In the last decade over a million kids have left school with no meaningful qualifications. Every year 10,000 children under the age of 14 drop out of education. 18.3% of all 16- to 25-year-olds are officially unemployed – and many of those in work are exploited to the hilt thanks to their lower employment status. In short, our outdated, work-centred, education system if failing too many of our kids.
The powers that be argue relentlessly over who is to blame (Ed Bollox is currently making plans to fine the parents) and we see wave after wave of policies and strategies that we’re told will help, but never do. The truth, of course, is that this situation will not improve so long as we have a class divided society. Socio-economic inequality is – and always has been – the root cause of educational failure.
It is a sad fact that the classic Italian text Letter to a Teacher has lost none of it’s significance in the last 40 years. It should be compulsory reading for politicians and educators alike.
Doncaster’s New Mayor Supports Strike-Breaking
June 22, 2009
25 years ago Doncaster’s towns and villages were physically attacked by a Tory government hell-bent on destroying the unions and close-knit communities whose collective strength presented an obstacle to the greed-centred, Thatcherite/Neoliberal economic policy (the economic policy that led directly to today’s global recession). Thanks to the miners strike Doncaster remains one of the poorest regions in the UK.
25 years on and a wannabe Tory (he was kicked out of the Tory party for tax evasion), Peter Davies, is now the most powerful man in the Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council (DMBC). Our 1-Star council has, of course, been plagued by corruption, nefarious – ‘jobs-for-the-boys’ – self-interests and outright ineptitude for years, but anyone who thinks that Davies will change anything is sadly mistaken. This man represents the very forces that brought Doncaster to it’s knees in the first place.
Davies is a member of the right-wing Freedom Association (FA). In the 1970s the FA was known as the National Association For Freedom (NAFF by name…); the NAFF were most famous for their strike-breaking activities.
In 1976 workers at the Grunwick Film Processing Laboratories in North London were taking action over poor pay and working conditions. ACAS made conciliation attempts but the employer, George Ward, rejected all offers and by October 1976 the TUC was calling for ’sympathetic action’ by other unions. On 22 June 1977, Arthur Scargill brought miners from Yorkshire, South Wales and Kent to join the mass pickets. Bloody scenes between the police and the pickets were broadcast on television. The Labour Government decided to commission an enquiry under Lord Scarman and the pickets were called off in mid-July to wait for the result of the enquiry. APEX announced it would abide by the outcome of the enquiry but Ward did not.
Grunwick processed photographic film and needed to post the results to their customers, as such they relied heavily on the Royal Mail for business, but postal workers were sympathetic to the strikers and members of the Union of Post Office Workers (UPW) refused to handle post from Grunwick during the dispute. Under the Post Office Act 1953 it was illegal for Post Office workers to ‘wilfully delay’ the delivery of mail, so NAFF stepped forward to sue the union.
Despite this the local Cricklewood branch of the UPW voted to again stop delivering Grunwick’s mail. The staff were subsequently suspended, thus closing down the postal service in the region. In retaliation the NAFF organised its own operation to deliver Grunwick’s mail themselves. According to the BBC documentary Tory! Tory! Tory!, activists picked up the mail from Grunwick’s took it to a farmhouse in Shropshire, stamped it and posted it in post boxes across the country.
Click here for the full story.
Davies may be a disgraced Tory, but he’s still a Tory through and through. When he and his ilk talk about ‘freedom’, they mean freedom for the rich to do whatever they like and bollocks to the rest of society. People who voted for him should think about that the next time they read a report about Doncaster’s 80% child poverty rate.
We have to confess that we were guilty of complacency with regard to the Mayoral elections, like many people we expected Mick Maye – a man with far greater honour and integrity – to walk it. But we don’t believe that any amount of elections can fix democracy in Doncaster.
The DMBC is a total shambles with nearly every department underachieving in national league tables; less than 5% of public money is spent by publicly accountable bodies; we have an elected mayor who can override council voting; parish councillors (who should stand as the first line of democracy) have been stripped of any real power. As things currently stand there is NO democracy in Doncaster.
“What recession?” says smug MP
June 22, 2009
While hundreds of thousands of people in the UK are currently losing their jobs and tens of thousands are losing their homes the Right Honourable (how dare they even call themselves that!) MP for Windsor, Adam Afriyie, is complaining that the press said he was only worth 13 million quid.
An email from Mr Afriyie’s chief of staff, Russell Walters reads…
“You say he is worth £13m but this is a significant understatement. Earlier this decade he sold one company for £18m of which his share was £13m, but he is chairman of three other companies and his actual worth is somewhere between £50m and £100m.”
Aaaagh, if there’s anything worse than a politician, it’s a greedy, vain, gobshite of a politician!
Smug bastard
The only good thing to come out of Windsor was smoke…
Windsor Castle 1992
With grace and style
Verve, guts and guile
The knife slides in, their blood it spills
The public one the royals nil
It’s easier to kill with one hit
The knife is here why can’t you use it?
Do you want to hear it from me?
With grace and style
Verve, nerve and guile
The gun fires into Di’s throat
The public laughs, the royals don’t
It’s easier to kill with one hit
The gun is here
why don’t you shoot it?
Do you want to hear it from me?
Burn Windsor burn
Seize the time all the lies
Grab the glory
When the tide does turn
They’ll be first in the line
I’m not sorry‘Do You Want To Hear It From Me’ by Gene; Rossiter 1996
Sacked Lindsey Workers Remain Defiant
June 22, 2009
Last week 900 workers were sacked at the Lindsey Oil Refinery. The men were dismissed by the French oil giant, Total, because they were taking action to protest against the loss of 51 jobs. The sacked workers were told that they should re-apply for their jobs by today.
This morning, in an act of defiance, the sacked workers burnt their dismissal papers in a car park outside the refinery. Phil Whitehurst, of the GMB union, told the crowd…
“Let them show us how many want to go back in there crawling on their bellies for their jobs. We go out together, we go back together.”
Total have said that they’re “encouraged by the initial feedback our contract companies have received from their former workforces.”, but there’s good reason to believe that this is bullshit. The GMB is planning to stage a huge protest outside the refinery tomorrow and there is little sign that the deadlocked row will be broken. Sacked worker, Kenny Ward, told the meeting that the response around the UK now involved 19 different sites and 13,000 workers – hardly ‘encouraging’ news for Total.
Kenny went on to say…
“Would Total do the same in France? Absolutely not, because there wouldn’t be a tanker on its four wheels. They’d all be turned over on their sides, blockading every road to this refinery, because the French wouldn’t put up with it – all the French government, all the German government, all the Spanish, the Italians and every other government in the European Union. But our Government will!
Our Government will be subservient to companies like this. But we won’t.”
So far today there are sympathy strikes at the neighbouring Humber Refinery and at a gas terminal in Milford Haven, Wales. This is likely to spread. If you can get to a picket, go. If not, send messages of support via email – eminis[at]geminis.karoo.co.uk or text 07706 7 10041. If you’re able to organise a boycott or protest at your local Total garage then let Total know what you’re doing…
- TOTAL UK Limited Head Office, Watford: 00 44 (0)1923 694000
- TOTAL UK Service Stations Customer Services: 00 44 (0) 8457 346 222
- TOTAL UK Service Station Property Services: 00 44 (0) 1923 694000
- TOTAL UK Press Office: 00 44 (0) 870 241 4337
A Party for the Poor
June 21, 2009
Economic inequality in the UK is at the highest it has been since records began in 1961. The gap between the rich and the poor in Britain has almost reached a record level. 2.9 million children are currently living below the breadline. A child’s social class background at birth is still the best indicator of how well he or she will do in school and later on in life. The gap in socio-economic circumstances between children growing up in social housing and their peers is greater now than for any previous post-war generation. The lower your socio-economic position the greater your risk of low birth-weight, infections, cancer, coronary heart disease, respiratory disease, stroke, accidents, nervous and mental illnesses – in other words class kills.
Despite these facts Labour – a political party that once claimed to represent the working class and the poor – has abandoned its ambitions to halve child poverty by 2010. As we mentioned before this would have cost in the region of 3-5 billion, less than a 100th of the amount of public money given to bail out UK banks. Financial equality leads to a happier, more stable society, but when it came to the crunch Labour were all too happy to abandon the poor working class.
In truth the working class (especially the poorer sections of the working class) no longer have any form of political representation. All current political parties serve the same narrow interests; they exist purely to satisfy the needs of more privileged members of society. Support for poor communities now comes almost entirely from the voluntary sector – though even this is threatened thanks to the global recession.
But no amount of aid or charity work will bring about the changes that are urgently needed in our society if we are to truly combat poverty. Only an organised working class political movement could ever hope to achieve this. As the IWCA have recently pointed out in their excellent ‘Labour got what it deserved – and so did the BNP’ article…
“a progressive working class party [sic]t could very well mop up across entire boroughs where previously Labour and then the BNP had once ruled the roost. Why such a possibility exists is because as Searchlight admits ‘in some places such as Barking and Dagenham, one of the fundamental problems is the absence of any mainstream alternative to Labour, so the BNP is the sole beneficiary of the anti-Labour protest vote.’ As the big three continue to shed activists (according to one report the Tories have shed 40,000 members since Cameron took over) and atrophy in terms of popular support, it is a trend that can only become more widespread.
But how to get from the present to there is the tricky bit. One factor is certain. A long-term strategy is now required. It is unlikely there will be any short cuts. So it is the long game or nothing. A daunting prospect. But on the plus side the opportunities unfolding before our eyes do have an undeniable once-in-a-century feel about them.”
Anyone who is angered by poverty and inequality should read the full article and step up to the plate; it’s time to get organised. Get in touch with the IWCA and with local activists in your area (anyone who lives in sunny Doncaster should feel free to contact us via verymerrymen[at]gmail.com). Militant working class activists of all persuasions must come together if we are to seize this ‘once-in-a-century’ opportunity.
Support March4Justice
June 20, 2009
Thousands of people are marching through London today to demand a new investigation into the 1989 Hillsborough disaster where 96 people lost their lives thanks to the incompetence of South Yorkshire Police.
The march has been organised by the March4Justice facebook group.
If you want to show your support you can click here to sign the No. 10 e-petition.
TOTAL WAR
June 20, 2009
As you will know some 1,200 contract staff went on stike last week in order to save 51 jobs at Total’s Lindsey oil refinery in North Lincs. There were many sympathy strikes around Britain including Yorkshire’s Drax and Eggborough power stations, Nottingham’s Ratcliffe station, the Aberthaw power station in South Wales, the Stanlow Oil Refinery in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire and BP’s Saltend refinery near Hull.
In answer to this protest Total sacked 901 men and said that they could have their jobs back if they re-applied for them by Monday. This blatant brinksmanship on behalf of Total and should be met with widespread contempt.
But the left have been slow to back this dispute; partly because the media have portrayed it as being about nationalistic sentiment and also because refinery and power station workers are seen as the enemy by many environmental campaigners. In truth these are skilled workers have always worked internationally; they’re also the people with the skills to build widespread greener energy solutions if and when the political/economic tide changes.
You can help support the strikers by boycotting your local Total garage. Let them know what you’re doing…
Useful telephone numbers
- TOTAL UK Limited Head Office, Watford: 00 44 (0)1923 694000
- TOTAL UK Service Stations Customer Services: 00 44 (0) 8457 346 222
- TOTAL UK Service Station Property Services: 00 44 (0) 1923 694000
- TOTAL UK Press Office: 00 44 (0) 870 241 4337
Also get in touch with the Lindsey workers to show your support with much needed messages of solidarity…
Email: geminis[at]geminis.karoo.co.uk or
Text: 07706 7 10041
We’ve just been speaking to some rather chatty young(ish) ladies who were taught by Donny’s new Elected Mayor, Peter Davies, when he was employed by Danum High School. The general verdict seems to be that he was an “oppressive, overbearing knob-head who hated us (his pupils).” – their words, not ours 
To be fair the girls did confess to giving him a hard time. They were in the habit of singing their own rendition of Vanessa Paradis’ hit song, ‘Joe Le Taxi” – with the emphasis on TAX – as loud as they could whenever they saw him in reference to his tax fiddling. Davies, of course, was kicked out of the Conservative Party because of his tax fiddling, but he doesn’t bear a grudge and he has employed Tory group leader, Patricia Schofield as his Deputy Mayor – who’ll be on £30,633 a year.
He has also accepted offers of help from his good friends Matthew Elliot (Tax Payers Alliance – an alliance of people who actually pay their taxes!) and Laura Midgley (Campaign Against Political Correctness), who are to do voluntary work (we’ll have to check his expenses at the end of the year to see exactly how voluntary their work is) to help him create his ‘Zero-Tolerance’ leadership that will stop swearing, spitting, the chewing of gum and the dropping of litter. In his own words…
“There is a chewing gum problem and a general litter problem but there is also foul language being used everywhere in the presence of children and continuous spitting in the street. [sic] We need to make examples of some of these customers before this minor behaviour turns into something more serious.”
To counter this foul behaviour from pupils – er… sorry, we mean residents - the council will introduce a system of lines, detentions and, in serious cases, canings.
Mayor Davies is also designing a new uniform that must be worn by the people of Doncaster at all times…
Prick Griffin has attacked the police for not doing their duty when he was pelted with eggs yesterday (though we have to admit that we’re also a bit miffed with the plod for failing to arrest the BNP boot-boy who attacked an innocent bystander). As leader of a gang of former streetfighters Griffin can’t really complain about “hostile mobs”, but some of his comments were rather enlightening…
“I think it’s very sad that a hostile mob which is partly paid for by taxpayers and backed by Labour and the Conservatives is allowed to get away with mob violence on the streets of Britain in 2009.”
So if, like any sane person, you do not agree with the vile, hate-filled BNP then you’re part of a joint right-wing/left-wing conspiracy against Nick Griffin’s BNP which is partly paid for using public money. Hmm, sounds to us like Griffin’s feeble mind is losing touch with reality.
And as for “using public money”, Griffin has just joined the biggest abusers of public funds in Europe. So who’s paranoid piggy snout is in the trough now?
Griffin, hypocrite and madman
All Hail The Mighty Egg!
June 9, 2009
We just wanted to say how much we really love eggs – unlike some people we could mention…
More egg fun here…
