Rick Wakeman, New Album The Red Planet due out in May*

Rick Wakeman is returning to Prog Rock with the new album Red Planet which will appeal to fans of his Six Wives, Journey to the Centre of the Earth and King Arthur themed albums after a long period of producing that "New Age" stuff that I'm not personally keen on.

I remember seeing Rick playing a piece from Six Wives of Henry VIII on The Old Grey Whistle Test back in the seventies. Went straight out and bought it. I was already a fan of Yes who are probably my favourite band of all-time. I certainly have a lot of their albums, more than any other group/artist!

An excerpt of Red Planet has been made available on You Tube which is posted below.

You can pre-order Red Planet in a variety of formats here: www.musicglue.com




*Revised release date.

Hawkwind: Re-release of Roadhawks due in April

One of Hawkwind's long deleted compilation albums originally released in 1976 and not available since the eighties is to- be re-released on Vinyl via Cherry Red Records.

Roadhawks contains a number of tracks from their first five albums including their two well known singles Silver Machine and Urban Guerrilla.

You can preorder your copy here: www.cherryred.co.uk

Here's a little taster with a video featuring some real "Urban guerillas from the period, The Red Army Faction, better known as the Baader-Meinhoff gang.

Record Store Day 2020 postponed to June 20th

One of the events I had both planned on participating and taking part in was Record Store Day due to take place on April 20th. This is designed to support small independent record shops and bands with special and exclusive vinyl releases.

Obviously in the current crisis this is not possible and the organisers have issued the following Press Release postponing the event.

Lets all hope that if everyone follows instructions from the NHS that the crisis will pass sooner rather than later but I do think this will remain a provisional date.

13.3.20, 1pm: Record Store Day is a worldwide event involving thousands of people and small businesses—In our discussions over the last few weeks, as information came and changed daily, and then hourly, we’ve taken all of them into consideration as we go over various options: Stay the course. Move the date. Change the structure of the event. No one knows what things will look like in any given place in the next five weeks, and decisions for that time period need to be made now, using current facts.

There is no perfect solution. There is no easy answer. We’ve decided that the best of all possible moves is to change the date of Record Store Day this year to Saturday, June 20.

We think this gives stores around the world the best chance to have a profitable, successful Record Store Day, while taking into consideration the recommendations of doctors, scientists, the World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control, and the need to be good citizens of both local and worldwide communities.

We’re working with all of our partners and our stores to make this change as smooth as possible for everyone who participates in Record Store Day: customers, record stores, artists, labels and more. Record Store Day is everywhere and we want to hold our party when everyone can gather around safely to celebrate life, art, music and the culture of the indie record store.

(And hey! Anything with the April 18, 2020 on it just became that much more special!)

Go to: recordstoreday.co.uk for further information

Monty Python - I Like Chinese

To help us take this lock-down in our stride a wee bit of forgotten Monty Python to entertain!

Deep Purple: New Album "Whoosh" due out in June

The new album from Deep Purple, Whoosh! is due for release on 12th June. It's a CD + DVD & digibook package so will cost a little bit more as a result. I did get their last album "Infinity" on vinyl which I started playing a 33rpm only to discover it should be played at 45rpm. I have no idea whether the vinyl version of their new album will be the same, but please check before playing!

This video is the first track I've heard from the new album.

Further info from: www.deeppurple-whoosh.com 

Covid 19 and the suspension of politics

Photo: By Duncan Harris from Nottingham, UK - Fox Trot, CC 

Given the nature of the current crisis over the corona virus  it's hardly surprising that all other political discourse has come to an end. Even the pubs are now closed something that never happened at the height of the Blitz. the Briton was entitled to his pint.

No more it seems. Drink at home alone or with the family. Avoid all others.

About the only political activity still taking place (and will it ever end) is the Labour party leadership contest which some of Corbyn's supporters tried to stop even though most members who are going to vote already have except those whose ballot papers have (coughs) ""gone missing".

More incompetence rather than conspiracy. the result should be a foregone conclusion. If it isn't there will be questions.

Meanwhile the Government have continued to do their job without the panic that has erupted in some quarters. Yes questions need to be raised where necessary but the gradual close down of the country has been marred more by panic shopping rather than any failure on the Government side.

The statesman-like response of both Boris and Rishi Sunak has been measured and in the national interest. It's not 100% perfect but then no society can do everything. Some people no matter what they do will lose their jobs and have problems. People will still fall ill, that can only be partially controlled. It's up to the rest of us to co-operate.

The whole world has virtually shut down but there are still those who take advantage by promoting ridiculous conspiracy theories. It didn't take long for the Jews to be fingered though an escape from a Chinese Laboratory is probably the one a lot of people believe even though the most likely explanation is the virus jumped species.

Meanwhile while the NHS struggles to cope and supermarkets strain to keep us supplied one far-left newspaper Solidarity decided this was the right time to "open the borders" and let untold millions of "refugees" into not just this country but Europe as a whole.  It shows how out of touch their ideology is with reality and why I'm thankful their ilk around Corbyn are not in charge and hopefully never will be.

We will come out of the crisis at some point but the time has come for a quiet reflection on where our politics does go next and at some stage that discussion needs to take place. For the time being such debate is suspended.

What for me began as a "campaigning month" has become a virtual lock-down. The Free Tibet demo was the last one I (or anyone else) will be attending for a while. From time to time I will continue to blog as there has been an audience, albeit small in the grand scheme of things for the articles by guest writers and myself, but as I sit at home reading, listening to music then there may be more posts of a non-political nature.

Stay safe everyone.

Shalom Aleichem,

Howie

Dutch band Delain: Apocalypse & Chill

Photo: By S. Bollmann - Own work, CC

Given that we have seemingly entered a world lock up where political activity has been suspended for the duration then it's time to consider what books and music to read and listen to.

Last night I recommended a Doctor Who novel and one of the records I was listening to (I know it's a CD but I'm old fashioned) whilst reading was Apocalypse & Chill which was released last month. If you are a fan of Within Temptation (another Dutch outfit) then this is for you having been formed by David Westerholt and Johanna Wessels former keyboardist & vocalist respectively.

This is a Symphonic Metal/Goth Metal band who have produced yet another highly listenable sixth studio album. There are 16 tracks on this CD of which the last 3 are full orchestral versions of Masters of Destiny, Burning Bridges and Vengeance.

Doctor Who and the Krikket Men The Lost Adventure

Doctor Who and the Krikket Men by James Goss (BBC Books/Penguin) (£16.99 Hardback/£8.99 Paperback)

Not a new book but one I missed whilst in hospital back in 2018. Written by James Goss by based on one of those "lost adventures" that were never made by the BBC this has has Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy written all over it. The reason being this was a Douglas Adams script and you'll find many a nod to the late authors best known work in this novel's pages.

There are 42 chapters...

The Doctor has promised to take Romana to the end of the universe and yet despite ending up at a cricket match in a round about way his promise has been kept. And the Doctor has put a tie on so this must be a very important cricket match. Of course Romana groaned very much as:

"At least a dozen races had given "cricket" as their reason for attacking the planet. It went a long way to explaining why most invasions began in the Home Counties"

Still it might rain. Of course we all guessed it might be a lot worse than that. Clouds? bring on the killer robots who materialise in a Cricket Pavilion chasing after the trophy decapitating and exterminating all who get in the way and don't just because they can.

These are the Krikkett Men. An explanation of times past, millions of times passed in fact of when they first appeared in the Universe so don't skip the first Chapter as if you would. There is a need to keep up.

The Ultimate weapon is at stake, when isn't these days. The fate of all creation is treated so the Doctor has kept his promise. Romana may yet see the end of the universe but not quite the way she expected to.

Did I mention a super computer with the brain the size of a planet. On the spoilers and misdirection. It's a lot of fun but outside any form of continuity or "canon" as Whovians tend to call it. Sad really. It's a book.

And don't forget your towel. Oh wait that's the other story isn't it? My bad....

The distasteful legacy of Corbynism

As an active trade-unionist for several decades including being a Branch Secretary for some 12 years or so in the Civil Service trade unions starting with the CPSA and ending with prospect before my illness and retirement I naturally supported the Labour Party. Then along came Corbyn and that became impossible.

Overnight a mixture of the far-left including those who had long drifted out of organisations or simply turned up shouting slogans on demonstrations along with others, inexperienced an young in the main looking for an alternative gained control of the party.

The whole nature of the party changed overnight. In the past like most major political parties Labour was a coalition of differing views, factions and interest groups competing but mostly co-operating in order to achieve a common aim. This was a broad based party with views from democratic socialists, social democrats, trade unionists and others.

There were arguments, there were disagreements. Sometimes they could be sharp. there were always some on the hard left sniping about "sell-outs" and calling for solidarity with dodgy regimes such as Cuba or hanging around with the terrorists of the IRA and sometimes Hamas. For the most part these people were contained rather than expelled. The exception being the parasitic Militant Tendency, a party within the Labour Part and in complete breach of the rules let alone aims.

They were kicked out yet it happened again albeit in a different form. Corbyn and his hard-line followers organised around Momentum and some other smaller factional groupings started a purge of all those that that didn't fit their ideological aims.

It became nasty beyond belief. The rest was history. Vile abuse, misogyny, racism in the form of anti-Semitism and even threats against female MP's in particular. There was never the "Kinder, Gentler, Politics" that their Messiah promised. It was vicious to the core and remains so as the meme from Weaver Vale Labour Party shows above and some group of socialists show below.

The socialist experiment has failed once again, but the battle is far from over. Even though Kier Starmer is likely to win these people are still there. Plotting, planning hating

Corbyn's legacy will be remembered not just as one of failure, anti-Semitism but just a figurehead of a movement of hate.

A Tribute to Roy Hudd with The News Huddlines

Photo: By Hydrafoil - Own work, CC

I was saddened to hear that Roy Hudd one of the true comedic greats passed away. His humour and affability made him a true star of his age and my youth. One of the shows I remember with great joy was The News Huddlines.

What better way to remember the man and his work that to listen to one of his shows.

Enjoy the humour from one of the last of a nearly disappeared generation of real family entertainers.

A celebratory combining of revivals!

Last week we heard that Genesis were to reform for a new tour, though it will be mainly Phil Colin's son on drums sadly due to his health and although I will not be going (can't), I'm sure a live album will inevitably be released that will be high on my must get list!

Now it's the turn of Spitting Image. A wonderful satirical show that ran from 1984 to 1996. It had certainly had it's moment and so many celebrities and politicians were defined by their puppets. Boy George hated his (humourless git) whilst Michael Heseltine wanted to buy the Tarzan version of himself.

I have to say in this age of pathetic "wokeness" I dread to think about today's celebs and politicians will react. The moment they have a trans puppet all hell will let loose. Or will they self-censor as is seemingly the way these days. Only Family Guy seems to buck the trend these days.

Insult everybody regardless of sex, race, religion or 57 plus gender identities I say!

Meanwhile here's a music video from that combines genesis with Spitting Image.

Was the Presidents brain missing at the time?

Israel Apartheid Week: The Smear Disguised as a Human Rights Campaign

Cross Post by Paul Shindman

Every spring, the annual “Israel Apartheid Week,” hate-fest hits students on university campuses in North America and Europe. In a bid to dupe impressionable young students into joining the ranks of the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel, Israel Apartheid Week is a one-sided propaganda event smearing Israel with the purposefully deceptive Israel-Apartheid label.

The blitzkrieg of Israel Apartheid Week activities and slogans accuse Israel of being an “apartheid regime,” exploiting Palestinians, and using “colonialism” and “ethnic cleansing.” However, despite being held on academic campuses, Israel Apartheid Week does not engage in discussion or debate, but instead employs what the Jewish Friends of Labour in the UK labeled “the most extreme end of anti-Israel activism.”

Israel Apartheid Week: The Strategy

Analysis of BDS strategies showed they are “consistent with antisemitic movements historically,” employing tactics that turn the Palestinian cause into a “class struggle.”

“Jews are given the choice of either joining the revolution for “justice” or being condemned,” noted Dr. Alex Joffe of the Begin-Sadat Cnetre for Strategic Studies.

Organizers openly state that Israel Apartheid Week is an integral part of the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign to legitimise Israel. Their goal is to shut down any discussion that might support Israel, force academic institutions to cut all contacts with Israel including academic ties, divest themselves from any Israel-related investments and restrict academic freedoms by sanctioning professors or students who question BDS, or express support for the Jewish state.

As mercenaries wearing peace activist’s clothing, Israel Apartheid Week organisers use strong rhetoric and intimidation to create an atmosphere so that students and academics will conclude without question that Israel is like the old South Africa under apartheid rule. Using that analogy, the converts are recruited to support boycotts against Israel, similar to the boycott attempts against the former apartheid South Africa.

In his detailed analysis of BDS, Dan Diker of the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs found that naive supporters of the Palestinian cause were attracted to such campaigns “believing them to be mainstream organisations supporting the Palestinians. However, these campaigns are often run by the far-left, Islamist, or other anti-Israel radicals.”

The inflammatory animosity spread by Israel Apartheid Week activists goes beyond Israel and targets Jewish students.

“Frequently during Israeli Apartheid Week and BDS campaigns, Jewish students are singled out, harassed, intimidated and even assaulted, regardless of their feelings on Israel,” said Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, a lecturer at University of California – Santa Cruz. The intense anti-Israel sentiment at her university also triggered a religious backlash where a “staggering 70% of Jewish students experienced anti-Semitism.”

Despite the facts that show Israel is nothing like the former apartheid South Africa, the BDS tactic of repeating the “apartheid” mantra to spread it like a virus has resulted in the media and some diplomats misusing it both knowingly and apparently sometimes unwittingly.

Shooting Down the Myths

An internationally respected voice who shot down the myth of Israeli “apartheid” belongs to Richard Goldstone, the prominent South African judge who later headed a UN inquiry into the 2009-10 war ignited by the Hamas terror group. His final report was seen as rewarding Palestinian terror, condemned by Israel and used as ammunition by BDS and the organisers of Israel Apartheid Week. (Goldstone later expressed regret for the report.)

However, what the Israel Apartheid Week organisers ignore is that Goldstone helped dismantle apartheid in South Africa and was offended by Palestinians hijacking the term.

“In Israel, there is no apartheid. Nothing there comes close to the definition of apartheid,” Goldstone wrote in the New York Times.

Goldstone pointed out that unlike South Africa, Israeli law does not enshrine the concept of separation and domination of one people over another. “In Israel, equal rights are the law, the aspiration and the ideal; inequities are often successfully challenged in court.”

He eloquently pointed out how the Palestinian issue was specifically not apartheid:

The situation in the West Bank is more complex. But here too there is no intent to maintain “an institutionalised regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group.” This is a critical distinction, even if Israel acts oppressively toward Palestinians there. South Africa’s enforced racial separation was intended to permanently benefit the white minority, to the detriment of other races. By contrast, Israel has agreed in concept to the existence of a Palestinian state in Gaza and almost all of the West Bank, and is calling for the Palestinians to negotiate the parameters.

South African journalist Rolene Marks astutely observed that “even in the darkest days of Apartheid, NOBODY questioned South Africa’s right to exist as a country, no matter how much the world objected to its racist policies.”

Climate of Fear on Campuses

Contrarily, the BDS goal is not to create a democratic Palestinian state, but instead disassemble Israel. Activists do not call for a two-state solution and BDS has no goal of resolving the conflict.

First held on a Canadian campus in 2005, Israel Apartheid Week was angrily condemned by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau who said: “The BDS movement, like Israeli Apartheid Week, has no place on Canadian campuses.”

…Canadian Jewish students on campuses no longer feel safe or free to express themselves and express their political views on campus. Any time a Canadian student is feeling unsafe on their campus because of a movement, that does cause an issue with me and that is why I have been clear and I will continue to be clear in condemning Israel apartheid week and the BDS movement.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, April 16, 2019

At the peak of vitriol, one Israel Apartheid Week organiser called Canada an apartheid state like Israel. That drew a strong rebuke in the Canadian media that ridiculed the “hypocrites in the “Israeli Apartheid” movement” and that Israel Apartheid Week amounted to a “trendy pretense put on by bigots and marginalised radicals.”

By Bundesarchiv, Bild CC

There is also opposition to BDS and Israel Apartheid Week in the Palestinian sector where peace advocates say it hurts their efforts. Prominent human rights activist Bassem Eid said: “As a Palestinian dedicated to working for peace … I do not believe that the BDS advocates are helping our cause. On the contrary, they are just creating more hatred, enmity, and polarization.”

Judge Goldstone, widely respected in South Africa for his role in helping dismantle apartheid and transition South Africa into a full democracy, speaks with authority when he shoots down the main claim of the BDS movement and the rationale behind Israel Apartheid Week:

“The charge that Israel is an apartheid state is a false and malicious one that precludes, rather than promotes, peace and harmony,” Goldstone concludes.

Go to: honestreporting.com for more information on this and other issues surrounding Israel and the Middle East.

Smoke bombs and leather bound penises on display

Now there's a headline I thought neither I or anyone else would write to be honest. Yet here we are examing what happned when a meeting of (mostly) women was held over the threats to expel members for defending women's righrs on the grounds these views are somehow "transphobic"

The Morning Star Reported:

Activists accusing the meeting of transphobia gathered outside the Maxilla Social Club to picket the event, which was called in response to the Labour Campaign for Trans Rights’s demand that members of Woman's Place UK and the LGB Alliance, which it referred to as transphobic hate groups, be expelled from the Labour Party.

The organisations both reject accusations of transphobia. Woman’s Place says it organises to protect women’s sex-based rights and women’s right to organise and discuss issues that affect them.

Protest co-organisers London Bi Pandas said their picket was “a much-needed moment of trans+ solidarity in a landscape of rising violence against trans+ and non-binary people.”

But attendees accused protesters of hurling abusive language in a bid to intimidate them – and condemned the release of “smoke bombs” round the corner from Grenfell Tower.

The community hall is immediately surrounded by tributes and murals to the 72 people who died in the 2017 tower block fire.

Trade unionist and former firefighter Lucy Masoud, who addressed the Labour Women's Declaration Meeting, said that the 300 attendees, mainly women, could smell sulphur from inside.

Justice for Grenfell spokeswoman Moira Samuels, who passed by the meeting, got “a whole lot of abuse” when she challenged protesters over the smoke, Ms Masoud said.

Although the group "apologised" for the smoke bombs and their "insensitivity" the use of smoke bombs is both an illegal and violent act against women peacefully meeting to discuss issue that they see as effecting the. If anything the aggressive behaviour of the trans-activists and their allies proves there are issues to discuss but that's not the only problem.

Ruth Serwotka tweeted about one of the protesters manner of dress:

These trans individuals want to be treated as if they are women yet behave in this manner which frankly would be condemned by the vast majority of men. let alone women.

The threat of violence is ever present as this t-shirt illustrates and if you think this is an isolated incident just check out this collection of tweets collated by women's activists: terfisaslur.com

It's no wonder so many women raise concerns about the need for women's sex based rights. Not sure I'd want to be around these individuals either. Their behaviour is unacceptable on so many levels.

I will not be silenced: In defence of Free Speech

Photo: Matt Brown Wikki CC

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear”

There were a number of political events planned for this month. Two of which I chose to support on this blog and my other social media which I would support (Free Tibet and International Women's Day) and one which I intended to oppose (Israel Apartheid Week in universities) .

Free Tibet caused no friction but generated little interest as is the problem every year I push the plight of the Tibetan people. The rally outside Downing Street was very small, just a couple of hundred people and not a lefty paper seller in sight. Not a cause for the usual protesters it would seem.

Israel Apartheid Week is about to begin and I've posted here and on FB. Just the usual arguments as expected. This will continue next week and I will intervene as best I can.

When it came to International Women's Day I solicited a couple of articles by women for my blo and Caroline Watson wrote in general about Women's Rights whilst Claudia Clare specifically concentrated on Lesbian Rights as divisions arise over the Trans-demands. A third article was published based on a campaign e-mail from Southall Black Sisters & One law for All about minority women's rights and Sharia Law.

The furore that the article about Lesbian Rights caused a furore on one Facebook forum to which I belong. It's a private group so I will have to ensure that neither it nor it's contributors can be identified by non-members but I was told by one woman who announced she was a lesbian that I should not post articles on these matters as I was not part of that community and latter actually added I was "not allowed", though by whom was never made clear. It certainly wasn't the pages Admin's rules.

The post was attacked as "transphobic" and "bigoted" though when asked which parts were there were no answers forthcoming and one self appointed defender of the cause attacked me as a privileged white male which later morphed into a "bigoted old man". All because I commented in defence of Women's sex based rights.

There were women and on trans-activist wring in agreement but it seems that behind the scenes these individuals were taking screen shots and preparing to have me (and probably others) reported to the Labour Party except they did discover that not being a member that would be pretty pointless.

The viciousness and bile from  the woke folk was appalling. I was accused on being "patronising" and "trying to speak for women". All I did and do here and elsewhere is offer an opinion. Take it or leave it, the readers choice though obviously I do hope to influence where I can otherwise what would be the point.

One humourless harridan in particular shocked me with her Messianic self-righteousness with bile and a dash of misandry. The inability of people to engage and tolerate differing viewpoints was actually spelled out openly by my original critic. She left the group as she couldn't handle the debate.

The woke/trans-activists tendency reflects very much the behaviour of the Corbynistas who accused their opponents of being "red Tories" or Blue Labour and much worse. The announcement by one individual that they had "moved on from second wave feminism" sounded so much like the Trots who broke from the Third International (the Comintern) to form the Fourth International.

Women's meetings have been disrupted and cancelled by this tendency, dissenting speakers, especially feminists "no platformed" and a campaign to expel supporters of Women's Place UK & the LGB Alliance.

The intolerance of the these people whether woke or supporters of the Corbyn tendency is legion. They present not just a danger to the Labour Party but to free speech and democracy.

The need to defend the right to freely speak one's opinion whether others like it or not must be defended. Otherwise next they will silence you.

What are Lesbians to do with the Left?

Guest Post by Claudia Clare 

It is impossible talk about contemporary lesbian lives without reference to transgender ideology. Lesbians are affected in ways that are both physically intimate and politically public. The ‘Cotton ceiling’: even the term is telling. The ‘glass ceiling’ is the barrier that refuses to break, right? The ‘cotton ceiling,’ refers to our knickers. Well I said it was intimate, didn’t I? Let me explain: some ‘transwomen’ want to be ‘lesbians.’ Sometimes these are male-bodied people – not post operative transsexuals but ‘self identified’ ‘women,’ ‘transwomen’ or even ‘lesbians.’ The hail storm of inverted commas is because these are intact male bodied people with penises – what most people call MEN – trying to pass themselves off as women - or even lesbians - with the aim of having sex with a woman. When we politely explain that, ‘as I lesbian I don’t do penis,’ we are denounced as ‘transphobic,’ which may result in being ejected from a club or bar or whatever the social space may be - perhaps even a shared house if these are the norms of the social group. 

‘Transwomen,’ of a certain kind, use this phrase as a lament, a complaint. In the plainest possible language, it means: ‘I cannot break through the cotton gusset of your knickers.’ Hence ‘cotton ceiling.’ This is the kind of gross banality, coupled with the element of potentially violent sexual threat that lesbians are dealing with daily. It is almost comically absurd but, when you’re the target of one of these aggressive ‘transwomen,’ pressuring you for sex, it certainly isn’t.



This situation is bad for all lesbians but it hits young lesbians hardest. That all too brief moment when lesbians could get out and about, go to clubs, enjoy their new found sexual freedom, is long past. Young lesbians seeking lovers face a very different reality, their most intimate behaviour and feelings are constantly policed - and reported and commented upon, often on social media - by the trans-Stasi and their allies. Little wonder then that so many teenage girls that reject feminine gender-stereotyping and notice a sexual preference for other girls, decide they must be ‘transmen’ and opt for the transition route. If this sounds vaguely familiar to older readers, that’s because it is familiar. It is conversion therapy rebranded. If breast-binding – practised by girls transitioning to boys/men - sounds familiar, that too is because it is – think foot binding or corsets – and breast binding is at least as harmful as the corset was, often more so. 

These may turn out to be insignificant compared to the as yet unknown long term effect of hormones to suppress puberty, and the cross-sex hormones which follow. Even if these young women do not go as far as full double mastectomy and the removal of healthy body tissue, possibly resulting in a life time of hospital visits for one reason or another, they will still have to deal with the effect of a barbaric drug regime, one which is not even properly tested for this kind of use.



The more public aspects of the transactivist attack on lesbians lives has been made visible via Stonewall and the Pride marches of 2019 when it became clear that saying we were, ‘same sex attracted,’ was also ‘transphobic,’ and punishable by exclusion from the march. There has been much coverage of the no-platforming of lesbians for being TERFs, but this is something that affects all women and even some men – it is not specifically lesbian. What is specific to us is the threat of sexualised violence and, interestingly, this does not have a parallel for gay men. ‘Transmen,’ or female to male, (FtM) transsexuals do not aggressively or otherwise approach gay men demanding sex. Analysing this behaviour among ‘transwomen’ is deemed ‘transphobic’ because it requires an honest discussion of biological sex and behaviour, which itself requires the assertion that sex is real not imagined and, again, there is a price to pay for this apparent transgression – now classed as a belief, rather than an inescapable material reality.

Once you decide that biology is not real, that sex does not exist, that a man who feels like a woman can legally call himself a woman - at which point many otherwise protected women’s spaces are then under pressure to accept ‘her,’ even if ‘she’ is male-bodied – all bets are off. What then is a lesbian? If we can no longer agree a legal definition of ‘woman,’ what is a lesbian? And, to open up another immensely important front that should interest the Labour Party, how does this affect lesbian asylum seekers – of which there are an increasing number? Lesbians already find it immensely difficult to prove to the Home Office that they are lesbians precisely because they have been forbidden to be lesbians in their country of origin. They very often have not had relationships with anyone or not long term. What happens if they cannot even be defined as a woman and same sex attracted because government – any government - has allowed itself to be talked out of having any legal definition of woman? 

When Labour Party members and leadership candidates queued up to sign up to the Trans Pledge, they betrayed some of the most vulnerable members of society. They did so, mainly because far too many senior party members have allowed themselves to wallow in the luxury of ignorance for far too long. They need to toughen up, educate themselves and get back to work.


-----------------------------------------------------

For the pictures: photo credits Mike Bettney
Lesbian Strength March, Leeds, September 7th 2019. Organised because so many lesbians were ejected from local pride marches in other cities and because Stonewall announced that trans-refusnik lesbians would be unwelcome on the London march.


Anyone reading this who knows young women unsure about or regretting ftm transition can contact Charlie Evens @charlie_sci or Transgender Trend – detransitioning page.

https://www.transgendertrend.com/detransition/

A real page turner! The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewel

Over the last four months or so I've ploughed through near on twenty different crime and mystery thrillers. Some like all three books by CJ Tudor and The July Girls from Phoebe Locke were excellent and gripping. Others were good but there were a couple that disappointed however nothing prepares one for the story that unfolds in this tome from Lisa Jewel.

It's not often I get angry when reading (or watching) fiction but as the tale develops in this mystery one does want to intervene against the obvious injustice. It's no wonder that this book has been in the best seller charts for a while now.

The premise as outlined on the cover is that the police find three bodies in a virtually empty house which have began to decay having been dead for several days. Yet upstairs in a cot lay a young baby well fed and cared for. But who had been looking after her?

This appears to be a triple suicide. But where have the other children gone?

Libby receives a letter on her 25th birthday from solicitors stating she has just inherited a house. And not just any old building. This is a prime property in Chelsea worth millions.

A text is sent saying the "Baby is now 25".

What does this all mean?

Meanwhile Lucy and her children are living an itinerant life style in France. The actors in this gripping page turner are about to be introduced in a tale that is told gong back and forth in time.

You will be shocked. It certainly raised my blood pressure and the story will certainly get under your skin. I cannot recommend this book enough.

Support Campaign about marriage law and rights of minority women

Southall Black Sisters (SBS), with support from the One Law For All campaign, recently intervened in the Court of Appeal case of Akhter v Khan to outline our concerns about the current law on marriage and its serious implications for black and minority (BME) women and their rights. The Court of Appeal judgment (14 February 2020) ruled that women who are unable to register their marriage in accordance with the law cannot on the break-up of their marriage seek to ‘void’ it, which means that they are not entitled to any financial remedies. This outcome has profoundly discriminatory consequences for minority women.

In light of this judgement, SBS and One Law for All have now written to the Law Commission as it is currently conducting a review of the law on marriage. We want to ensure that this issue is given proper consideration. You can find out more about the scope of the review here.

Our letter to the Law Commission follows a previous letter from SBS to the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Justice, dated 6th August 2018, setting out our concerns on Sharia law and civil divorce to which we received no response. You can read both letters here and here.

You can also read more about the One Law for All campaign here and on our website.

How can you support our campaign?

We welcome support for this campaign from members of the public.

Please contact the Law Commission directly, using the contents of our letters above: weddings@lawcommission.gov.uk. 

The Law Commission will be inviting views from stakeholders and members of the public. If you wish to participate, please respond to their consultation paper when it is announced. We will update our website when the consultation paper is made available. 

You can find out more about the Law Commission’s review here.

• Please also write to your local MP, using this template. You can find out who your local MP is and their contact details, using this website: https://www.writetothem.com/

• Please write to the relevant Parliamentary Select Committees: including the Women and Equalities Committee: womeqcom@parliament.uk, the Joint Committee on Human Rights on this matter via: jchr@parliament.ukand the Justice Committee: justicecom@parliament.uk, to express your support for a reform of the marriage laws.

• Please promote this campaign on social media, using #OneLawforAll #EqualityNotDiscrimination.

Please feel free to share any correspondence with us directly, by contacting janaya@southallblacksisters.co.uk or Maryam Namazie onelawforall@gmail.com

The shame of SOAS: HAMAS Linked Terror Group on UK Campus

Pro-Israel undercover researcher David Collier has discovered that a British university plans to host a purveyor of Nazi and KKK antisemitic theory on its campus, EUROPAL

The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) is known as a hotbed of antisemitism.

It has the dishonour of being a university in central London where Jewish students have said they are ‘scared to wear the star of David and speak Hebrew’.

During the month of March, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and others have scheduled events under the Israel Apartheid Week banner.

On March 7 SOAS will host the Hamas linked group EUROPAL.

Full briefing on EUROPAL by David Collier: david-collier.com/europal

Join our campaign against Israel Apartheid Week here.

Michael McCann

Free Tibet: An Introduction

One of the worlds most remote and unreported countries is Tibet high in the Himalayas and militarily occupied by China since 1950. In 1959 the Tibetan people rebelled against Chinese rule but this was brutally suppressed and the Dali Lama was forced to flee and form a government in exile.

Over one million Tibetans have died since the Chinese invasion. They are a people facing cultural genocide as thousands of Hans Chinese are settled in Tibet changing the demographic against the indigenous population.

The media is banned from Tibet. Like North Korea Tibet has become a prison for it's inhabitants but resistance continues.

The following video from Free Tibet gives a brief and concise introduction to the plight of the Tibetan people.




For further information please go to:



freetibet.org



www.tibetwatch.org



Tibetan Uprising Day Rally 

Tuesday, 10 March 2020 

London from 11:00 Downing Street SW1

Manchester: 11:30  Piccadilly Gardens

Join us for a Free Tibet!

A Tale of Two Serwotkas

Having spent near on two decades in the largest of the civil service unions fighting the far left led by Mark Serwotka and then both changing unions & retiring you'd think that one would be able to escape the mad antics of the comrades. Yet here we are once again addressing Serwotka's destructive intervention inside the Labour Party.

The PCS union was once not just the largest but also the most influential of all the civil service unions. Then the left under Serwotka managed to gain control and it all went downhill from there. Today the union is barely just over a third of what it was at it's height and the left has spent more time fighting over the plum jobs and roles provided by the union rather than doing things for their actual members.

The shenanigans over who got the assistant General Secretary post and the subsequent falling out between the comrades splitting into opposing camps made the union a laughing stock.

Even at a local level this has broken down in some areas as I was reminded by speaking to an old colleague who had worked in an office without heating between Nonmember and January and said the local reps had been useless. This in a branch long considered to be one of the more "right on" left wing ones.

The Balham office closed with members left to their own devices for the most part despite requests for assistance. PCS came far too late and did too little according to members I spoke to shortly before closure during a visit.

Yet once Serwotka was lauded as the "great white hope" by the left and managed to unite the left behind him for a while in PCS to succeed in gaining hegemony over the union. Despite opposition the stagnation of recruitment and cuts meant that there was little change in the personnel of the union and as people retired the sole mainstream group in the union simply wound up.

Serwotka oversaw the turning of the PCS into a political vehicle for the far left and it's finances and activists were utilised to pursue causes well outside the unions actual raison d'etre and prioritised seeking links to build a new political party. There was Make Your Vote Count which morphed into surreptitious support for Respect and then the short lived Trade Union & Socialist Coalition run b the Socialist Party  with input for a while from the SWP and financed by the RMT.

These projects failed and eventually along came another messiah for the left in the form of Jeremy Corbyn. Serwotka joined the Labour Party with the open intent of deselecting existing MPs and replacing them with hard left activists.

As Labour flounders in the wake of a thorough defeat at the last General Election rather than accept political reality the ideologues including Serwotka himself are attempting to steer Labour in the same disastrous semi-Marxist direction as Corbyn & McDonnell tried.

In a recent interview with Socialist Appeal (one of the fragments of Militant which remains inside the Labour Party) he declared:

The worst thing that could happen is that we turn the defeat in the election into a double defeat. In that we would move rightwards, believing that it was the radical proposals in the manifesto that were defeated.

I think it is critical that we identify the main cause of the defeat. We must certainly conclude that it was not because Labour wanted to renationalise parts of the economy; scrap the anti-union laws; give public sector workers pay rises; deal with climate change, etc. These radical policies were not rejected by the electorate.

According to Serwotka despite all evidence to the contrary:

Walking away now would therefore be a double defeat. It would be giving up on the radicalism that I think is there to be won.

I see the Labour leadership election as important. Personally, I am backing Rebecca Long-Bailey. She is the candidate who is most openly saying that she stands with the radicalism in the manifesto. She has gone further in arguing for essentially mandatory reselection. The opposition that she faces from the right of the movement and the press, shows that she is the candidate reflecting the fact that Labour still needs to be radical.

From this it remains perfectly clear and Serwotka spells it out bluntly that there is no room for compromise the purge of those who do not follow the "party line" for want of a better expression must be purged. Of course at the time of writing RLB looks like losing badly to Kier Starmer but the winner will still need to pander to the likes of Serwotka as the left remain i control of the party machinery and are still grabbing control of Constituency Labour Parties.

It's clear that the days of a broad based Labour Party are over. The far left will not tolerate dissenters from their cause so the other factions must unite to drive the likes of Serwotka and the infiltrators like Socialist Appeal out of the party and establish a modern social democratic party.

Serwotka has wrecked a union., he must not be allowed to destroy Labour the only viable alternative to the Tories which the left has currently made unelectable.

At the same time I am forced by circumstances to support via Women's Place UK (and others) the work of his wife Ruth Serwotka as she defends along with other feminists women's sex based rights from being undermined by the intolerant and quite belligerent trans activist movement.

An unexpected turn of events but such is politics.

However in the long term neither of the Serwotkas or the far-left of which they are both apart belongs in the political mainstream. The time is coming Labour to purge itself of these political deadbeats because only then will it be in a position to actually help the people it was created for. That means making Labour an electable force once again. The far-left are part of the problem and never the solution.

Why Women’s Liberation Still Matters!

Guest Post by Caroline Watson

I cannot specifically remember the first Women’s Liberation Conference, but I know that I benefited from its effects. I was ten and was soon to go to an all-girls’ grammar school where many of our teachers; Old Girls of the School had, themselves, been taught by former suffragettes. The Equal Pay Act had come into being in 1970 and the message given to us at school was that women; or, at least, educated women who had been to the Retford County High School for Girls, could do and be anything.

If I had gone into the workforce at 16, I would have been one of the first working women to benefit from the Sex Discrimination Act although, when I did go into the workforce, as a civil servant in 1981, things were certainly not perfect. Women were not allowed to pay into the dependants’ element of the Civil Service Pension Scheme and part timers were not part of the Scheme at all. In my department, MAFF, women were not allowed on fishing vessels and very few were promoted beyond HEO. Nevertheless, and particularly in my work as a NUCPS rep, I could feel that things were changing, and was excited to be part of it.

Fast forward to 2020 and the current Permanent Secretary of Defra, and her two predecessors, have all been women. For educated women in the public sector, at least, the battle for Women’s Liberation, which has mostly been a legal one, feels as if it has been largely won. We should now be working to ensure that the benefits that we have fought for are felt by all women; that carers and teaching assistants are properly paid and valued for their work, and that free childcare and family friendly workplaces are available to all parents. We should be winning cases for women discriminated against because of menstruation or the menopause and fighting for improved facilities for women and girls dealing with those physical realities in the public sphere. Instead, rather than fighting for further advances for women as females, we are fighting a rearguard action against the ‘gender’ cult and accusations of ‘transphobia’. This is a fight that we must win.

When the Equality Act and the Gender Recognition Act were drafted by the last Labour Government, there was the assumption that there would be a small number of people who suffered from a mental illness that made them believe that they were ‘really’ the other sex and, for whom, medical professionals had decided that cosmetic surgery to ape the physical attributes of the other sex was appropriate treatment. There were also people with genuine, physical intersex conditions who had been brought up as one sex but had later discovered, or decided, that they were ‘really the other one.

People were prepared to be tolerant and accepting of these people because they were anomalies, outliers. The binary sexual distinction, which everyone knew applied to humans along with all other mammals, was not under threat. ‘Gender’ ideology changed all that.

This ideology; now widely accepted in universities and public sector bodies, tells us that sex is a social construct and that regressive ‘gender’ roles are what matters. People are no longer allowed to rebel against stereotypes as themselves, but are expected to have themselves mutilated to fit another set of oppressive cultural stereotypes.

Rather than being split along a physically determined binary, but with equal rights for both sexes, the ‘gender’ cult wants a culturally determined binary with those who don’t fit the rules on one side forcibly pushed over the line into the other team. Needless to say, those who least fit the culturally determined binary are often gay men and lesbian women. Taken to its logical conclusion, the ‘gender’ cult outlaws homosexuality.

Equality, in law, began as creating a level playing field for people who were disadvantaged because of physical attributes over which they had no control; sex, race and disability. It became generally accepted across society, certainly by the 1990s, that such equality was right and desirable.

Once ‘identity’ rears its head, however, the concepts of ‘equality’ and ‘a level playing field’, are called into question. If women (or those who ‘identify’ as women) are naturally more nurturing and domestic, for example, perhaps they should be corralled into low-paid, domestic jobs, or expelled from the workforce altogether. Echoes of The Handmaid’s Tale. And, it is impossible to ascertain whether equality, as currently required by the law, is being practised when statistics are gathered on the basis of ‘identity’, rather than physical reality.

A young woman said to me recently that ‘transgenderism’ was a good thing, because it ‘allowed women to identify out of oppressive gender roles’. What?! The brave women who set up the first Women’s Liberation Conference didn’t want to ‘identify out of oppressive gender roles’, they wanted to fight and overturn them; as women, for women. If the suffragettes had ‘identified as men’, women wouldn’t now have the vote.

‘Gender’ ideology, and its bastard child, the ‘transgender’ cult, are an evil, right wing, misogynistic, homophobic men’s rights movement, funded by the American Christian Right and pharmaceutical companies. It is the duty of every feminist on the Left to fight them with every fibre of our combined being. Everything that happened in The Handmaid’s Tale was an abuse that had already been perpetrated against women somewhere in the world. The ‘gender’ cult is ours.

Useful Links:

www.womenarehuman.com

womansplaceuk.org

March: Take action for Women's Rights, Israel & Tibet!

Over the last couple of months or so I have allowed politics to take a back seat and have kept my blog ticking over with mostly book, audio and music reviews with just a few political interventions over Iran, Tibet and a couple of posts outlining my disdain for the current state of affairs.

The voting has opened on the battle for the leadership of what was the Labour Party and although I seriously considered getting involved indirectly by joining the Jewish Labour Movement and becoming a "supporter" I decided that since my choice of candidates ended up being "none of the above" didn't bother.

Besides towing a party line isn't really my style and frankly my recent involvement in the failed Change UK project has left me really cynical about prospects for a political vehicle suitable for government  for the time being.

However I continue to take an interest in a variety of issues and have remained active and belligerent where necessary on Facebook and in the variety of FB discussion groups I belong to. I managed to get kicked out of one for being a "TERF" by which they mean standing up for women's sex based rights against this new wave of trans-fascism and male entitlement. 

The guardian has reported that an anniversary meeting of Women's Liberation overturned a decision by their "woke" leaders to ban feminist  lecturer Eva Poen for daring to say "only women menstruate". The revisionist horror!

We live in a world where ideology and theology are taking over from science and common sense so it's time to fight back.

Over the next month both on this blog and across social media I will be promoting a number of campaigns.

This will begin with supporting Women's Place UK (and the LGB Alliance) in their defence of both Women's sex based rights and Gay Rights against the mysoginistic and homophobic tendencies of the trans-movement that has poisoned debate.

More info: womansplaceuk.org  & lgballiance.org.uk

Next up up is a week of action for Tibet as Free Tibet will be organising a picket march and rally in London in London plus Manchester on the 61st Anniversary of the Tibetan uprising against the Chinese occupation of their country.

I will be attending the picket outside Downing Street and encourage as many of you as possible to attend. I cannot physically join the subsequent march (due to disabilities) but hope it is a success. Tibet is an issue where you won't find the "anti-imperialists". It's an issue ignored by far too many and I will do my best to help promote their cause.

More info: www.freetibet.org

Last but but by no means least is the need to respond to the anti-Semitic "Israel Apartheid Week" supported by the worst politics has to offer including supporters of not just the far-left and the so-called Palestine Solidarity Campaign but by supporters of the Iranian dictatorship, Hamas terrorists and Islamist extremists & supremacists of all kinds.

It's time to stand up for the worlds only Jewish state and the sole true democracy across the whole region. The anti-imperialist brigade call themselves anti-Zionists but opponents of Israel from Tehran to Gaza call for genocide of the Jews. This campaign is backed by those who ignore the oppression of women and non-Muslims in the Middle east by the Iranians, Saudi's and others.

Israel is not an apartheid state. Watch out for responses to the accusations and get involved in this and the other campaigns I will be promoting over the coming month.

More info: www.israelbritain.org.uk

It's time to fight back against the falsehoods promoted by the far-left. Islamists, trans-activists and their allies.

Watch this space!