A day which will live in infamy - and myth

I can still  vividly remember exactly where I was when news broke of the attacks on the twin towers ten years ago and the unfolding horror of it all - and I only say that as a preamble to make it clear that I'm as sensitive to the human tragedy as the next man:

Even so. Maybe ten years is too soon to try and get some historical perspective - but it is necessary when myth-making spillls dangerously into policy-making. And doing so needn't take anything away from the individual tragedies nor does it add to the conspiro-loons or Islamo-fascists and their apologists.

Watching all the coverage of the 9/11 anniversary I can't help but recall the words of the historian Shelby Foote on American hubris regarding their civil war: “We think that we are a wholly superior people – if we’d been anything like as superior as we think we are, we would not have fought that war.  But since we did fight it, we have to make it the greatest war of all times...  It’s very American to do that.”

History - and suffering - is not a numbers game. But sometimes numbers do give a perspective. It's often quoted that more people died in the 9/11 attacks than at Pearl Harbour in 1941. True - but if we are measuring recent civillian casulaties then 41,000  were killed in the war in Bosnia and  another 70,000 in the Darfur conflict. These are often forgotten - simply because they occured in obscure parts of the world in countries that aren't global players.  

Of course it's not just about the numbers. 9/11 also defined a turning point in American relations with the outside world. The attack on the US homeland was something unprecedented and so represents what has been described as a 'loss of innocence' for a  nation, which unlike many others, even in Europe, has not endured foreign attacks, invasion or occcupation. Undeniably 9/11 changed international relations and heralded in the new concept of  'the war on terror'.

But such interventionism by the US  is nothing new.  The US empire (Howard Zin's phrase not mine)  has been policing the rest of the world  in defence of its own interests since the nineteenth century. And specifically when it comes to the Middle East and relations with the ex-colonial (and coincidentally or not Islamic) word, America has been waging undeclared wars for many years. 

Which leads to an ironic footnote - the date of 9/11 will forever now be remembered as it is - rather than for the anniversary of the US inspired  and financed military coup of 1973 in Chile that eliminated the democratically elected socialist government of Salvador Allende and installed a fascistic-regime that enjoyed the support of US and British governments for the next seventeen years.

No such thing as the 'criminal classes'

Ken Clark - the supposedly acceptable 'wet' face of the lounge-bar Conservatives - has been talking recently about the 'criminal classes.' Traditional Tory nonsense is nothing if not resilient.

At home I have a treasured early edition of Henry Mayhew's 'London Labour & The London Poor'. It isn't a revolutionary work in the sense of Engel's 'Conditon Of The Working Class In England' but it was in it's own way radical. 

Granted it reflects the Victorian obsession for recording and categorising everything in pedantic detail and you do sometimes feel that Mayhew, like a butterfly collector  would like to stick his subjects on a pin under a glass case. But it is ground-breaking in that it records the stories of London's working class in their own words - without too much middle class moral commentary. Most of all it paints a picture of the poorest elements of society - including those who make their living from crime - as victims of circumstance. Specifically of social injustice.

At the time this kind of thinking certainly wasn't the norm. Received wisdom would have it that there was some psychological or  genetic flaw that defined  the 'criminal classes'. Just have a look at Conan Doyle  - all very entertaining -  but  Holmes is constantly explaining to Watson how the 'degenerate' jawline or the low fore-head of a suspect confirms their innate villainy. This kind of thinking went hand in hand with  racial theories that mis-appropriated Darwinism in order to characterise some races as more primitive than other . Pseudo-science gave moral legitimacy to capitalism at home and imperialism abroad.

It's incredible that the idea of a criminal class is now being revived. But then again maybe it's the natural corollary of the old school toffs taking charge of government again.  Because by implication if one class is born to riot then another must be born to rule.

No platform (literally) by the RMT

I've suggested in the past that the blanket application of 'no platform' could be past its sell-by date. 

The debates around the legal banning of the EDL march in Tower Hamlets this Saturday illustrate this. Just possibly the campaign for a ban might have a benefit greater than the ban itself. In the sense that the campaign could have been a tool in mobilising opposition to the fascists. But I'm not convinced - reliance  on such measures is a bit too much of a fig leaf for the 'institutional Left' to hide behind. And in practical terms the 'ban' might prevent a march but it doesn't keep the fascists out of the East End - in fact it facilitates a ritualised stand-off of 'static demos' by the EDL and UAF - with all parties able to go home with the feeling of having had a good day out.

But  the announcement from  the RMT  union that if the fascists went ahead with using Liverpool Street as an assembly point their members would close down the station on the grounds of 'health and safety' - strikes me as a perfect and meaningful instance of applying the principle of no platform. 

It opens up all sorts of possibilities for similar actions by workers -  bus drivers  might  be able to do the same thing. Hell even those 'workers in uniform' - the police community support officers - are in a union these days. Remember, these groups of workers in  London  are probably  some of the most diverse workforces in the country. And the use of health and safety is a great way for workers to circumnavigate decades of anti-trade union legislation aimed at preventing unofficial and solidarity action  - because any worker has the right to refuse  to work in a situation or environment that might put himself or others at risk.  Campaigning for this kind of action in the workplace would have a far politicising effect than any number of state bans.

The wrong trousers ?

Much to the amusement of my family I brought myself a new pair of waterproof trousers this weekend. They are the fluorescent green/yellow hi-viz kind issued to workmen - prompting the derisive calls of 'you look like a council  bin-man'.

I have no snobbish qualms about this - being classed as workwear they seem hard wearing and being classed as safety equipment they are VAT free. I've had expensive purpose made motorcycling waterproofs, I've had dirt cheap ones,  and I've had military surplus ones. They all leak at some point and it's more a question of when and not if they will let you down. So I have no embarrassment about how I may look in them.

I remember reading somewhere that hi-viz is the new ubiquitous everyman uniform. Much as the Victorian middle class didn't notice what their servants looked like, and much as  those sepia photos of workers pouring out factory gates reveal a sea of indsitinguishable flat caps and donkey jackets,  so today - ironically - hi-viz has become a guarantee that you won't be noticed. In fact for anyone wanting to perpetrate an armed robbery I would suggest a hi-viz jacket as the perfect get-away costume. Chances are you will be take on the anonymous  persona of 'street funiture'  - and no witness will be able to give up a discription.

My only concern about my overly leary new trousers is that they could be taken as some sort of endorsement of the latest Euro-inspired bollocks to compel motorcyclists to wear hi-viz gear. Another misappropriation of state power for our own good and another insidious shift of responsibility to the rider to make himself seen and away from the car-driver to ensure that he looks where he's fucking going.

So to restore karmic balance to my purchase of these hideous over-trousers I would ask everyone to sign  the e-position here to oppose the latest misguided proposals.

What is being done to our kids ?

It's decision day today for thousands of school-kids who get their GCSE results. And this year my eldest is one of them. 

This comes in the same week that Tony Blair has admitted (kind of) that a generation of kids have been fucked over, and it was announced that the number of "NEETS' has risen to 18%.  'NEETS' being  taken as equating to the index for 'disposable teens' who make up the pool necessary to ensure that a large chunk of the remaining 72% are kept in Mc Jobs. 

And as we are constantly told that GCSEs, A levels, and university entrance are getting progressively easier every year - so the pressure on our kids to excel in order to just get by is becoming ever more intense. 

The two fold effect of this is that at one end of the spectrum there is a joyless approach to education which has little to do with real learning, and at the other, an inevitable sense that if you fall at the first hurdle then you're going to be left on the scrapheap for the rest of your life. Either way it's a recipe for teenage depression or - and this isn't melodramatic - riots on our streets. 

I am so thankful that I grew up in the 80's  when there was still a chance for a smart-arsed slacker like myself to scape through into the hallowed halls of higher education.

I'm also thankful that my daughter did pretty well today - but it does trouble me that she is going to face so many more hurdles to achieve the same. Along the way she is going to face more spoon-feeding, more bullshit, and a greater sense of every little thing mattering than ever I did. But at the same time the actual quality of her education will unquestionably be inferior.

It makes me sad for the kids as individuals, and it makes me angry for society as a whole - every year we are becoming more qualified, and yet also somehow rather less educated.

Back to Tottenham

I'm back after two weeks away. It's a surreal experience to watch your own high street go up in flames on foreign television. And then to have your neighbourhood dissected online  by quasi-anthropologists. Or see royalty  visiting the area as if it was some sort of colonial outpost hit by a natural disaster.

It's also infuriating to follow the subsequent debates online - from the 'bring in the army' cries of an almost fascist horrified middle class, to the predictably infantile cries of 'turn riot into revolution' from the usual suspects on the opportunist ultra-Left.

I wasn't there at the time so I'm not going to shine any light on the specific causation of the riot on 5th August. Nor am I going to ride the band wagon of local 'experts' who seem to have created a cottage industry out of sharing their own experience of life in this corner of North London. But I have lived in Tottenham for 23 years and so I think I am entitled to put in my personal two-pennyworth:

I moved here in 1988 when I bought my first flat just outside of the Broadwater Farm estate. You could say that it was a cynical move - at the height of the housing boom and in the wake of the previous riot this was one of the cheapest post codes in London. I have since moved around the area  but I have always stayed in Tottenham  - and  I have come to regard it as home. A place I just don't recognise as the gangsta-ghetto characterised lately in the media. In these 23 years I have seen governments come and go, and with them recessions and booms - but for Tottenham not much seems to have changed. For better or worse we have remained immune from the gentrification that has affected neighbouring areas. It remains what it was when I first got here; a community that defies stereotypes by being well integrated and doing it's best to make its way in some pretty shitty circumstances. 

Circumstances where - to use the post-Blairite lingo -  'life chances' only seem to get worse. Which is why -  putting aside the specifics of whatever catalysts triggered the events of 5th August - anyone who cannot see the causal link between social deprivation and riots must have their heads so far up their middle-England arses that they cannot see the wood for trees. Or maybe it was just because I was out of the country that I missed the coverage of the riots in Cheltenham and Tunbridge Wells. 

One parting thought though - and a disturbing one for a socialist parent: Back in the 80's the riots were about social deprivation viewed through the lens of race. This time around it seems to be through the lens of a generation gap. That's not to say that the police have stopped being racist  - but in particular now there is a generation under 25 who see no place for themselves in our community. I think a 'disconnect' is the correct pop-sociology expression.  A generation that is  spoon-fed a dose of spurious education to arm them with bullshit vocational qualifications for jobs that don't exist, or if they do are over-subscribed at a rate of 50 to 1. And most of these are future-less low grade / low pay service and retail opportunities. For a minority an academic route  out might be possible. But if successful that will generally  mean either working or living away from the community. No more EMA and ever-rising tuition fees mean that the odds for that option are rapidly reducing too. 

However I promise that any resemblance to anything Tony Blair said this weekend is purely superficial ...

Back soon

Time for the annual shut-down 

- back in a couple of weeks

Nostalgia through rose-tinted Mark 8 goggles

I'm aware that it's the ultimate hipster cliche - 'of course I like the early stuff before they went all mainstream': On a whim one bored afternoon at work I brought a couple of things on ebay -  a book of the late  Jim Fogg's biking short stories "Fogg On the Road' - and an old 1984 issue of Back Street Heroes. And reading them I was instantly transported to another more innocent and more authentic age.

Flicking through the magazine I see an editorial bemoaning the right-wing pro-business bias of Fleet Street and defending Ken Livingston and Tony Benn. (Imagine finding that in a custom bike magazine these days). A regular column  by the much-missed Maz Harris taking the piss out of  Harley-hobbyists and vintage-obsessives. The featured bikes are mainly  Jap big in-line fours and old British twins rather than American Vs. A Blues Brothers mural on the tank. There's no visible attempt to be self consciously 'old skool' or retro. Not a single  bloated OCC style cash-magnet creation in sight. And some quite decent short fiction that doesn't feature mythical celtic warriors or bad-ass outlaw MC's. It just feels so such much more 'real' and more like the village newsletter of a community than anything you're going to see nowadays.

I suppose it's inevitable that every sub-culture will either die or eat itself as it enters the commercial mainstream. And perhaps the 'cool' of our own youth is always going to be way cooler than the cool of today.  Even so I can't help but get misty eyed about the era when I first discovered BSH (about 1986) or when I first went to the  HAMC's Kent Custom Show in 1988. I think there were about 20,000 people at that event on Romney Marsh - and it felt as if every biker in the country was gathered in one place. But that unique  annual gathering of the tribes is now long gone;  four years ago twice that number attended the Bulldog Bash - and that was just one of several similar events.

I'm off with my slippers and coca now ...

What do they know of cricket who only cricket know ?

Proof if ever there was that there are some on the Left who could start a fight in a broom-cupboard: Have a look at the comments on Socialist Unity arguing over ...cricket.

Somewhere along the line the 'my dad's more working class than your's ' card is played - and now  I'm just waiting for the accusation that 20/20 cricket is a form of petit-bourgeois revisionism.

I grew up in a house where cricket was treated with almost religious reverence - interminable test matches watched on telly with the sound off and the radio on. Unsurprisingly, and notwithstanding CLR James'  inspirational marrying of cricket with libertarian-marxism - I grew up loathing the sport.

In fact I developed a rule of thumb that if it doesn't involve blood or sweat (or better still both) then it probably isn't a sport at all. So that rules out curling, darts and synchronised swimming. And before anyone jumps down my throat with a worthy exception to prove the rule I'll concede that it's just a working hypothesis. BUT STILL: I'm quite prepared to acknowledge that the generous  behaviour of the Indian team in the second test this weekend was something really rather wonderful.

Now can we just leave it ?

1945 - Labour's missed opportunity

I've got another guest slot over at 'On This Deity' today. 

Another anniversary of a great radical 'alomost might  have been' moment. And a sort of an epitaph for an increasingly extinct species.

It's the Mail wot done it

One trouble with Murdoch-gate is that it can distract us from just how fucking horrific the rest of our tabloid press is. Whether it is the opiate cocktail  of celebrities and tits - or just downright reactionary lies that fuel racial hatred and division. A special place  is held by  the small minded spitefulness of middle class middle England that is personified by the Mail

Getting wound up by that hateful rag is an exercise in futility.  So I don't usually bother. But the Mail is given out as freebie in quite  a number of places - including my gym. And sitting in the sauna I am something of a captive audience.

So on Saturday morning I sat there relaxing after my workout reading how the horrific attacks in Norway were the work of an Islamo-mentalist group called the 'Friends Of Islamic Jihad'. There were several pages of authoritative commentary from various historians and sociologists about how the overly-liberal multicultural societies of Scandinavia were doomed to tragedy as  deranged immigrants were bound to bite the hand that fed them. And this - it was implied - should serve as a warning to all of us.

Of course roughly by lunchtime it was clear that this was all complete bollocks. 

The perpetrator of this atrocity was not some swarthy incomer, but an extremely Aryan-looking conservative patriot. And a fundamentalist Christian too - who fancied linking up with our own homegrown EDL. 

So against my better judgement, the following morning  I had to look at the Mail On Sunday: I scoured it for a retraction or apology - but found none. Only that Anders Behring Breivik was being reported as a lone nutter with a background that was unfortunately 'arch-conservative'. And no mention of course that his hate-fueled agenda bore more than a passing resemblance to the kind of reactionary shit the Mail has been pumping out for years.

Print's not dead

More and more I seem to find myself an analogue Luddite in an increasingly digital world: I like old-fashioned air cooled v-twin engines - and the smell of ink on paper in the morning.

Sometime ago my alma-mater, The London College of Printing blandly re-branded itself as the London College of Communication. Now I see that one of the industry's newsletters - Design Week - has stopped publishing a print version and is only available online.

This depresses me on a number of levels. Despite wasting a lot of my time reading (and writing) stuff on screen  I really do love the tactile and sensory experience of ink on paper. I celebrate the craftsmanship of understanding the manual processes behind design - and I had some of my happiest times fiddling about with hot-metal setting at college.

But this 'digital' obsession reflects the narrow elitism of a media world that is firmly up its own arse. 98% of the UK population don't own a tablet device let alone an I-Pad, two-thirds of the country don't own a smart-phone and a quarter of households don't even have an internet connection. And that's national - if you look at statistics for impoverished areas  like the North-East you'll find that the digital stats drop alarmingly.

As a kid growing up in the 70's I remember being fed images of the year 2000 where we would all be wearing silver jump suits, commuting to work on our own personal hovercrafts and eating our meals in tablet form. Thankfully that all  proved to be bollocks  - and so I suspect is the predicted death of print. As it first was in the sixteenth century, the printed form stills represents the most universally accessible means of communication. Just ask anyone with any sort of political involvement - what's the first thing we all do  - in almost any circumstance -  produce a leaflet.

And here's another thought: As an I-Book, I-Phone user who works in a graphic studio in Soho I suppose I have to acknowledge that I could be seen as a card-carrying  'meedja-wanka'. But I can't help noticing with some ironic satisfaction that the signature object of desire for so many of my fellow meedja-wankas is that most basic of technologies - the fixed gear bicycle. They wax lyrical about the purity of its unity of form and function - I wish they'd apply the same logic to print.

Are they really all in it together ?

I'm naturally cynical about conspiracy theories. Bizarre and brutal behaviour by the ruling class can just as easily be ascribed to shared greed, mutual self-interest and a degree of bungling as it can to the global machinations of the modern Illuminati.

But ... Jesus Christ. You literally couldn't make this shit up: 

Police commissioners resigning. Newspaper executives arrested. Whistle-blowing journalists dying mysteriously. And a web of entanglements that connects big business, politicians and the forces of the state. Is fresh-faced toff David Cameron a naive victim witlessly implicated in this web of corruption and deceit ? Or is he the evil genius at the very heart of it assisted with his comedy side-kick Boris ? And of course we have the double act of damsel-in-distresss Sienna Miller and  quintessential Englishman Hugh Grant as the crusading hero of the hour to save the day. 

What are  those movie rights worth ?

Bullshit brand ethics

I have a battered old NGA 'Don't Buy The Times, Sun, News Of The World' mug on a shelf at eye level in my workshop. I'm reminded of the Wapping dispute every time I park up my bikes - and I never have brought one of Murdoch's scabby rags. 

So I want to rejoice over  the hacking-gate saga - the closure of NOW, bent coppers and now the apparent denial of Murdoch's attempt to control the airwaves too - it's the perfect shit-storm. But I'm afraid this isn't some victory of people power - it's a triumph of the bullshit of supposed 'corporate ethics'.

Some of the marketing wankers I have as clients refer without batting an eyelid to their brands' ethical capital. In their strange fucked-up world the perceived morality of their companies is an asset like any other. I'm sure business text books have been written on this but you can quickly get the idea -  fair trade organic coffee = good, oil drilling and refining = bad.  In an indirect way it acknowledges the simple fact that those of us who live under capitalism - 'consumers' - are generally not too happy about having the worst excesses of the system rubbed in our noses. So any business that  can mitigate that is on to a good thing.  And that I'm pretty sure is why Ford started the advertising boycott avalanche that led to the NOW's demise. 

With a record of union-busting, funding and co-operating with dictatorial regimes, and of course the notorious Pinto case when they decided that compensation for fatalities made better economic sense than product recalls - the Ford Motor Company has not historically been on some sort of moral crusade. 

But in positioning itself as the corporation that takes the moral high ground it effectively wrong foots all the others: Which car manufacturer wants to then be branded as the one who isn't sympathetic to the family of a murdered child ?  The positive PR is fantastic - and so much cheaper than taking out those pages of advertising space.

An inadequate obituary

After what can only be described as a horrific past three months, my mum slipped away in the small hours of Wednesday morning. Although we've had a long time to get our heads around this, and although the way she finally died was in the circumstances probably the best outcome we could have hoped for - nothing really ever prepares you for your mum dying, or in my dad's case - your partner of almost 50 years.

In the future sometime - once I've worked out what exactly they are -  I'll probably write something about my feelings. But right now the best I can do is to repeat the potted biography that I have had to write up for her funeral. Admittedly it's a pretty inadequate way of summing up someone's life - it doesn't even touch the important things that defined her as a wife, mother and grandmother - her love of life, her sense of fun and her passion for fairness and justice ... or cricket or teddy bears. 

But I still think it's worth saying anyway - the cruelest aspect of dementia is how it  robs a person of their own identity so that even their loved ones can struggle to remember the person who once occupied those same frail flesh and bones:

Jo  was born  in Surrey in 1927 to a family that joked that Thames river water not blood ran through their veins. There are records of the Browns as watermen and lightermen in Richmond-Upon-Thames dating back to the middle of the eighteenth century. By time that she was born,  the river  trade and the family boatyard were struggling so when her father  finished his apprenticeship he broke with tradition but maintained the river connection by becoming a Thames river policeman.  In her childhood Jo moved around various parts of London following her father's postings. By the outbreak of the war he was stationed at Wapping and the family lived in the East End throughout the  nightly bombing of the blitz. Jo left school at 16 and started work as a technician testing optics for the Admiralty at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington.  

After the war she moved with her family to Germany.  Her father  was promoted and posted there to help re-organise the Rhineland Waterways Police as part of post-war de-nazification.  It was there that she helped out at the schools on the British bases, and so sparked her life long passion for education.

Returning to England she studied for her  teaching diploma  at Birmingham University and then went on to  take up her first position in Portsmouth at a boarding school for the children of naval personnel. Returning to London she worked  in Putney at one of the country's first  Comprehensive schools, and started to specialise in the pioneering field of special needs education - or 'remedial teaching' as it was then known.

For a while she took a break from this demanding work when  when she became one of the first woman instructors for IBM.  At around this  time she met her husband  - John. They were married in 1963 and settled in Staines, where two years later  I was born. When I  was old enough Jo returned to work and taught in a number of schools in the  area.  It was at this time that her concern for  education  led to her becoming actively involved in the National Union Of Teachers and the Labour Party. 

This activism  continued after she and John moved to Kent in 1991 following the relocation of his work there,  and Jo continued teaching well into her sixties as a supply teacher at several local primary schools.  Following her eventual retirement she continued to be very active in the community as a school governor and town councillor in Greenhithe and Swanscombe -  often working as a double act alongside John. She continued in these roles until chronic arthritis made it impossible for her to carry on. After two years of being house-bound, three months ago she suffered a very rapid mental decline - from both depression and dementia. Two weeks ago it was clear that she had literally given up the will to live and slowly slipped away from us...

Good riddance to Haye

I like boxing but I'm not a boxing fan. Partly this is because I still baulk at the idea of giving any money to Rupert Murdoch so I won't ever have the facility to 'pay for view'. And  Mrs Journeyman, whilst quite happy for me to return from my own training with fat lips and black eyes, finds something ethiclly questionable about me watching other people suffering the same.

But even so I appreciate boxing and boxers. I have to admit to buying into the romantic notion of the sport as possibly the purest expression of athleticism and competition, and hanker after a (probably illusory) idea of an inherent dignity to the sport. And if anyone doubts this as pretentious twaddle, I suggest they first read 'The Sweet Science and 'The Gloves'.

I also think that all boxers - almost irrespective of their ability level - are worthy of some respect for having the guts both physical and psychological to put themselves to the test in the ring.  But my big problem with many pro's is that with with their trash-talking and arrogant self-promotion they come across as ignorant cringe-worthy knobs who bring discredit to the sport.  

And no more so than David Haye - with his  notorious gang-rape pre-fight analogy and now his pathetic post-fight broken toe excuses. Maybe he's  misled by his management and entourage, but I have to say that the right man - someone who brings some much needed dignity and intelligence  - won on Saturday night.

J30 - brief impressions

I took the opportunity to take a day's 'solidarity holiday' with the strikers. 

My day began with a visit to the teacher's picket line at my daughter's school. The  NUT / ATL had sent out a letter to parents asking for their support and it seemed only right to respond. The 'picket line' was very good-natured with only a few managers and support staff going in - the latter rather embarrassedly because of their own union's -  UNISON - cravenness in not joining the strike. They atoned with sympathy, donations to the strike fund, and tea and biscuits. I've never seen or been on a teacher's picket line before - and I was struck by how genteel this was in comparison to any others I've seen. I was also struck at how young they all seemed - maybe I'm just getting old - and how politically raw they were. Many were joking that they'd never been on a demonstration before let alone been on strike.

After a local rally at the FE College I headed into town for the main demo at Lincoln's Inn Fields. The same atmosphere prevailed - but most of all this was very much more than just the usual suspects. It certainly wasn't the Greek-style insurrection that some have been talking about - nor was it really even a one-day general strike. But  - and this isn't based on the usual rhetoric of the leaderships because I never actually got into the hall to hear it - there was a genuine sense that it was the start of something new.

On the negative side I have to say that the private/public sector divide and rule game has had an effect. My colleagues - who have never known anything other than private pension schemes - simply can’t understand why I was supporting the strike. I fear that they are representative of many in industries who have been squeezed repeatedly since the Thatcher years - and it will take a lot of explaining to counter the politics of envy arising from the race to the bottom. But this explaining has to be done: We can huff and puff about general strikes as much as we like, but at the end of the day capitalism is a cold-hearted beast that rates profit over public opinion:  Schools, colleges and job centres shutting might piss the system off - but walk-outs at commercial businesses hit it where it actually hurts.

Roots 2: Soldier of the queen - Fred & Florence

Another installment in my on-going project to  research my  family history: This is one of  my maternal Great Grandfathers - Frederick Albert.

He was born in 1871 in Richmond in Surrey - his father Albert was a former soldier and  bricklayer who died before his son's eighth birthday leaving his widow Caroline with six children. She supported the family as a needlewoman so it is fair to assume that life was pretty tough for them.  Fred worked initially as a milkman but at the age of 18 followed his father into the army. He opted to join the Royal Artillery as a driver - presumably his experience in working with  horses helped equip him to drive a gun carriage. In fact shortly afterwards he transferred to the more glamorous Royal Horse Artillery as a gunner - all artillery being horse-drawn at the time but in the horse artillery the gun crews rode into battle rather than marched. And being equipped with lighter guns they provided close fire  support to the cavalry. Like most soldiers at the time Fred signed on for twelve years - the first seven of these to be served in the regulars and a further five in the reserves subject to recall in the event of war. 

His father had served in the army in the Crimea era when soldiers were generally held in pretty low esteem as the dregs of society. By the time of Fred's service it was the golden age of Kippling's 'soldiers of the queen' and some sentimental regard had developed for the common soldier. Reforms in the army had abolished some of the abuses of an earlier age - flogging and the purchase of officers' commissions  - but life in the ranks still tended to be harsh and brutal. Four of Fred's seven years were served in India on the North West Frontier and this posting would have produced mixed feelings. Unlike home postings, there were numerous possibilities of action in policing operations even when there weren't full-on hostilities ,and there was the constant attrition of disease. On the other hand, pay went much further in India than at home,  and even the rank and file would enjoy the benefits of being part of the race that ruled the empire - with native servants and a more relaxed barrack regime than the spit and polish of Woolwich or Colchester. Fred appears to have made it unscathed through these years - although when he transferred to the reserves in 1896 it is recorded that he had severely sprained his left knee 'in action'.

Other than marrying Florence and starting a family, we don't have any record of what Fred did back in Richmond for the next three years but in 1899 with the outbreak of the war in South Africa he had the misfortune of being recalled to active service. War with the Boer settlers had broken out after a shameless adventure of land-grabbing by the British to secure the gold and diamond fields of the region. It was arguably the British army's first 'modern' war - fought against an opponent who combined guerrilla tactics with the use of European weapons and so embarrassed an army used to colonial victories against  indigenous peoples with inferior arms. As a foretaste of the First World War  the fighting  was fully in the public gaze;  the civilan population was galvanised with a call for volunteers to supplement the regular forces, and comfort parcels from home were sent to the troops.

Fred landed in South Africa in 1899 and was posted to 'G' Battery - his medal record shows that he served at the battles of Paardeburg, Dreifontein, Johannesburg, Diamond Hill and Kimberley. There's little doubt that he would have been in the thick of it - one of the frequent British tactical errors was to deploy their artilery too far forward in the open where the gun crews made an easy target for the skilled Boer marksmen. 

Happily my Great Gandfather survived all this and was finally discharged in 1902. His record shows that he was never an exemplary soldier - throughout his service he never managed to rise above the rank of Gunner and he seems to have regularly forfeited and regained his good conduct pay. On his discharge his character merited only a 'good' - but this was obvious sufficient for him to secure a saught-after position on his return to civilian life in Richmond as the town's resident fireman. In an age when the public sector was almost none existent fire brigades were generally formed of volunteer part-timers with only the resident fireman as a fulltime paid position - much like the coxswains of the RNLI today he was also the caretaker of the fire station and responsible for the maintenance of the equipment. Again his experience with horses would have stood him in good stead for this. The position would also have secured a certain status and security - reinforced when his wife Flo  became the caretaker of the new municipal public conveniences. Not too glamourous perhaps but aslo a position of trust and relative  status - and with the added scope of earning tips from the customers.  

Largely because of Fred's military service, in the course of twenty odd years he had risen  from poverty to working class respectability.  The family memories of Fred in his old age are of a fairly stern and forebooding patriach. But poignantly there is no one left to remember the impact it must have had when his own son, following the family's military tradition, was killed in action at the age of 18 in 1917.

NB: Although the photogarph above has been kept by the family we have no idea which one of the men is Fred although we can be sure that he isn't one of the NCO's. His medical record at the time of his enlistment descibes him as short and stocky with a ruddy complexion and scars to his cheek and forehead, he also had tattoos on both forearms. It looks like his genes have run strong ...

Barbarossa legacy

Today is the 70th anniversary of Operation Barbarossa - the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. One of the defining moments of the 20th century it deserves to be marked by more than just the Stalinists apologists I have seen online so far. 

In Eastern Europe it marks the start of  suffering  on a scale and level of barbarity that eclipses anything seen in the West.  But in this country the event went a long way to re-orientating  the political compass for generations - for society as a whole and spcifically for the Left. 

To mobilise the war effort Churchill and the ruling class had to evoke the idea of a 'Peoples' War' - a dangerous game for them to play as would be seen in the 1945 Labour  landslide. But in the dark days of 1941 when Britain was isolated, Hitler's attack on the USSR was a gift to rallying the working class to the cause. The cynical creation of  the character of 'Uncle Joe' Stalin as the lovable popular patriarch of Russian workers, and propaganda campaigns the stressed solidarity with beleaguered Soviet fellow-workers, were all part of a drive to increase industrial production in the cause of 'arms for Russia'. This was notoriously  assisted by the British Communist Party who had little difficulty in doing an about-face from their previous defence of the Nazi-Soviet pact and denunciation of the war effort as an 'imperialist war'.

Leaving aside the jesuitical isomersaults required of the CP to justify this - the significance of popular support for Russia was felt by a much wider layer than those sections of the industrial working class influenced by the Stalinists. If many on the Left had come to the conclusion in the 1930's that Communism and the USSR were the only bulwarks against fascism - Hitler's war against the USSR spread this thinking to a much wider audience. - From the radicalised youth of the ruling class such as the Cambridge spies  who  used their privileged positions within the establishment to assist Stalin's war effort - to a  very much wider layer of workers for whom the propaganda rubbed off: Ordinary 'non-political' people who came to see the USSR as a glimpse of a possible alternative - and better - way of organising society. Of course this was to become steadily eroded by the Cold War and the spreading realisation of the realities of Stalinism, but it was not to be altogether extinguished until the 1990's.

I was born almost 25 years after these events - but still the impact of  the post 1941 era has in a sense defined my own political identity, and many others on the Left:  The label of 'Trotskyist' is still worn in the early 21st Century, but essentially it takes its definition and reference from that time. And as I have said before, whilst it is important to understand this history - and even to  acknowledge the pull that it has a generation of CP-ers - I am not sure that it is useful to allow these things to continue to define us. I think of my daughters who now study this period as school-history.  Questioning and radicalised though they may be, the controversies - and resulting labels - are about as relevant to them as theologians discussing the schisms of the early church. Time for the Left to move on.

Cosiness isn't the alternative to sectarianism

I was at a local meeting the other night to support the action of UCU members at the local FE college. It was celebrating an all too rare but (partial) success for once. A ballot with overwhelming support for strike action had persuaded management to climb down over a vicious cuts package that targeted most of the leading union activists for redundancy. The meeting was dominated by the SWP. And I couldn't argue with that - they have a number of activists at the college and appear to have led the movement there - they also lead the local Trades Council in whose name the meeting was called. What I was surprised at was their attitude to our local Labour MP - David -'pull up the ladder behind me' - Lammy.

An invitation to attend the meeting I can understand -t's  a chance to put him on the spot  for his record whilst higher education minister in the previous government and  now as  shadow education minister. But there were no questions about whether a future Labour government would restore EMA  - a massive issue in our area - or what would be done about student fees. And this was a meeting where the forthcoming public sector strikes on the 30th June, and the events in Spain and Greece, were greeted as virtually the start of a revolutionary situation in  Europe. But Lammy wasn't even asked if he supported the strikes or if he would be coming to visit local picket lines on the day. 

In fact he was only politely thanked for lending his support to the campaign at the college: Of course in the forum of a public meeting none of these awkward questions could or should have been put in a personally aggressive or sectarian way - but they need to be asked nonetheless. If we're being doctrinaire about it (although I'd rather not)  you could say doing so is  a classic 'transitional' approach. It's fair enough to proclaim 'one solution - revolution' but it really does wear a bit thin when over-used - and it becomes a ritual if it's not linked to the day-to-day. 

Strangely the SWP  sometimes remind me of my happily brief time in the CPGB in the 1980's. Whilst feeling a smug 'more-revolutionary than thou' glow, in practical terms  the CPGB could amicably co-exist with the dreaded 'social democrats'  of the Labour Party as some sort of pressure group / custodian of the socialist conscience of the movement, and so enjoy a place in the Lefts' great and good. The political vocabulary of the SWP is obviously different -  but the similarities in the social and psychological cosiness are striking.