Reading the Left Press so you don't have to!

The Socialist Workers Party rag makes much of the planned anti-racism march in Central London next weekend and bleat on about fighting Zionism in no less than two articles which propagate the destruction of the Jewish state. Not a word about Asia Bibi, the Christian being threatened with death by mobs of Islamists in Pakistan.

Nothing in it for them. No Jews and despite their failure in the Islamophile Respect Party with Gorgeous George still don't want to stand up against any injustice committed by Muslims. It's racist apparently. Tell that to poor Asia and her family hiding from the savages baying for her neck and have undermined the newly elected government.

Pitiful rag frankly.



The Socialist Party also fail to comment on Asia Bibi's plight and a quick look at their version of the Fourth International known as the Committee for a Workers International (CWI) shows their section in Pakistan seems to have disappeared. A link does appear in their Indian sections web-page but the site you get referred to seems pretty much defunct. Must have been a split since I do know they used to have a Pakistani section.

Still on the good side Mrs Peter Taffe the Socialist Party General Secretary for life, Nancy, seems to have led a campaign to save some trees in a public square in East London from developers. Well done that woman!

Meanwhile their campaign priority is to save the political neck and wages of Chris Baugh the beleaguered Assistant General Secretary of PCS. Their latest update states:

Chris and Marion both received eight nominations and the number of votes for Chris Baugh and Janice Godrich were very close. This shows that the election is neck and neck, with everything to play for. In the London Left Unity nomination meeting for example, Chris got 18 votes and Janice got eight. The latest article by Janice Godrich's supporters gives a misleading impression about the nominations for Janice. What it doesn't say is that, unfortunately, there were insufficient members in two of the Left Unity regional groups for a nomination to be accepted according to the rules.



The smaller half of the old Militant Tendency does have a section in Pakistan  Lal Salaam/The Struggle) so I headed over to their site to have a butchers at whether they are fighting for justice for Asia Bibi. Of course the majority of their stuff wasn't in English but looking at the photos on their main stories it doesn't seem to have been tackled.

To be fair given they are in Pakistan surrounded by dangerous extremists (well even more extreme than them) it might be suicidal to sell papers with the headline Free Asia Bibi. Trouble is their "parent organisation" in the UK, Socialist Appeal has no such excuse. And no comment on the issue either.

Socialist Appeal does have time to comment on the sectarian dispute in PCS even though they have a negligible presence in the union. They write:

While Janice has striven for a united left leadership, Chris Baugh’s supporters, including the Socialist Party, have attempted to paint the union leadership as a “bureaucracy”.

This began as a whispering campaign but has now become centre stage. One of Baugh’s leading supporters, Marion Lloyd, insists that “the issues are clear”, before going on to state that “a vote for Chris Baugh is a vote for lay power. Anything else is a vote for the bureaucracy.”

But where is the evidence for this so-called bureaucratism? Not a single example has ever been given.

The idea that Janice Godrich is the embodiment of “bureaucracy” is laughable. Janice has always fought hard for lay democracy in the union. The record of PCS internal democracy outweighs all others. Significantly, Janice is also standing on the promise that, if elected, she will only take home a workers’ wage - hardly a pointer to bureaucracy or careerism!

In fact, it is Chris Baugh who refuses to make such a commitment, simply promising to make “donations”. Given the fact that the AGS wage is £94,000, this is not a secondary question.

The Socialist Party (SP), which Chris Baugh is part of, has turned a blind eye to this, despite formally supporting the idea of a workers’ wage for all officials.

The latter part is quite true. Baugh does indeed take the full salary and always has. Whether Janice will actually keep her promise (Mark Serwotka never has!) remains to be seen. I'm sure the comrades will be checking the unions financial records... with a fine tooth comb.

It's actually quite laughable to argue over the existence of a bureaucratic union. Having come up against the machine I can assure you it has been in place for years and both sets of Trots have been and are responsible. 

Oh and they say that Janice and the "Socilist View" slate is "streets ahead" of the Socialist Party but then they would wouldn't they? Actually I supect this may be true. From what I see and hear the Socialist Party appear to be being sidelined. 

It's all "smoke and mirrors" from both sides. Enough to make you want the Independent Left to win. They have yet to declare their candidate preferring to watch the Left Unity tent tear itself a new one as they say!

Finally for now of course is Solidarity, paper of the Alliance for Workers Liberty. One of the smaller but quite visible trot groups inside the Labour Party. Older readers of course will remember them as Socialist Organiser which was proscribed by the Labour Party in the early nineties.

Of all the left groups they are the only ones to take anti-Semitism seriously and consider themselves "a little bit Zionist" which resulted in the CPGB (Weekly Worker) to describe the group as "social imperialists". No me neither.

The big issue for them this week is the Irish Struggle and the Limerick Soveiet and in advance of a debate between their guru Seam Matgamna and Rayner Lysaght in London tomorrow night they have published several pages of interviews with the pair in their paper. And no I haven't read it. I purchased a book on the subject many, many years ago and it is quite rightly collecting dust at the bottom of a bookshelf.

So if you really haven't got any paint to watch dry tomorrow night then pop over to the London Welsh centre in Grays Inn Road on Friday 9th November 7:30 start so time to anaesthetise yourself in a nearby pub before hand.

And then again on Saturday 10th in the East End...... Busy weekend for a small group.