The Coalition's record on equality and human rights

My interview on BBC Radio Northampton earlier today on Coalition's record on equality and human rights.Go to 52:50 http://t.co/lWwsAD2VAo
— Paul Crofts (@Paulcrofts) November 7, 2013

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Keep your millions offshore? Want a new yacht?

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Wellingborough showing of film Spirit of '45 this Sunday

There will be a special showing of Ken Loach's film Spirit of '45, followed by discussion.

This Sunday, May 19th at 7.00 pm in the Rising Sun pub, corner of Cannon Street/Mill Road

This has been organised by Independent Socialists in Wellingborough in conjunction with Left Unity

ALL WELCOME

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Debating the future of the "Left" in Northamptonshire: Do you want to join in?

I recently posted the following observation on Twitter/Facebook and it prompted the following exchange of views between two friends from Northampton.

I have reproduced it here because I believe it is worthy of further debate and discussion. Do you want to join it? If you do, please post your comments.


ME: Only good news coming from elections seems to be total wipe-out for BNP, English Democrats and their ilk. But hate taken on by UKIP #dangers

• • David Huffadine-smith In effect, Northants voters have endorsed all the Tory cuts made to date, and opened the floodgates for more of the same thing. And the Tories can now rightfully claim a mandate for this. And all because the left of centre parties spend more time squabbling amongst themselves than setting out a clear set of policies and motivating people to go out and vote for them. 

    May 3 at 8:18pm · Unlike · 1
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    John Dickie David,everywhere I look your repeating the canard that the centre-left is squabbling.What you really mean to say is the centre is scrabbling to find something worthwhile to say.The left i9s fairly coherent in its world view,indeed I have never known the factions of the left to be so united.I find it encouraging that the initiative by Ken Loach(onetime SLL/WRP doyen)-Left Unity is gaining traction.It's starting to feel like those who founded the Labour Representation Committee must have felt all those centuries ago.Added to which the creation by Unite of the Community branches is also echoing a return to first principles of trade unionism.Perhaps we are moving towards the sort of movements that are starting to happen again all over Europe!

    Saturday at 9:58am · Unlike · 1
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    David Huffadine-smith My observations about lack of unity amongst the centre-left is confirmed by your comments (on other threads) about the Labour group actions at the most recent Northampton Boro Council meeting. It seems to me that Northampton Labour desperately needs the guidance of experienced and gifted elder statesmen who can do a useful turn in the kind of rhetoric that wins peoples hearts & minds. As well as see through political traps, and counsel against playground theatricals. Those who, for one reason or another, now find themselves outside the traditional Labour umbrella could usefully wave an olive branch. Its a win-win, in that so long as Labour does not insist on those individuals eating 'umble pie, it regains the talents that are currently missing, and losing seats as a result of a split vote will become a thing of the past. Isn't it about time that both sides buried their egos for the sake of the common good?

    Saturday at 2:22pm · Unlike · 1
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    John Dickie David, wwere it all that simple.The problem is that the Labour party that I once knew and worked for despite all its imperfections(Callaghan,Kinnock,etc) is long gone.What we appear to have is a hollowed out shell that lacks ideology and only has a strong desire to provide a small group of people with a professional career structure that ends on green benches.Right now in Northampton there are far more ex-labour party members with considerable talent and experience than there are still within that palsied organisation.It utterly breaks my heart to see it stumble and fail at every hurdle,but I think that the time is about right to create a new movement that brings together the multi-faceted left into a rainbow coalition of ideas.it will certainly not be a socialist organisation but it wil be a damn sight nearer one than what we have at present.I would hope that those few remaining socialists in the Labour party would understand that they are flogging a horse that was eaten as a Tesco burger years ago.The creation of Left U*nity and the Unite Community branches are both steps in the right direction.The Tory hegemony is a dreadful spectre haunting Northampton,and the advances of the BNP in suits is distasteful too-but one feature of us old lefties is optimism-without it we'd all think that Blair was the answer instead o0f being the problem!

    Saturday at 6:36pm · Unlike · 1
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    Paul Crofts It appears I have prompted an important debate. Please continue and it may be worth reproducing as a pamphlet/blog to get debate going involving even more people too.

    Saturday at 7:37pm via mobile · Like
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    David Huffadine-smith I could not give a [insert expletives of your choice] about the Labour Party as currently represented in Westminster, or indeed the previous Blair/Brown Labour Government. What I see is the Tories systematically destroying Northampton (+ shire) culturally, economically, morally, aesthetically and socially, not necessarily in that order. The people who used to be motivated, at least in part, via a powerful and effective Trades Union movement can no longer be reached because the Trades Union movement has been emasculated. There is no longer a popular left wing press, although middle class armchair socialists seem well catered for, and so those who would support a left wing movement are increasingly difficult to reach. I do not know what the solution to this situation is, but having several weak left of centre political parties that do not seem willing to work together does not seem to be a very good game plan for defeating those who would, given half a chance, consign us all to serfdom.

    Saturday at 7:48pm · Like
  • 

    John Dickie David, your arguments are persuasive and depressing,and remind me very much of what has been going round within the left generally for what now seems decades.I started my political life as what the Americans call a 'red diaper baby',growing up in a CP household,a working class family that itself was a rarity in CP circles even then.I was the youngest member of the YCL in London and seemed ddestined for an apparatchik role in the party.However the sixties radicalised me and it seemed that Peace in Vietnam was not as good a slogan as 'Victory to the NLF'.But even then it did seem that the extra parliamentary route was something of a blind alley, there are only so many times you can demand the TUC call a General Strike today! and only so long you can dismiss the labour Party as lackeys of the boss class.I joined the Labour Party at the height of the leftward shift,when despite the PLP and the leadership exciting initiatives wee happening in local government-Liverpool,London,Glasgow,even bloody Sheffield! (remember Blunkett the red scourge!) We tried to make Northampton a red bastion-we failed of course but in the process attracted some very bright and able young activists.But then came Thatcherism and the sickening dark period of ugliness.In 1997 we would accept almost anything,even Blair,rather than another decade of demoralisation and dispair.But that led the labour party into the capitulation of 'tolerating the filthy rich' and even becoming in some cases the filfhy rich.Watching Ken Loach's film 'Spirit of 45' and hearing Attlee talking about a socialist future showed how far backwards we have come.However my glass is not empty, I believe that the Occupy movement,inchoate and confused though it may be,has seeds of optimism.I think a range of single issue authonomous movements are emerging and the trick is to get them to converge.That does mean detaching the brightest and most able from the moribund Labour Party,that has become the Liberal Party of the 1900's, and create a new and vibrant view of socialism that will encourage many more local solutions,building bases in communities and reviving a spirit that the British people once had, the spirit that created the trade union movement,and yes the Labour Party.It's the job of us old greybeards to encourage and nurture and then get out of the way as quickly as possible!Sorry to take so long,but being old also means being long winded.

    Sunday at 3:16pm · Like · 1
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    John Dickie paul, I think this is the debate that's kicking off within Left U*nity-maybe we need to bring to9gether all the strands of left,green,unaligned and gently loopy into a Northamptonshire Convention of 21st century Levellers,Diggers and people like me who think of myself as a Jeffersonian Marxist!(I pinched that designation from Chomsky)

    Sunday at 3:20pm · Like · 1
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    John Dickie Another thought occurred to me, if this debate is to go anywhere it really needs one of the smart and hip young gunslingers from New labour-sorry One nation Labour to explain how ideology-lite labour will move on from listening campaigns to political action.It would be interesting to find out what motivates them now beyond the cliche and stating the bleedin' obvious!

    Yesterday at 9:37am · Like

  
  

  
  

  
  

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Successful anti-bedroom tax protest in Wellingborough

To view all photos photos from the anti-bedroom tax protests in Wellingborough yesterday go HERE


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Bugger the Bankers: the official video

  


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The Crisis of Capitalism Explained - simply and to the point!

Great cartoon explanation of the current crisis of capitalism by David Harvey. A must see!




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Public Meeting: What future for the welfare state

Thursday February 28^th

2013 @ 7.30pm

Victoria Centre, Palk Road

Wellingborough NN8 1HT

Speakers:

Wilkie Wilkinson

Social Worker and UNISON shop steward

(personal capacity)

Disabled People Against Cuts (invited)

Public & Civil Services Union

(Department for Works and Pensions Branch)

(invited)

Stop attacks on the poorest

and vulnerable

Defend our welfare safety-net

STOP the Government:

·       Attacking the Disabled

Cutting Disability Living Allowance will take away

£2 billion from disabled people

·       Attacking Families

The “bedroom tax” takes 14% from the housing benefit of 660,000 families deemed to have one bedroom too many.

Council tax benefit is being abolished,

and discretionary responsibility is being passed to local councils already coping with cuts

·       Attacking the Young

Reducing housing benefit from the under 25s will condemn thousands of vulnerable young people to homelessness,

and is denounced by homeless charities

·       Sowing Division and hatred

The Government tries to set employed against unemployed, poor against the event poorer

Benefit claimants are branded “shirkers,”

but most claimants are in work but paid lousy wages

·       Cutting our Local Services

County Council cuts have hit libraries, preventive services, adult social care, the youth offending service, foster care, trading standards, fire and rescue, Police, early years, meals on wheels, education services and many more.

Council employees face unprecedented attacks on

pay, conditions and pensions.

COME AND LEARN MORE ABOUT THESE ATTACKS AND THE FIGHT AGAINST THEM

DON’T LET THEM GET AWAY WITH IT!!

An event organised by

Wellingborough Labour Party

and Independent Socialists in Wellingborough

For more information ring: 078 72 83 64 63

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An uncanny resemblance?

Did anyone notice the uncanny resemblance between "evil" Richard III and our skeletal Peter Bone, Member of Parliament for Wellingborough, in last weeks Observer  cartoon?

If you missed it, here it is:



The cartoon accurately depicts #Bonethebigot's current pet prejudices: homophobia and Europhobia, and his hatred of the ConLib government which he sees as far too "liberal".

Isn't is time we, the decent people of Wellingborough, stood up and said we don't accept him as our "representative" in Parliament? Isn't it time we said loudly "not in our name" Mr. Bone!


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Private sector (again) fails elderly and vulnerable: Is it a result of "political correctness" gone mad?

There have been two examples over recent days of how privatised care services can have disastrous consequences for some of the most vulnerable in our society, particularly the elderly and disabled.

In Wellingborough the elderly care provider Harmony Care (sic) has gone into administration; a clear example of "market failure" - where the local public sector/state will probably end up picking up the pieces for the provision of care for its residents. Even if another private sector provider takes over, it is likely to result in attempts to cut costs by reducing the quality of care, in order to ensure that it returns to "profitability" for its new owners.

The second example comes from Bristol where the Panorama exposure of gross human rights abuses in a care home resulted in criminal convictions for some of the people who worked there. But who has got off scot free? - the owners of the care home of course, who should be the ones getting the lion share of the blame for the culture that was allowed to develop and the failure of management. This is what the owners were responsible for but failed to do anything about (but, of course, they probably gained significant profits from running it and really care little about how they were produced).

Wellingborough Herald & Post 25-10-12

What a condemnation of the kind of society we are living in and creating more of: where public services are denigrated, cut, closed or privatised and the private sector praised, promoted and expanded; but when the private sector fails (as it has and always will do) there is little recognition of its effects. Isn't this  "political correctness gone mad": where the right wing ideology promoting the dominance of free/private markets into all areas of society is promoted and extolled, against all the evidence of it systemic failure in reality (particularly in meeting social needs of the poorest and most vulnerable). Public services may not be perfect, but there is some (there should be much more!) democratic accountability and scrutiny of what it does; and the people who work in the public sector are overwhelmingly committed to, and motivated by, serving their clients and the public - not creating profits for private owners.


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Guest post: Where is my pension?

I was queuing at the bank, it was a long queue, when the man in front of me  got chatting about queues and banks and he told me that he was just about to  retire and had found out that his pension fund was 20 per cent less than anticipated. He knew he had been swindled but he did not know how. This is  the result:

Where is my pension?

The Bank boys say

We gamble and you pay - OK

The Eton boys say

We rule and we stay  - Olé

The Work boys say, as is their way

We always fucking pay

But this time no way - Hosea

This time the Bank and the Eton boys pay

There is no other way.

Ok

Olé

Hosea
© Andi McNib

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Keep our NHS Public: Demonstrate this Saturday in Northampton

Support a demonstration this Saturday (7th July) organised by Northampton Save Our Services (NSOS). The demonstration is a picket outside of the Virgin store on Abington Street, at 10.30am.

Dave Green writes:

"Save Our Public Services Supporters are calling for support for the latest protests around the country, that have been initiated by the national campaign 'Keep Our NHS Public', against the takeover of our Health Service by the likes of Richard Branson's Virgin corporation. Following the successful local and national protest on the 21st April, KNHSP has initiated more protests starting on the 30th June. 

Private organisations like Virgin are trying to cherry pick parts of the NHS that they see as being extremely profitable for their balance sheets, their owners and shareholders. We need to resist this encroachment into the NHS which was built to serve peoples health needs not line profiteers' pockets. 

So, join our latest protest that hopefully will be even more successful than the April one, consider making some placards and other material to bring along (although that will be provided) to make this protest colourful and relevant to the citizens of Northampton. We will have Branson face masks and leaflets for use on the day - but please bring along your own material as well (perhaps Virgin Health Care Cards, Fly miles credits for heart and stroke patients treated at Virgin health care facilities, etc etc). It has been suggested that we have some focus around the fact that Virgin have a fitness centre in Northampton as well as now running two surgeries in the town! So Virgin make a profit if you are fit or ill! 

The campaign against the effects of the recent coalition health and welfare bill needs to continue so that we resist, here and nationally, the break up of universal health care for all, and introduction of a US style health service (or should that be disservice?). 

Please get your organisation and friends on board to support this initiative and ongoing activity to 'Keep our NHS Public'."

Contact 01604 752588 or email davegreen@nhampton.fsnet.co.uk for more details.

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Welfare Rights Group victim to cuts

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Guest Poem: Dear Mr. Cameron.....

I was sent this poem by a friend and I thought it worth putting on my blog. I am not sure who the author is, but would like to congratulate them for summing up so eloquently how so many people feel.

Dear Mr. Cameron, you say we're broken and sick
But we're just sick of being broke and putting up with this shit.
Its not pockets of society, it’s about society's pockets
This country eats its young, it’s up to us to stop it
Our Tuition fees tripled and EMA axed
20% V.A.T. and even more and more tax

Tell us Mr. Cameron, how are we supposed to cope?
Growing up with no future, no voice and no hope.
Born into a greedy, materialistic world
Money loving capitalistic little boys and girls

We looted JD and Argos, you say its 'criminal and senseless'
But MPs can take kickbacks disguised as 'expenses'
'Do as I say not as I do' is the governments call
As Banks take the piss and we ALL take the fall
Police and Parliament call us rioters and ‘moral lacking’ vandals
Whilst the Chief Commissioner AND Assistant resign over 'Hacking' scandals

Where do we find good, honest role models to follow?
When our so called should-be leaders are so shallow and hollow
So we're left jaded, misguided and ultimately lost
As we rage against the machine you're just counting the cost
Instead of examining the problem to get to the root
You ignore all the signs and turn a blind eye to truth

Please Mr Cameron don't just react to save face
Don't play Mr. Tough to make the public feel safe
Your 'Fightback' campaign and the 'all nighter' courts
May have sent out a 'message' but justice fell short

BBC and SKY News distorting the facts
Subtlety pitching the whites against blacks
But this ain't about colour, race, or aggression
It's about the corruption that caused the recession

Violence is not acceptable Mr Cameron we agree
But if it wasn't for the riots would you even see me?
Would you see the gangs or the deprived neighbourhoods
Or the fact the property ladder is off bounds for good
We regret loss of life, we regret we caused harm
R.I.P. Shazad Ali, Abdul Musavir and Haroon Jahan

Mark Duggan’s death was not the cause of the riot.
His family's protest was peaceful and quiet.
Still 333 deaths since 1998
By the hands of Police but not ONE prosecution to date
There's only so much a young nation can take.
But you squeeze and you push, and you bend ‘til we break
Then we blow leaving anarchy and chaos in our wake
So learn a lesson Mr Cameron don't repeat the mistake
You have choice wrong or right but which will you choose?
Signed: A generation with nothing to lose.

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