Raoul Moat - rogue male ?

The Rauol Moat saga continues. Pop psychology/sociology would have it that the bizarre solidarity shown for him in death (30,000 fans on Facebook and piles of tribute wreaths) taps into some kind of alienation of an emasculated white working class. I find this deeply depressing. 

In fairness no one with a healthy distrust of authority couldn't help, initially at least, to see the funny side of hundreds of paramilitary keystone cops failing to find a lone nutter hiding in a small area they had thoroughly surrounded. But then as Moat's  back-story emerged other reactions took over: On the one hand, displaying a-sinking-of-the-Bellgrano-like sensitivity the red-tops reacted to Moat's death with triumphant 'Got Him' headlines - as if a rabid dog had been dispatched. And on the other hand the myth-making started in certain quarters as Moat emerged as an everyman folk hero.

But the whole point of the myth of the romantic outlaw (and it's the myth that matters here) - be it  Robin Hood or Jesse James -  is built upon the idea of the home-loving, peace-loving man who is forced to take up the sword in pursuit of righting some perceived injustice. Moat -  a  bullying inadequate, self-pitying and misogynistic, a wannabe fantasist obsessed with weapons and body-building, with a revenge psychosis fed on a steroid addiction, and  a record of domestic abuse including an attack on a nine year old girl - hardly belongs in this pantheon of folk heroes.

The argument that he was  a victim of a syndrome affecting the post-industrial working class male who has lost his role in society, or some kind of metaphor for our  times, belittles the vast majority of ordinary men who  struggle to find their way through economic and personal hardship, suck it up  and just try to do the right thing. Without attacking their loved ones or any other innocent who happens to cross their path. And it's these working class men - and women - not middle class liberals, who have to share the same estates and town centres on a Saturday night with violent  lumpen-ised nutters like Moat.

It's not every man that can live off the land*

I took a day off for what has become my annual pilgrimage to the Fens - it's our version of  vast open spaces and big skies in this little country: A bit of an overhaul for the 'grey bike' and a chance to catch up with my  friends who have swapped their inner-city custom bike shop for a small-holding up there.

  

My friends aren't unique - there's a whole little economy  of small-holders, making a living by trading with each other, supplemented by  odd bits of casual work  (such as working on Harleys). They also support each other - one of their neighbours  was hit by a car whilst I was there -  and everyone was rallying around to help tend his animals whilst he was act of action. 

You could call it a  kind of localised communalism or mutual self-help. It's not necessarily about hippies or townies fleeing to the country. Most of them seem to be ordinary people with connections to the area - possibly returning after some time away  - or after farming has skipped a generation in the family. They are not middle class drop-outs like Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.  They just want to promote a traditional way of life and do something 'real'.

There's  an ideology that goes with this that's suspicious of big business, mass production and factory farming and  promotes local small producers, 'real' products and low-intensity agriculture. The Fens is an area where cheap Eastern European casual labour in agri-industry is well established so it could easily be  xenophobic or racist -  but actually it isn't. Animosity is mainly directed at the supermarkets who are forcing the race to the bottom. There's  a  definite disdain though for a generation of 'native' locals who are prepared to go along with this, and lack the gumption to do something for themselves.

It's not a lifestyle  for everyone. Politically it isn't a viable alternative on any meaningful scale to the rat race. But  I'm damn sure that my friends get more satisfaction from their work than I am getting from mine at the moment. 

* Every time I visit I'm reminded of the scene in Easyrider when they stop over at farm to fix a puncture and share a meal with the family. Wyatt turns to the farmer and says: 'It's not every man that can live off the land, you know. You do your own thing in your own time. You should be proud'.

Dated but still true

I found myself staying up last night to watch BBC4's documentary 'To Kill A Mockingbird Turns 50' - followed by the 1962 film version of the book. I hadn't seen it or read it for many years - becoming a standard text in schools or featuring in  lists of 'must reads' is a death sentence for any book: 

My memories of the film (and the story itself) are of of it being very dated: The brutality of Southern segregation undeniably  sanitised for genteel consumption - very much anti-racism through the lens of the white middle class.  I'm pretty confident that history shows that justice - social or racial - doesn't come through benevolence  or enlightenment but from struggle and self-emancipation.

But emotionally, the simple message of the humanitarian need for empathy cuts across this sophistication. On a practical daily basis, when forced to rub along with every kind of -ism, small-mindedness and ignorance you keep coming back to the simple wisdom of Atticus  Finch; You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.

Which is why an old cynic like me found himself slightly choked up at an old black-and-white film in the small hours of the morning.

'Leave them kids alone...'

There's been a regime change at my daughters' school. Dressed up in modern management speak about 'outcomes' and 'milestones' it seems to be a profoundly reactionary attempt to turn educational values back thirty years. Most visibly evident in a new uniform code that requires pupils to wear blazers and staff to wear 'smart office dress'.

Rather more sinister though is the creation of a biometric database of the pupils. To allow cash-less payment for meals in the school canteen. For fuck's sake! Whatever happened to 'dinner money' ? Or, if the intention was to save the humiliation of those pupils who get free school meals - then how about a pre-paid swipe card system ?

As I get older I get more paranoid about the creeping pervasiveness of authority's surveillance and control. Collecting and digitizing kids' fingerprints to create a database  suggests a normalisation of this kind of thing under the guise of a seemingly  innocuous pretext. In a couple of years we will probably next see an introduction of RFID tagging of pupils on the grounds of monitoring their  health and safety. 

Education has always had a large component of socialisation  - and it seems that kids are now being conditioned in their formative years to accept the Big Brother state. 

Judging by the small minority of parents who have opted to take their kids out of the scheme it looks depressingly like that sinister shit is working.

Getting to play god.

I've had a week or so in the position - which I still find bizarre - of being a 'grown-up boss': I have been recruiting a couple of new junior staff. In a small-ish business like ours  this is very much a one-person job without much formal process. It's also something of an eye-opener.

Unless you are a completely cold bastard it's impossible not to feel a paternalistic glow when offering someone a job that will give them the first foot on the ladder of their chosen career. Or equally -  feeling awful when you  have to dash others' hopes with a rejection. 

In reality it's often only a very precariously narrow thread that divides the two. It's inescapably a buyer's market at the moment. From an overwhelming field of qualified  and deserving candidates, you inevitably start making decisions by weeding out the badly laid-out CVs and the spelling mistakes in covering letters. (Although given that we are a graphics arts business that's not quite as arbitrary and heartless as it sounds).

And when you do get to the short-list for interview - at which point, given that this is a first job position there is pretty much a level playing field - you inevitably  fall back on choosing  the people you like best:  My own prejudices are not sexist or racist, but they do  favour people who I think are quirky and not boring - people who dress with a bit of individualism or display interesting tattoos - or better still people who are into any of my own extra-curricula interests.

Worse still, a sad reflection of the present economic climate, and the state of my own industry, is that the only objective criteria of differentiation is often the number and variety of unpaid internships that these candidates have undertaken.

In all this I'm always  very conscious that my own 'career' (for what's it worth) has hung off a few lucky breaks and twists of fate. And having kids of my own I'm very conscious that theirs' will too. But I have nothing to offer on any of this - you just try to do the right thing in the context of what is in front of you. 

It's depressing to reflect on how much talent is wasted and how many lives never get the chances they deserve. And if you don't stop and ponder that once in a while then you're well on the way to becoming just another arsehole-cog in the capitalist machine.

World Cup Madness

I'm confused:

I'm groaning inwardly as I look around me at my workmates: St George's flags everywhere, grown men in replica team shirts, and that endless talk about whether E-N-G-E-R-L-A-N-D can salvage something of the spirit of '66. I'm not sure if it's simply nationalism or a form of tribalism and psychological displacement  that enables the terminally un-athletic to refer to 'their' team  as 'us'.

But then again I find myself bristling  with class solidarity when I read the condescending smugness of the Guardianistas looking down their liberal middle class noses as the 'false conscious' of those masses who can get so excited about what is after 'only a game'. For fuck's sake lighten up - its no wonder that  much of the Left are so alienated from the working class.

Footy (or soccer) isn't my game. But I can appreciate the passion and the drama of it. I can even sometimes appreciate the beauty of it when Brazil are at their best - although that does seem to be a completely different sport from the one that England play.

Just like Finchley ?*

The findings of the Saville report published today only confirm what should have been known all along - that this was an act of military repression against unarmed civilians. 

It's real significance lies  not in these  conclusions but in the reactions that it still provokes from unionists and apologists for the British authorities: That it was a 'waste of money' or that it should be set against attacks on the British army - particularly the Warren Point shootings - in a tit-for-tat manner. They show as little understanding now as they did at the time.

Unlike many people brought up as Catholics in this country, I am not of predominately Irish descent (one great-grandmother from County Leitrim). So  I didn't grow up on a diet of nationalist songs or tales about the 'boys back home' - although history O level at my school - taught by a priest - did spend a disproportionate time on Parnell and Home Rule, and prayers were offered for the Maze hunger strikers.

It wasn't really until I developed socialist ideas  that I came to understand  the injustices perpetrated in the name of British people in Northern Ireland. And that nationalism wasn't an abstract sentimentality but was inextricably linked to day-to-day struggles for employment and housing. 

And there lies the powerful significance of Bloody Sunday  - then and now - this wasn't a march commemorating some distant historical event or a tribal sense of communal pride - this was a march for civil rights. And those killed were very ordinary - and largely very young - working class people facing the full force of the state.

* Thatcher notoriously  claimed in 1981 that 'Northern Ireland was as British as Finchley'.

Henry Vane The Younger

Continuing the occasional series of anniversaries of  slightly more obscure characters and events from the English Civil Wars:

Today is the anniversary of the execution in 1662 of Sir Henry Vane the Younger. To be honest it's not so much his life as his death that  I find most admirable:

He certainly doesn't really belong in the radical-pantheon of proto-democrats and socialists. In the Leveller disputes  he definitely took  the side of the men of property. He should be categorized as a patrician-republican in a similar vein to Arthur Hesilredge. Characterized by his belief in religious tolerance and the supremacy of parliament over the army, he belonged to  neither the Presbyterian  nor Army factions.  Consequently he followed a precariously independent path during the Republic and Protectorate.

With the restoration of the monarchy he was not initially targeted for retribution like so many leading parliamentarians. Essentially a 'moderate', Vane had actually refused to take part in the king's trial and  sentencing, but even so, the 'not-so merry monarch'  Charles II simply  deemed him 'too dangerous a man to be allowed to live'. 

At his execution he was noted for his calmness in delivering a long speech justifying his actions and those of the Republic. He also warned the axe-man to take care not to inflame the pain he was experiencing from a particularly large boil on his neck.

Vane is also thought to have probably had the distinction of coining the phrase 'The Good Old Cause' -  the rallying call for generations of radicals evoking the memory of the heady days of the English Republic.

The lonely musings of the long distance commercial traveller.

Back in the days when I was a studio manager I was virtually welded to my desk. I would regularly work a 12hour shift and felt that I couldn’t be away from the studio for much longer than it took to get a sandwich or I would loose control of what was going on. 

This was probably bollocks – but the thought of running my own diary and swanning around to meetings would have been a fantasy then. Nowadays it’s a curse – and I’ve just come to the end of a fortnight particularly dominated by having to doing it.   

But happily  ‘business travel’ is still far from typical of what I generally do and so has enough of a novelty to make me stop and think:

One trip was to Zurich, to pitch our services to a US owned multinational. Between the airport, the railway station, and the anonymous corporate HQ, I had no sense of actually being in Switzerland – or anywhere else specific for that matter. Staffed by shiny-eyed young aspiring execu-types drawn from across Europe and the US this was truly big business transcending nationality.

Another was to Thessaloniki to do a press pass on behalf of one of our clients - at least a  chance to use my technical skill rather than mere corporate whoring. I got only glimpses of the economic crisis in Greece. Lots of anarchist graffiti – a cab driver who suddenly became much more friendly when he discovered that I wasn’t German (for some reason I’m often mistaken for a German) – and a heavy riot police presence guarding some event at a conference centre. Staying at a typically ‘international’ business hotel didn’t really broaden my experience. Nor did my attempt to get a bit of culture in my downtime – the ancient city with all its associations with Alexander The Great and the Byzantines seems to have been rebuilt as an extensive shopping mall by the sea complete with Starbucks and GAP.

Strangely  the only trip in the past two weeks that actually made me think was to Blackburn, to pitch to a long established local business – one of the few still going up there.

I was shocked by the overwhelming post-industrial grimness of the town. Boarded-up shops, derelict factories, and significantly intact  BNP posters that anywhere else would have been defaced. It’s certainly not that I live a sheltered life – by any measurement my hometown of Tottenham is one of the poorest in the country. But even the most deprived parts of London have a certain life and vibrancy to them. In Blackburn there seemed to be a sense of hopelessness – from the Asian cabbie who took me to my meeting and regretted leaving his shop in Southall to join his family up here twenty years ago and now couldn’t afford to move out - to the white cabbie who took me back  - and jovially moaned about the ‘fooking pakis’ all the way. 

I suppose I really knew it already – but it was a reminder that London and the rest of England are very different places.

John McDonnell. Bad taste old boy ...

Poor old John McDonnell - what little chance he had to be a serious contender for the Labour leadership was probably scuppered by his gag at the GMB hustings about going back in a time machine to assassinate Thatcher. It's not a great gag maybe  but it's an honest reaction probably shared by any socialist  who has lived through the Thatcher years, the Blairite betrayal and is now thinking 'here we go again' with the ConDems. Actually I suspect quite a few people will think that  a bit of passion and honesty makes a refreshing change from politeness and spin.

I remember a similar tumble-weed moment when I was on a Labour Students executive dominated by Clause4 / Democratic Left types (remember them  - they eventually morphed into the fresh-faced Blairites of '97 ?).

This was at the time of the IRA's Brighton bombing: At an  executive meeting one of these characters said we should put something out about the bombing and Thacher's narrow escape. Me -  being sensible for once -  said well yes obviously it was tempting and would be funny and all that -  but we should be careful about  how it might be perceived. Cue shocked faces all around and an awkward tumble-weed moment....

Whilst we're on the subject  -  I wonder how long it will be before it is considered acceptable for history students to speculate what would Britain have looked like if the bombing had succeeded ? 

It's just a thought of course  - I'm not implying anything - obviously that would be in poor taste ..

Fight for your right to party ?

My daughter wanted to go on the Gaza demo this weekend. Remembering the demos from last year I wasn't too keen on her going on her own. I felt a bit bad about this - I went off on plenty of demos when I was her age - although back in those days the police hadn't become the twitchy rottweillers they seem to be now. I then felt worse when I heard that the Gazza protest had passed off without incident.

Then I head about this - a water-fight arranged for a hot afternoon in Hyde Park by some kids on Facebook. Perhaps disappointed by the lack of action at the Israeli embassy the  neathanderal coppers decided to treat the party as if it were a riot.

History subverts religious nonsense

I can't understand  parents who bemoan their kids growing up. One of the biggest joys of being a parent is watching them figuring out the world for themselves. We had one of those impromptu family discussions in our house yesterday prompted by one of those delightfully innocent questions that cuts through all the bullshit of the polite grown up world - just why do religious people believe such obvious nonsense ?

I should explain that our kids have grown up in a thoroughly free-thinking household - but at their school they seem to be  largely  surrounded by friends who are either practicing Muslims of varying degrees of orthodoxy, or Evangelical Christians.  Either way - happily my kids genuinely struggle to comprehend the barminess of their friends' beliefs - both in  theory and practice - whether it's the concept of an imminent apocolypse and the bodily resurrection of our ancestors, or having at all costs  to cover your hair and not consume shellfish. 

We can try  to explain it to them in terms of psychology - religion gives people comfort, or in terms of sociology - it affirms people's cultural identity.  But on  a purely abstract level, having encouraged the application of reason in  every other aspect of their education, it's very difficult to explain religious belief in terms of anything else other than  wanton stupidity and simple superstition.

However I've found help  in the unlikeliest of places -  the BBC's 'History Of The World in 100 Objects' -  this week they have been looking at the rise of the major world religions. They do so in terms of power - both political and economic. The 15 minutes a day programmes chart why the big four religions we are stuck with today triumphed over other local 'pagan' religions. And clearly slow that was not because they were any more intellectually vigorous or morally superior, but because they won by  military conquest (Islam), or by providing the fabric of empire (Christianity and Hinduism) or by trade networks (Buddhism). Maybe the disciples of the Flying Spaghetti Monster were just less fortunate in their historical breaks.

Wallpaper and revolution

I am trying  my best to resist gracefully slipping into middle age. But my parents, with good intentions knowing my taste for history, recently gave myself and Mrs Journeyman a present of National Trust membership: I felt that I had finally become a card-carrying member of the tea-shop frequenting, garden viewing, beige wearing ranks of geriatric Middle England.

One of the first uses of our membership was visiting William Morris' Red House in Bexley Heath over the bank holiday weekend. The visit was a perfect example of the 'twee-ification' of history rendered by the National Trust to suit the bland palette of its constituency and demographic.

The house is of course very nice to look at. As are the well-tended gardens and the cafe in the coach house where 'light refreshments' are served. The terribly posh and earnest guide talked with passion about the architecture, the  hand-printed arts-and-craft wallpaper, and the neo-medieval frescos Morris had painted in the house. But managed at the same time to say virtually nothing about who Morris was or what he was about.

Nothing at all about his status as one of the unsung homegrown pioneers of English Socialism. Or the fact that the wallpaper and the frescos were an intrinsic part of a personal evolution that led to his disillusion with capitalism and adoption of revolutionary socialism. Or his sadness and frustration at the irony that the products of his design and manufacturing business could only be afforded by the middle classes .

I can guess how he would feel about the reproductions being sold in the gift shop. If nothing else I was inspired to dig out my copy of EP Thompson's biography of Morris.

Dunkirk Spirit - myth & reality.

Inevitably with the 70th anniversary of the evacuation of the BEF this week, and of course the imminent World Cup, the idea of the 'Dunkirk Spirit' is being much touted around. And mis-appropriated - from fat red-faced football fans waiving St George's flags, to Cameron's 'we're all in it together vision' of people creating their own DIY schools.

If there is such a thing as national character - and straightaway we're on dodgy ground here - then  perhaps the Dunkirk Spirit is a particularly British form of stoicism, quiet understatement and dry-humour, along with a discovery of collective spirit provoked by adversity. It certainly isn't about waiving the flag and singing ENGER-LAND.

For my Mum and Dad's generation Dunkirk and the events of 1940 holds a special place in their memory. Although they probably wouldn't express it themselves that way - I think that for them it marks the start of the 'People's War'. Only this weekend they were reminiscing how my Granddad in the river police wanted to take his boat over to France but wasn't allowed to  because it might be needed in case of invasion -  whilst a firefighter Uncle  did go over on a fire-boat - presumably these were seen as more expendable.

The involvement of civilians and their boats in the rescue operations was in this respect very symbolic: The troops of the BEF were largely pre-war Regulars and called-up Territorials - the mass armies  of citizen-conscripts were to come later. The talk  of 'phony war' rapidly switched   - after France fell so quickly to the German blitzkrieg - to a genuine fear of an invasion of the British Isles.  Along with  a much-mythologized but undeniable sense of  standing alone  - without European allies, support from the Commonwealth still to be mobilised, and with the USA standing aloof .

For them there was/is a real sense that Dunkirk was a turning point in the national psyche. But even then - as now - there was much mis-information about the evacuation: 

Some parts of the BEF were sacrificed (notably in Calais) for PR purposes to reassure the French  - whilst there were bitter arguments over the evacuation of French troops that were to have recriminations for years. Ironically many French troops who were evacuated to Britain were then pointlessly returned to ports in Western France just in time for the mass surrender. 

Most fundamentally the threat of invasion averted by the 'miracle of Dunkirk' was probably more perceived than real. Historians have speculated endlessly whether the German forces had either the means or desire to stage an amphibious invasion. And conspiracists have pondered the crucial and mysterious order to halt the Panzer forces' pursuit of the BEF to Dunkirk. It's now fairly well established that the Nazis harboured hopes for a negotiated settlement with an isolated Britain that would leave the empire in tact whilst giving them a free hand in Europe. And it's equally well established that there were factions within the British ruling class - Lord Halifax and various other toffs - who felt the same way. Recently discovered evidence suggests that even Churchill didn't discount this at one point.

There are some extraordinary tales to be told about Dunkirk - just not the flag-waiving ones that we are likely to see this week ..

Parliament peace camp

Over the past few years whenever I ride around Parliament Square, I usually give a toot of the horn in recognition to Brian Haw and his (in the beginning anyway) one-man peace camp. 

Although  I have never had the chance to speak to Brian, I suspect that he is a bit of a loon - but   in the very best possible way. His persistent and eccentric presence in the shadow of the seat of government must be a source of continuing irritation and embarrassment to the powers that be. 

And for that alone he is worthy of the respect of all of us who carry out our activism in rather more comfort.

I fear that the police's raid on the camp yesterday, and mayor Boris's stated intention to have the protesters removed by a court order, is a taste of the new profoundly illiberal regime now in power in this country. I still can't help wondering how all those North London Lib-Dems who knit their own CND jumpers are feeling  about propping it up.

Stupid stunts.

After the fragile unity of TUSC , a salutary reminder of why we can't 'just all sink our differences and work together':

When I half-saw the report on the TV of the SWP's attempted occupation of the BA / Unite talks out of the corner of my eye, my immediate thought was that it was just  the eco-toffs of Plane Stupid again.Then I heard that it was 'Far Left' activists and my heart sank.

A classic cringe-worthy display of ultra-Leftism if ever there was one. Sadly we've seen it many times before from the Swappies -  whose analysis is often no more sophisticated than 'strikes good - settlements bad'. 

Maybe it's wrong to characterize those involved in the action as middle class students but it's difficult to think that anybody who actually works for a living, with bills to pay and families to support, would take so flippant a view of the sacrifices required in going on strike - and the genuine need and hopes for a settlement.

Woodley and Simpson may well be  over-paid bureaucrats who will sell out the workers they represent for a quiet life - but the BA cabin crew don't need a chanting mob to tell them that. Actually -  if  workers in dispute are being kept out of talks and a deal is being cooked up behind their backs, then occupation of the negotiations is a pretty sound tactic - at least it is when it is done by the workers themselves. 

Activist supporters have a role in helping  this by organising solidarity and publicity outside of the occupations - they even might politely offer some advice based on  previous experiences. What they don't do is unilaterally substitute themselves for the workers like the Swappies.

This supportive role is what I can remember  myself and other Militant comrades doing 20+ years ago when the Addenbrookes strikers in Cambridge occupied the offices of the Community Health Council - and it's exactly the same approach  the  Socialist Party recently took at the Visteon, Linemar and Vestas occupations.

Hence the SP's statement  here on the tactics of the BA dispute .

And just for the record the SWP didn't prevent a sell out by ending the talks - union-busting cunt Willie Walsh is quite capable of doing that himself without any outside assistance.

Democracy is so confusing

Democracy is a funny old business - and very much in the eye of the beholder.

 A little snippet in the  news today: Cameron has just changed the rules so that government ministers can sit on the Tory back-benchers' 1922 committee  - and so  keep all those troublesome and off-message old farts in check. It's a stroke of genius - a bit like sticking some representatives of the gamekeepers' federation on the national executive of the poachers' union. If a leftwing group pulled a stunt like that  it would be called entryism or meeting-packing.

Much like the Tories' similar genius in changing the no-confidence vote rules to virtually ensure a five year fixed term - and so lock the Lib-Dems into coalition. You could almost murmur the ominous words 'Enabling Act'  with all its connotations of parliamentary Bonapartism.

Of course to raise this is quibbling about triffles compared to the fiasco of the general election itself - with disputed electoral rolls, ill-equipped polling stations running out of ballot papers, and voters turned away from the polls because they couldn't be processed quickly enough. Not to worry though  - next time Rawanda is going  to send some observers to ensure fair play.

On the other hand, if you are  a trade union trying to conduct a ballot across a large membership scattered across, and frequently moving between,  numerous workplaces, the details of which the employer is under no obligation to update the union about, - then woe betide you. You might send a few ballot forms to the wrong place (the RMT) or you might not  inform your members correctly of the details of  spoilt ballot papers (Unite BA workers). 

Even if the results give you  a significant 'mandate'* (there's a word that's been touted around a lot recently) - you're still vulnerable to your opponents crying foul and getting a court injunction against you.

* Speaking of mandates here's something to ponder

Unite 80% majority for strike action

RMT 54% majority for strike action 

v

Conservative  36% of popular vote

Lib Dems 23% of popular vote

Nerdy or Geeky ?

Like father likes son(s):

Back in the dark ages when I was a student Ralph Miliband's State In Capitalist Society was a required text. It made little impression  on me but if I remember correctly the gist of it - and this really is a case of no shit sherlock - was that the various agencies that made up the state, whilst appearing to be 'neutral', were actually all connected by common background or interest. 

For this hardly original insight he was given the status of a Marxist intellectual and darling  of the New Left.  And back in those days that was actually quite a handy label for anyone pursuing an academic career. 

At the time I struggled to see what was particularly Marxist about what he was saying - the book was full of sociological description but very thin on politics - and above all there was an absence of any idea of class struggle. The State was simply something that 'happened' to a passive working class to keep them in their place.

Just as I was then  bemused that their old man  counted himself in the ranks of 'Marxists' so I am now equally baffled as to what the Miliband brothers are doing in the Labour Party, let alone contending for the leadership:

Ed the Brown-ite versus Dave the Blair-ite - or is it the other way round ?

Fuck the Con-Dems - Let's Ride.

Enough politics for the moment - they don't make them like this any more - here's Peter Fonda's  manifesto: " We don't want nobody telling us what to do. We don't want nobody pushing us around. We want to be free to ride our machines without being hassled by the man. We want to get loaded"...

Blood thicker than water.

The blood that is of shared social background and common class interest, as opposed to the watery cocktail of 'centre-left progressivism':

Dave, from a long line of financiers going back to the 18th century, married to a minor aristo, Eton and Brasenose Oxford. Nick, from Russian emigre nobility, married into a Spanish patrician family, Westminster School and Robinson Cambridge. Both with no real work experience outside of being politicos - a Tory party apparatchik and a Euro-crat respectively. Both amongst some of the wealthiest MP's in parliament. If you ever doubted that there was such a thing as a ruling class - this is what it looks like in the flesh.

At local level I have never really doubted that the Lib-Dems are a kind of Tory-lite. People who by right should really be Tories but are just a little squeamish about  the consequences. A kind of NIMBY-ism writ large -  they'll campaign locally to save their local school or hospital but won't or can't join up the dots to come up with a coherent radical programme that could save everyone's school or hospital. When they get control of councils their record is invariably little better than  the Tories.

I can concede that there is/was a progressive strain of sorts in some Lib-Dems - and they must be wondering what the fuck they have done in facilitating a Tory government committed to £6billion of cuts in public spending this year, a cap on immigration and the keeping of Trident. On the other hand they may just  think that electoral reform and five cabinet seats was worth the price. And of course I don't suppose they are going to feel the coming cuts in quite the same way in Muswell Hill.

What's left for the Left ?

Whilst the public school boys are cooking up a deal behind closed to determine what our next government will  be - I am  pondering the results for socialists  candidates in the election.

By no stretch of the imagination can they be called good - I haven't seen anyone push the 'XXX thousand votes for socialism' line - but doubtless some head-bangers will. On the other hand inevitably the nay-sayers will be jumping at the chance to write the obituaries for the Left. I prefer a more sober and honest analysis of where we are:

It is stating the obvious to say this was a weird election in every respect. On Thursday night I couldn't keep my eyes open beyond 3am but what was clear even by then was how localised the patterns of voting swings were - strong swings to the Tories in safe Labour seats set against poor Tory performances in some of their targeted marginals.

And for socialists the best results came unsurprisingly where there is a strong local base grounded in the real world: Dave Nellist in Coventry with a consistent record and profile for thirty years, the councillors in Lewisham who got their highest ever vote but still lost their seats, and in my own constituency Jenny Sutton, with a strong campaign around cuts at the local college. Even here we saw the incumbent David Lammy actually increasing the majority for Labour at the expense of the Lib Dems.

Realistically  socialists elsewhere  were stuck with campaigning for a fairly abstract protest vote against Labour. Not the easiest task at the best of times but possibly made even harder in the future now that people who voted Lib-Dem in protest realise that they may have unwittingly helped elect a Tory government. In that respect - roll on electoral reform and PR. None of that though adds up to a case for socialists calling time on elections - on the contrary this is a time to  stick to our guns. 

The TUSC project came a long way from a standing start in a short time - if not actually Left unity then at least practical co-operation on a fairly unprecedented level, was achieved by disparate groups. And more importantly, even in its name, TUSC has raised the idea of linking trade union representation and socialism.

I would argue that it is a very modest beginning but a necessary one in light of the battles around the corner when the next government turns on public spending. Sadly patience and consistency are not the strong suites of some of the groups that make up TUSC but  one thing we don't need at the next election is to campaign under a different name or acronym ...or even worse a myriad of them.

Vote early. Vote often.

I imagine I was one of the first through the doors at my polling station this morning. And I anticipate a late night watching the results and analysis because I'm a sucker for that kind of thing. In reality though in  terms of election build-up never has so much been hyped about so little. 

Regardless of the outcome, whether it is a precarious minority government or a cobbled-together coalition, for most ordinary people it will be a case of gritting the teeth and tightening the belts in anticipation of an austerity programme that will unpick further whatever fabric of the welfare state is left in this post-Thatcher/Blair era.

Which is not to say that the result doesn't matter - the signal sent by a Tory victory would only boost the confidence of those sections of the ruling class who unashamedly want to put the boot into the most vulnerable in society and make them pay for the recession.

Which is why I would make a plea for anyone who is even slightly sympathetic to the views expressed in this blog to get out and vote for TUSC if you're lucky enough to live in one of the 40-odd constituencies with a TUSC candidate. If you're not, then for fuck's sake at least use your vote  to stop a Tory or a Fascist getting in.

Education. Education. Edu...what the fuck ?

Remember Blair's smug sound-bite? FE colleges up and down the country are shut today because of a strike by the the lecturers' union - the UCU - in protest at a massive cuts programme aimed at that sector.  My local college is one of them - CONEL (The College of North East London) is making £2.5m of cuts that will dramatically cut teaching jobs and courses.

What's happening there is a microcosm of what Labour have done to the their inner city heartlands - like Tottenham - and a taste of worse to come, whatever the result of tomorrow's election. The college is at the heart of the community here  - and not just because it is one of the biggest employers in the constituency. The cuts are going to tear at that heart. We have one of the highest rates of youth unemployment in the UK so both  vocational courses and second-chance-after-school courses give young people some hope. We are also officially the most ethnically diverse part of the UK so courses teaching English and basic literacy are essential to people who come here to make a new life and try to integrate themselves in the local community.

Ironically our local MP, David Lammy is a man who owes pretty much everything to the power of education. Yet as a minister for education he has done precisley fuck all to assist the campaign to stop the cuts at his local college. He actually grew up about a block away from where I now live - but a scholarship to a boarding school led to a law degree from Harvard. And good luck to him for that -  I've also benefited in my own life (not quite as much as Lammy though)  from access to an elite education. But he is happy now to kick the ladder away from the next generation behind him who want to make the same journey.

It's no accident that our local TUSC candidate is a UCU  activist  from the college - and one of those now likely to lose her job.

Wasting time is the best of times.

Sat at working contemplating the shit I have to shovel to make a living, and the depressing and increasingly likely prospect of a new Tory government -  I happened upon this clip on the excellent Quad Cam Bastards blog.

There's something beautiful about this clip - a group of friends, some cool bikes, bare essentials, just pratting about and enjoying life. Never did the boarding thing myself, but there's plenty of other equally stupid shit I could substitute - like playing chi-sau in the blazing sun in Ibiza.

In my little martial arts world we interpret Wing Chun as 'Forever Young' - simplicity, innocence, back to basics -  take it where you will. The older I get the more wisdom I see in this kind of goofiness.

MOB! from Bolts Action on Vimeo.

Gordon's bloomers

Right outrage for the wrong reason. Browns' on-microphone / off-camera bad-tempered description of a Rochdale pensioner as a bigot doesn't actually disturb me as much as the previous footage of him speaking to her on his walk-about. The footage is a revealing glimpse of the patronising bollocks we have to endure in this age of spin politics.

Brown thought he was being presented with a pre-arranged and stage-manged PR opportunity to show him speaking to a long-standing Labour supporter - no doubt an experience that could serve as the basis of a 'I was speaking to a woman from Rochdale' anecdotes. Instead he was assailed from the position of traditional Labour values of care for the vulnerable - education, the health service and pensions. Until the all too-easy to ridicule 'where are all these Eastern Europeans coming from?' - Mrs Duffy had actually put a pretty well argued case to the PM.

Was she a bigot ? Well yes - a bit and I don't blame him for saying it how it is.  But if you're out there campaigning you are going to come across these attitudes and you aren't going to change them with condescending liberal disdain. 

And don't be surprised if the best-laid plans of spin doctors leave you with egg on your face. Trying to build populist support is no substitute for policies that actually engage with the issues of ordinary people.

And don't be surprised when the Murdoch press sets you up and  bites you in the arse.

Tales of two TUSCs

Maybe I'm seem kind of a masochist but I actually quite enjoy canvassing in elections. I know some people refer to canvassers as 'human spam' but in this election-by-xfactor era, a bit of 'contact time' on the doorstep can redress the much-derided spin and keeps politics real.

I divided my time this weekend: In my own constituency TUSC are standing an SWP-endorsed candidate,  as the only SP member in the village, I'm in the position of  an amicable minority in  the local campaign there. I'm also venturing across the river to help out in the SP-led TUSC campaign where we also have two sitting  SP councillors up for re-election on May 6th.

There are differences in the campaigns but not necessarily the ones you'd first imagine:

Here in Tottenham the emphasis is on mobilising a protest vote against a prominent and up-coming Labour MP who arrogantly assumes that local demographics guarantee him an automatic shoe-in, whilst happily voting solidly for all those measures that fuck-over an area like this. In response the most common attitude is an embittered abstention-ism but there are also signs of support from a significant minority.

Down in Lewisham, with the added dimension of having well-respected Left councillors in office for some years it is not quite so much of a vacuum. At a national level it may be the same rather abstract task of capturing a mood of protest and making a small beginning. But at local level we can point to the clear example of ourselves as a party, in fact the only party, who consistently vote against local cuts. And this has an effect - for what it's worth the only 'definites' that I encountered on the doorstep were SP/TUSC ones - with a few Greens in the more middle class streets.

But what is most telling is the similarity between the two campaigns  - and a feel good factor about being able to put TUSC forward as a national alternative. Of course there are differences; if I was to be picky I would say that the comrades from the SWP seem unsurprisingly to be less experienced in elections - and when campaigning they can come across a bit 'shrill and shouty'.  And I don't know if it is collective amnesia, or a conscious decision to ignore the elephant in the corner, but there seems to be consensus not to mention  the whole Socialist Alliance / Respect thing. But they do have some good local activists and have drawn others around them, and whatever the ideological  and strategic divisions at national level, locally for too long we have existed in mutually enforced parallel worlds.

It has been predicted that after the election TUSC will fracture along the fault lines of its constituent parts. Past experience would suggest that this is quite possible but personally I hope that unity, albeit fragile, can be maintained.

Who killed Blair Peach ?

At one time the chant of 'who killed Blair Peach ? - the police killed Blair Peach!' was repeated almost to the point of irritation at any demonstration where the old bill were out in force. Nowadays I suspect most people have forgotten who Blair Peach was. Today is the anniversary of his death in 1979 and it seems appropriate to have a quick history lesson for the benefit of a new generation of activists:

Blair Peach was a teacher from New Zealand, a member of the Socialist Workers Party and  an activist in the Anti Nazi League. He died from head injuries at a demonstration in Southall against the National Front at which the police  were out in almost equal numbers to the demonstrators - and which ended in widespread violence and arrests. Nobody was really in any doubt that the police, in particular the riot squad SPG (before they were re-branded as the TSG), were completely  out of control. Eleven witnesses were willing to testify that they had seen the police assault Blair Peach.

But the inquest in to his death found a verdict of 'mis-adventure'. 

This fooled nobody - hence the ubiquitous cry of 'the police killed Blair Peach'. The police-cover up was legendary: one SPG officer was caught disposing of a collection of home-made weapons - iron bars and coshes - that police had used to supplement their issued truncheons. When called for an identity parade some officers grew facial hair whilst others shaved off their beards. Uniforms were dry cleaned before forensic tests could be done. The coroner who presided over this was actually advised not to publish his report because it would damage public confidence in the impartiality of the legal process !

Ten years later, after a campaign by his girlfriend, the Met Police finally came to an out of court settlement over Blair Peach's death. And thirty years later, in December 2009 the Crown Prosecution Service said they were still considering whether to investigate the case further. Needless to say no police officer has ever been prosecuted.

With the death of Ian Tomlinson and the attack on Nicola Fisher at last year's G20 it's worth remembering that we've been here before.

Lib-Dem renaissance and the new era.

OK - judging by Nick Clegg's climb up the polls I may have underestimated the impact of the election-special version of the X-Factor on Thursday night.  Being the unknown new kid on the block - or at least not being Brown or Cameron - and not actually fucking up the televised debate seems to be enough to have spawned a Liberal renaissance.

Amidst the Clegg love-in I choked on one of his sound-bites referring to the upset that the Lib-Dems has caused to the 'old parties'. With antecedents going back to the Whigs of the Glorious Revolution of 1688, surely the Liberals are the oldest of all the parties? 

In fact in the three hundred years since  then, British electoral  politics has been predominately a ding-dong affair between them and their old sparing parties the Tories. Admittedly both parties  had make-overs in the the nineteenth century to re-brand themselves as the modern Conservatives and Liberals, but these exercises in spin actually represented less of a break in continuity than that of Labour's morphing into New Labour. Then as now, the Whigs/Liberals represented the more enlightened and considered position of the ruling class whilst the Tories/Conservatives stood firmly on the headbanging reactionary side of history. 

This has more significance than mere historical smart-arsery:

In the  three hundred year  period of party politics the Labour Party has been a force for barely a third of this time. We can debate the dates, but personally I would conveniently  estimate  its life span from 1895 and the election of Keir Hardie, to 1995 and the dropping of Clause 4 and the (token) commitment to socialism. Coincidentally (?) this is also approximately the same  period that saw the active engagement and participation of the majority of ordinary people in electoral politics. Before that time the working class's participation was constitutionally prevented by a restricted franchise -  and  now it is effectively disenfranchised by a lack of political representation.

The Liberal renaissance does nothing to address this, in fact it may be a reversion back to a more honest system; two pro-capitalist parties of the the ruling class, unencumbered with the confusing and embarrassing spectre of a 'socialist' past. 

The rest of us still won't actually participate in this new political process - but every few years we may get a chance to phone in our preferences from a panel of carefully selected and stage-managed contestants (all calls charged at a premium rate)...

Broken bikes. Broken Britain.

I'm going to resist the temptation to comment on the 'historic' televised leaders' debate. Partly because I had better things to do last night than watch it - I was out training and so have only just seen some online 'highlights' - but also because my reaction to what I have seen is  simply 'no shit Sherlock'. 

All three leaders were clearly well briefed and rehearsed by their respective spin factories - so there were no gaffs like Nixon's five o'clock shadow or Bush senior looking a his watch. There was a broad consensus that the debate wasn't about whether to cut public services but how, when, and to what extent they should relish doing so. And the two main parties made it clear that they wanted to suck up to the Lib-Dems - hardly surprising given that we've been talking about hung parliaments for over a year. 

So. meanwhile in the real world: I am working out how to juggle my time to do some work for TUSC candidates here in London,  and fuming at my own experience  of broken Britain.

TWICE in a week my bikes have been damaged whilst they were parked. The damage was relatively minor and will probably cost only  £100 or so in parts, but with the  added inconvenience of hunting down the bits and then a couple of hours doing the repairs. On the second occasion I found my bike on its side having probably been knocked right over by a clumsy driver. It's not so much the damage, or the cost, or the hassle as the fact that whoever did it didn't even have the courtesy to pick the bike up, never mind leaving a note. Fuckers. 

The one time I damaged someone else's bike - knocking it over whilst stupidly starting mine in gear - I was mortified. I ended up paying out about £200 for replacement parts, an apology bottle of J-D for the owner and another thank-you bottle to my friends at the bike shop who took care of the repairs.

I'm not looking for praise - I think the majority of bikers would have done something similar - it's just when did everyone else become an arse-hole ?

The great rock 'n' roll swindler

Despite an affection for The Ramones and The Clash, I was never a punk - but I loved the punk attitude. An attitude that music could be something more than tin pally commercialism and that rock 'n' roll was the new folk music of our times.

Ironically though Malcolm McLaren was  actually the very antithesis of all that - which is why I just don't get the eulogies that are now pouring in from all corners at the news of his death and lauding his journey from enfant terrible to national treasure.

Forget about the art-school background and his supposed subversive situationism, McLaren was old school showbiz through-and-through. He may have been a commercial genius in his eye for talent and judging the moment, and he undeniably had a massive effect on popular culture and media - but much the same could also be said for Simon Cowell.

There are worse crimes than commercial success, but when this comes disguised as  pretentious  anti-establishmentism, it leaves a very bad taste. And based on McLaren's deliberate fueling of Sid and Nancy's fatal downward spiral, with a general tendency, like Andy Warhol,  to treat the people  he worked with as no more than projects and performance moments, I suspect that on a human level he was just a bit of a cunt.

The Mountain - West Virginia Mine Disaster

Something to put in perspective any bitching about 'stress' at work - the stress of deadlines or the dangers of a stiff neck from an un-ergonomic chair: In West Virginia 25 miners are killed in an underground explosion  and four more are still missing. And last week in Shanxi province, 39 miners are still missing after 100 more were rescued from an underground flood.

These days  not so many of us get our hands dirty for a living but mining remains as perhaps one of the starkest reminders of what capitalism is still fundamentally about - profit extracted from blood, sweat and tears. And a reminder that in mining industries around the world whatever advances in safety may been made,  have largely  been the result, either directly or indirectly, of the actions of workers' organisations. Maybe this is why there were 2,630 largely unreported deaths last year in Chinese mines.

I heard Steve Earle make this point at a gig a few years ago in relation to an earlier disaster in Pennsylvania, and the role of the United Mineworkers of America - so it seems appropriate to include this as some sort of memorial: 

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

After reading the novels some time ago,  I finally got around to seeing 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo' this weekend.

The back-cloth is a gloomy Scandanavian landscape that oozes brooding melancholy. The heroine is an ass-kicking, ferociously clever, heavily tattooed-and-pierced punk girl who rides a motorcycle. And the hero is a principled investigative journalist on a mission to expose big business and Neo-Nazis (in fact so was the novel's author). 

The plot of course is complete tosh -  but then that goes with the thriller territory. 

What's not to like?

Bullying bastard in uniform (one year on)

It's tempting to take one look at Sergeant Delroy Smellie - the copper who attacked a woman half his size last year at the G20 demo - and conclude that he is a sadist thug  who must be very happy in his work as a member of the Met's TSG. But I won't, because then I would be as guilty of stereotyping as the police and now the courts are, in assuming that anyone seen wearing Doc Marten boots, a keffiyeh, and a Bolivian-style woolly hat is in fact a violent threat to public order. Although you do have to question the motives of anyone who makes a career choice of serving in a specialist unit whose euphemistic initials cannot disguise the fact that they are primarily the riot squad.

I am not a part of the 'all coppers are bastards brigade': My own much-loved granddad was in the Met - although mainly the River Police - and I grew up on his anecdotes. These included the story of how he broke the jaw of a Canadian soldier at the VE-night celebrations in 1945. My granddad was a giant of a man who rowed and boxed for the police, so when he said that the Canadian was bigger than him and came at him with a flaming lump of wood pulled from a brazier, I have little doubt that his actions were justifiable. Equally though he would boast that in thirty plus years of service, much of it in the docks, he never drew his truncheon in anger.

According to the judge who acquitted Smellie - and she did this on her own because the case was heard without a jury - he was a 'highly trained and experienced' officer who had 'only seven seconds' to decide if the woman Nicola Fisher posed a threat to his safety.

Anyone with training or experience in close range confrontation would confirm that seven seconds in these circumstances is an eternity. It is ample time to be hit or stabbed several times. If this seems unlikely then watch the martial arts clip in  my previous post and imagine the consequences of one of the participants freezing for seven seconds. 

Or review the footage of Smellie's attack on the woman - Nicola Fisher - and see how he has a clear view for several seconds of her hands holding nothing more  threatening than a carton of orange juice and a camera. Without a doubt Fisher is shouting abuse at Smellie before his attack, but by no stretch of the imagination can it be argued that he had reasonable fears for his own safety, especially if he has experience and training in such situations. 

Just imagine the scenario  reversed and a peaceful protester sees a police officer approaching him with a raised baton -  and so delivers a pre-emptive jab to the copper's chin. Theoretically there is a legal basis to arguing that this was justifiable in terms of a perceived threat to the protester's safety. But good luck to anyone arguing that as a defence.

What we saw in court yesterday was again a attempt to take away the legitimacy of protest and the presumption of innocence  by implying that anyone protesting on the streets is automatically a criminal and the police justified in treating them as such. It may still be possible that not all copper are bastards - but there is a paranoid police culture that is self fulfilling and aided by the increasing use of robo-cop style equipment.  And what it adds up to is that, despite the fact that the police's actions can now be recorded and broadcast,* there has probably  never been a worse time to be a protester in this country since the establishment of a civilian police force in the 1820's.


* Ponder this: Approx 300 complaints of police brutality at the G20 demo' + one much publicised death = still no convictions of police officers a year later