SOCIALIST UNITY

There was just an interesting item on BBC Radio 4. It is the policy of the Scottish executive that 40% of Scotland’s energy supplies must come from renewable energy sources by 2020. However, there is apparently a problem because the National Grid may not be willing to connect up these new generators. So the electricity may be generated but be incapable of being delivered.

In February work started on a hydro-electric power station at Glendoe. Funding has been granted to develop generators using wave power in Orkney, and there is an extension in the number of wind farms. All very commendable and 20% or more of the energy will be surplus to Scottish needs and can be exported to England.

But the National Grid is now a private company, and has no obligation to link up these new power stations in order to implement government energy policy, whether that policy comes from Westminster or Hollyrood. What is more the National Grid was built in the 1960s with a 40 year expected life time, and needs to be overhauled and replaced, but the private owners have no intention in doing so, except in a piecemeal manner as it breaks down.

What fuck-wits thought of privatising the National Grid without building in an obligation for replacing it when it wore out, or updating it to meet national energy policy? Interestingly, the Tories – a unionist party –did more to break up the UK than anyone. Abolishing or compromising so many of the British-wide institutions, such as British Steel, British Rail, the National Grid, National Coal Board, etc.

So now the Scottish Executive will have their energy policy scuppered by a private British company, while the Scottish parliament has no powers to force this British company to follow their elected mandate. This is a clear example of how the issue of Scottish Independence runs contrary to the logic of the free market.

In the meantime, Tony Blair relies upon Scottish Labour MPs to force educational reforms onto England that do not affect their own constituents.

Both France and the UK have seen massive strike action today.

It looks like the UK public sector strikes over pensions are very solid with more than a million workers out on strike.

The BBC reports solid action, Reuters does as well. Local news seems very clear that the strike is solid right across the country. For example Swindon Evening Advertiser, The Belfast Telegraph, Daily Post (Wales), Evening Standard (London), Manchester Evening News, The Herald (Scotland), Norfolk Eastern Daily Press and Indymedia has some excellent regional reports

Later piece from the BBC pensions strike bites across UK

Pension rights are being eroded all over the world as part of a concerted employers offensive. In the US they are proposing the privatisation of social security - so there wont be any problems there then.

In Australia it became compulsory for workers to pay into a private pension in the 90’s, and despite the fact that unions dropped pay claims at the time to enhance the pension package its now believed that these pensions will not provide a proper income for those who retire on them.

Even Germany, the first country in the world to have old age pensions they have increased retirement age (to 67) increased the employee’s contributions and they’ve ended the link between earnings and pensions.

Whilst in France there is a General Strike against the proposed new laws (CPE) stripping young workers of their rights creating a generation of “throw away workers”. More than 100 rallies will be held right across the country in the latest development of this ongoing struggle (see John Mullen’s article) which have seen strikes, demonstrations and, of course, rioting. See Student Power (BBC) Last week something like a million people took to the streets across France and today’s action has had a clear and significant national impact.

BBC’s enthusiastic report on what’s happening in France here reporting huge turnouts, According to AFP (sort of a French Reuters) as many as three million people are involved in the demonstrations - blimey!

The lesson is clear - whilst the employers offensive against workers’ rights is an international affair our resistance can become international too, and the more we spread that resistance the greater the chances we can really push the neo-liberals back.

Interesting report in Saturday’s Morning Star that UNISON, one of the Labour Party’s biggest funders, has suspended links with the Labour Party in connection with the pensions dispute.

Deputy General Secretary Keith Sonnet has e-mailed all the union’s political link officers advising them that funding has stopped for the May 2006 local elections except where the BNP are standing.

a UNISON spokewoman said: “It is felt that it is not appropriate or politicaly sensible to be organising on the one hand for industrial action by the union, while sending out letters and leaflets to many of the same members asking them to vote Labour”

Tommorow there will be a General Strike in France. I personally am incredibly excited about the situation. last week 1,000,000 people were mobilised *across different cities* (British demo organisers take note!). Today the BBC reported that a student group snubbed the opportunity to discuss the law with de villepin. Let see what happens.

There’s a lot of money to be made out of Iraq if you know how to get it. I’m not just talking about hiring yourself out as a ’security consultant’ with a license to kill - the corporations are cashing in on the occupation and big style.

Corporate Watch has produced a report which details, as far as we can find out where the money’s coming from and who’s it going to. Check it out…

It is brilliant to see that Alan B’stard has joined New Labour. The fictional king of Tory sleaze will now be selling peerages, and voting for compulsory ID cards even though Labour’s manifesto said they would be voluntary.

Explaining the defection to Labour, Mr Mayall (The actor playing B’stard) said: “They are young, they are sexy and they are much more right-wing than the Conservative Party.”

According to the BBC: “The writers say they originally thought they would be writing a comedy about B’Stard shamelessly changing his spots to shift from Tory to Labour. But now they say they realise the MP fits seamlessly into the current Labour Party. “

It comes to something when appalling slime bucket Jack Dromey (husband of Harriet Harman, and useless right wing union official) is the whistle blower against Blair’s financial corruption. And Witchfinder General, Peter Kilfoyle, the hammer of the Militant, complains about the Blairites being a party within a party.

Livingstone is in the news accused of being anti-semitic, again. Unlike last time though I feel slightly less inclined to defend the man. Here’s an excerpt from the BBC’s piece on this Mayor in fresh Jewish controversy

“Ken Livingstone attacked David and Simon Reuben for their role in an ongoing dispute about the Stratford City development in east London. He suggested the brothers “go back (to their own country) and see if they can do better under the ayatollah”. “

Now I find it hard to believe that someone with Livingstone’s anti-racist credentials is anti-Semitic and stand by our article on the previous ’scandal’ (What’s behind the Livingstone suspension?) but there is a real problem here. You don’t tell people to go back to ‘their own country’ and there is no context here to justify it. This seems like basic anti-racist common sense to me.

Of course life’s a lot more complicated than being able to stick a label on someone (like racist/anti-racist, good bloke/wife beater) and I firmly believe that anti-racists are not immune to the prevailing ideas in society and that we can all slip up - but for someone of Livingstone’s pedigree to say foreigners to go back to their own country if they don’t like it here (although actually they are Indian / Iraqi not Iranian, but never mind) is a real problem and he needs to act swiftly, particularly because of his other problems, to head this off.

But regardless of the Livingstone case for a moment, can anti-racists accept racist ideas?

I think the answer is yes. I remember a massive scandal amongst the ranks of Essex university socialists about ten years ago when, at a Christmas Party, two women started having a rather loud and obnoxious conversation about how greasy mediteranians were and they tried to work out which nation was the greasiest. Others there were pretty embarressed and slow to say anything and, unfortunately, it was upto another woman, from Malta, to step in and object to this disgraceful conversation.

Now in the ensuing rows those people who decided to defend these women’s actions (hmmm, yes) consistently used the argument “But how can you say they are racist when they’ve done so much anti-racist work” because they simply could not get their head around the idea that someone who is a genuine anti-racist could simultaneously hold racist ideas. Now all that we wanted was an apology for the incident and an acceptence that the idea of classing foreign nationals according to how greasy they are is not on - but we never argued that these people were racists, only that even the best person could succumb to an objectively racist theory, often unconsciously.

This black and white view of the ideas people hold is often responsible for wrong footing us when people step out of the role we’ve given them. It’s responsible for the AWL described Tariq Ali as “the LibDem voting Tariq Ali”, for example. What’s important is that we try to approach the world with an open mind and try to see which direction people are going rather than insist that we cannot live with a contradiction and that we can be fully defined by just one aspect of ourselves.

Although I must say that some contradictions are harder to get your head around than others - like the ex-flat mate of mine who told me proudly how anti-racist he was and that he’d “been telling a coon” this that very morning… I confess I just stared at him not sure what to say - here was a man developing an understanding that racism was a bad thing and a lecture on appropriate language was unlikely to go down well with this particular individual - but I still think he had some way to go on the road to political purity… but then again don’t we all?

We have recived the following letter from Mariangella Casalucci of the Bellaciao Collective:
Please download the following leaflet (in Italian) and pass it on to any Italians you know:
http://www.freelancejournalists.org.uk/unione.pdf

General election in Italy

On the 9th of April there will be the general election in Italy.

For the first time Italians living abroad can use a postal vote to participate in the election and vote for constituency representatives, and one of the constituencies is Europe.

In this election there will be a coalition of the parties in the left (DS, Margherita, Italian Comunists, Rifondazione Comunista, Democratic Socialist and Green) called UNIONE which has as the prime mininster candidate Romano Prodi. You will find the programm and all the information on www.unioneitmondo.it

Silvio Berlusconi is unfortunatly well known in Britain also for the recent scandal which involves David Mills, Tessa Jowell’s husband. He is accused of corruption having payed money to produce false evidences in his favour.

‘Berlusconi is the most dangerous political phenomenon in Europe. He represents the most serious threat to democracy in western Europe since 1945. It might be argued that the far right as represented by such openly racist and xenophobic figures as Jean-Marie Le Pen and Jörg Haider poses a more serious danger, but such figures remain relative outsiders in the European political scene. Berlusconi does not. During his two spells as prime minister there has been a very serious erosion of the quality of Italian democracy and the tone of public life’ The Guardian 16th March

For these reason is very important that Italians living abroad participate to the election with their postal vote giving theire preferences to l’Unione and choosing the candidates from the list who more represents the left.

What do we want?

Education project to value and promote the Italian language and culture abroad against the privatisation plan of the Italian governement
Pensioners having the minimum wage they would get if they were living in Italy in case their pension is lower
Equal tax treatment for retired people who go back to live in Italy
Promote an interaculture interaction policy to enable all the migrants, Italian included, to be politically and socially active in the country where they have chosen to live

The candidates we support and we invite you to vote are:
Anna Picardi, Senato candidate, Rifondazione Comunista
Alberto Sipione, Camera candidate, Rifondazione Comunista
Marisa Corazzol Camera candidate, Comunisti Italiani

Compulsory redundancies signal NHS crisis

According to the BBC the University Hospital of North Staffordshire in Stoke-on-Trent has announced that up to 1,000 jobs (from a staff of 7,000) could be cut to address their financial crisis; a £17 million defecit. An estimated 370 of the posts will be nurses and midwives. Vacant posts may not be filled to help reduce staffing and 15 consultant posts could be cut. In a staggering statement of complacency the Department of Health said it was ‘reassured services would not be cut.’ Staff have been told about 750 compulsory redundancies may be needed.

This is the direct result of the government’s determination that Trusts must ‘live within their budgets whilst providing patients with better services’! This is nonsense. Under the new system of ‘payment by results’ Trusts which treat ‘too many’ people get financially penalised. As a result of the commercialisation of the NHS and the new ‘market in health care’ efficiency is measured not in terms of the quality of care given to patients but by the balance sheet.

The emergence of compulsory redundancies is a salutory reminder that the government is destroying the foundations of the NHS, and the responsibility of those who support social health care to organise a national campaign against the government’s disastrous privatisation agenda.

Visit: http://www.keepournhspublic.com

I have received this letter from Women Against Rape, please pass it on widely.

Urgent call to rape survivors who’ve testified in court since the year 2000
Dear sisters,

We are assessing how legal changes introduced under the Youth Justice & Criminal Evidence Act and the Sexual Offences Act are being implemented in court. If you have experience of testifying in a rape trial in the recent few years, please get in touch.

In particular, if you testified in court since 2000 were you asked any questions about your previous sexual history, or your mental health? What did the judge do about it, if anything? Or since 2003 has “consent” been an issue in court for you ?

Also, do you know anyone who is going through reporting rape, or taking it to court at present who’d like to be in touch with us?

Please call or email us with your experience right away on 020 7482 2496 war@womenagainstrape.net

Best wishes,
Lisa