. Joint meetings, joint street leafleting, joint collections,
and joint lobbies and demos aimed at giving the ruling Labour councillors a
roasting are all important parts of what’s needed or planned. And trade unionists
in other council departments, as well as other non-council workplaces, should
rise to the challenge of helping to fund their fight through union donations
and workplace collections.
Underlying this wage-cutting exercise and the planned cuts to services to the
most vulnerable, disabled people in our communities is the spineless inability
of the Labour council to find for funding off the Scottish government to maintain
and improve services whilst meeting their legal obligations to implement equal
pay, without a single penny off the pay of any worker.
Instead, as Alison Kelly said, they are robbing the poor to pay the poor.
The strike raises the wider issue of why UNISON and other unions should break
their link with New Labour. Handing over members’ money to the party of council
service cuts, wage cuts, job cuts and privatisation is like giving petrol money
to an arsonist to torch your house.
In contrast, the Scottish Socialist Party has no hesitation in standing up for
the rights of workers, disabled service users and the wider communities who
depend on the experience, training and professionalism of these caring workers.