End Compulsory Worship

Did you know the UK is the only state in the world to impose Christian worship in all state schools?

You’ll hopefully have heard about our new legal case to challenge this – it’s featured on this morning’s Today programme, BBC News Online, and all the major newspapers. Now we have a special request… will you sign our petition calling for inclusive school assemblies for all children?

Current law requires all state-funded schools to conduct daily acts of ‘worship’. Even where the school is not religious, this ‘worship’ still must be Christian. This is clearly wrong and needs to change.

Non-religious pupils are forced to spend prolonged periods of the school day without meaningful educational activity – simply because they do not hold Christian beliefs.

We're calling on the Government to end compulsory worship and require all schools to conduct inclusive assemblies, promoting the development of all pupils equally, regardless of their backgrounds.

Tell the Government: replace compulsory worship with inclusive assemblies for all. Sign the petition →

Free West Papua Campaign Picket of Indonesian Embassy!

Rally for Referendum! We reject the Act of free choice!

Indonesian Embassy 

(30 Great St Peter Street, London SW1 2BU)

Friday from 16:00-18:00

*** 50 years since the Act of free Choice ***

Indonesia's argument that West Papuan people are too primitive to vote in a referendum on independence is "untenable" - International lawyers for West Papua (ILWP)
August 2nd, 2019, anniversary of the Act of free Choice.

https://www.ilwp.org/…/West_Papua_and_the_right_to_self-det…

Before the 1969 Act of free choice, on the question of universal adult suffrage the United Nations representative advised Indonesia that he: "could suggest no other method for this delicate political exercise than the democratic, orthodox and universally accepted method of “one man one vote.”

Indonesia argued this was not possible because: "In West Papua there exists, as is generally known, one of the most primitive and underdeveloped communities in the world."

Indonesia’s argument is untenable. International law does not permit a State to use primitiveness as a reason for preventing dependent peoples from deciding their future.

That principle was established as early as 1946 when South Africa attempted to integrate South West Africa (now Namibia). Integration was to take place on the basis of a tribal referendum in which the chief gave the decision of his tribe to a native commissioner appointed by the Government of South Africa. Individual Africans were not allowed to vote.

The General Assembly refused to accept that South West Africa could be incorporated into South Africa.

If the people were “too primitive” to take part in the self-determination exercise, they were also “too primitive” to understand the nature of the change being proposed. The General Assembly refused to approve the integration on the grounds that no valid decision could be made until the people of South West Africa were sufficiently advanced to understand the meaning of incorporating their territory into South Africa.

Resolution 1541(XV) was further evidence of a legal principle that dependent peoples should be protected against integration until they could make a valid choice on the basis of universal adult suffrage.

Indonesia’s argument that the Papuans were too primitive for universal adult suffrage does not make the act of free choice legitimate, but reinforces the fact that both the process and the result were invalid.

In reality there was no evidence in 1969, that the Papuan peoples were any less competent than other peoples to decide their future. Between 1959 and 1961 when the colony was still under Dutch administration, West Papuans voted directly for regional councils. In December 1968, the General Assembly, including Indonesia, reaffirmed the inalienable right of the peoples of Papua New Guinea to self-determination, and called upon Australia, the administering power, to: "hold free elections under United Nations supervision on the basis of universal adult suffrage in order to transfer effective power to the representatives of the people of the Territories.

If universal adult suffrage was possible for Papua New Guinea, how it could be legitimately denied to West Papuans who were essentially the same peoples living on the same island and separated only because of a border created by the colonial powers?

More info: www.freewestpapua.org 

New Music: Ian Gillan, "Contractual Obligation #2"

Just arrived this morning courtesy of Aunty Amazon is this terrific two CD collection of rock music from former Deep Purple front-man Ian Gillan. It comes of the heels of Deep Purple Live in Newcastle which I picked up a couple of weeks ago.

This is a live recording with The Don Airey Band and Orchestra recorded in Warsaw back in 2016. Can't fault the performance or production.

This is music, Rock Music! Enjoy!

Summer Sci Fi

Having sat down and worked out my Summer Reading as blogged a few days ago I thought a quick look at what science fiction was worth both watching and listening to. I had recently competed season one of Star Trek: Discovery which got a thumbs up from both me and the missus so I picked up the remake of Lost In Space Box Set whilst wandering around Sainsbury's.

We're just three episodes in and this isn't the stable patriarchal family from the sixties that despite everything we loved. The Robinson's are separated, Will is a wimp who has bonded with this alien robot (the only thing it has said so far is "Danger Will Robinson" but there the similarity with the old robot end.

Even Dr Smith, who isn't actually Dr Smith has changed. Still a selfish bastard but this time a woman. However with the dysfunctional family and a little hope the Robinsons will survive. Things are quite different and this takes the show to new levels.

If you loved the remake of Battlestar Galactica you will probably like this show, though it's only a "12" so aimed at a teen audience whilst the remake of BSG was far more adult.



Next up is something a little different. For the last twenty years a company called Big Finish have been making audio episodes of Doctor Who featuring the actors from the series. In the time when there was no Doctor on TV I devoured them then it came back and I stopped. Wish I hadn't now.

Having picked up a few Tom Baker episodes with Daleks, Cybermen and Sontarans I quickly delved into a box set of Missy, the Masters female incarnation. Great stuff which I featured in a Sunday Supplement a while back.  There's plenty of material out there including adventures featuring Paul McGann who shows he could have been a great Doctor if given the chance. These episodes fill in for the missing incarnation.

In this vein I picked up the Lucie Miller box set which features Sheridan Smith as the Doctor's companion. Four great stories that turn out to have a link with an old enemy of the Doctor long thought dead.

I have a large collection of these adventures including the spins off including three series of Dalek Wars, the origin of Davros, the Cybermen and even David Tennant with Catherine Tate which was in a sale recently.

Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy feature regularly with a variety of companions both new and old. Sadly Matt Smith is missing but perhaps one day. The stories vary like the show did. Most are good to excellent, some are downright weird and some didn't impress, but there's plenty to choose from.

Act Now!: Kazakhstan: Erlan Baltabay sentenced to 7 years in prison for union activity

Repression and violent physical attacks against leaders and activists of the independent trade unions in Kazakhstan continue unabated. On July 17, 2019 Erlan Baltabay, the leader of Industrial Trade Union of the Fuel and Energy workers “Decent work” was sentenced to 7 years in prison as well as to a 7-year ban on conducting any public activity.

The trade union which he led was dissolved by the court decision amid a broader crackdown on independent trade union activity. The criminal proceedings against Erlan Baltabay were opened on September 25, 2018 in retaliation for his trade union activism and principled position in support of other leaders of the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions of Kazakhstan (KNPRK) condemned to different limitations of their freedoms. These criminal proceedings, as well as those against KNPRK’s leaders Larisa Kharkova, Amin Eleusinov and Nurbek Kushakbaev, aimed to silence activists of independent trade unions and prevent others from taking an active role in demanding freedom of association in the country.

We need your support! Please, join us in calling upon the Kazakh authorities to put an end to persecution and violence against independent trade union leaders, and to ensure freedom and safety for trade union activists in the country.

Please send a protest! Go to:  http://www.labourstart.org/go/erlan

Eric Lee

Militant Tendency splits both in the UK and internationally...again

"When Alice nibbles the cakes, she suddenly shrinks down again. ... The Caterpillar crawls away into the grass, telling Alice that one side of the mushroom will make her taller and the other side will make her shorter. She breaks off two pieces from the mushroom."

When the Militant Tendency (now known as the Socialist Party of England and Wales) was operating deep inside the Labour it was said that members found themselves operating in ever decreasing circles of people until they finally reached the central committee. Or something to that effect as the organisation was hidden in open view.

Once the largest and most influential Trotskyist group in the UK with a small but growing number of subordinate organisations around the world their leadership was once able to hold a rally of some 8,000 people in the Royal Albert Hall. They had control of the Labour Party Young Socialists (Labour's youth wing) control of Liverpool council, a base in several major unions and three of their members had found their way into parliament as MP's. Heady days indeed.

Then came their expulsion as Neil Kinnock condemned the Militant for using taxi's to deliver redundancy notices to sack council workers in Liverpool. The organisation was proscribed. It's paper sellers identified as members. Indeed Militant had more full paid staff than the labour Party.

From that moment on the organisations membership and influence went into permanent decline losing many leading cadres to the Scottish Socialist Party and even managed of all things to lose it's founder in an acrimonious split with their general Secretary for life Peter Taaffe.

Ted Grant insisted on keeping his faction inside the Labour Party despite his own expulsion and so Socialist Appeal was born. It's still there with some two to three hundred or so adherents whilst Peter Taaffe has continued to be careless with his own troops.



The first sign of trouble, at least in public was their massive loss of leading trade unionists in the largest of the civil service unions the PCS. The purge of Militant/SPEW in PCS turned into a rout as they were left with just two NEC members and their supporters were quietly removed from office wherever they continued to be loyal to the party.

Then there came the news of the spread of "Mandelism" inside their version of the Fourth International know by the label Committee for a Workers International.  Ernest Mandel of course was a leader of a rival Trotskyist International until his death and his followers organised in the International Marxist Group/Socialist League now defunct and scattered to the winds.

Mandel urged his supporters to join the social and later environmental movements. These included the Feminists and Gays seen as "petty bourgeois" by many hard-line Marxists including Peter Taffe the leader of Militant/SPEW. The decision of Irish, Spanish and other sections of his "international" to go down this road led to horror of horrors Taffe being in a minority within his own organisation.



In a typical and very bureaucratic fashion the nine sections supporting Taffe managed to expel the other 31 who did not. The Socialist Party then went on to make this extraordinary claim on their website:

In the view of the Socialist Party, and the majority of CWI members internationally, it is vital to defend the CWI's historic approach to these issues in order for our international to be able to play a role in the struggle for socialism in the coming period.

The SPEW leadership have acted against any supporters of the international opposition by banning them from even meeting on pain of expulsion. 

Meanwhile at a special conference of their sect:

On Sunday 21 July over 200 delegates at a special conference of the Socialist Party (England/Wales) voted overwhelmingly, 173 - 35 with 0 abstentions, to sponsor an international conference to reconstitute the Committee for a Workers' International (CWI - the international organisation of which the Socialist Party is part).

There have been a number of expulsions though their supporters deny these are expulsions people are just "excluding themselves" despite Nancy Taaffe's edict that supporters of the opposition were not welcome at SPEW Branch meetings.

Already a over hundred former SPEW members have rallied to "reestablish" what they call the CWI, whilst the Taaffites "reconstitute" theirs. Two CWI's plus their founders International Marxist Tendency (IMT). No less than three rallying points to confuse the workers of the world. 

Gawd help us!

Prog music on the rise again?

Other than politics and of course comics (for which I have a separate blog which will come out of hiatus shortly) regular readers will know that I have an interest in music.  Like many of my generation I was brought up in the age of Led Zeppelin, Yes, Pink Floyd, Genesis, King Crimson and so many more great bands that forever influenced my musical tastes.

Of course other genres did appeal and the Glam Rock scene produced some good stuff as well as some bad. Slade, T Rex, The Sweet even Mud had their moments, some more than others. The first single I ever purchased was In My Own Time by Family and the first album All Together Now from Argent. Two great bands that are often overlooked these days.

Some bands like Mott The Hoople managed to transform from Prog Rock to Glam Rock in their case courtesy of David Bowie who wrote their first real hit, All The Young Dudes which led to a string of singles and albums in the charts.

Of course music moves on and there are some good new bands out there especially in Europe where the Finns have produced Battle Beast and Nightwish, Sweden has Ghost, Holland has Within Temptation and Rotting Christ hails from Greece. There are far more.

Then there's the All-Girl Rock/Metal scene in Japan. Bands like Aldious, Lovebites, Baby Metal, Scandal and Mary's Blood are proving more than a match for the boys and are beginning to get an audience in both the UK and America

Most these bands have had their music played on this blog or my Facebook page (not all posts are public sorry) and I listen to my old favourites and new music on both Planet Rock and Radio Caroline.

However this month sees the publication of the 100th issue of Prog magazine something I don't normally buy but this is a landmark publication that demonstrates that both Prog Rock both new and old have an audience both young and old.

It comes packaged with a CD of new stuff which is playing as I type this article and a huge Jethro Tull Supplement.  The music is good and I hadn't heard of half of the bands here so with the help of Uncle You Tube I'm going to be exploring this new phenomenon.

I'll be back over the summer months with sounds both old and new to share. I suppose I'll continue with the political comment in between.........

Labour staff walk out, GMB Motion and Jewish Community Leadership respond to the Shadow Cabinet

The crisis faced by the Labour Party, anti-Semitism and it's treatment of staff never seems to end. Politics today reported that Labour Staff walked when their new boss arrived:

The protest took place on Jules Rutherford’s first day as Labour’s new head of membership on Wednesday.

Politics Home revealed how Ms Rutherford had retweeted a post which claimed anti-semitism allegations were "smears against the party leader".

Shortly after Labour were contacted about it, Ms Rutherford's Twitter account was deleted.

It is understood that her appointment caused anger among staff in Labour's Newcastle office, where the party's membership department is based.

A Labour source said: "On her first day, she went around desks meeting colleagues - only they all walked out of the office because they didn’t want to meet her."

One member of staff did remain in the office, but only to challenge Ms Rutherford on her views on anti-semitism and to ask why she had retweeted the "smear" video.

A Labour spokesperson refused to comment.

It seems Labour like the Socialist Party (see post below) treat their employees with disdain. At least the Labour staff belong to a trade union. They obviously need one. Their Branch passed the following motion as reported by Politics Home previously:

"Anti-semitism is a cancer which will spread if given the freedom to do so. It should be condemned and challenged wherever it rears its head

"Whistleblowers do so at enormous personal risk and should be commended and supported, never attacked – particularly not by the Labour Party

"All employees or former employees, regardless of the organisation, should be free to act as whistleblowers without obscene threats of legal action."

It "condemned the Labour Party’s official response to the Panorama programme and the attacks on former staff who we have found to be committed, principled and honest".

The motion went on to "demand that the Labour Party apologises to former colleagues for the attacks launched on them by both the Labour Party officially and approved “outriders” over the Panorama programme which highlighted the problem of anti-semitism within the Labour Party".

Meanwhile the Jewish Leadership Council writes:

Labour Against Anti-Semitism responded with the following statement:

Socialist Party witholding their staff's wages?

The Socialist Party is facing a major split in it's Committee for a Workers International (CWI) due to a couple of their sections undertaking activities that involve things like women's rights.  Their small but surprisingly successful Irish section along with groups in Spain & Greece plus some others may see themselves expelled very shortly.

At the heart of the dispute is the vexed question of "Mandelism" (a reference to a deceased leader of the main Fourth International) which in this case means that Peter Taffe has accused his opponents of dropping workers rights in favour of petty bourgeois issue. The workers must always come first except when they work for the Socialist Party itself.

Of course the internal conflict has reached these shores as a small faction are now looking to be expelled by edict on Monday. Thing is several of their full time workers will be included in this forthcoming purge. 

Surprisingly or not the SP staff do not belong to a trade union and are now faced with the situation that their wages are being withheld.  Imagine what their newspaper would say about any employer who withheld wages before they sacked. Yet in this factional struggle their own staff are treated in this way.

I have no idea how much these people earn but in the old days of Militant their full timers got £50 on top of their state benefits.

Meanwhile in this weeks paper of the Socialist Party one of their members Jeremy Davidson writes:

....employees often get bullied by the incompetent management which chooses to blame the workers instead of taking responsibility for its countless mistakes.

We are employed in precarious working environments with no union recognition: in the hospitality sector, small businesses, and other workplaces of every type across the country. It can be easy to forget that people of all ages face the same struggles on a daily basis.

Oh the irony.

Yet another far-left group shows it's true colours. The SWP leadership covered up for a rapist. The Socialist Party starves it's workers.

That's the far left for you comrades.

Labour Peers advertise concerns about anti-Semitism and Corbyn's response (REVISED)

The following advert was issued by 65 Labour Peers and is reproduced here below followed by Corbyn's reply:

It seems that Labour's actual response to this development was rather more hostile and the letter I found to Baroness Smith preceded the Peers attack.

According to The Guardian:

Responding to the advert, a Labour party spokesman said Corbyn and the Labour party “stand in solidarity with Jewish people and are fully committed to the support, defence and celebration of the Jewish community”.

The spokesman said Labour was taking decisive action against antisemitism “regardless of false and misleading claims about the party by those hostile to Jeremy Corbyn’s politics”.

“Jeremy Corbyn has made clear in interviews, videos and articles that there is no place for antisemitism in the party,” he added.

“Jennie Formby [the general secretary] has sped up and strengthened procedures and the rate at which cases are dealt with has increased more than four-fold. Since September 2015, the number of cases that have undergone disciplinary procedures relate to about 0.06% of members.

“The Labour party’s comprehensive rebuttal of the Panorama programme did not in any way criticise Jewish members who have suffered antisemitism. As we said after the programme aired, we will fully investigate any complaints alleging antisemitic incidents reported by party members in interviews in the programme.”

Corbyn's recent letter to Baroness Smith:

Summer Reading

The Sunday Supplements are full of recommendations about books to take on holiday which can range from crime thrillers, passionate love stories all the way to literary novels. Not entirely sure where the dividing line comes for fiction with the term "literary" which always sounds, well frankly snobbish to me.

These "literary" critics are the types that generally turn their nose up at science fiction and fantasy which is normally the main area of fiction I choose to enter. They are the same types who pointed Godzilla (the nineties version) was just a monster coming out and getting shot at by the military.  My girlfriend and I enjoyed it. Good fun. Not so sure about the new one but I'll watch the forthcoming sequel on DVD when it comes out.

Point is one of these critics recommended some film about gay men in a Turkish Bath slapping each other with towels. Not exactly what I want to see. I'm sure it has an audience but I would find paint drying more entertaining. Or Godzilla!


Still it's about time I caught up with my reading and had already started Maoism: A Global History by Julia Lovell (Bodley Head Hardback £30) when I picked up a crime thriller recommended by The Observer reviewers which captivated me from the moment I started.

The Chain by Adrian McKinty (Orion Hardback £12.99) is about a woman who has her child getting kidnapped and having to pay a ransom and kidnap another to free not just her child but that of the kidnappers. If she fails both children will be killed, The Chain must not be broken. She must then pass on the task to the next set of parents and so on.

A policeman is killed very early on in the story and our heroine gets warned by the kidnappers and someone else who was part of The Chain previously not to diverge from her task. The participants are all being watched by the originators of The Chain. Fascinating and gripping.

I'll finish this before returning to  Julia Lovell's tome on the world phenomenon of Maoism which in the age of emergent Chinese capitalism under communist control would seem worthy of some attention. Maoism never really took off in the UK. The only "major" figure was trade unionist Reg Birch who founded the still existing Communist Party of Britain Marxist- Leninist who publish The Worker magazine.

Most British Maoists have been tiny very strange cults like The Workers' Institute of Marxism–Leninism–Mao Zedong Thought who once told the workers that the Chinese Army was already here....it's founder and leader was one Aravindan Balakrishnan now in prison for slavery and abuse of his remaining female followers.

Nevertheless modern China has risen to become a serious challenger to US economic hegemony and I look forward to returning to this book which once read will inspire me to read Max Hasting's Vietnam: A tragic History 1945 to 1975 (William Collins Hardback £30) which was a Christmas present. Hastings being a journalist has a very readable style and I have several of his books which are all worth reading.

Finally somewhere between all this I need to read A Prophet Without Honour by Joseph Wurtenbaugh  an alternative history novel written in the form of memos and documents from fictional participants in The Second World War. I picked this up a while back via an ad on Facebook.

It was shipped from the USA so I have no idea if it was ever published over here and I've forgotten the price. Sorry. It wasn't that expensive, I'm a pensioner so have a limited budget.

These are my choices for summer as I reduce my blogging for a while but don't go away I will still be posting just not daily so do check in and leave a comment if you wish.

Friday Night "18 Rated" Heavy Metal with Steel Panther

T




















Time to party on a Friday night with this heavy metal band Steel Panther who hail from the USA. I've pre-ordered their new album Heavy Metal Rules which is due out at the end of September.

Momentum go all Mary Whitehouse!

It's all a bit "deja vu" this afternoon as Momentum launch an e-mail  protest to the BBC Panorama Programme. All a bit "Mary Whitehouse" harking back to the bad old days when Nuns were outside the cinema handing out leaflets urging people to boycott Monty Python's Life of Brian. It was "blasphemous" apparently.

Not that they had actually seen it.

And frankly neither has anyone in Momentum. All they know is that some people have torn up their Non Disclosure Orders to expose what is apparently/allegedly/actually going on inside Labour. One wonders what these people have/want to hide.

It's likely more people will be watching Panorama tonight precisely because of the fuss. A bit like the attempts to suppress The Satanic Verses backfired with lot's of people buying the book who normally wouldn't. Censorship never works.

Unless you want to send us all to the Gulags.

Oh wait......

The Momentum Witch Hunt continues.......

New Music: Deep Purple, New Collection: Kylie Minogue, News: Baby Metal

Deep Purple have released a "new" album from a concert recorded in Newcastle way back in March 2001. Limited to 2,000 double CD's and the same number of triple vinyl copies this should sell out fairly quickly.

he line up consists of Gillan, Glover, Lord, Morse and Paice who give a solid performance but this is no Made In Japan or even Made In Europe both of which are top notch albums, the former ranking amongst the best rock albums of all time.

One of my favourite performances is this satire on Mary Whitehouse who was an absolute pain in the neck complaining about Doctor Who being too violent and even attacked Tom & Jerry. Let alone sex... Censorious old bitch she was.  Audio only I'm afraid!



Official website: www.deeppurple.com

Fresh from her performance at Glastonbury Kylie Minogue treats us to a collection of 20 selected hits including her classic duets with Jason Donovan and Robbie Williams. The diminutive Aussie Pop Princess always delivers. Available in multiple formats including picture disc though I chose to go with the light green vinyl edition.

Here's one of her hits from the latest collection to wet your appetite!

Official Website: www.kylie.com

Finally we find how the girls from Baby Metal will continue (for now) without Yui. Their new album will be released in October.





Official website: www.babymetal.com

Labour's attack on freedom of reporting

Ever since the BBC announced it was going to broadcast a Panorama special on "Anti-Semitism in the Labour Party" the Stalinist coterie around Corbyn has been having apoplectic fits about the possible content.  Allegations of bullying and the use of "Non-Disclosure Agreements" are at the centre of an on-going civil war within the Labour left.

Old Compo tweeted support for "whistle-blowers" but doesn't seem to like it when it's about...his party. Julian Assange was the same. Wikileaks dumping of info on the net led directly to the deaths of some Afghan interpreters. However when info about his own private life became public knowledge Assange cried wolf. Now it seems Labour's in danger of being seen to have covered up problems about alleged racism in it's ranks.

The Sunday Times reported (no link £):

Murphy and Milne received details of the hour-long Panorama programme last week and spent hours hunkered down in the party’s Southside headquarters. One party insider said: “They were clearly alarmed by what they saw and went into lockdown. It’s very possible that heads will roll.”

This weekend it was announced that Gordon Nardell QC, who was appointed by the party last year to help clear the backlog of outstanding anti-semitism cases, is rejoining his chambers next month. Multiple sources said he quit after the party became aware of some of the claims being made in the programme.

The Comrades are threatning legal action:






One wonders what they have to hide.

Anti-Semitism is the "only" acceptable form of racism on the left. After all the Jews, erm Zionists control the media, the banks and are all apparently rich. I wish I was rich but still I'm happy in my tower block on an inner city estate with a small pension.....

An example of how the racists on the left see Jews. All pawns of Zionism, Mossad and Israel. All very National Socialist wouldn't you say, but then us Jews don't understand your "British irony"do we Jeremy Corbyn.

Watch Panorama BBC 1: Wednesday 9:00. 
The programme Labour want to suppress.

PCS: Janice Godrich arrested for stabbing

The mystery of former PCS union President Janice Godrich's withdrawal from the hotly contested Assistant General Secretary election in the union surface in a report published in the Daily Record on Friday:

A wife knifed her partner of almost 30 years after a row about her drinking.

Union activist Janice Godrich, 56, picked up a six-inch kitchen knife before stabbing Daniel Williamson through his forearm following an argument over booze.

Paisley Sheriff Court heard Godrich, who struggles with her mental health, then nipped outside their home for a cigarette as cops raced to the scene in the town’s Corsebar Road....

An argument ensued between the parties about the level of the accused’s drinking.

“This resulted in both parties becoming extremely angry and they began shouting at each other.

“The complainer said he wanted to end their relationship.

“At which point the accused left the living room and went into the kitchen where she picked up a six-inch black-handled kitchen knife from the worktop.

“She returned to the living room, approached the complainer, stood at the settee with the knife in her hand and struck the accused on his body.

“As he raised his arm to protect himself, the knife struck the complainer on his forearm.”

Godrich has been referred at her pre-trial for reports. Her fate will be decided at her full trial on August 8th.

PCS: Hell hath no fury like the Socialist Party scorned!

The Socialist Party or Militant, at least the larger fragment of it has been a major controlling force in the PCS for nearly two decades. That is until PCS Supremo and General Secretary Mark Serwotka got tired of his troublesome deputy one Chris Baugh and ran a campaign to remove him. This as regular readers will know led to a major split in PCS with the bulk of the SP's leading activists splitting to form PCS Socialist View.

In the subsequent internal squabbles of the Broad Left tent of which both Socialist View and the Socialist Party but not Serwotka were a part Baugh initially lost and only narrowly returned as the "agreed candidate" of the far-left alliance. The subsequent 3-way election which included a Serwotka lick-spittle saw Baugh lose and the Independent Left candidate take the post of Assistant General Secretary.

The Socialist Party are a somewhat unforgiving little sect, getting smaller by the day as they continue to shed their international allies (see Phil BC's Obsolete politics and Socialist Party) and have the audacity to complain about "union officialdom" without noticing the irony.  The SP were the unions bureaucracy ensconced in full time posts galore with the ear of Dear leader Sir Mark Vodka himself.

Now they are sidelined with just 2 members of the National Executive and fewer activists on the ground. Militants head honcho and unchallenged leader for centuries Peter Taffe had to be sent to PCS conference to rally the sects remaining adherents.

Now we see a new faction arising out of the ashes of the old. As Mark Serwotka announced his decision to remain General-Secretary-for-life reelection campaign the old Militants are to stand against him by running Maid Marion Lloyd against him. Baugh it seems is too tainted to use and the comrades have decided that Left Unity isn't very "wimmin friendly".



The Socialist rag complains:

Serwotka and his supporters in Left Unity claim concerns about the under-representation of women in the union. They line up behind the slogan of 'Step Aside Brother' - a top-down, artificial process. But even within the limitations of this approach their commitment is shown to be a complete sham.

At the June national executive committee Socialist Party member Marion Lloyd was removed from the union's key lay body - the policy and resources committee.

At the Midlands regional committee in June they challenged Sian Ruddock for the chair position with a male Socialist Workers Party member.

At the Department for Work and Pensions committee meeting in June they removed Rachel Heemskerk from the PCS trade union-side team, resulting in an all-male delegation.

Nothing to with sex, just a purge of the Socialist Party methinks. More sectarian than sexist really "comrades" but by all means use all weapons at your disposal to undermine your erstwhile allies.

The new faction has somehow developed a twitter link established in 2009 with a few thousand followers which means they've hijacked something or had access to the Tardis to set up a faction before any of this happened. Their Face book page is probably more accurate in terms with just 111 followers at the time of writing.

The Socialist Party now campaigns for "an independent voice for PCS", that is themselves and want a "Corbyn led government" except they won't join the others in the labour Party and even the Labour left laughed at the suggestion by SP guru Taffe for an electoral alliance.

Politics aside Marion Lloyd is quite a personable individual but a committed disciple of the Taffe Tendency. She won't beat Serwotka even if she gets the backing of Left Unity which is by no means certain even if there isn't another candidate. Left Unity will probably decide to back Serwotka.  This could mean another three way split though it is far less likely an Independent Left candidate will sneak through like in the AGS election.

Blogging not going to plan?

When I retired I always imagined I'd be busy blogging everyday on both this and my comics blog. Mind you I also thought I'd be doing other things that I never seemed to have the time to do whilst working including watching films during the day both on TV and at the cinema.  Things haven't gone to plan as I retired early due to serious illness which has left me unable to do certain things like sit through a film in the local multiplex.

That coupled with the state of British politics has left me bored shitless with what's happening in the UK.  The thought of Boris or Corbyn running this country fills me with dread. Neither are suitable let alone capable of steering us through Brexit.  The political parties have failed.

I devote more time to listening to music and developing new culinary skills with Indian, Chinese and Middle Eastern recipe books. I've even got lazy with reading. I have a pile of books and a pile of comics and annuals to read which means I have to think about reorganising myself a wee bit.

Trouble is I have this habit of dozing off in the armchair no matter what the time of day. It takes me ages to listen to my Doctor Who audio adventures as a result. In fact I already feel like a nap and both the cat and the missus will need feeding soon......

Still there was Glastonbury on TV not that I liked a lot of it. The modern British music scene is dire in my opinion which is why I listen to Planet Rock and Radio Caroline for good tunes..from the past though some new album music does get played.

I cannot see the attraction of the fake "radical" Stormzy or his music. Even The Charlatans a band I do like let us down with a dire performance though I was impressed with Jeff Goldblum's jazz  band. Then of course there was the pop Princess herself, Kylie Minogue whose set made up for so much crap all weekend.

One band that appeared and I sadly missed was Baby Metal from Japan. Big fan me. The Japanese music scene is actually quite vibrant and regular readers will have noticed I do post more than a few videos of Japanese artists. Today is no exception, so whilst I get my thinking cap back on to blog a bit more here's a new song from the girls.....