SOCIALIST UNITY

Following the Socialist Resistance AGM, which I attended as an observer, I was asked to write a short article for their paper about the war in Lebanon. Here is a sneak preview.

The recent war has been a disaster for Lebanon. Some 5000 dead, accompanied by destruction of the country’s economic infrastructure, an environmental catastrophe due to oil pollution, and the area south of the Litani river covered in cluster bombs. The responsibility for these atrocities lies with the Israeli Defense Force and its political masters. Nevertheless, Hezbollah also made political and military choices.

It has been transparent since 1973 that the USA will not allow Israel to suffer any catastrophic military defeat. Significant early advances by the Syrian and Egyptian armies during the Yom Kippur war were reversed by Israel only with massive US military support. What is more, there has also been a long tradition of guerrilla attacks on Israel being used to enhance the political and military prestige of competing Arab forces. For example, the promotion of guerrilla actions by Fatah during the 1960s, funded by Saudi Arabia, to undermine the Nasserite leadership of the PLO, and indirectly undermine the authority of pan-Arabism. There has also been a tradition, particularly during Yasser Arafat’s leadership of the PLO, of bargaining the suffering of civilian targets of Israeli aggression to gain diplomatic advantage.

The events of 12th July 2006 on the Israeli-Lebanon border will always be in dispute. It is entirely plausible that the IDF were anyway planning an attack on Lebanon. Nevertheless the nature, scale and ferocity of the Israeli response to Hezbollah’s military action would have been known to the Hezbollah leadership in advance. The fact that Hezbollah troops were dug in and had rockets deployed suggests that the action was a deliberate precipitation of war by Hezbollah.
The military defeat has created a political crisis for Ehud Olmert’s government, but it has not caused a general crisis of confidence in the Zionism, nor in a general questioning of the IDF’s capability. The confidence of Israel remains intact for the simple reason that the war did not undermine the central cornerstone of their defence, which is the backing of the USA.

No military or political struggle will prevail against Israel unless it also threatens the USA, which leads to a very simple question. Why was no voice raised in the Middle East calling for oil production to be halted? Even Hezbollah’s greatest ally, Iran, did not use its economic power.
In contrast, in 1973 the OPEC producers scaled production back 5%, then 10%, and then Abu Dhabi responded to President Nixon’s granting of $2.2 billion of military aid to Israel by initiating a total oil embargo. The embargo lasted for 6 months before Saudi Arabia broke the strike.
American domination of Middle East oil has rested on two pillars, unconditional support for both Israel, and the House of Saud. Having the Saudis as allies inside the Arab tent has decisively diverted the direction of Arab politics, but the House of Saud have also had to respond to their own pressures.

A crucial difference between 1973 and 2006 is that within the Arab world both the political left and Pan-Arabist nationalists have been substantially defeated. It was the Egyptian leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser who promoted the idea of “Arab oil for the Arab people”, and was a constant threat to the Saudi monarchy. In 1955 there was an attempted uprising by pro-Nasser Saudi officers in Taif, and another attempt in 1956 in Dhahran, and in 1956 fifteen thousand oil workers went on strike in Arabia chanting Nasseite slogans. With CIA help the Saud family undermined Nasser both drawing him into a protracted proxy war in Yemen, and also undermining Nasser’s international prestige by promoting Fatah as leaders of the Palestinians.
Nevertheless, in 1973 King Faisal was under sufficient pressure from his own population, and was sufficiently fearful of Egypt’s new President Sadat reverting to Nasserism, that Arabia played a leading role in using the oil weapon to attack US support for Israel.

Pan-Arabism was historically defeated because it was predicated upon Arab states playing the super-powers, including Britain in the 1950s, off against each other; and this is no longer possible; also because of rivalry between the different Arab elites, for example between Nasser and Kassem of Iraq, about who would be the leader of the united Arabs. But most importantly, because the power of pan-Arabism lay in its ability to inspire the Arab workers and peasants that national unity would lead to solving their day to day impoverishment and misery. Yet awakening the working classes was the last thing the Nasserites or Ba’athists would ever do.
Zionism cannot be defeated without threatening the link between Israel the USA, and the key to isolating Israel is to use the economic power of the oil producers. Yet that oil is controlled by corrupt elites who depend on US support to survive. The task of the left is not to cheer lead for the Hezbollah, but to raise again the demand of Arab Oil for the Arab people, and to demand that the flow of oil be turned off in response to Zionist aggression.

…

Yesterday’s Stop the Warmongers event in Manchester received an extreme police over-reaction. Stop the Warmongers was formed by Manchester peace activists partly in response to the national Stop the War Coalition’s decision to overrule their preference for a Sunday national demonstration (the day Labour conference actually started), but then grew as an umbrella group organising a series of protests and events throughout the week of Labour party conference.

The brutal over-reaction of the police seemed to take a lot of people by surprise - even in the Orwellian new Britain that we now live in. There was a large number of journalists there (mostly after 2pm, when the protest had already informed the police that it was willing to disperse, but the police wouldnt let it). they were visibly shocked, especially the ones that the police wouldn’t let in or out of their cordons.

The police wanted the protest to take place in the confines of the “peace gardens” (an undefined area that they had decided extended to a point about 10 feet nearer the statue than we were gathered). Without any notification to us, they then blocked the way to this space, so it was no longer possible for the protest to move there.

Then they surrounded the protest (at the point when those with small children had left, there were at least 150 police officers and 46 protestors contained by them). the protest made the offer of dispersing at 2pm was relayed to the chief inspector, Stuart Barton. he immediately refused this offer and insisted that the protest remain there till 2.30. he also then had the legal observer removed from his presence (who had until then been virtually instructed by the police to talk to him on a regular basis).

The police appear to have arrested two people - one elderly, disabled woman, who was carrying a placard and may have been goaded by a woman police officer as she left, and another young man who was not part of the protest at all but had been shopping with a friend and walking through the square and may have been arrested for swearing at a police officer. there were a couple more incidents where people thought other police officers were trying to take their details or detain them further but these appear to have been by police not part of containing the protest (eg the “regular” presence on the trams etc).

It is the tenth anniversary of Afghan capital. Kabul, falling to the Taliban. It is worth noting that the Taliban did not take power until seven years after the Russian withdrawal. By 1996, half of Kabul had already been destroyed by the mujahideen, who had been armed and supported by the USA. Tens of thousands were killed in fighting over the city.

Today Afghanistan is in the grip of warlordism and terror. Human Rights Watch has described the atrocities:: “committed by gunmen and warlords who were propelled into power by the United States and its coalition partners after the Taliban fell in 2001″ and who have “essentially hijacked the country”. The report describes army and police troops controlled by the warlords kidnapping villagers with impunity and holding them for ransom in unofficial prisons; the widespread rape of women, girls and boys; routine extortion, robbery and arbitrary murder.

The report by Human Rights Watch spells out a desperate situation for education in Afghanistan. “Schools are being shut down by bombs and threats, denying another generation of Afghan girls an education and the chance for a better life. Human Rights Watch found entire districts in Afghanistan where attacks had closed all schools and driven out the teachers and non-governmental organizations providing education. Insecurity, societal resistance in some quarters to equal access to education for girls, and a lack of resources mean that, despite advances in recent years, the majority of girls in the country remain out of school. Nearly one-third of districts have no girls’ schools. ”

Afghanistan is now the world’s largest producer of heroin, in 2004 it produced 90% of the world’s crop. No alternatives exist for farmers and the promised new roads and irrigations projects that would allow diversification have never materialised. The UN World Food Programme reports that: “over 50 percent of children are malnourished in Afghanistan, while one in three of people living in rural areas are unable to meet daily basic nutritional requirements.”

So imagine a different Afghanistan. Imagine an Afghanistan where the main crop is not Opium but wheat. Where 26% of land is growing wheat producing 3 million tonnes per annum. Imagine an Afghanistan where raisins and cotton are grown for export, Imagine an Afghanistan which exported 30000 tonnes of cotton fibre, and 57000 tonnes of raisins per year (the 4th biggest world producer of raisins). Imagine an Afghanistan with an intact and extensive irrigation system to support this agricultural diversity. Imagine an Afganistan with an extensive road system to allow agricultural produce to be taken to market. Imagine an Afghanistan where the main export was natural gas not narcotics. Imagine an Afghanistam with 120000 tourist visitors per year.

Imagine an Afghanistan with a functioning railway network, financed by Iran and with French technical expertise. Imagine an Afghanistan where women had full legal equality, where a quarter of the government’s budget was spent on education, and secular schools were opening in every village, for girls and boys. An Afghanistan where Kabul had a university, and where there were schools of medicine, science, pharmacy and engineering. (The picture shows a Russian built hydro-electric dam in Afghanistan)

Imagine an Afghanistan under Communist rule. This is not science fiction or an alternative reality, this is Afghanistan as it used to be. And remember that the Russian military intervention was at the request of the legitimate Afghan PDPA government to counter an Islamist insurgency being stoked up by the Americans, who cared not one jot for all this social progress. The Kremlin were very reluctant to intervene, and at first KGB secretary Andropov vetoed any intervention as against the USSR’s interests.

This is the Afghanistan that the US destroyed by funding and arming the Islamist militias during the 1970s and 1980s. This is the Afghanistan to which the US recruited, trained and armed Osama Bin laden to commit terror atrocities against.

As publicity launches go, it did not get as much news coverage as the organisers may have hoped. On Sunday 24th September the bereaved relatives of British servicemen and women killed in Iraq launched their new SPECTRE political party.

There was a short article in theScottish paper, the Herald, in the previous week that quoted Peter Brierley, whose son Shaun died in Iraq three years ago, explaining why they had launched the party: “We have called ourselves Spectre because we intend to hang over the government until they listen to us. We will definitely get votes and hopefully we can win some seats,”
Despite Mr Brierley’s optimism that SPECTRE may win parliamentary seats, the launch of SPECTRE did not even make the pages of the Morning Star, although they did find space to report the launching of a new political party by former Punk singer Captain Sensible. The only report I found of the launch event was in the Turkish newspaper, Sabah.

As I wrote before the launch, SPECTRE is being formed to pose the single question of the war at the ballot box, but will therefore presumably also be standing against other anti-war parties? The Green party? The Scottish Socialist party? Respect? This is further complicated by the fact that the political basis of SPECTRE is problematic. They say: “We would like to stress from the outset that we are not anti-military and we do indeed support our troops wherever they may serve as they have to fulfil their duties without question.”

Most left wing and peace movement activists will strongly disagree with the need to support the troops “wherever they may serve as they have to fulfil their duties without question.” With parachute regiment soldiers still at liberty despite their perpetrating a massacre on the streets of Derry in 1972, can we really be expected to support that statement? Left and progressive candidates cannot be expected to stand down in favour of candidates who are so uncritical of the role of the armed forces.

The choice of name seems eerily similar to RESPECT. In so far as RESPECT sought to be the political expression of the anti-war movement the very existence of SPECTRE suggests that RESPECT has failed in that objective. What is more the relatively right wing attitude of SPECTRE to the military illustrates the degree to which opposition to the war has not led to wider radicalisation. The only previous example of a political party based upon expressing the views of serving soldiers, sailors and airman, the Common Wealth, which won the 1943 Eddisbury by-election and the Chelmsford by-election in 1945, was an explicitly socialist party.

Will RESPECT be standing aside for SPECTE, and have the membership of Respect any opportunity to express a view on this? Is SPECTRE the electoral expression of the Military Families Against War, or is it a separate initiative? If it is part and parcel of the MFAW campaign, then the involvement of socialists like Andrew Burgin and Chris Nineham with MFAW sharply raises the question of what approach socialists should take to SPECTRE.

There is a difficulty in bringing this single issue campaign to the ballot box, where it inevitably compete with other political viewpoints and organisations that would otherwise be wholly sympathetic to the anti-war movement – even more so as these elections will be conducted under first past the post, and other organisations or parties may have candidates with better local standing that the bereaved families. By posing a single issue electoral challenge there is a danger that SPECTRE could actually prove divisive to the anti-war movement.

On the eve of the Labour Party conference, an ICM poll showed the Tories at 35% and Labour at only 32%. What is more worrying is that the poll showed almost two thirds of voters believe that Labour does not deserve to win the next election, that the government has “run out of steam” and it is “time for a change”.

Armed with this knowledge, it seems leadership front runner Gordon Brown would rather lose the next election than change direction.

In his leadership bid speech yesterday he lavished praise on Blair and Blairism. “Tony, from the first time we shared that office in 1983 to today, you taught our party, you saw it right, you saw it clearly and you saw it through – that we can’t just be for one section of society, we’ve got to be for all of society”

There will be more privatisation under Brown, who claims that (in his own words) the “renewal of New Labour” must be built upon “a flexible economy, reformed and personalised public services, public and private sectors, not at odds but working together”

Brown also signed up to more wars, and uncritical support for George W Bush’s foreign policy. He claims Blair “taught us something else, and once again saw it right, you saw it clearly ands saw it through. That the world did change after September 11th. That no-one can be neutral in the fight against terrorism, never anti-Americanism.” He promised a Brown government would continue the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan – Brown specifically praised “American values” in his speech.
Continuity of foreign policy means backing Tony Blair’s own self-delusional assessment of his legacy. In a question and answer session yesterday Blair said “getting rid of Saddam and getting rid of the Taliban are things I happen to be proud of”. The British soldiers currently fighting and dying in Helmand province might dispute just how much the Taliban have been “got rid of”. And the cost of getting rid of Saddam has become a brutal occupation mired in an implacable insurgency.

Despite the fact that brown is continuing on a suicidal course of continuing policies deeply unpopular with Labours’ core voters, the criticism from the unions leaders was so faint as to be inaudible. T&G general secretary, Tony Woodley, said it was “a visionary speech from a great Chancellor”, although Woodley did correctly say “carrying on as we are will not win the next election”.
Paul Kenny GMB, General Secretary gave a master-class in saying absolutely nothing: “Gordon Brown has been quite clear that he sees himself as the natural heir to lead the Labour Party. He has claimed his share of the successes in the past and has laid out his vision for the future.
It was a speech of great substance. Gordon Brown has more substance in this little finger than Cameron has in his whole body. “
Dave Prentiss of Unison bizarrely claims that “there seems to be less reliance on conviction and more on listening and learning. There was enough in this speech that he will listen about the direction of reforms”
Derek Simpson of Amicus took the biscuit, saying that Brown had “showed a willingness to listen to people, to unions and to colleagues. It was very uplifting”

So the top union leaders are going to collude in a Brown coronation. With no change on direction, no policy commitments, and full steam ahead for more neo-liberalism and imperial war. This will lose the next election.

But it seems they would rather lose the election, and endure an even worse government, than open up a debate about the future direction of the party. Which would mean publicly backing John McDonnell (like 59% of TUC delegates did)– the only leadership candidate whose policies match those of their unions. Maybe if Labour adopted progressive policies it might still lose the next election - but as Eugene Debbs said many years ago: “It is better to vote for something you beleive in and not get it, than vote for something you don’t want and get it“.

Two years ago, Steve Trafford authored the really great play about Maykovsky, “A Cloud in Trousers”. I wrote a review of it at the time, and interveiwed Trafford. The interview is very interesting and worth reading.

It is therefore excellent news that Trafford has translated and adapted the classic Spanish play, “¡Ay Carmela!” by Josè Sanchis Sinisterra into English. It is currently playing in York, and the reviews are good. Writing in the British Theatre Guide, Julie Atkinson says, “Sinisterra’s two-hander … presented translator Steve Trafford with a challenge: how to do justice to the author’s poetic yet colloquial style. Despite not being a fluent Spanish speaker (he freely admits to using a literal translation, a French translation and Spanish and French dictionaries), Trafford succeeds brilliantly. The ear quickly becomes attuned to picking up his clever but unobtrusive use of alliteration and internal rhymes, yet the dialogue never sounds contrived or self-consciously “poetic” - quite an achievement in a work so strongly influenced by the work of Samuel Beckett and the Latin American tradition of magic realism.
“Elizabeth Mansfield, who co-founded Ensemble with Steve Trafford, is ideally cast as Carmela. As well as giving a wonderfully funny and moving performance she also has a thrilling singing voice which is used to the full in several musical numbers. Robert Pickavance gives a tour de force performance as the harassed Paulino, in comparison with whom Basil Fawlty is positively laid-back. The couple perform their flamenco routine with real panache and their interaction, both “on-stage” and behind the scenes, has the easy familiarity born of long experience. It’s easy to believe that these two have been working together for years.”

“¡Ay Carmela!” was filmed in 1991 starring Carmen Maura, and concerns the fate of a Republican theatre troupe who stray behind fascist lines during the Spanish Civil War. They are arrested, and fear a firing squad, but they receive a reprieve from an Italian Fascist commander who loves the theatre. He arranges a performance for his troops, bargaining with the actors that they stage a burlesque mocking the republic in exchange for their freedom.

This theme of the relationship of the individual artist to facsism is of course reminiscent of István Szabó’s brilliant 1981 film, “Mephisto”, but the wider issues of artistic responsibility are also familiar territory for Trafford himself. He was a founder in the 1970’s of the Red Ladder theatre company but now earns his living writing for television. As he says: “We are in a … set of contradictions. Mayakovsky says “All art serves, either as we dream the world can be; or as the world is, contributing to more dust settling on our hopes.” You are caught in that trap aren’t you? What are you contributing? Attempting through your art to shift and shunt the way in which the world is moving? And artists today I think feel incredibly marginalised by commercial art.”

“A Cloud in Trousers” explored the difficult position of the explosive genius Mayakovsky and his responsibility to continue artistic rebellion even as the walls were closing in on him through Bolshevik conformity. ““¡Ay Carmela!” concerns itself with the closely related dilemma of whether artists should stay true to their beliefs or should bow to pressure and allow their talents to be used to serve reactionary goals.

These are serious questions, Trafford is a brilliant playwright, and the Ensemble company, including the extremely talented Elizabeth Mansfield, are performers of rare ability. It is a joy to see such first class socialist theatre being performed. Make sure you go and support this play.

“¡Ay Carmela!” is showing in York till 30th September, then Darlington, Bolton, Leicester, Farnham, Tunbridge Wells, Frome, Chipping Norton, Beetham, Shepperton, Taunton, Halesworth, London Shaw Theatre (7 to 18 November), Cardiff and Cheltenham.

Worth adding for those in London; The tour will include a gala evening on November 7th, at the start of the London run at the Shaw Theatre, in association with the International Brigade Memorial Trust, celebrating the heroism of men and women from all over the world who volunteered their lives in the fight against fascism.

Those nice people at Philosophy Football have produced a series of T-shirts to commemorate the Spanish Civil War.

As Mark Perryman says: “We’ve tried to break with all the sectarian nonsense around this period, whatever our views of the communists or anarchists these were men and women who gave their lives in the fight against fascism so the entire memory should be respected. We’re hoping to raise some dosh for the International Brigade Memorial Trust.”

I think Mark is completely correct here. I recently watched that Ken Loach film “Land and Freedom” again and I was a bit weary of the caricature of the CP international brigaders. Not only was it bad history to only show one side of the story, it also reduced the dramatic power. For example the CP are only shown fighting other lefties, there was no hint, for example, of the immense role played by the Russian air force in preventing the fall of Madrid, and the fact that there was real substance to the CP’s argument that only a professionalised army could beat the fascists. In a bizarre twist of history the argument used by Trotsky for a professional army in the Russian Civil War was put forward by the official CP in Spain, while the semi Trotskyists of POUM echoed the position of Stalin’s supporters in the Russian Red Army, that there should be a proletarian militia.

In any event – the civil war was 70 years ago, and much of the historical baggage has simply got to be put to bed.

Philosophy Football have produced these shirts, because in Mark’s own words: “Seventy years ago in 1936 the Spanish Republic were joined by the International Brigade, thousands anti-fascist volunteers from around the world, in the battle for land and freedom. Their foe, Franco and his Fascists were backed by Hitler and Mussolini while the British and other governments shamefully hid behind so-called ‘Non aggression’ to starve the Republicans of supplies and munitions. The battle cry of the Republic was No Pasaran , ‘They shall not pass’, the heroism, solidarity and sacrifice in the face of Franco’s overwhelming force has inspired anti-fascists ever since.”

The four shirts depict different forces united in Spain’s battle. The flag of the Left Party of Catalonia, the Catalonians like the Galicians and Basques recognised the need to unite behind the Republic against Franco. The banner of the Tom Mann Centuria, formed by British volunteers in Barcelona this unit went on to become the basis of the British Battalion of the International Brigade. Tom Mann was a militant trade unionist and founder of the Communist Party of Great Britain. The banner of the POUM militia, the unit with which George Orwell famously served. And the banner of the anarcho-syndicalist CNT-FAI, critics of the Popular Front government but allies in the fight against fascism.

Apparently sales have been going very well, and people have been buying combinations of shirts in an encouragingly non-sectarian way. Although I am pleased to report that the Tom Mann shirt is the most popular!

….

Last Saturday I debated “rural affairs” with North Swindon MP, Michael Wills, and Tory candidate Justin Tomlinson. This all came about because during the last general election some fox hunting supporters campaigned for Justin, as Wills is a firm supporter of the ban on hunting with dogs. Justin apparently insisted that if he was going to debate then I should be included – I don’t think this is entirely due to his admiration for my political debating skill, but because I usually give Wills a hard time. Wills then insisted that if I was going to be there, then the loony toons candidates for UKIP and a pensioner who campaigns against money should be on the platform as well. (I know some of you are thinking aren’t I also a loony toon – but you have to hear these guys!).

I had the invite in May, but never received any reminder. There would be two schools of thought about this, either Michael’s secretary remembered to invite the other candidates but forgot about me, or he didn’t want me there. The North Swindon constituency actually has a largish rural component, but in best New Labour form, Michael had organised the meeting in the heart of the town.

Anyway, there we were discussing rural affairs, being chaired by Nick Bent from the National Farmers Union, in front of about 40 people - many of the Labour and Tory activists. Strangely it turned out I was the only panellist from a rural background, and the only panellist to have been hunting. Before you start imagining me dressed in a red (or more technically pink) coat and downing a stirrup cup, I used to keep whippets and hunt rabbits with them.

I really am not very fond of these debates that are dominated by a single issue, because it raises the temperature, and neither side seem particularly interested in listening to the arguments.

Anyway, the discussion on rural housing was quite interesting, I told anecdotes of friends of mine whose families have been 600 years in the same village but now cannot afford to live there as the picturesque houses have been bought up by TV producers and stock brokers as weekend retreats. There was widespread support in the meeting for my view that there should be a change in planning law that meant people should need to apply for a change of use if they want a second home, and that there should be a presumption towards refusal. I also argued against the current ban on councils building council houses. Of course Michael Wills tried to weasel his way round that one by saying there was no ban on building council houses – this is technically true, but they are not allowed to fund building council houses in a cost effective way. And in any event the Registered Social Landlords (Housing Associations) are not being funded to pick up the shortfall.

How the crisis has come about is largely due to the Tory policy (continued by Labour) of discounted right to buy of rural council stock and the Tory policy (continued by Labour) of deregulated public transport, which has meant no effective bus service. There is now noaffordable housing for people who work in the country, and a disruption of family life as young people are forced to move away. Specific policies, such as removing some of the profitable services that kept rural sub-post offices going, or banning smoking in pubs that will no doubt see many rural pubs close, have even further hollowed out rural communities to becoming commuter dormitories.

What is more, in reality rural policy is decided more by the Supermarket chains than government, so we seen a disastrous fall in many farm incomes, particularly fruit and milk producers, as these products are often bought below their cost of production, as their is only a single buyer. While at the same time the centralised distribution networks drive food all over the country before it hits the shelves. Worse still is the incredible levels of wastage – only something like 20% of potatoes grown in the UK ever reach a plate, as most of them are rejected by the Supermarket buyers as being too small, too big, too blemished, too knobbly, etc. Similar levels of waste effect fruit and other products.

Part of the trouble with the debate was that both Wills and Tomlinson agreed with all these specific points, but the solution lies outside that available for market mechanisms. The Supermarket chains are acting rationally in the interests of their shareholders, and - in so far as people keep buying stuff from them – they could argue in the interests of their customers.

The solution lies in strong government intervention, including nationalisation and state control of the supermarkets. You cannot blame a wolf for being a wolf. They have too be given a different goal – not profitability - but healthy food and a sustainable rural economy. To take food distribution out of the market and profit drive requires social ownership.

All our food could be cheaper if we were prepared to buy – for example - carrots that were not all exactly the same length and smooth and straight. That is only achieved by throwing away more than half the crop. This needs people to become educated about food, growing fruit and vegetables at school, rearing and killing animals for food, every child given a free nutritious school meal from local produce, and there needs to be a ban on junk food advertising. Councils should also be given central government funding incentives to provide sufficient support for allotment holders in towns.

The animal rights debate was a bit tedious. I condemned the way the Countryside Alliance has sought to hijack the very real social problems in the country behind their sad and sorry single issue. I know of two tractor drivers personally opposed to hunting who were made by the employers to go on the Countryside Alliance march or lose their jobs. There is also much more invidious social pressure towards conformity in the country, which means that the pro-fox hunting lobby manages to present itself as the voice of the country, despite the fact that most rural people don’t support it. Not least because the hunts are snobby, elitist, and bad neighbours – spooking other peoples’ livestock and leaving gates open.

But equally, some of the anti hunting campaigners (and there are exceptions) don’t give a fig about any of the real issues in the country. I am sure being caught by the hounds is terrible for the fox, but otherwise most of them die a slow horrible death of starvation and disease anyway. And the ban also extends to coursing, which involves a quick clean death for the rabbit or hare, and they can be eaten afterwards. In fact the strongest argument against the ban is what will be next? If hounds are banned then is it ferrets next, and then shooting, and then falconry, and then fishing? Hunting is the largest participatory sport in the country, with something between 4 and 5 million regularly involved.

I have a great deal of respect for animal welfare campaigners, and for political vegetarianism. But at the same time the ban on hunting has not been won on the basis of an informed and consistent policy towards animal welfare. Battery chicken and factory pig production are by far the biggest animal welfare scandals. The aversion to hunting is at least partly due to a townie alienation of the actual reality of living and working with animals.

A judge at Bristol Crown Court has ordered a re-trial in the case of two peace activists charged with damaging military equipment to stop planes taking off. After a day and a half of debate, the jury failed to reach any clear verdict.Paul Milling and Margaret Jones are charged with conspiracy to commit criminal damage after disabling several dozen bomb carrying and fuel vehicles at RAF Fairford in March 2003. They were attempting to hinder take-off of 14 B-52 planes to bomb Iraq at the start of the 2003 invasion. Milling and Jones say this was a bid to delay the planes’ departure for Baghdad and give more people time to flee the city – thus protecting property and helping to prevent war crime.

In a prepared statement handed in when they were arrested at RAF Fairford after damaging two dozen vehicles, they wrote of the air base as ‘a launching pad for war crimes’, adding that if they could save ‘one life’ by their actions, they would consider them justified.

Bruce Houlder for the prosecution alleged the defendants ‘claimed a charter’ to act without reference to the law. If the defendants’ actions were taken to their logical conclusions, he told the jury at Bristol Crown Court, ‘one might as well tear up the laws of this country.’

This was ‘a unique case’ said Hugo Charlton, defending Margaret Jones. The law allowed for exceptional circumstances, and the threat to life in Iraq posed by the bombers at Fairford was one such situation. The burden of proof, he said, was ‘on the prosecution’. It was not necessary for the defendants to have been engaged in actually ‘stopping’ a crime. It was enough that they were seeking to ‘prevent’ it, and that they honestly believed that homes and property in Baghdad were in need of protection.

James Hines, representing Paul Milling, denied that the action taken was merely a symbolic ‘protest’. The defendants acted reasonably, he said, in the light of everything they had read and heard before the start of the war. Reminding the jury that the region now devastated by war is one of the cradles of civilisation, he asked them to imagine how they would react if 30 missiles, or even three, landed on their own city. He accepted that it was difficult for Westerners leading safe lives to imagine an existence where people struggle to survive without electricity or water, among unexploded cluster bombs, with sudden death an ever-present reality. These, he said, were conditions the defendants had been able to picture, and that they had done their best to address. Theirs had been a genuine attempt to save life.

During the previous week the court heard moving testimony from those who were in Baghdad during the bombing, including a young Iraq man who survived the cluster bombing of a residential area.
Phil Pritchard and Toby Olditch start their trial on Monday the 2nd of October (9.30 am at Bristol Crown Court). Charged with conspiracy to commit criminal damage for trying to reach and disable a B-52 bomber at Fairford. Please come and show solidarity.

Dave Osler’s blog seems to be going from strength to strength. Recently highlighted by Channel 4’s web-page as one of the 20 most influential political blogs in Britain, and selected as #8 of pro-Labour (in the wider sense?) by Top Tory Blogger, Iain Dale.

Naturally all of us who blog are secretly motivated – at least partially - by vanity, so Dave naturally posted a piece about this on his blog, where he makes the following point: “Not bad going for six months’ work. Readership figures are picking up, boosted by the brilliant redesign courtesy of Will. And a few of the more leftist national newspaper journos and Westminster researchers are starting to email goss in to blues.power@virgin.net.But wouldn’t it be good to have a far left website that has the same sort of clout as Guido and Dale do on the right? For that, I need more inside track stuff. My hero Paul Foot always used to include an appeal to readers for information in his classic Daily Mirror columns. I’d love to continue that tradition.”

So obviously it would be good if people took Dave up on this, and helped him develop his blog in that direction. But why is there no really good left blog? This seems to me partly a reflection of how marginal the left is on British politics. There is also the widespread use of printed media by the political left that make some blogging redundant, it has occurred to me for a while that you could produce a very good blog just by reading the Morning Star! But the left has also developed a culture of privacy, for example all sorts of interesting information comes our way in the Socialist Unity Network on the basis that it is kept confidential.

Dave is running a poll on his site on what is the “second best leftwing blog in Britain”. When you look down the list of Dave’s candidates, well you cannot help think, yeah, but is that the best we can do?

Stroppyblog has become popular very fast. Not surprising as it is updated regularly, is informal and occasionally very funny. There are also some serious well researched pieces.

The General Theory of Rubbish is a bit terse and cryptic. Although well designed and regularly updated, it is a bit too idiosyncratic for my liking.

Shiraz Socialist. Seems to be mainly reaction pieces, from an AWL type perspective, to stuff going on. Well, if you like that sort of thing. … …

JBlog is a rather more serious effort from Janine Booth, also of the AWL. Well worth a regular look.

Gauche There is a lot of chaff, but some good wheat amongst it. Particularly useful is the archive links, allowing you to jump directly to the best posts from the past, organised by subject.

Random Pottins really is a great blog. Informative, and covering a diverse range of subjects. Particularly astute when covering Israel, Palestine and Zionism.

Normblog. Many years ago Norman Geras wrote a well received book about Marx and human nature. I could never be bothered to read it. He has developed an immensely self-satisfied bloated ego. The main point of the blog seems to be to eruditely explain that we are all stupid for opposing US foreign policy. Oh, and to remind us how immensely clever Professor Geras is.

Harry’s Place. Ahh bless. Imagine Norman Geras bitten by a rabid Dog. Harry’s place is home of “decency”. In the old days decency used to mean, well, being decent. Nowadays it means support for neo-colonialism, islamaphobia, and vitriolic distain for the hard left. The most remarkable thing about Harry’s place is the comments, where racist comments are not criticised, but leftist comments critical of the Harry team are sometimes altered. A shrill, nasty experience, best avoided.

Lenin’s Tomb. The unofficial official SWP blog. Written by verbose twenty somethings full of outrage at the world, and an uncomplicated faith that there are goodies and baddies. Actually this is its strength, and the Tomb is guaranteed to be entertaining, informative and committed. “Lenin” himself rather remarkably rejects the Marxist method, arguing that there is no underlying objective reality, and all that really exists is language. (This presumably makes it easier for him to support Tommy Sheridan). Worth checking occasionally, but the comments can become depressingly sectarian.

Dead Men Left. Another good SWP blog, but updated less frequently than Lenin’s Tomb, and a little more measured. Worth looking at regularly.

Drink Soaked Trots. If you like the General Theory of Rubbish, you will like this collective blog. Much too much space spent slagging of the left for my liking.

Socialist Unity Blog. Sister to the Socialist Unity Network site. The origin of our main website was that we felt there was a gap in the market for a left wing publication that promoted a serious discussion about the way forward for the left, that was not banging the drum for any particular organisation, and was open to different voices. The Socialist Unity Blog was started as a way of being a bit more interactive, and also a place for some more quirky pieces. If you like the blog, you should regularly check the web-site as well.

It is worth saying there are some other good leftie blogs from this island, and had I been doing a poll instead of Osler these might have made the cut: International Rooksbyism, Daily (Maybe), The Point Is Liam Mac Uaid, Matthew Sellwood , Kevin Williamson

Oh yeah, and now go and vote for the Socialist Unity blog in the poll on Dave Osler’s blog!