I welcome the recent comments from Harriet Harman MP to bring in Legislations to ban the BNP in parliament and of course not forgeting the Equality and Human Rights Commission has written to the BNP to question their anti-discrimination policies on membership, employment and provision of services to the public. The EHRC suggests that in these areas, the BNP’s policies may breach the Race Relations Act:
The Commission has a statutory duty, under the Equality Act 2006, to enforce the provisions of the Act and to work towards the elimination of unlawful discrimination. This duty includes preventing discrimination by political parties.
The Commission thinks that the BNP’s constitution and membership criteria may discriminate on the grounds of race and colour, contrary to the Race Relations Act. The party’s membership criteria appear to restrict membership to those within what the BNP regards as particular “ethnic groups” and those whose skin colour is white. This exclusion is contrary to the Race Relations Act which the party is legally obliged to comply with. The Commission therefore thinks that the BNP may have acted, and be acting, illegally.
The BNP’s website states that the party is looking to recruit people and states that any applicants should supply a membership number. The Commission thinks that this requirement is contrary to the Race Relations Act, which outlaws the refusal or deliberate omission to offer employment on the basis of non-membership of an organisation. The Commission is therefore concerned that the BNP may have acted, and be acting, illegally.
The Commission is also concerned that the BNP’s elected representatives may not intend to offer or provide services on an equal basis to all their constituents and members of the public irrespective of race or colour. The Commission thinks that this contravenes the Race Relations Act and the Local Authority Model Code of Conduct and that the BNP may have acted illegally and may act illegally in the future.
The BBC report on this story includes the key section of the BNP’s constitution:
A)In its constitution, the BNP says it exists to represent the “collective National, Environmental, Political, Racial, Folkish, Social, Cultural, Religious and Economic interests of the indigenous Anglo-Saxon, Celtic and Norse folk communities of Britain and those we regard as closely related and ethnically assimilated or assimilable aboriginal members of the European race also resident in Britain”.
B)It says membership of the BNP is “strictly defined within the terms of, and our members also self define themselves within, the legal ambit of a defined ‘racial group’ this being ‘Indigenous Caucasian’ and defined ‘ethnic groups’ emanating from that Race”.
The EHRC’s warning of a possible legal injunction against the BNP is a serious threat to the party’s future in its current state. It is also a reminder that legal approaches are a useful, and often underused, tool in the anti-racist armoury.
Nick Griffin cannot claim to have been unaware that the BNP often skirts around the edges of the law in its policies and propaganda. In 2007 he announced that he had changed his mind on whether the Holocaust happened – having previously described it as “a mixture of Allied wartime propaganda, extremely profitable lie, and latter witch-hysteria” – solely because of changes to European law: “If I say that now or believe that now, I’m liable to be extradited to France…I believe what the law says I must believe.”
Of course Griffin has fallen foul of the law before, in 1998, when he was convicted of distributing material likely to incite racial hatred. His experience of this trial led him to write a paper for BNP writers on how to avoid prosecution under the Race Relations Act, and it may be worth reviewing Griffin’s advice, now that the BNP is under the legal spotlight once again.
1) “The truth is no defence.” That’s the ‘law’, no getting around it.
2) Any connection between sex, particularly sex crime, and members of ethnic ‘minorities’ is dynamite.
3) Emotive words, however justified they may be, must be avoided. Truth hurts, so words like ‘alien’, ‘vermin’, ‘gang’ instead of ‘group’, and such like must be avoided. A white rapist may be described as a ‘beast’ or an ‘animal’, but a black one must merely be a ‘criminal’.
4) Even more than ‘racism’, ‘anti-Semitism’ is the great taboo of our time. We can sometimes get away with criticising Zionists, but any criticism of Jews is likely to be legal and political suicide.
5) Reports of the harmful effects of immigration abroad may still be held to be likely or intended to incite racial hatred in Britain.
6) What a PC prosecutor will try to claim is “likely or intended” to incite “hatred” doesn’t necessarily have any relationship to reality or commonsense. In my own case, for instance, the ‘Crown’ complained that the words “Wanted: More white children” implied that non-white children are less wanted. An article which “extolled the virtues of Nordic life” (according to the CPS) was said by implication to decry the lifestyles of non-whites. A drawing of a noose (reproduced with paedophile murderers in mind and with no reference at all to immigration) was said to be a ‘coded’ call to “hang Black people.” The fact that I called a Black separatist friend to testify on my behalf, and that the prosecution were unable to explain what possible good it could do a political party aiming to get elected to power to issue calls, coded or otherwise, to hang black people, had no impact at all on the PC jurors.
7) In the end, a Race Act case is decided by a jury. As these trials are invariably held in multiracial areas (mine was held in North West London, with a jury catchment area including Southall, despite the fact that both me and the complainant live in rural Wales), and as jurors are drawn disproportionately from the chattering intellectual classes, this means that the chances of a fair trial are nil. So the only way to win a Race Act trial is to avoid it.
If the BNP is to avoid a legal injunction in this case, it may have to alter its character to such an extent that it ceases to serve its purpose for most BNP members. BNP spokesman John Walker told the BBC that the BNP would be prepared to change its membership rules “to remain within the law…[but] I don’t think we should be bullied by outside forces. They are asking us to change our whole political ideology.” This quote outlines perfectly the dilemma facing the BNP. It wants to be a normal political party, offering itself at election and winning seats. So far, it has had moderate success in local and European elections doing just that. But its “whole political ideology” is based on discrimination on the basis of colour, religion and ethnicity. The BNP’s efforts to ditch its extremist, racist image have so far been entirely superficial; you do not have to scratch very far beneath the surface to find the same racism that has always been there, because it is written into the constitution of the party. The EHRC seem determined to put this to the test.
RACE HATE CRIMES UP BY 29%
It has been reported by the Daily Mirror that the number of race hate crimes is soaring and is predicted to get worse.
Some 4,660 people were prosecuted in the year to March - up 29 per cent up on the previous year.
A rise is predicted next year due to attacks after the 7/7 Tube bombs.
A Home Office insider said: "We feel this is the tip of the iceberg.
"More offences are reported but many, many go unrecorded because of fear of retaliation."
Ken Macdonald QC, the Director of Public Prosecutions, said yesterday racist and religious crime affects whole communities, not just individuals and their properties.
Most incidents reported last year were assaults, criminal damage and public order offences - but four were murders.
Thursday 25 June 2009
Wednesday 24 June 2009
Racists Turn Their Hate Campaign On Romanian Refugees
I was horrified to learn on recent events that attacks on Romanian refugees in the Lisburn road in Belfast have caused shockwaves across the world. But despicable as these hate crimes are, they are merely a high-profile example of a much larger problem.
The insidious spectre of racism has long haunted Ireland, north and south. For many years it was masked by the more visible evil of sectarianism, but it was always there.
For years political representatives scoffed at suggestions of far-right organisations gaining ground in Ireland & UK, despite the warning signs being all too evident.
In many ways the six counties were the perfect breeding ground for racist organisations. The societal rifts, economic deprivation and a long-standing British policy of divide and rule were already in place.
All that was required was a slight shift of focus - the allocation of a new set of hate figures.
For students of Irish history, last week's attacks, and the many before which have gone largely unremarked upon, recalled the dark days of loyalist pogroms in Belfast almost exactly 40 years ago.
Then nationalists were driven out of their homes by loyalist mobs, in Bombay Street and other areas, with tens of thousands being forced to flee. Now, while the ethnic background of those being persecuted may have changed, the pattern of behaviour has not.
Father Des Wilson, the Belfast priest who gave shelter to those burned out of their homes in 1969, sees clear parallels with the current situation.
He is also in no doubt who is ultimately to blame both then and now.
Fr Wilson says: "Almost exactly 40 years after the pogroms, we are seeing the same kind of people doing the same things - they just have a different target.
"You have people in this part of the country who want to drive people out. It was Catholics then, Romanians today. Tomorrow it could be Pakistanis.
"We are seeing politicians coming out and wringing their hands and saying how awful it is, but 40 years ago it was actually government policy to drive people out of their homes," Fr Wilson says.
"They built the willingness in people to act on their behalf and drive people out to secure the vote. They built this into our society but never tackled the problem of how to get rid of it. The only reaction one can have is of anger.
"Now people are saying Romanians are to blame, 'coming here and taking our jobs.' Well, that's exactly what they said about Catholics 40 years ago.
"There is still a sign in Belfast saying 'Irish go home.' It's not even a question of Ireland for the Irish," he says.
"If they managed to drive out the immigrants, they would turn on someone else. They always find the same old reasons.
"Having exploited the situation here, the government now wrings its hands and does nothing. They have deliberately constructed laws which look good but do nothing. The fair employment law is of some use, but in general the effect is minimal."
Recalling the pogroms of the late 1960s, Fr Wilson says: "It was reckoned that on the Falls Road on one weekend, there were 10,000 refugees streaming up the road. People on the Falls already had overcrowded houses and poor living standards.
"We got them to open the schools to take people in, but the authorities were paralysed. On this occasion (with the Romanian refugees), at least they were able to do something, but they were dealing with much smaller numbers."
According to Fr Wilson, one of the major reasons for the recent attacks is the wrong-headed notion which exists then as now that it was a Catholic/Protestant issue.
This has meant that the vast majority of efforts at peace and reconciliation were focused on these two narrow faith groups.
The reality was far more complex and, with the influx of people from different ethnic and religious backgrounds to Northern Ireland in recent years, is even more so now.
"Saying it was a Protestant/Catholic thing was an entirely false reading of the situation," he says.
"The model was out of date then and certainly is now but, because of this, the emphasis has always been on relations between those two groups.
" You have people in this part of the country who want to drive people out. It was Catholics then, Romanians today. Tomorrow it could be Pakistanis & Chinese"
"In the meantime we have seen large numbers of others such as Poles and Romanians coming here, and the situation is quite different. But most of the efforts at community relations still operate on the Catholic/Protestant model and, in fact, groups have to pursue funding on this basis. The ethnic minority groups have had nothing created which includes them."
And while the media focuses on Belfast, the scene of the latest racist atrocity, hate crimes are increasing dramatically across the six counties.
Areas such as Coleraine have seen such attacks soar in number in recent years.
John Dallat, SDLP Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for East Derry and a veteran campaigner against sectarianism and racism, says that unfortunately the attacks in Belfast were the tip of the iceberg.
"Racism has been a serious problem here in East Derry for years," says Dallat.
"It is definitely linked to sectarianism, and in in many cases it is the same people doing it. There are definite links between loyalist paramilitaries and racist groups.
"Coleraine has seen record levels of hate crime and the laws are clearly insufficient to deal with it. There does not seem to be any real penalty for people committing these crimes.
The attitude of society in general also needs to change, he believes.
"The modern police service here tends to take an academic approach to problems. Take the example of the killing of Mr McDaid recently (the Catholic community worker beaten to death by a loyalist mob in Coleraine). They try and negotiate with these people but, to my mind, to begin to negotiate with people committing hate crimes is to bestow on them an importance they are not entitled to. The place for them is in court and in jail."
DUP MLA for Belfast South Jimmy Spratt says: "There can be absolutely no justification for attacking anyone on the basis of their race or the colour of their skin.
"These kind of cowardly attacks on migrant workers do nothing other than to damage the reputation of Northern Ireland in general and south Belfast in particular."
Specifically referring to the Lisburn Road attacks, Spratt continues: "The people involved in these attacks are only a very small group of individuals and they in no way represent the views of the vast majority of people living in the Lisburn Road area or elsewhere within the city."
Yet such attacks do tend to emanate from areas such as those around Lisburn Road - economically deprived areas with mass unemployment that are often, but not exclusively, staunchly loyalist, such as the Village in south Belfast.
In the recent attacks, youths chanted neonazi slogans and gave fascist salutes.
Suggestions that Combat 18 and the BNP may have been behind the attacks, ratcheting up tensions and egging the thugs on, are not as outlandish as some appear to be saying.
Neonazi groups have long had links with loyalist paramilitaries.
Ulster Freedom Fighters mass murderer Stephen Irwin was jailed for his part in the infamous Greysteel massacre. Shortly after his release in 2000 under the Good Friday Agreement, he was seen with Combat 18 members in London giving nazi salutes at the remembrance service at the Cenotaph. While in jail he had posed for pictures with nazi regalia.
Nick Griffin and other senior members of the perfidious BNP have made numerous visits to Northern Ireland and held talks with high-ranking loyalists.
Fra Halligan of the Irish Republican Socialist Party is in no doubt that Combat 18 was having influence in Belfast.
"There was an attack on a bar in Castle street here by members of Combat 18 recently, which left a young guy with brain damage," says Halligan.
"They are making inroads. The last thing we need is Combat 18 here, but we are hearing more and more racist talk, not just in loyalist areas but nationalist areas too. People saying they can't get jobs because of immigrants. This is exploitation by the boss class - it's not the migrant workers' fault, but I fear it's going to get worse here.
"Places like the Village suffer massive deprivation and are a hunting ground for the likes of the BNP. It doesn't take much.
"There are 16, 17-year-olds saying there is no hope, no future. It's people like that these groups target. There's a lot of talking done, but we need to address the issue, not merely pay lip service to it as was done with sectarianism."
The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) logged around 700 race-related incidents in 2008 alone.
These included two attempted murders, 20 threats or conspiracy to murder, 203 woundings or assaults, 37 incidents of intimidation and 410 reports of criminal damage.
Commenting on the most recent incidents, Chief Inspector Robert Murdie says: "Police are working tirelessly within the community to try and reduce these attacks.
"Every right-thinking person should be ashamed that attacks of this nature are happening. And they are not isolated just to the Village area or the Lisburn Road area of Belfast, but unfortunately are happening right across Northern Ireland."
But Sinn Fein South Belfast District Policing Partnership member Vincent Parker accuses the PSNI of doing too little to identify and punish those responsible for hate attacks.
"The latest PSNI figures show a huge increase in racist hate crime over the past three months in south Belfast, but more worryingly, the clearance rate is only 9.9 per cent," he says.
"This has dropped from 16.7 per cent this time last year, which is also too low. The PSNI must catch and prosecute those involved in racist hate crime, and with a clearance rate of 9.9 per cent, confidence in their ability to do so is very low. It's not good enough and must be improved."
The insidious spectre of racism has long haunted Ireland, north and south. For many years it was masked by the more visible evil of sectarianism, but it was always there.
For years political representatives scoffed at suggestions of far-right organisations gaining ground in Ireland & UK, despite the warning signs being all too evident.
In many ways the six counties were the perfect breeding ground for racist organisations. The societal rifts, economic deprivation and a long-standing British policy of divide and rule were already in place.
All that was required was a slight shift of focus - the allocation of a new set of hate figures.
For students of Irish history, last week's attacks, and the many before which have gone largely unremarked upon, recalled the dark days of loyalist pogroms in Belfast almost exactly 40 years ago.
Then nationalists were driven out of their homes by loyalist mobs, in Bombay Street and other areas, with tens of thousands being forced to flee. Now, while the ethnic background of those being persecuted may have changed, the pattern of behaviour has not.
Father Des Wilson, the Belfast priest who gave shelter to those burned out of their homes in 1969, sees clear parallels with the current situation.
He is also in no doubt who is ultimately to blame both then and now.
Fr Wilson says: "Almost exactly 40 years after the pogroms, we are seeing the same kind of people doing the same things - they just have a different target.
"You have people in this part of the country who want to drive people out. It was Catholics then, Romanians today. Tomorrow it could be Pakistanis.
"We are seeing politicians coming out and wringing their hands and saying how awful it is, but 40 years ago it was actually government policy to drive people out of their homes," Fr Wilson says.
"They built the willingness in people to act on their behalf and drive people out to secure the vote. They built this into our society but never tackled the problem of how to get rid of it. The only reaction one can have is of anger.
"Now people are saying Romanians are to blame, 'coming here and taking our jobs.' Well, that's exactly what they said about Catholics 40 years ago.
"There is still a sign in Belfast saying 'Irish go home.' It's not even a question of Ireland for the Irish," he says.
"If they managed to drive out the immigrants, they would turn on someone else. They always find the same old reasons.
"Having exploited the situation here, the government now wrings its hands and does nothing. They have deliberately constructed laws which look good but do nothing. The fair employment law is of some use, but in general the effect is minimal."
Recalling the pogroms of the late 1960s, Fr Wilson says: "It was reckoned that on the Falls Road on one weekend, there were 10,000 refugees streaming up the road. People on the Falls already had overcrowded houses and poor living standards.
"We got them to open the schools to take people in, but the authorities were paralysed. On this occasion (with the Romanian refugees), at least they were able to do something, but they were dealing with much smaller numbers."
According to Fr Wilson, one of the major reasons for the recent attacks is the wrong-headed notion which exists then as now that it was a Catholic/Protestant issue.
This has meant that the vast majority of efforts at peace and reconciliation were focused on these two narrow faith groups.
The reality was far more complex and, with the influx of people from different ethnic and religious backgrounds to Northern Ireland in recent years, is even more so now.
"Saying it was a Protestant/Catholic thing was an entirely false reading of the situation," he says.
"The model was out of date then and certainly is now but, because of this, the emphasis has always been on relations between those two groups.
" You have people in this part of the country who want to drive people out. It was Catholics then, Romanians today. Tomorrow it could be Pakistanis & Chinese"
"In the meantime we have seen large numbers of others such as Poles and Romanians coming here, and the situation is quite different. But most of the efforts at community relations still operate on the Catholic/Protestant model and, in fact, groups have to pursue funding on this basis. The ethnic minority groups have had nothing created which includes them."
And while the media focuses on Belfast, the scene of the latest racist atrocity, hate crimes are increasing dramatically across the six counties.
Areas such as Coleraine have seen such attacks soar in number in recent years.
John Dallat, SDLP Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for East Derry and a veteran campaigner against sectarianism and racism, says that unfortunately the attacks in Belfast were the tip of the iceberg.
"Racism has been a serious problem here in East Derry for years," says Dallat.
"It is definitely linked to sectarianism, and in in many cases it is the same people doing it. There are definite links between loyalist paramilitaries and racist groups.
"Coleraine has seen record levels of hate crime and the laws are clearly insufficient to deal with it. There does not seem to be any real penalty for people committing these crimes.
The attitude of society in general also needs to change, he believes.
"The modern police service here tends to take an academic approach to problems. Take the example of the killing of Mr McDaid recently (the Catholic community worker beaten to death by a loyalist mob in Coleraine). They try and negotiate with these people but, to my mind, to begin to negotiate with people committing hate crimes is to bestow on them an importance they are not entitled to. The place for them is in court and in jail."
DUP MLA for Belfast South Jimmy Spratt says: "There can be absolutely no justification for attacking anyone on the basis of their race or the colour of their skin.
"These kind of cowardly attacks on migrant workers do nothing other than to damage the reputation of Northern Ireland in general and south Belfast in particular."
Specifically referring to the Lisburn Road attacks, Spratt continues: "The people involved in these attacks are only a very small group of individuals and they in no way represent the views of the vast majority of people living in the Lisburn Road area or elsewhere within the city."
Yet such attacks do tend to emanate from areas such as those around Lisburn Road - economically deprived areas with mass unemployment that are often, but not exclusively, staunchly loyalist, such as the Village in south Belfast.
In the recent attacks, youths chanted neonazi slogans and gave fascist salutes.
Suggestions that Combat 18 and the BNP may have been behind the attacks, ratcheting up tensions and egging the thugs on, are not as outlandish as some appear to be saying.
Neonazi groups have long had links with loyalist paramilitaries.
Ulster Freedom Fighters mass murderer Stephen Irwin was jailed for his part in the infamous Greysteel massacre. Shortly after his release in 2000 under the Good Friday Agreement, he was seen with Combat 18 members in London giving nazi salutes at the remembrance service at the Cenotaph. While in jail he had posed for pictures with nazi regalia.
Nick Griffin and other senior members of the perfidious BNP have made numerous visits to Northern Ireland and held talks with high-ranking loyalists.
Fra Halligan of the Irish Republican Socialist Party is in no doubt that Combat 18 was having influence in Belfast.
"There was an attack on a bar in Castle street here by members of Combat 18 recently, which left a young guy with brain damage," says Halligan.
"They are making inroads. The last thing we need is Combat 18 here, but we are hearing more and more racist talk, not just in loyalist areas but nationalist areas too. People saying they can't get jobs because of immigrants. This is exploitation by the boss class - it's not the migrant workers' fault, but I fear it's going to get worse here.
"Places like the Village suffer massive deprivation and are a hunting ground for the likes of the BNP. It doesn't take much.
"There are 16, 17-year-olds saying there is no hope, no future. It's people like that these groups target. There's a lot of talking done, but we need to address the issue, not merely pay lip service to it as was done with sectarianism."
The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) logged around 700 race-related incidents in 2008 alone.
These included two attempted murders, 20 threats or conspiracy to murder, 203 woundings or assaults, 37 incidents of intimidation and 410 reports of criminal damage.
Commenting on the most recent incidents, Chief Inspector Robert Murdie says: "Police are working tirelessly within the community to try and reduce these attacks.
"Every right-thinking person should be ashamed that attacks of this nature are happening. And they are not isolated just to the Village area or the Lisburn Road area of Belfast, but unfortunately are happening right across Northern Ireland."
But Sinn Fein South Belfast District Policing Partnership member Vincent Parker accuses the PSNI of doing too little to identify and punish those responsible for hate attacks.
"The latest PSNI figures show a huge increase in racist hate crime over the past three months in south Belfast, but more worryingly, the clearance rate is only 9.9 per cent," he says.
"This has dropped from 16.7 per cent this time last year, which is also too low. The PSNI must catch and prosecute those involved in racist hate crime, and with a clearance rate of 9.9 per cent, confidence in their ability to do so is very low. It's not good enough and must be improved."
Tuesday 23 June 2009
US Troops will pull Out Of Iraq On 30th June 2009
Let’s hope the US troops will begin to pull out of Iraq and that the country does not revert to its old style of rule after 30th June 2009. Where does that leave the country's people, who are still reeling from decades of war? In Baghdad, it will not be surprising if the countries mullahs will continue to face a drought, sectarian conflict and the scramble for oil riches.
President Obama speaks to the dwindling numbers of troops during a recent visit to Baghdad. On 30 June the last US troops will pull out of the Iraqi cities. America's great adventure in Iraq is ending. Already there are few US military patrols in Baghdad. The American-held area of the Green Zone, for long a forbidden city in the middle of the capital, has been squeezed in size. The hotel that Baghdad taxi drivers fondly believed was the headquarters of the CIA has removed the concrete wall protecting it and reopened for public business. The knowledge that all US military forces will be out of Iraq by the end of 2011 immediately reduces American influence in Iraq. No Iraqi wants to nail his flag to the mast of a departing ship, which is one reason why Washington for so long resisted setting a timetable for a US troop withdrawal.
American forces leave behind a country which is a barely floating wreck. Its society, economy and very landscape have been torn apart by 30 years of war, sanctions and occupation. I first came to Iraq in 1977 when its future looked rosy, but it turned out I was visiting the country at the high tide of its fortunes, a tide that has been ebbing ever since. Iraqis have been engulfed by successive disasters: the eight-year-long Iran-Iraq war starting in 1980; the defeat in Kuwait in 1991; the bloodily suppressed Shia and Kurdish uprisings the same year; UN sanctions amounting to a 13-year-long siege which ruined the economy and shattered society; the US invasion of 2003; the Sunni Arab war against the US occupation in 2003-7 and the Sunni-Shia civil war over the same period.
How many other countries in the world have endured such traumas? Is it any surprise that Iraqis are so heavily marked by them? The Iraqi government announces proudly that in May 2009 only 225 Iraqis died from war-related violence, a lower figure than we have seen in any month for at least four years. Of course this is far better than the 3,000 tortured bodies which used to turn up every month at the height of sectarian war in 2006-7. Baghdad is certainly a safer place these days than Mogadishu, though not perhaps as secure as Kabul, where violence, at least for the moment, is surprisingly limited. But the attitudes of Iraqis are not determined solely or even primarily by monthly casualty figures or even the current security situation. Their individual psychology and collective political landscape is shaped rather by the memory of the mass killings of the recent past and fear that they might happen again. Iraq is a country so drenched in blood as to make it next to impossible to reach genuine political accommodation between Shia and Sunni, Arab and Kurd, Baathist and non-Baathist, supporters and opponents of the US occupation. "How do you expect people who are too frightened of each other to live in the same street to reach political agreements?" asks one Iraqi friend in exasperation.
President Obama speaks to the dwindling numbers of troops during a recent visit to Baghdad. On 30 June the last US troops will pull out of the Iraqi cities. America's great adventure in Iraq is ending. Already there are few US military patrols in Baghdad. The American-held area of the Green Zone, for long a forbidden city in the middle of the capital, has been squeezed in size. The hotel that Baghdad taxi drivers fondly believed was the headquarters of the CIA has removed the concrete wall protecting it and reopened for public business. The knowledge that all US military forces will be out of Iraq by the end of 2011 immediately reduces American influence in Iraq. No Iraqi wants to nail his flag to the mast of a departing ship, which is one reason why Washington for so long resisted setting a timetable for a US troop withdrawal.
American forces leave behind a country which is a barely floating wreck. Its society, economy and very landscape have been torn apart by 30 years of war, sanctions and occupation. I first came to Iraq in 1977 when its future looked rosy, but it turned out I was visiting the country at the high tide of its fortunes, a tide that has been ebbing ever since. Iraqis have been engulfed by successive disasters: the eight-year-long Iran-Iraq war starting in 1980; the defeat in Kuwait in 1991; the bloodily suppressed Shia and Kurdish uprisings the same year; UN sanctions amounting to a 13-year-long siege which ruined the economy and shattered society; the US invasion of 2003; the Sunni Arab war against the US occupation in 2003-7 and the Sunni-Shia civil war over the same period.
How many other countries in the world have endured such traumas? Is it any surprise that Iraqis are so heavily marked by them? The Iraqi government announces proudly that in May 2009 only 225 Iraqis died from war-related violence, a lower figure than we have seen in any month for at least four years. Of course this is far better than the 3,000 tortured bodies which used to turn up every month at the height of sectarian war in 2006-7. Baghdad is certainly a safer place these days than Mogadishu, though not perhaps as secure as Kabul, where violence, at least for the moment, is surprisingly limited. But the attitudes of Iraqis are not determined solely or even primarily by monthly casualty figures or even the current security situation. Their individual psychology and collective political landscape is shaped rather by the memory of the mass killings of the recent past and fear that they might happen again. Iraq is a country so drenched in blood as to make it next to impossible to reach genuine political accommodation between Shia and Sunni, Arab and Kurd, Baathist and non-Baathist, supporters and opponents of the US occupation. "How do you expect people who are too frightened of each other to live in the same street to reach political agreements?" asks one Iraqi friend in exasperation.
Openess, & Accountable During The Iraq War Enquiry
Of all the predictable things in life, one of those that you could have put your shirt on was Tony Blair trying to avoid anything about the lead-in and the conduct of the war in Iraq being heard in public.
Because our ex-prime minister has much to hide and much to be ashamed of.
His loud proclamations of his Christian faith and the morality that attaches to it were always deeply suspect and, following hard on his miserable collaboration with the Bush administration during the war, always looked like someone desperately trying to cover his tracks in the face of a failed gamble.
Had it succeeded, had Saddam Hussein been proved to have had an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction pointed at the West with a 45-minute margin for destruction and mass killing, Mr Blair would have triumphed in his gamble and he would forever have walked around boasting of having saved the West from millions of deaths and awful destruction.
But it failed. There were no weapons, the gamble didn't pay off and, instead of Mr Blair wearing the halo, he is now skulking around, trying to avoid accounting in public for misdeeds including gambling with the lives of over a million people simply because his philosophy of international relations was based on snuggling up to the playground bully and pressuring those less able to defend themselves.
And it was also based on a policy which has been parodied in plays and films ever since - the obscene secret service mantra of plausible deniability.
Because that's where the unprincipled vandals that have taken democracy and disfigured it so totally that it is virtually unrecognisable are coming from.
To Blair and his ilk, the truthfulness and sincerity of a policy are not the issue.
What is at stake for them is the shape and structure of the world, and that shape and structure must match what their class and their financiers demand.
If you make a claim and base a war on it, its untruthfulness must be plausibly deniable, you must be able to say that, at the time, you believed in all the rubbish that you were spouting and proceeded on it in good faith.
Being right doesn't matter, being honestly misled is an acceptable excuse.
But we aren't talking about the finances of a crown green bowling club here, we are talking about a million lives lost and a country plunged into anarchy and mass killing. It's certainly not a shock that Mr Blair doesn't want to account for the devious manipulations that he was involved with in public, where they can be recorded and held against him later.
And it isn't surprising that Gordon Brown, Jack Straw and all the others who went through that period in Cabinet are trying to get away with a secret inquiry where their testimony will not be publicly scrutinised but, when challenged, are indigantly denying that secrecy was ever on their minds.
But these are not respectable politicians. They are war criminals with the blood of hundreds of thousands of people on their hands and it ill behoves new ministers to stand up in public and equivocate.
Iraq saw an illegal, bloody and murderous war, prosecuted by people who still, in this country, hold the reins of government. They were supported by an opposition which is now trying desperately to backtrack on that support.
But, once again, this paper insists. They are war criminals and must pay the price for their crimes.
Openness is not an issue. The Iraq inquiry must be completely transparent and public.
There are no security issues large enough to justify secrecy here.
And, ultimately, the war criminals must pay for their crimes or we live in a society that has foresworn and abandoned any ideas of decency and justice.
Because our ex-prime minister has much to hide and much to be ashamed of.
His loud proclamations of his Christian faith and the morality that attaches to it were always deeply suspect and, following hard on his miserable collaboration with the Bush administration during the war, always looked like someone desperately trying to cover his tracks in the face of a failed gamble.
Had it succeeded, had Saddam Hussein been proved to have had an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction pointed at the West with a 45-minute margin for destruction and mass killing, Mr Blair would have triumphed in his gamble and he would forever have walked around boasting of having saved the West from millions of deaths and awful destruction.
But it failed. There were no weapons, the gamble didn't pay off and, instead of Mr Blair wearing the halo, he is now skulking around, trying to avoid accounting in public for misdeeds including gambling with the lives of over a million people simply because his philosophy of international relations was based on snuggling up to the playground bully and pressuring those less able to defend themselves.
And it was also based on a policy which has been parodied in plays and films ever since - the obscene secret service mantra of plausible deniability.
Because that's where the unprincipled vandals that have taken democracy and disfigured it so totally that it is virtually unrecognisable are coming from.
To Blair and his ilk, the truthfulness and sincerity of a policy are not the issue.
What is at stake for them is the shape and structure of the world, and that shape and structure must match what their class and their financiers demand.
If you make a claim and base a war on it, its untruthfulness must be plausibly deniable, you must be able to say that, at the time, you believed in all the rubbish that you were spouting and proceeded on it in good faith.
Being right doesn't matter, being honestly misled is an acceptable excuse.
But we aren't talking about the finances of a crown green bowling club here, we are talking about a million lives lost and a country plunged into anarchy and mass killing. It's certainly not a shock that Mr Blair doesn't want to account for the devious manipulations that he was involved with in public, where they can be recorded and held against him later.
And it isn't surprising that Gordon Brown, Jack Straw and all the others who went through that period in Cabinet are trying to get away with a secret inquiry where their testimony will not be publicly scrutinised but, when challenged, are indigantly denying that secrecy was ever on their minds.
But these are not respectable politicians. They are war criminals with the blood of hundreds of thousands of people on their hands and it ill behoves new ministers to stand up in public and equivocate.
Iraq saw an illegal, bloody and murderous war, prosecuted by people who still, in this country, hold the reins of government. They were supported by an opposition which is now trying desperately to backtrack on that support.
But, once again, this paper insists. They are war criminals and must pay the price for their crimes.
Openness is not an issue. The Iraq inquiry must be completely transparent and public.
There are no security issues large enough to justify secrecy here.
And, ultimately, the war criminals must pay for their crimes or we live in a society that has foresworn and abandoned any ideas of decency and justice.
Friday 19 June 2009
History suggests the coup will fail In this Modern Day & Time
I can recall Iran during the 1979 revolution, the fall of the Shah and explains why the current uprising is very different. I watched on television protesters hold up a poster of Ayatollah Khomeini during a demonstration against the Shah on 1 January 1979.
At first sight, what is happening in Tehran today looks very like the extraordinary events of the Islamic Revolution 30 years ago. But how deep do the similarities go? On 2 December 1978, two million Iranians filled the streets of central Tehran to demand an end to the rule of the Shah and the return of Ayatollah Khomeini. It was the most popular revolution in history. At night, people gathered on rooftops to chant "Allahu Akbar – God is Great". In the daytime, mass rallies commemorated as martyrs the protesters who had been killed by the security forces.
The methods of protest are very similar. This is hardly surprising because the demonstrators seeking to get rid of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad understandably hope the type of unarmed mass protest that worked against the Shah will succeed again. Mass rally and public martyrdom are part of the Iranian revolutionary tradition, just as the barricade is part of the tradition in France. A difference between 1978-9 and today is that the Iranian government has no intention of letting history repeat itself.
Nor is it likely to do so. The Iranian revolution was carried out by a broad coalition from right to left which had religious conservatives at one end and Marxist revolutionaries at the other. The Shah and his regime had a unique ability to alienate simultaneously different parts of the Iranian population which had nothing in common. His cruel but poorly informed Savak security men convinced themselves that communists and revolutionary leftists were the danger to the throne and not the Shia clergy. They were not alone in their delusion. President Jimmy Carter recalls an August 1978 CIA memo, drafted five months before the Shah took flight, firmly concluding that Iran "is not in a revolutionary or even a pre-revolutionary situation".
Crucially, the Iranian revolution had a messianic leader in Ayatollah Khomeini who was a visible alternative to the Shah, a leader whose claims to legitimacy were compromised even before he came to the throne: his father Reza Shah, an army general who seized power in the 1920s, was deposed by British and Soviet troops in 1941. His son was forced to flee in 1953 when Mohammed Mossadeq was elected prime minister, only to be restored by a CIA-run coup for which President Barack Obama has apologised.
More astute rulers might have tried to burnish their nationalist credentials but instead the Shah indulged in historical fantasies such as abolishing the Islamic calendar and celebrating the 2,500th anniversary of the founding of the Persian Empire at Persepolis in 1971. Foreign dignitaries and celebrities sipped drinks behind security cordons while Iranians were excluded.
What makes the Iranian revolution different from previous revolutions in the 19th and 20th centuries is that it was a religious revolution in terms of its leadership and inspiration. Thirty years later, when "Islamic revolution" is seen as such a menace in the West, it is difficult to recall what a surprising development it was in the late 1970s. Revolutions were supposed to follow roughly in the footsteps of the French, Russian or Chinese revolutions. Their tone was secular and anti-religious. Priests were the defenders of the established order.
There had been Islamic anti-colonial movements against the European empires and later against the nationalist regimes which succeeded them. But the record of these Islamic parties was one of failure. It was the Iranian revolution that made political Islam such a potent and, to its enemies, such a menacing force.
The revolution was not only Islamic, but was rooted in the theology and beliefs of one particular Islamic sect. At a moment when intelligence services were looking at Moscow, Peking and Havana as the inspiration for revolution, none of them foresaw the danger to the status quo that was brewing in the clerical seminaries of Najaf in Iraq and Qom in Iran. The birth of revolutionary Shi'ism surprised the world. In theory, Shia theology is more likely to spawn revolution than the Sunni because so many of its beliefs and ceremonies revolve around the lost battle of Kerbala in AD680. It was here that Imam Hussain, the grandson of the Prophet, and 72 of his companions and relatives, were massacred by the soldiers of the second Umayyad caliph Yazid 1.
It is a story of refusal to bow to injustice, of resistance to oppression and martyrdom. But this alone did not make Shi'ism a revolutionary ideology. Iran became Shia by the fiat of the Safavid dynasty in the 16th century. It was only in the 1950s and 1960s, in response to triumphant secularism, leftist revolutionary ideology and persecution by the Shah, that the Shia clergy of Iran and Iraq began to develop their own Islamic "liberation theology" which enabled them to take power in 1979.
The Iranian revolution was more deeply rooted than it appeared to be. It sprang from a coherent ideology. It succeeded partly because it caught its enemies, as well as most of its supporters, by surprise. But it was not a spontaneous event. Khomeini and the clergy who supported him were committed revolutionaries. They had thought out how to take power and how to keep it. They might decry nationalism, but it was their commitment to defending the Iranian nation from foreign encroachments which was so crucial to their success.
In 1964, Khomeini was expelled from Iran, to take refuge in Najaf, because of his opposition to extra-territorial rights for US government employees. The present Iranian leadership does not have the great weakness of the Shah, which was to be seen as the puppet of foreign powers.
By the time the Shah left Iran on 16 January 1979 he had almost no support. This again is very different from the present situation. President Ahmadinejad was re-elected with 62.6 per cent of the vote last week. His opponents claim the poll was rigged, although this is almost exactly the same as his vote in 2005, when he won 61.7 per cent. The point is that Mr Ahmadinejad is a popular politician and the Shah was not. He is very unlikely to be forced from power. Nor is he likely to surrender as the Shah did when he found he was unable to cope with the uprising.
The weakness of the Shah was not evident when the first demonstrations against him began in October 1977, after the death of Khomeini's son. The first demonstrators, religious students, were killed in early 1978 after an article in a government newspaper attacked Khomeini. Their deaths were commemorated 40 days later, according to Shia religious custom, and protests spread across Iran.
These demonstrations in some ways resembled civil rights marches in the US but they had greater impact because they were wedded to religious ritual and the commemoration of martyrdom. Politically, this was a potent blend. It appealed to the most conservative cleric and the most radical student alike. Even so, the marches and demonstrations might have run out of steam over the summer of 1978 if they had not been sustained by a network of clerical supporters of Khomeini in the mosques. Iranians from the slums and villages who had not benefited from the oil boom began to join in.
No crime was so bad that Iranians did not think that the Shah and his security men capable of it. When the Rex Cinema in Abadan caught fire and 400 people burned to death, it was widely believed Savak had started it.
The Shah, who appeared demoralized from an early stage in the crisis, used enough repression to make his regime detested but not enough to create lasting fear. His concessions conveyed confusion and weakness. Martial law was declared. On 8 September, so-called Black Friday, soldiers opened fire on demonstrators and were accused of killing thousands (though the real figure may have been much lower).
These were the days when the Shah lost his last chance of staying in power.
He made one further unforced error which had disastrous consequences for himself. Khomeini had been in exile in Najaf, from which he could communicate with Iran but with some difficulty. Cassettes of his sermons had to be smuggled across the border. There was no international press corps in Iraq. But with self-destructive zeal, the Shah's emissaries persuaded the Iraqi government, in which Saddam Hussein was already the strongest figure, to expel Khomeini, who, after being refused entry to Kuwait, took up residence in a suburb of Paris in October.
In Paris, he had better access to the international press than the Shah and was able to communicate easily with Iran.
By the end of 1978, Iranians, even those opposed to the revolution, could see that the Shah was finished. His core military support began to waver. The clergy made every effort to infiltrate and propagandize his armed forces. In any case, he did not want to fight. By mid-January, he and his wife had left Iran forever.
On 1 February 1979, Khomeini returned to Iran to be greeted by several million Iranians and swiftly completed the takeover of power. He marginalised his secular allies from the year before and began to radicalise the revolution, culminating in November 1979 when clerical students took over the US embassy.
Recalling how the Shah had come back from exile with US support in 1953, any potential Shah supporters were imprisoned or shot.
The leaders of the new regime were intent on staying in power. They have not changed much today. The spectacle, the symbols, and the language in Iran in 2009 are similar to those present in 1978-9, but the political forces at work could not be more different. The protesters then were much stronger than they looked; those of today have the odds heavily stacked against them.
At first sight, what is happening in Tehran today looks very like the extraordinary events of the Islamic Revolution 30 years ago. But how deep do the similarities go? On 2 December 1978, two million Iranians filled the streets of central Tehran to demand an end to the rule of the Shah and the return of Ayatollah Khomeini. It was the most popular revolution in history. At night, people gathered on rooftops to chant "Allahu Akbar – God is Great". In the daytime, mass rallies commemorated as martyrs the protesters who had been killed by the security forces.
The methods of protest are very similar. This is hardly surprising because the demonstrators seeking to get rid of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad understandably hope the type of unarmed mass protest that worked against the Shah will succeed again. Mass rally and public martyrdom are part of the Iranian revolutionary tradition, just as the barricade is part of the tradition in France. A difference between 1978-9 and today is that the Iranian government has no intention of letting history repeat itself.
Nor is it likely to do so. The Iranian revolution was carried out by a broad coalition from right to left which had religious conservatives at one end and Marxist revolutionaries at the other. The Shah and his regime had a unique ability to alienate simultaneously different parts of the Iranian population which had nothing in common. His cruel but poorly informed Savak security men convinced themselves that communists and revolutionary leftists were the danger to the throne and not the Shia clergy. They were not alone in their delusion. President Jimmy Carter recalls an August 1978 CIA memo, drafted five months before the Shah took flight, firmly concluding that Iran "is not in a revolutionary or even a pre-revolutionary situation".
Crucially, the Iranian revolution had a messianic leader in Ayatollah Khomeini who was a visible alternative to the Shah, a leader whose claims to legitimacy were compromised even before he came to the throne: his father Reza Shah, an army general who seized power in the 1920s, was deposed by British and Soviet troops in 1941. His son was forced to flee in 1953 when Mohammed Mossadeq was elected prime minister, only to be restored by a CIA-run coup for which President Barack Obama has apologised.
More astute rulers might have tried to burnish their nationalist credentials but instead the Shah indulged in historical fantasies such as abolishing the Islamic calendar and celebrating the 2,500th anniversary of the founding of the Persian Empire at Persepolis in 1971. Foreign dignitaries and celebrities sipped drinks behind security cordons while Iranians were excluded.
What makes the Iranian revolution different from previous revolutions in the 19th and 20th centuries is that it was a religious revolution in terms of its leadership and inspiration. Thirty years later, when "Islamic revolution" is seen as such a menace in the West, it is difficult to recall what a surprising development it was in the late 1970s. Revolutions were supposed to follow roughly in the footsteps of the French, Russian or Chinese revolutions. Their tone was secular and anti-religious. Priests were the defenders of the established order.
There had been Islamic anti-colonial movements against the European empires and later against the nationalist regimes which succeeded them. But the record of these Islamic parties was one of failure. It was the Iranian revolution that made political Islam such a potent and, to its enemies, such a menacing force.
The revolution was not only Islamic, but was rooted in the theology and beliefs of one particular Islamic sect. At a moment when intelligence services were looking at Moscow, Peking and Havana as the inspiration for revolution, none of them foresaw the danger to the status quo that was brewing in the clerical seminaries of Najaf in Iraq and Qom in Iran. The birth of revolutionary Shi'ism surprised the world. In theory, Shia theology is more likely to spawn revolution than the Sunni because so many of its beliefs and ceremonies revolve around the lost battle of Kerbala in AD680. It was here that Imam Hussain, the grandson of the Prophet, and 72 of his companions and relatives, were massacred by the soldiers of the second Umayyad caliph Yazid 1.
It is a story of refusal to bow to injustice, of resistance to oppression and martyrdom. But this alone did not make Shi'ism a revolutionary ideology. Iran became Shia by the fiat of the Safavid dynasty in the 16th century. It was only in the 1950s and 1960s, in response to triumphant secularism, leftist revolutionary ideology and persecution by the Shah, that the Shia clergy of Iran and Iraq began to develop their own Islamic "liberation theology" which enabled them to take power in 1979.
The Iranian revolution was more deeply rooted than it appeared to be. It sprang from a coherent ideology. It succeeded partly because it caught its enemies, as well as most of its supporters, by surprise. But it was not a spontaneous event. Khomeini and the clergy who supported him were committed revolutionaries. They had thought out how to take power and how to keep it. They might decry nationalism, but it was their commitment to defending the Iranian nation from foreign encroachments which was so crucial to their success.
In 1964, Khomeini was expelled from Iran, to take refuge in Najaf, because of his opposition to extra-territorial rights for US government employees. The present Iranian leadership does not have the great weakness of the Shah, which was to be seen as the puppet of foreign powers.
By the time the Shah left Iran on 16 January 1979 he had almost no support. This again is very different from the present situation. President Ahmadinejad was re-elected with 62.6 per cent of the vote last week. His opponents claim the poll was rigged, although this is almost exactly the same as his vote in 2005, when he won 61.7 per cent. The point is that Mr Ahmadinejad is a popular politician and the Shah was not. He is very unlikely to be forced from power. Nor is he likely to surrender as the Shah did when he found he was unable to cope with the uprising.
The weakness of the Shah was not evident when the first demonstrations against him began in October 1977, after the death of Khomeini's son. The first demonstrators, religious students, were killed in early 1978 after an article in a government newspaper attacked Khomeini. Their deaths were commemorated 40 days later, according to Shia religious custom, and protests spread across Iran.
These demonstrations in some ways resembled civil rights marches in the US but they had greater impact because they were wedded to religious ritual and the commemoration of martyrdom. Politically, this was a potent blend. It appealed to the most conservative cleric and the most radical student alike. Even so, the marches and demonstrations might have run out of steam over the summer of 1978 if they had not been sustained by a network of clerical supporters of Khomeini in the mosques. Iranians from the slums and villages who had not benefited from the oil boom began to join in.
No crime was so bad that Iranians did not think that the Shah and his security men capable of it. When the Rex Cinema in Abadan caught fire and 400 people burned to death, it was widely believed Savak had started it.
The Shah, who appeared demoralized from an early stage in the crisis, used enough repression to make his regime detested but not enough to create lasting fear. His concessions conveyed confusion and weakness. Martial law was declared. On 8 September, so-called Black Friday, soldiers opened fire on demonstrators and were accused of killing thousands (though the real figure may have been much lower).
These were the days when the Shah lost his last chance of staying in power.
He made one further unforced error which had disastrous consequences for himself. Khomeini had been in exile in Najaf, from which he could communicate with Iran but with some difficulty. Cassettes of his sermons had to be smuggled across the border. There was no international press corps in Iraq. But with self-destructive zeal, the Shah's emissaries persuaded the Iraqi government, in which Saddam Hussein was already the strongest figure, to expel Khomeini, who, after being refused entry to Kuwait, took up residence in a suburb of Paris in October.
In Paris, he had better access to the international press than the Shah and was able to communicate easily with Iran.
By the end of 1978, Iranians, even those opposed to the revolution, could see that the Shah was finished. His core military support began to waver. The clergy made every effort to infiltrate and propagandize his armed forces. In any case, he did not want to fight. By mid-January, he and his wife had left Iran forever.
On 1 February 1979, Khomeini returned to Iran to be greeted by several million Iranians and swiftly completed the takeover of power. He marginalised his secular allies from the year before and began to radicalise the revolution, culminating in November 1979 when clerical students took over the US embassy.
Recalling how the Shah had come back from exile with US support in 1953, any potential Shah supporters were imprisoned or shot.
The leaders of the new regime were intent on staying in power. They have not changed much today. The spectacle, the symbols, and the language in Iran in 2009 are similar to those present in 1978-9, but the political forces at work could not be more different. The protesters then were much stronger than they looked; those of today have the odds heavily stacked against them.
Thursday 18 June 2009
Tories to end free prescriptions
The Conservative Party will scrap free prescriptions for all in Wales if it gains power in the assembly.
The party says those who can afford it should pay a modest charge in view of the huge financial pressures on the Welsh NHS.
Free prescriptions began two years ago and the policy is being copied in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The Welsh Assembly Government said the policy was a long-term investment in improving health.
The Conservatives say the health service cannot afford to subsidise those who can afford to contribute.
Tory health spokesman Andrew RT Davies said: "Everyone in Wales knows that because of Labour's debt crisis, our public services are under massive pressure.
“If people aren't put off seeking the appropriate care, due to financial reasons, their health will improve”
Assembly government statement
"So it's only fair that to protect those who really need help and to improve services that have been allowed to decline under Labour, we ask those who can afford it to make a contribution."
He added the same people who were eligible for free prescriptions prior to the universal policy would qualify, as would cancer patients.
Charges would also be lower than when they were abolished, and money raised would be ring-fenced for the health budget.
Conservative leader Nick Bourne said: "Free prescriptions are not, and never will be, 'free' in the true sense of the word.
"We are all paying for them by sacrificing money from elsewhere within a health budget stretched to the limit after 10 years of Labour in Wales.
"We currently have a palliative care system which our own health minister admits is 'patchy' and stroke services described by an expert in the field as 'scandalously bad'."
The assembly government said in a statement: "GPs use their discretion in determining what medication is prescribed based on the patient's clinical needs to avoid the risk of people trying to abuse free prescriptions.
"Free prescriptions are a long-term investment in improving health. If people aren't put off seeking the appropriate care, due to financial reasons, their health will improve.
"If patients are able to get the treatment they need, it will ultimately help to reduce the long term cost to the health service.
"They remove the unfairness in the previous system where people with conditions like heart disease, high blood pressure, or those who have had an organ transplant were not entitled to free prescriptions, despite being able to benefit significantly from them."
The party says those who can afford it should pay a modest charge in view of the huge financial pressures on the Welsh NHS.
Free prescriptions began two years ago and the policy is being copied in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The Welsh Assembly Government said the policy was a long-term investment in improving health.
The Conservatives say the health service cannot afford to subsidise those who can afford to contribute.
Tory health spokesman Andrew RT Davies said: "Everyone in Wales knows that because of Labour's debt crisis, our public services are under massive pressure.
“If people aren't put off seeking the appropriate care, due to financial reasons, their health will improve”
Assembly government statement
"So it's only fair that to protect those who really need help and to improve services that have been allowed to decline under Labour, we ask those who can afford it to make a contribution."
He added the same people who were eligible for free prescriptions prior to the universal policy would qualify, as would cancer patients.
Charges would also be lower than when they were abolished, and money raised would be ring-fenced for the health budget.
Conservative leader Nick Bourne said: "Free prescriptions are not, and never will be, 'free' in the true sense of the word.
"We are all paying for them by sacrificing money from elsewhere within a health budget stretched to the limit after 10 years of Labour in Wales.
"We currently have a palliative care system which our own health minister admits is 'patchy' and stroke services described by an expert in the field as 'scandalously bad'."
The assembly government said in a statement: "GPs use their discretion in determining what medication is prescribed based on the patient's clinical needs to avoid the risk of people trying to abuse free prescriptions.
"Free prescriptions are a long-term investment in improving health. If people aren't put off seeking the appropriate care, due to financial reasons, their health will improve.
"If patients are able to get the treatment they need, it will ultimately help to reduce the long term cost to the health service.
"They remove the unfairness in the previous system where people with conditions like heart disease, high blood pressure, or those who have had an organ transplant were not entitled to free prescriptions, despite being able to benefit significantly from them."
Wednesday 17 June 2009
Cash cuts threat to Labour
UNISON conference reports: UNISON general secretary has announced plans to suspend funding to local Labour parties, saying members were tired of "feeding the hand that bites them."
Dave Prentis said on Tuesday there would be no more "blank cheques" for Labour, adding union payments to constituencies should be suspended. UNISON will only support Labour candidates willing to stand up for its values of public service, he told the union's annual conference in Brighton. He received a standing ovation from delegates when he called on the union's Labour Link section to suspend all constituency payments. Condemning attacks by the government on public-sector workers, Mr Prentis promised UNISON would lead a "unified cross-union fightback to defend our public service values.
"We must go forward. We are an independent-minded union."
"Delegates, our union is at a crossroads. I call on Labour Link to suspend all consituency development payments. No more blank cheques!" he said to a mid-speech standing ovation.
Explaining that union members felt let down by Labour, Mr Prentis warned the government it was not enough to moan how bad the Tories would be. "Conference, it's not just about a Labour government warning us that the Tories will cut spending by 10 per cent. We expect that. "Our members will simply not vote Labour if they feel deserted by them." Giving details of the much-publicised "Million voices for change," Mr Prentis said: "It is a political campaign to voice the anger and fear our members feel. Our campaign of action.
"Our union will bring together an alliance of all public-sector unions - an alliance to fight job cuts - to defend our public services," said Mr Prentis.
He poked fun at the shenanigans of new Labour ministers who tried to remove Gordon Brown from his premiership.
In a sideswipe at the exorbitant expenses claims of MPs, he compared their situation to that of low-paid union members. "One law for them, one law for our members - who face employer cross-checks between salary and benefits. Any fraud and our members are sacked!" Speaking to the Star afterward, Mr Prentis explained UNISON would approach the TUC to co-ordinate this "huge campaign to defend our NHS and our jobs."
However Mr Prentis refused to endorse the People's Charter for Change saying "parts of the charter would endanger the pensions of our members." "Our campaign was raised first. We are the biggest public-sector union and we will lead the fightback against privatisation."
Dave Prentis said on Tuesday there would be no more "blank cheques" for Labour, adding union payments to constituencies should be suspended. UNISON will only support Labour candidates willing to stand up for its values of public service, he told the union's annual conference in Brighton. He received a standing ovation from delegates when he called on the union's Labour Link section to suspend all constituency payments. Condemning attacks by the government on public-sector workers, Mr Prentis promised UNISON would lead a "unified cross-union fightback to defend our public service values.
"We must go forward. We are an independent-minded union."
"Delegates, our union is at a crossroads. I call on Labour Link to suspend all consituency development payments. No more blank cheques!" he said to a mid-speech standing ovation.
Explaining that union members felt let down by Labour, Mr Prentis warned the government it was not enough to moan how bad the Tories would be. "Conference, it's not just about a Labour government warning us that the Tories will cut spending by 10 per cent. We expect that. "Our members will simply not vote Labour if they feel deserted by them." Giving details of the much-publicised "Million voices for change," Mr Prentis said: "It is a political campaign to voice the anger and fear our members feel. Our campaign of action.
"Our union will bring together an alliance of all public-sector unions - an alliance to fight job cuts - to defend our public services," said Mr Prentis.
He poked fun at the shenanigans of new Labour ministers who tried to remove Gordon Brown from his premiership.
In a sideswipe at the exorbitant expenses claims of MPs, he compared their situation to that of low-paid union members. "One law for them, one law for our members - who face employer cross-checks between salary and benefits. Any fraud and our members are sacked!" Speaking to the Star afterward, Mr Prentis explained UNISON would approach the TUC to co-ordinate this "huge campaign to defend our NHS and our jobs."
However Mr Prentis refused to endorse the People's Charter for Change saying "parts of the charter would endanger the pensions of our members." "Our campaign was raised first. We are the biggest public-sector union and we will lead the fightback against privatisation."
Why Iran is a complex issue
Venezuela President Hugo Chavez welcomed the declaration of his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election at the weekend as a "win for all people in the world and free nations against global arrogance."
He acclaimed Ahmadinejad as a "courageous fighter for the Islamic revolution, the defence of the Third World and in the struggle against imperialism."
But the recognition of the Islamic regime's Council of Guardians that it is necessary to investigate allegations of electoral fraud and to recount disputed votes indicates that all is not well in Iran.
Washington has been hostile to the country since the 1979 overthrow of the West's regional gendarme Shah Reza Pahlavi.
The US and its allies, including Israel and Britain, have seen fit to threaten the Islamic republic with a variety of political and economic sanctions and even to hint at military attack.
Former president George W Bush would have been willing to indulge Israel's desire to launch airborne strikes at Iran's nascent nuclear facilities were it not for his advisers' recognition that war against Iran would probably have spread immediately to Iraq, Lebanon and even further afield.
However, even this appreciation of reality has not prevented Western powers that turned a blind eye to Tel Aviv's development of a sizeable nuclear arsenal from lecturing Tehran on the evils of its civil nuclear programme.
If the West's assertion that there is a fine line between civil and military nuclear capability has any validity, it can only be based on intimate knowledge of how the US, British, Russian, Chinese and French nuclear operations developed.
But there are other countries that use nuclear energy to provide electricity and Iran has the same right under international law to do likewise, even if similar safety risks and problems of waste storage will apply to it as much as any other country.
Iran has refused to back down in the face of Western hostility over the nuclear issue, which it is fully entitled to do. It has also allied itself with countries such as Venezuela to use oil and gas resources in their own interest rather than that of imperialism.
This can be read as anti-imperialism, which it is, of a kind, but anti-imperialism, in common with other concepts such as republicanism and socialism, must be, at heart, progressive or it simply becomes a cover for various forms of oppression.
Iran's presidency is electable, but real power lies with an unelected supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is the final authority in the same way as an absolute monarch or military dictator.
The Islamic republic banned left-wing and secular parties, including the communist Tudeh Party of Iran, on the spurious charge of waging war against God, hanging many of their leaders and activists.
The regime's repression of trade union struggles, locking up transport workers' leaders and others, and its judicial murder of young gay men cannot be justified or hailed as anti-imperialism.
Labour movement activists in Britain have to take a more dialectical approach than simply standing four-square with the theocratic regime or its imperialist adversaries.
This involves combining defence of Iranian national independence with support for Iran's trade unionists and their allies fighting for democratic change and against discrimination based on gender or sexuality.
He acclaimed Ahmadinejad as a "courageous fighter for the Islamic revolution, the defence of the Third World and in the struggle against imperialism."
But the recognition of the Islamic regime's Council of Guardians that it is necessary to investigate allegations of electoral fraud and to recount disputed votes indicates that all is not well in Iran.
Washington has been hostile to the country since the 1979 overthrow of the West's regional gendarme Shah Reza Pahlavi.
The US and its allies, including Israel and Britain, have seen fit to threaten the Islamic republic with a variety of political and economic sanctions and even to hint at military attack.
Former president George W Bush would have been willing to indulge Israel's desire to launch airborne strikes at Iran's nascent nuclear facilities were it not for his advisers' recognition that war against Iran would probably have spread immediately to Iraq, Lebanon and even further afield.
However, even this appreciation of reality has not prevented Western powers that turned a blind eye to Tel Aviv's development of a sizeable nuclear arsenal from lecturing Tehran on the evils of its civil nuclear programme.
If the West's assertion that there is a fine line between civil and military nuclear capability has any validity, it can only be based on intimate knowledge of how the US, British, Russian, Chinese and French nuclear operations developed.
But there are other countries that use nuclear energy to provide electricity and Iran has the same right under international law to do likewise, even if similar safety risks and problems of waste storage will apply to it as much as any other country.
Iran has refused to back down in the face of Western hostility over the nuclear issue, which it is fully entitled to do. It has also allied itself with countries such as Venezuela to use oil and gas resources in their own interest rather than that of imperialism.
This can be read as anti-imperialism, which it is, of a kind, but anti-imperialism, in common with other concepts such as republicanism and socialism, must be, at heart, progressive or it simply becomes a cover for various forms of oppression.
Iran's presidency is electable, but real power lies with an unelected supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is the final authority in the same way as an absolute monarch or military dictator.
The Islamic republic banned left-wing and secular parties, including the communist Tudeh Party of Iran, on the spurious charge of waging war against God, hanging many of their leaders and activists.
The regime's repression of trade union struggles, locking up transport workers' leaders and others, and its judicial murder of young gay men cannot be justified or hailed as anti-imperialism.
Labour movement activists in Britain have to take a more dialectical approach than simply standing four-square with the theocratic regime or its imperialist adversaries.
This involves combining defence of Iranian national independence with support for Iran's trade unionists and their allies fighting for democratic change and against discrimination based on gender or sexuality.
Tuesday 16 June 2009
Pension cause for concern
A report on pensions by the Institute for Fiscal Studies should give all working people and their trade unions cause for serious concern.
The institute forecasts that government reforms due to kick off in 2012, under which workers will be automatically enrolled into company pension schemes or into new lost-cost "personal accounts," will boost retirement saving - but only by a little.
In the new scheme, individuals will have to contribute at least 4 per cent of their pay to a pension, while their employer pays in 3 per cent and the government contributes 1 per cent.
The institute pointed out that in 2005 there were around 4.7 million employees who hadn't been offered the chance to join a work-based pension scheme.
But it estimated that around half of these 4.7 million people would have made total contributions of less than £2,170 over the five years to the end of 2005.
Any increase in pension saving is, at least in absolute terms, likely to be small, the institute warned.
At the GMB conference last week, with what is likely not to be a coincidence of figures that union heard that 4,713,400 working families were in receipt of child and working tax credits to top up low incomes.
It is difficult to imagine the shattering impact on these families of losing 4 per cent of their income to a new pension scheme every week, especially in a period during which zero pay rises have become more and more prevalent.
And all for a pension which is likely to be minimal, given the facts of life in post-credit crunch Britain.
BP will close its final-salary pension arrangement to new entrants from April next year, while Barclays Bank is taking about 18,000 staff out of its final-salary arrangement and into an inferior defined contribution scheme.
Anyone with a £50,000 pension fund retiring in 2009 will be 27 per cent worse off - around £20 per week - than someone who quit in 2008, according to current annuity figures.
Intune, the financial services arm of Age Concern and Help The Aged, recently found that 55 per cent of private pension-holders were very disappointed with the pension annuity income they expect to receive when they stop work and failures of the investment markets aren't likely to help matters.
The capitalist dogma which says that stock markets can always be relied upon to deliver strong returns has left millions facing an impoverished old age.
And the government's new scheme will mean that 4 per cent of the poorest working people's cash will be slung straight at those selfsame markets to play with as the speculators see fit.
Millions of people are now struggling with the effects of market collapse on their company and private pensions and we are nowhere near the end of the consequences of the credit crisis.
The government's so-called reform of the pension sector is merely an attempt to transfer the burden of pension payments into the private sector and away from the state pension system. But it was conceived and planned way before the free-market economy went into meltdown.
There can be no sane reason for continuing an adventure into the markets to underwrite pensions, when the markets have clearly demonstrated their inability to deliver. And there can be no excuse for burdening the two most vulnerable sectors of the population, pensioners and the low paid, with the results of an experiment which we can clearly see is doomed before it starts.
It's been said before, but we must say it again. The government can afford an adequate and responsive state pension scheme. It owes it to the elderly to provide it and to the low paid to ensure that they don't end up funding it out of already inadequate wages.
The institute forecasts that government reforms due to kick off in 2012, under which workers will be automatically enrolled into company pension schemes or into new lost-cost "personal accounts," will boost retirement saving - but only by a little.
In the new scheme, individuals will have to contribute at least 4 per cent of their pay to a pension, while their employer pays in 3 per cent and the government contributes 1 per cent.
The institute pointed out that in 2005 there were around 4.7 million employees who hadn't been offered the chance to join a work-based pension scheme.
But it estimated that around half of these 4.7 million people would have made total contributions of less than £2,170 over the five years to the end of 2005.
Any increase in pension saving is, at least in absolute terms, likely to be small, the institute warned.
At the GMB conference last week, with what is likely not to be a coincidence of figures that union heard that 4,713,400 working families were in receipt of child and working tax credits to top up low incomes.
It is difficult to imagine the shattering impact on these families of losing 4 per cent of their income to a new pension scheme every week, especially in a period during which zero pay rises have become more and more prevalent.
And all for a pension which is likely to be minimal, given the facts of life in post-credit crunch Britain.
BP will close its final-salary pension arrangement to new entrants from April next year, while Barclays Bank is taking about 18,000 staff out of its final-salary arrangement and into an inferior defined contribution scheme.
Anyone with a £50,000 pension fund retiring in 2009 will be 27 per cent worse off - around £20 per week - than someone who quit in 2008, according to current annuity figures.
Intune, the financial services arm of Age Concern and Help The Aged, recently found that 55 per cent of private pension-holders were very disappointed with the pension annuity income they expect to receive when they stop work and failures of the investment markets aren't likely to help matters.
The capitalist dogma which says that stock markets can always be relied upon to deliver strong returns has left millions facing an impoverished old age.
And the government's new scheme will mean that 4 per cent of the poorest working people's cash will be slung straight at those selfsame markets to play with as the speculators see fit.
Millions of people are now struggling with the effects of market collapse on their company and private pensions and we are nowhere near the end of the consequences of the credit crisis.
The government's so-called reform of the pension sector is merely an attempt to transfer the burden of pension payments into the private sector and away from the state pension system. But it was conceived and planned way before the free-market economy went into meltdown.
There can be no sane reason for continuing an adventure into the markets to underwrite pensions, when the markets have clearly demonstrated their inability to deliver. And there can be no excuse for burdening the two most vulnerable sectors of the population, pensioners and the low paid, with the results of an experiment which we can clearly see is doomed before it starts.
It's been said before, but we must say it again. The government can afford an adequate and responsive state pension scheme. It owes it to the elderly to provide it and to the low paid to ensure that they don't end up funding it out of already inadequate wages.
Saturday 13 June 2009
Can Obama walk the walk?
Aides and spin doctors for Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are rushing around like chickens with their heads cut off, claiming that he is soon to issue a major speech which will endorse the idea of Palestinian statehood. Without being overly cynical, we shall wait and see on that one, because any unequivocal statement regarding Palestinian statehood would be a first for this gentleman and a first that would almost certainly tear apart the rag, tag and bobtail coalition that he heads.
Not that he can ignore the issue for much longer. Mr Netanyahu has done everything that his imagination can dream up to avoid addressing the question since his coalition came to power. But such a statement from an Israeli prime minister is not necessarily the last word. His predecessor managed to wax lyrical over statehood for Palestinians while, at the same time, consolidating illegal settlements across the territory of the nascent state.
And, for some mysterious reason, something always seemed to happen to make further progress on a Palestinian state difficult or impossible. But this has been the tenor of Israeli policy for many years. Aware that world opinion is overwhelmingly in favour of independence for Palestine, Israeli policy has been designed as what can best be described as an infinitely extended holding action, forever delaying, prevaricating and, where possible, spreading and fomenting division between Palestinians.
It has been so transparent that it has been difficult to imagine how the pro-Israel lobby has sustained its perennial pose as victims rather than oppressors.
But it has continued and, up until the present, has been remarkably successful in maintaining its status quo as an invader and occupying force in the Palestinian territories without ever facing the weight of hostile world opinion head on.
It has been able to do this because of successive complaisant US administrations, which have continually underwritten the overstretched war economy of Israel and used their massive diplomatic power in the counsels of the world to run interference for a country which, in many respects, makes a perfect fit with the definition of rogue state, that the US applies so freely to regimes with which it disagrees. But the present US administration is clearly conscious of the opprobrium which this policy has brought on the US and is aiming to change it.
The pressure of world opinion, influenced by decades of campaigning throughout the world and the obdurate refusal of the Palestinians to bow the knee before their Israeli oppressors, has finally forced the US into seeking real change. And standing firm in the face of the delaying tactics of Israel will be a real test of the sincerity and determination of the Obama administration.
Already, even before Mr Netanyahu's speech has been heard, the equivocations have started to appear. Israel, it seems, will not tolerate any new state having an army, as if it had any imaginable right to stipulate such conditions. But, with Israel as a neighbour, what state could accept such an impudent demand?
The signs are not all positive from the US. The hopes of peace activists worldwide have been severely dented by Mr Obama's continuing prosecution of the war in Afghanistan.
But the world will be watching and it is to be hoped that the US president's administration stands firm in its position and does not fall at the first fence.
The Palestinian people have suffered for long enough. The US knows it and the world knows it. And the Obama administration will be judged on how far it manages to stick to its declared position of statehood for the dispossessed and brutally persecuted Palestinian people.
Not that he can ignore the issue for much longer. Mr Netanyahu has done everything that his imagination can dream up to avoid addressing the question since his coalition came to power. But such a statement from an Israeli prime minister is not necessarily the last word. His predecessor managed to wax lyrical over statehood for Palestinians while, at the same time, consolidating illegal settlements across the territory of the nascent state.
And, for some mysterious reason, something always seemed to happen to make further progress on a Palestinian state difficult or impossible. But this has been the tenor of Israeli policy for many years. Aware that world opinion is overwhelmingly in favour of independence for Palestine, Israeli policy has been designed as what can best be described as an infinitely extended holding action, forever delaying, prevaricating and, where possible, spreading and fomenting division between Palestinians.
It has been so transparent that it has been difficult to imagine how the pro-Israel lobby has sustained its perennial pose as victims rather than oppressors.
But it has continued and, up until the present, has been remarkably successful in maintaining its status quo as an invader and occupying force in the Palestinian territories without ever facing the weight of hostile world opinion head on.
It has been able to do this because of successive complaisant US administrations, which have continually underwritten the overstretched war economy of Israel and used their massive diplomatic power in the counsels of the world to run interference for a country which, in many respects, makes a perfect fit with the definition of rogue state, that the US applies so freely to regimes with which it disagrees. But the present US administration is clearly conscious of the opprobrium which this policy has brought on the US and is aiming to change it.
The pressure of world opinion, influenced by decades of campaigning throughout the world and the obdurate refusal of the Palestinians to bow the knee before their Israeli oppressors, has finally forced the US into seeking real change. And standing firm in the face of the delaying tactics of Israel will be a real test of the sincerity and determination of the Obama administration.
Already, even before Mr Netanyahu's speech has been heard, the equivocations have started to appear. Israel, it seems, will not tolerate any new state having an army, as if it had any imaginable right to stipulate such conditions. But, with Israel as a neighbour, what state could accept such an impudent demand?
The signs are not all positive from the US. The hopes of peace activists worldwide have been severely dented by Mr Obama's continuing prosecution of the war in Afghanistan.
But the world will be watching and it is to be hoped that the US president's administration stands firm in its position and does not fall at the first fence.
The Palestinian people have suffered for long enough. The US knows it and the world knows it. And the Obama administration will be judged on how far it manages to stick to its declared position of statehood for the dispossessed and brutally persecuted Palestinian people.
Let's Kill This Tory Bill To Scrap The Minimum Wage For Good
I wonder if you could help me take on the Tory Bill to scrap the minimum wage (I promise it'll only take five minutes of your time.)
Our Wage Concern campaign may have been successful in getting the Employment Opportunities Bill pulled by the sponsoring Tory MPs last month but it's still down on the order paper for this Friday, June 12th in the House of Commons.
That means the proposed legislation to effectively abolish the minimum wage is still alive.
So we still need your help to raise awareness of this retrogressive and unfair bill.
Here's what you can do:
Here's a draft email you can use to send to the 11 Tory MPs sponsoring the Bill:
"I am very concerned to hear about the Private Members Bill, Employment Opportunities, down for its second reading on Friday 10th June, that will seek to abolish the mandatory national minimum wage.
"You are listed as one of the Bill's sponsors.
"The national minimum wage has benefited more than a million people since it was introduced and your Bill would effectively undermine it by allowing unscrupulous bosses to pay what they like.
"Please could you let me know as a matter of urgency whether you still plan to support this Bill and if so, why you back it. I am respectfully asking you to withdraw your backing.
"Could you also let me know whether you believe it is right for paid MPs to call for the minimum wage to be effectively abolished whilst holding second jobs themselves as many of the Bill's sponsors do."
Send the email
You can send it to the following Tory MPs sponsoring the Bill
Christopher Chope (Christchurch) chopec@parliament.uk
Peter Bone (Wellingborough, Northants) bonep@parliament.uk
Philip Davies (Shipley, West Yorkshire) daviesp@parliament.uk
Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley, Wales) evansn@parliament.uk
Greg Knight (Yorkshire East) knightg@.parliament.uk
Edward Leigh (Gainsborough, Lincolnshire) leighe@parliament.uk
Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater, Somerset) liddeli@parliament.uk
Brian Binley (Northampton South, Northants) binleyb@parliament.uk
William Cash (Stone, Staffs) cashw@parliament.uk
Robert Syms (Poole, Dorset) symsr@parliament.uk
David Wilshire (Spelthorne, Surrey) wilshired@parliament.uk
Get your friends to do it too
Forward on this post to your friends asking them to do the same.
You can find out more about the Bill and the MPs sponsoring it at www.wageconcern.com
Let's see if we can get the MPs to withdraw their supp
Our Wage Concern campaign may have been successful in getting the Employment Opportunities Bill pulled by the sponsoring Tory MPs last month but it's still down on the order paper for this Friday, June 12th in the House of Commons.
That means the proposed legislation to effectively abolish the minimum wage is still alive.
So we still need your help to raise awareness of this retrogressive and unfair bill.
Here's what you can do:
Here's a draft email you can use to send to the 11 Tory MPs sponsoring the Bill:
"I am very concerned to hear about the Private Members Bill, Employment Opportunities, down for its second reading on Friday 10th June, that will seek to abolish the mandatory national minimum wage.
"You are listed as one of the Bill's sponsors.
"The national minimum wage has benefited more than a million people since it was introduced and your Bill would effectively undermine it by allowing unscrupulous bosses to pay what they like.
"Please could you let me know as a matter of urgency whether you still plan to support this Bill and if so, why you back it. I am respectfully asking you to withdraw your backing.
"Could you also let me know whether you believe it is right for paid MPs to call for the minimum wage to be effectively abolished whilst holding second jobs themselves as many of the Bill's sponsors do."
Send the email
You can send it to the following Tory MPs sponsoring the Bill
Christopher Chope (Christchurch) chopec@parliament.uk
Peter Bone (Wellingborough, Northants) bonep@parliament.uk
Philip Davies (Shipley, West Yorkshire) daviesp@parliament.uk
Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley, Wales) evansn@parliament.uk
Greg Knight (Yorkshire East) knightg@.parliament.uk
Edward Leigh (Gainsborough, Lincolnshire) leighe@parliament.uk
Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater, Somerset) liddeli@parliament.uk
Brian Binley (Northampton South, Northants) binleyb@parliament.uk
William Cash (Stone, Staffs) cashw@parliament.uk
Robert Syms (Poole, Dorset) symsr@parliament.uk
David Wilshire (Spelthorne, Surrey) wilshired@parliament.uk
Get your friends to do it too
Forward on this post to your friends asking them to do the same.
You can find out more about the Bill and the MPs sponsoring it at www.wageconcern.com
Let's see if we can get the MPs to withdraw their supp
Monday 8 June 2009
Far Right Gained Two European Seats In Brussels
The BNP secured two ¬significant wins in British politics when its leader Nick Griffin became an MEP in the north-west, and Andrew Brons – a former leader of the National Front - won in Yorkshire and Humberside. The major parties blamed each other for the drift to the far-right and this was reflected in results across the country.
The British National party hailed their triumphs in the north-west and Yorkshire and Humberside. Brons said it was the first step for the UK getting freedom from the EU dictatorship.
In the East, & West Midlands Regions thank goodness that the BNP did not gain a foot hold. If the BNP had succeeded in the East, & West Midlands Region, it would have become a no go area for Black & minority ethnics.
The fact that the BNP was elected to serve the communities of North West and Yorkshire & Humberside Regions goes to show that the main three political parties need to reengage with their policies and challenged the rhetoric of the Far Right parties in the UK.
The British National party hailed their triumphs in the north-west and Yorkshire and Humberside. Brons said it was the first step for the UK getting freedom from the EU dictatorship.
In the East, & West Midlands Regions thank goodness that the BNP did not gain a foot hold. If the BNP had succeeded in the East, & West Midlands Region, it would have become a no go area for Black & minority ethnics.
The fact that the BNP was elected to serve the communities of North West and Yorkshire & Humberside Regions goes to show that the main three political parties need to reengage with their policies and challenged the rhetoric of the Far Right parties in the UK.
Monday 1 June 2009
MP EXPENSES
We're all rightly disgusted about this expenses scandal and the way some of our politicians have behaved. They have let us all down. It might seem easy to voice our anger by not voting this Thursday.
But that would be a mistake.
It would be easy to believe the press and the talking heads on television when they say all political parties are all the same. But they are not. No matter how angry and disappointed we are - we must never forget this. Because the price of not voting is so high - it could mean the racist BNP getting elected through the backdoor and representing you and me in the European Parliament.
Voting matters, because politics still matters.
A few months ago, Labour Party attacked David Cameron's plan to pull us out of the Social Chapter and undermine the rights we have fought so hard for. Thousands of people responded. They responded because of the very real threat that the Tories would pose to their rights - because politics matters.
Politics matters more than ever at the moment. We are faced with two very different visions of how to lead our country during the economic downturn.
The Tories would do what they did in the 1980s - and leave every man, women and child fighting for themselves, forcing a generation onto the scrapheap of long-term unemployment. Cutting back on vital public services, sending us back to the days of leaking school roofs, the sick dying on hospital waiting lists and record numbers of homes repossessed.
The trade unions don't think Labour's got everything right - but we do know that under this government we have seen change for the better in Britain - change that has made a real difference to people's lives.
I am a former trade union, and I want to tell the public why politics matters to me. Thanks to Labour, I was able to arrange with her employer to work hours that fit round my children's school day, so I got to spend more time with them every day.
Real lives - and real change.
The truth is that politics does matter. With the threat of the BNP on the horizon, and a stark choice between real help now from Labour, or sink-or-swim with the Tories - now is not the time to turn our backs on politics.
If you agree with me that, despite the anger the expenses scandal has caused, politics matters - and that it can make a real and significant difference to people's lives.
The job of the trade unions is to stick up for their members. That's why I want the government to know when I think they're getting things wrong, and why I and friends always pushing them to go further, to win a better deal for union members, and non union members. But we also know that when it comes down to it, working people are always better off with Labour. That's why I'll be voting Labour on June 4th, and why I hope you'll be doing the same.
Thank you,
But that would be a mistake.
It would be easy to believe the press and the talking heads on television when they say all political parties are all the same. But they are not. No matter how angry and disappointed we are - we must never forget this. Because the price of not voting is so high - it could mean the racist BNP getting elected through the backdoor and representing you and me in the European Parliament.
Voting matters, because politics still matters.
A few months ago, Labour Party attacked David Cameron's plan to pull us out of the Social Chapter and undermine the rights we have fought so hard for. Thousands of people responded. They responded because of the very real threat that the Tories would pose to their rights - because politics matters.
Politics matters more than ever at the moment. We are faced with two very different visions of how to lead our country during the economic downturn.
The Tories would do what they did in the 1980s - and leave every man, women and child fighting for themselves, forcing a generation onto the scrapheap of long-term unemployment. Cutting back on vital public services, sending us back to the days of leaking school roofs, the sick dying on hospital waiting lists and record numbers of homes repossessed.
The trade unions don't think Labour's got everything right - but we do know that under this government we have seen change for the better in Britain - change that has made a real difference to people's lives.
I am a former trade union, and I want to tell the public why politics matters to me. Thanks to Labour, I was able to arrange with her employer to work hours that fit round my children's school day, so I got to spend more time with them every day.
Real lives - and real change.
The truth is that politics does matter. With the threat of the BNP on the horizon, and a stark choice between real help now from Labour, or sink-or-swim with the Tories - now is not the time to turn our backs on politics.
If you agree with me that, despite the anger the expenses scandal has caused, politics matters - and that it can make a real and significant difference to people's lives.
The job of the trade unions is to stick up for their members. That's why I want the government to know when I think they're getting things wrong, and why I and friends always pushing them to go further, to win a better deal for union members, and non union members. But we also know that when it comes down to it, working people are always better off with Labour. That's why I'll be voting Labour on June 4th, and why I hope you'll be doing the same.
Thank you,
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