Sectariana on a Sunday

In the "dark days" before the advent of the Internet if you wanted to read the publications of the left a trip to either a left wing book shop (like Colletts in Charing Cross road) or turn up on some demo or picket was the only way to get copies of these fine items.

There used to be a fine variety of newspapers "thoeretical" journals and the like including Socialist Worker and The Militant, but these were boring and tedious publications. Much more fun reading was to be found in Red Weekly/Socialist Challenge (International Marxist Group), Socialist Press (Workers Socialist League) Workers Press/News Line (Workers Revolutionary Party) and the utterly hysterical Spartacist (Spartacist League)

Socialist Worker is about the only left publication still around from my misspent youth, the rest have all disappeared or as in the case of Militant morphed into a smaller boring paper known as The Socialist.

Of course you could take out a subscription, but as both myself and others soon found out, this usually meant unwanted visitors knocking at yer door wanting to recruit you or in the case of the Workers Revolutionary Party drain you of what little money was in your pocket. For the cause of course comrade......

Now of course all these publications can be found on-line at the click of a button or two.

One such publication that I was aware of but do not actually recall reading until now was The Chartist, a "tendency" if I recall correctly produce the group around Graham Bash that became Labour Briefing in the eighties. My attention was drawn to this publication as the result of it having an AGM reported on Tendance Coatsey. I was quite amused by Coatsey's comments on the Scottish Referendum debate that:

From the audience concern was expressed at moves to separate people on national grounds. It was also pointed out by another Chartist supporter that the mover of the resolution’s own party, Left Unity, did not endorse these views, that Chartist is not a directly campaigning group with a ‘line’ and that it was said that Alex Salmond was so vain that he drank his own bath water. We might guess who made the latter comments.

Meanwhile the main source of gossip and (mis)information (depending on your point of view) is  of course the Weekly Worker which treats us to an inside report on the goings on of the newly founded Left Unity party. Yassamine Mather introduces readers to the latest problem of the LUs National Council:

According to the constitution passed in November 2013, this council should meet at least four times a year to lead and manage the organisational and financial affairs of the party between national conferences. The same constitution stipulates that this council should consist of 66 elected members: 50 regional representatives, the four nationally elected principal speakers and 15 nationally elected council members, the six elected office-holders, and one representative from each of the following sections: youth/students, LGBT, Black and Minority Ethnic, disabled members and women.

It is difficult to imagine how the comrades who drafted the constitution expected a committee of 66 members to lead and manage organisational and financial affairs once every three months, and inevitably a number of key decisions have to be made by sub-committees. There will also be an executive committee, made up of the office-holders and 10 regional representatives, which will be responsible for taking decisions in the three months between NC meetings......

We are then told that:

The meeting started with some confusion about standing orders. Can the meeting accept emergency motions? How many signatures are necessary for such motions? It was decided to take only those motions that were already on the agenda, but standing orders would be drawn up for future NC meetings.

Oh well the revolution can wait until the standing orders are sorted out. 

Or should that be when the Pub Closes........

Nothing changes does it?

Except for one thing. Back in the day people with really strange ideas were limited to scribbling in green ink up in their bedrooms until mum called them down for tea.

Now a lot of these people have blogs.

But that's another story.....