Solidarity 181, 23 September 2010

Will Labour open up?

Colin Foster previews the Labour Party conference, which will start on Saturday 25 September with an announcement of the winner in the leadership election. All the Labour leadership candidates - even David Miliband, who is obviously the "Blairite continuity" candidate - have promised a more open Labour Party, campaigning against the Tory cuts. But will any of them deliver? Or, more to the point, will unions and local Labour Party activists be able and willing to push them into delivering? Labour Party democracy campaigners fear that the desire to smooth things for a new leader will push the...

Labour conference must regain policy-making power

Maria Exall, a member of the CWU Executive and the TUC General Council, spoke to Solidarity in a personal capacity. The political challenge is how we resist the cuts from the Conservative/ Liberal government. For the Labour Party to be able to lead the political fight, we need improvements in party democracy, so that the voices of trade-union and Labour activists can be heard. Labour conference must become a real policy-making body again.

Union leaders have not woken up yet

A union delegate to Labour Party conference spoke to Solidarity. She was speaking anonymously because the union has instructed delegates that they should not speak to the press without authorisation from the top union leadership. At the Labour Party conference I hope we'll see that Diane Abbott got a good vote, because, despite many shortcomings, she has been the only candidate even to begin to address the real concerns of the labour movement. And I hope we'll see a wider understanding that the Labour Party now has to change fundamentally. Unfortunately the union leaders don't seem to have...

Why we should switch our computers off more

"The Shallows: how the internet is changing the way we think, read, and remember" , by Nicholas Carr. Reviewed by Martin Thomas. A friend recently told me about her 17 year old daughter's homework habits. She will habitually be watching a DVD on her computer and chatting by instant message with number of friends while simultaneously writing an essay for which she will get top marks. The internet has brought boons by vastly speeding communications and access to information. It develops new mental skills. The 17 year olds of previous eras lacked the mental as well as the electronic equipment to...

Stop Les Bayliss the scab!

Amidst the revelations about footballer's private lives, rancid misogyny and horoscopes that filled the News Of the World recently, there was a interview with Les Bayliss titled "Union chief slams walk-outs over cuts". What makes this article particularly destructive is that rather then being a rant by a embittered and marginalised right-winger on the eve of retirement, Bayliss happens to be the Assistant General Secretary of Unite and a leading contender in the election for General Secretary. Bayliss said "Public sector strikes will only deprive the vulnerable of services the Tories want to...

Large crowd for Pope protest

The organisers claimed 20,000 people joined the “Protest the Pope” march in London, from Hyde Park Corner to Downing Street, on 18 September. One of the organisers, Peter Tatchell, said: “Among the marchers were Catholics and other Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and people of no faith. The protest was not against the Catholic church or Catholic people. It was against the Pope and his often harsh, intolerant teachings; especially his opposition to contraception, women priests, gay equality, abortion, fertility treatment, embryonic stem cell research and the use of condoms to prevent the...

Dennis Skinner: Blair's poodle yaps

Dennis Skinner, one of the ghostly superannuated "lefts" in the Parliamentary Labour Party, has come out in support of David Miliband for Labour leader. He calls on others to back "the man the Tories fear most". Skinner, a one-time miner, has been an MP for 40 years. Unlike many of the career "leftists" in the old Parliamentary Labour Party, Skinner had real left-wing credentials. He knew which side of the class divide and the class war he was on. He backed strikes, and backing them was more than a matter of policy and calculation: it was something he felt in his guts. Politically, though...

Pope Benedict and his "Red" Army

For much of the 20th century, in large parts of the world, the Stalinist movement on the one hand, and the Catholic Church and its political and social movements on the other, were the great antagonists. Yet the Stalinist movements and the Catholic Church were, as was often pointed out, in many respects similar, parallel in their mindset and organisation. It now turns out that they were similar in their attitude to mass rape by their "soldiers" in the field. In 1945, when the gruesomely misnamed "Red" Army advanced into enemy countries in Eastern and Central Europe, the soldiers of Stalin's...

Scott-land

Dale Street reviews “Scott-Land – The Man Who Invented a Nation”, by Stuart Kelly Even during his own lifetime Sir Walter Scott was simultaneously lionised and lampooned. Goethe described Scott’s “Waverley” as a novel which “stood alongside the best things that have ever been written in the world.” Fenimore Cooper adopted Scott as his model. Mary Shelley put him on a par with Shakespeare. Heine called him “Britannia’s greatest poet”. And Stendhal described him as “our father” who “invented us all (i.e. historical novelists).” But such admiration was not universal. Kelly writes: “Scott was...

This website uses cookies, you can find out more and set your preferences here.
By continuing to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.