Militant's campaign flounders

The campaign by the Socialist Party to gain readmission to the Labour Party is really floundering quite badly. Most people on the left don't take their petition and protest seriously let alone anyone else. The latest edition of their rag The Socialist contains pleas from "trade unionists, who like the signatories previously published are all members of....well you can guess.

Hannah Sell writes (in all seriousness):

Earlier this month a joint application for Labour Party membership was submitted to the Labour Party NEC. It was from 75 people, with a combined Labour Party membership of over 1,000 years. A petition in support of their application has been signed by hundreds of trade unionists and activists.

All the applicants have previously been expelled or excluded from the Labour Party because of their socialist ideas.

Besides the fact that these expelled "members had all been members of the Revolutionary Socialist league (Militants, real name) at the same time and were trying to take over the structures of the Labour Party to turn it into a revolutionary Trotskyist organisation is not mentioned as the reason these "socialists" had been expelled. Nothing to do with their ideas, they were simply conducting a secret project as part of a distinct and separate party.

The totally useless Deputy General Secretary of the PCS union, Chris Baugh is quoted as saying:

"From my teens I was a Labour Party member for over 20 years before being expelled in 1995. For PCS members, Blair and Brown meant widespread privatisations, job cuts and attacks on pay and conditions. Blairism nearly destroyed Labour as a voice for working people. The election of Jeremy Corbyn is a chance to change things. In a personal capacity and alongside those who were unfairly expelled for our socialist ideas, I hope the Labour Party will agree our application to rejoin."

No Chris you were expelled for being part of an organisation that was trying to take over the Labour Party. You were and remain a member of Militant, now renamed the Socialist Party.

The real reason for the Socialist Party's new (re)turn to Labour is the simple fact their Trade Unionist & Socialist Coalition has collapsed. Their projects have been ignored by everyone else on the left who have turned to Corbyn.

The TUSC has ceased standing candidates but the comrades are having a formal conference about the future direction of their electoral front in January next year not that it has one.

The Socialist Party campaign remains ignored except by inveterate "Trot Spotters".

Oh god...another song for Jeremy Corbyn

Last I heard the Jeremy Corbyn Christmas song was 80/1 for the number one spot for the holiday. Phew what a relief. Now I have had my attention drawn to this dirge that came out in September.

Words fail me. Well actually they don't. I just can't print them on this blog....

Momentum is not a cult. Just a bunch of them.



Pass the bucket.

Turkey: Press freedom is essential for democracy, set journalism free!

A LabourStart Campaign


Photo: Set Journalism Free

Hundreds of journalists have been arrested, sacked and harassed following Turkey's attempted coup - set them free. Turkey experienced a bloody coup attempt on July 15 killing more than 250 people and targeting basic democratic institutions like the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM). 

The International and European Federations of Journalists (IFJ-EFJ) unreservedly condemn the coup and the use of force against citizens, journalists and media companies. The failed coup was followed by a state of emergency and excessive and indiscriminate measures to purge all individuals believed to be connected to the attempt. The Turkish authorities are now jailing journalists, shutting down radio and TV channels and censoring the internet in an attempt to silence criticism. 90 journalists are in jail and more than 130 media have been banned since mid-July. 2500 journalists have lost their jobs and arrest warrants have been issued for dozens of media workers. 

Some families of journalists, who are in hiding or have fled, have been arrested to force them to surrender. Media workers, journalists and press freedom campaigners all over the world have joined protests calling for the release of all jailed journalists in Turkey. Press freedom is essential for democracy. 

We demand Turkey sets the journalists free. Journalism is not a crime - Gazetecilik suç değildir!

Send a message here: www.labourstartcampaigns.net

The human cost of Castro's "flaws"

The death of Cuban communist dictator has been at the forefront of the news today. Fidel Castro was feted by the left as a hero and almost messianic figure for decades with trade unions being fooled by the hard left into affiliating to the Cuba Solidarity Campaign despite the continuing imprisonment of anyone who tried to set up a free trade union.

Cuba is not any kind of paradise with all political dissent suppressed and opponents imprisoned, tortured or killed with the bulk of the political left not raising a finger in protest, which speaks volumes about the kind of world these so-called socialists would create.

Free speech is absent from Cuba and this is the result.

Jeremy Corbyn with his usual foolishness declared:

“Fidel Castro was a massive figure in the history of the whole planet, ever since the revolution in 1959. There are stories of his heroism while living in Mexico in exile and then the boat to Cuba, the march to Havana… For all his flaws, Castro’s support for Angola played a crucial role in bringing an end to Apartheid in South Africa and he will be remembered both as an internationalist and a champion of social justice.”

Lets look at his flaws or victims to use plain English in this video by the Cuba Archive:



Further info: http://cubaarchive.org/wordpress/

Socialists FIGHT!!

Photo: By Moviemaker33

Readers will probably recall the nasty little Trot Gerry Downing who was rightfully given the boot out of the Labour Party earlier this year for amongst other things being more than a little hostile to Jews or Zionists to use modern parlance. Downing is the leader of the tiny Socialist Fight organisation that originated out of the incestuous swamp known as the Workers Revolutionary Party (Proprietor Gerry Healy, thankfully deceased) which was financed by the Libyans and had links with all sorts of nasty regimes such as Saddam Hussein's Baathists and the Ayatollahs in Iran.

When the organisation imploded Downing like so many of the others "suddenly" discovered how corrupt the WRP was and many of them left to form their own groups of which Socialist Fight was just one.

Today it is believed to have no more than three members but manages to keep a website going for their unsavoury views. One of their new recruits Ian Donovan was kicked out of the small group known as the Communist Party of Great Britain who publish the wildly sectarian Weekly Worker which is essential reading for all would be "Trot Spotters".

Donovan became notorious for promoting the theory that there was an "international Jewish capitalist class" a notion not far off the far rights International Zionist conspiracy theory. Too much even for the "anti-Zionist" CPGB.

Downing managed to get his latest rant published in this weeks Weekly Worker. It seems he doesn't like Jon Lansman, head honcho of the pro-Corbyn Momentum Tendency and is out for blood. Downing has managed to wheedle his way into some tiny ginger group that is new to me, but is run by Nick Wrack, brother of FBU  General Secretary Matt wrack;

I’m going to Nick Wrack’s Labour Party Socialist Network meeting this Saturday. It’s at ULU, Malet Street, from 12 to 5pm and looks like it’s the driving force against Lansman and may well defeat him at the February conference.

Nick’s brother, Matt, general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, launched the crucial attack on Lansman and is now chair of the Labour Representation Committee. They are mainly ex-Militant Tendency supporters and it’s rumoured to be the vehicle for welcoming in up to half the membership of the Socialist Party, who are now entering Labour.

We could defeat Lansman and then be faced with a new battle there. But in a better, more leftist place to fight, given the democratising of the structures of Momentum necessary to defeat Lansman.

I’ve joined the LPSN for £1 a month retired fee and expect to be warmly welcomed.

Gerry Downing

Socialist Fight

Lansman is obviously shaking in his boots at the thought of the massed ranks of Socialist Fight coming after him. Lansman is in a wee bit of trouble with a lot of Momentum supporters for the demotion of the creature known as Jackie Walker another individual who has a problem with Jews Zionists.

Socialist Fight has published a lengthy tract attacking Lansman which you can find here if you have nothing better to do than watch paint dry.

As a reminder of what the 'orrible little man Downing is like, here's his car crash of an interview with Andrew Neill back in March.



As Harry Hill might say...."FIGHT"!........

Pyramids In the Ice

 
Image CC: Google

Being generally fed up with the constant sniping in the press TV and social media about Trump, Brexit and Corbyn I have not been alone in looking for and at more esoteric news stories recently. The Daily Express published a story about the "discovery" of ancient Pyramids buried in the Antarctic Ice.

These "structures" are apparently 10 miles inland and have "excited" scientists. Well actually this story is not new and videos about these pyramids have been on You Tube for some time now. In addition there have also been videos about the Alaskan Pyramid and there's another in Bosnia and possibly Spain.






Oh and there may be another deep in the ocean near the Canaries and in a sunken city at the bottom of the sea near Cuba.

Except these stories are rather nonsense peddled by the same types that prattle on about UFO's, alien invasions and extra-dimensional beings at war with the USA. The Express published the video produced by a guy called Tyler on his Secure Team You Tube Channel in which he often wets himself over the possibility of all sorts of things.

Thing is we all know there's gaps in human history and a lot has been lost over the thousands of years since mankind climbed out the trees but really there are limits.....

And that's not all. Take a look at this latest offering from UFOmania whose output of videos of the world of the weird is phenomenal.

Banning the Baked Bean Advert

Photo: By Linda Spashett

There are times when I despair at the growth of the whining indulged in by those with nothing better to do. There's always somebody with a bleeding complaint about something that most of us could not give a jot about.

Tiny numbers of people complain about this programme or that one rather than simply turn the channel over(and there are lots to choose from even if the viewer only has Freeview) or (heaven forbid) even turn the television off and read a book.

Now the snowflake brigade has turned it's attention to an advert by Heinz Baked Beans. The BBC reports:

A Heinz beans advert showing how to beat out a song on tin cans has been banned for health and safety reasons.

The advertisement featured young people and adults using empty or full tins to make the rhythm of a song, with the catchline "#Learn the CanSong".

The Advertising Standards Authority ruled that mistakes might be made that could lead to people cutting their hands or fingers.

Kraft Heinz denied that the advertising campaign posed a risk.

And Just how many people complained?

Three viewers complained that the TV advert could encourage unsafe practice and six believed it featured behaviour that could be dangerous for children to copy.
Ridiculous.

The Health & Safety Executive were forced to point out:

"It does look like the term health and safety has been used incorrectly here".

"We would hope the public realise there are absolutely no regulations preventing children from playing with empty sealed tin cans.

"One thing kids never lack is imagination to invent their own games with the simplest of props. Obviously if a child is playing with a jagged edge on a tin container there is a risk of injury, but we would hope parents manage that risk."

Kids of my generation used two tin cans joined with a taut piece of string as a toy phone. Don't remember getting injured, but then we used to climb up trees and got up to all sorts of stuff without doing too much damage to ourselves...

Methinks people worry far too much these days. But really it took just just nine snowflakes to get an advert banned that was watched by millions.

Here's a song about from a time when we didn't worry about such things....