As someone who had lived in East London all my working life, I was immediately drawn to Roger Mills’ excellent new book, Everything happens in Cable Street.

In most people’s minds the words “Cable Street” evoke that famous battle of 1936 when Mosley’s Blackshirts were turned back. Roger Mills includes the preamble to the battle, some interesting first hand accounts, and refers to the battle as the focus of a number of community events since that time. But the bulk of the book paints a picture of life and the changes wrought in Cable Street over the past fifty or so years.

“A HUNDRED CABLE STREETS”:

This is a kaleidoscope of a book, a procession of colourful characters and creative endeavour that have ebbed and flowed in Cable Street. Roger Mills writes, “it was as if there were a hundred Cable Streets, so different were the stories.” Included are a large number of transcripts of interviews made in 1979, 1986 and 2010.

Many of the earlier interviewees were first generation British and were Jewish, of eastern European descent. Others were Irish Catholics. The interviews depict a hard life, mostly in the 1920s and ’30s, but a life with a great sense of community.

Later interviews tell of changes that came post war. “In recent years evil and unscrupulous men have moved in with their all-night cafes and their brothels making life hell for for the decent people who have to bring up children in the midst of all these horrors,” wrote Joseph Williamson, a priest quoted by Roger Mills. Father Joe, as he was known, Edith Ramsay, a Labour councillor, and others did much to highlight the deplorable conditions in Cable Street in those years and gradually slum housing was demolished and the worst of the clubs and brothels were closed down.

A FLOWERING OF CREATIVITY:

Parallel but intertwined with the stories of people in Cable Street is the exploration of some of the creative endeavours in which the author was involved. The formation of the Basement Writers in 1973 was a springboard for creative writing of all kinds. Pamphlets, micro-books and comics were produced, and writing was shared at meetings in the basement of St. George’s Town Hall. An original group member wrote that they had a do-it-yourself aesthetic. The group began to expand and perform their work, featuring poetry, song and knockabout comedy.

The setting up of THAP (the Tower Hamlets Arts Project, involving Thames Television) was another scheme to encourage creativity in drama, photography, painting, film music writing and publishing. The scheme lasted a year, but it spawned a bookshop and publishing house which, through a couple of transformations, runs today as the “Brick Lane Bookshop”.

“Cable Street on Film” is another section of Roger Mills’ book. “To Sir With Love” is probably the best known film to be shot in Cable Street but a number of others are mentioned. “Tunde’s Film”, born of the Basement Film Project in 1973 was very much a community production. It was written by local boy Tunde Ikoh and co-directed with Maggie Pinhorn who brought professional expertise to the project. the author and actors were all taken by Maggie to the film’s showing at the Edinburgh Festival.

There’s more, much more, in this book. There’s the story of the mural of the  battle of Cable Street, the creation of the Community Gardens and a visit to Wilton’s Music hall, saved from demolition but held up with acro-props. And there are many other captivating stories.

For anyone who is interested in social history, and particularly in community involvement, Roger Mills’ fascinating book is a must. If you have a London connection, that will add an extra dimension to your enjoyment.

Reviewed by RUTH RICHARDSON

Bill Maher is an American comedian and journalist, and one of that new breed of militant atheists who display all the arrogance and imperiousness that they attack in the religious. “Religulous” starts with him telling us that he is “seeking answers”, trying to find out why people believe, but it quickly becomes clear that he lacks the humility of a seeker, and this is nothing short of a polemic against religion. He approaches his subjects with a smugness that quickly becomes grating. He is frequently very rude to people who have granted him interviews and agreed to share with him some of their most sacred and deeply held beliefs.

Most of those he interviewed are predictably quite crazy and hold opinions which deserve to be rigorously questioned (indeed in some cases ridiculed), but he approaches them all with an hauteur, a bluster, a conceit that is so positively napoleonic that we find ourselves as viewers sympathising with people whom we’d normally find total unsympathetic.

It’s easy to make fun of religion and indeed a good, witty and entertaining movie could and should be made. This, sadly, is not it. For something far funnier and more insightful, you’d do better to re-watch Monty Python’s The Life of Brian.

STEREOTYPES:

It’s when he tackles Islam, however, that his approach becomes more troubling. His analysis of Islam, and in particular the Arab-Israeli conflict, is riddled with prejudices, stereotypes and double standards.

For example, when the manager of the “Holy Land Amusement Park” explains that they’ve had visitors from the Gaza strip, it is illustrated with shots of hooded Hamas members shooting guns in the air. The sound of gunshots and screams continues throughout the interview.

And footage of a radical imam exhorting Muslims to kill Jews is followed by a shot of a bomb going off in Jerusalem, reducing the whole conflict to nothing more than Palestinian anti-semitism.

There are lots of examples of Muslim prejudice but none of Zionist lunacy, as if hatred and fundamentalism are only to be found on one side. This reflects the commonly held American view of the conflict, and it is just another confirmation that Maher has no interest in asking pertinent questions or in finding answers – only in scoring easy points.

He also interviews Geert Wilders, the fascistic Dutch politician who believes that the Quran should be banned. He is allowed to pontificate without question or contradiction. Maher doesn’t speak to any Muslims who have suffered verbal or physical abuse incited by men like Wilders. Indeed he doesn’t acknowledge that the problem of anti-Muslim prejudice even exists.

ALL CONDEMNED EQUALLY:

Islam particularly but religion in general is treated as one big, indivisible monolith. The idiocy and violence of one sect is used to condemn the whole religion, and in so doing he joins the ranks of the EDL and Pastor Terry Jones. This kind of atheism displays a level of intolerance that is deeply unhelpful and which I find personally distasteful. Are tolerance and mutual respect really so bad?

Religion is presented as something that is uniformly evil. Without light and shade, without a right and a left, without liberal and conservative. If he was really conducting an honest inquiry and using the scientific methods he claims to believe in, then he would have gravitated towards those areas most problematic for his thesis. If religion is as he believes so intrinsically bad and stupid, then how could it have inspired people like Martin Luther King and Mahatma Ghandi to battle prejudice an injustice with such courage? Or artists like Michelangelo to create such majestic paintings? There are answers to all these questions for the atheist, but he doesn’t even ask them.

FAILURE:

“Religulous” is a failure. It’s a failure as a quest because he isn’t interested in the answers. It’s a failure as an argument because he doesn’t consider the things which might disprove it, and it fails as a witty polemic because he’s too concentrated on making an argument.

As for me, I believe in Karl Marx’s rather generous treatment of religion: “Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people.“

(as quoted by Christopher Hitchens).

Dear the Clarion

Tyler Chinnick sets out an inspiring programme in his “What Next for Labour” article. Sadly, at the present time it is no more ace than the Socialist Party programme. Indeed, much of what he says would sit happily within it.

It would seem that most people on the left share the same aims. We want a fairer, safer world, one in which resources are used wisely, shared more equitably, and where the culture is co-operation not conflict. And that is just about where consensus ends. The gap between being IN the Labour Party and OUT is wide.

If, like me, you choose to work within a minority party you are “sectarian”. Carl Spiby rightly ridicules my show of indignation at being packaged together with the Socialist Workers Party. If one as politically educated as he is does not know the fundamental difference between their way of working and the methods of the Socialist Party, it is unlikely that 99 per cent of the population would either know or care. But of course it matters to me.

Politics are global, national and also highly personal. Being an activist can be tedious and time consuming. It can take you away from your families and friends and hinder careers and other more simple pleasures. It is, then, important to align yourself to a group that makes all this worthwhile. You do have to believe in the vision and the programme and you do have to trust the ethics of the executive and the paid party workers. And how is it any longer possible to do this where the Labour Party is concerned? I believe that the culture of careerism and deception is too deeply embedded to be routed and that this applies to both local councils and national government. Presumably, the local councillors who have impressed Carl do not come from the Forest of Dean. Our own have either given support or kept resolutely silent whilst our health provision has been under attack. Once again, the campaign to retain services within the NHS came from outside of the mainstream political parties.

Carl is of course right (or almost right) when he says that the SP etc., will never win a seat in Parliaments, but he’s off the mark when he equates Parliamentary seats with “reflecting the aspirations of the mass of working people”. Voting figures are woeful and many of us who go to the polling stations mark a cross with a heavy heart. We have been taking part in the only democratic process available to us.

As I said in my response to Carl’s original article, the Labour Party offers nothing to people who are desperate for change. The fact that the trade unions preferred Ed to David has not filled the poor with joy. How many of the young Jarrow marchers or the anti-capitalist campaigners will be rushing to vote Labour? The once great party has had its day. Yes, we do need a mass party but a new one. And to quote the Socialist Party’s “what we stand for”:

“For a new mass workers’ party drawing together workers, young people and activists from workplace, community, environmental and anti-war campaigns, to provide a fighting political alternative to the pro big business parties. Trades Unions to disaffiliate from the Labour Party now and aid the building of a new workers’ party.”

Hopefully, not too sectarian!

DIANA GASH

And an insider’s view:

I have some sympathy with Diana’s view of the Labour Party – though that doesn’t mean that I share it. To some extent it mirrors the disillusion by many on the left, particularly during the bleak Blair years, when party membership plummeted, and those members who remained found themselves increasingly out in the cold when it came to policy.

But significantly, this fallout didn’t result in any increase in support for those Left parties operating outside Labour. These parties remained marginalised, operating outside the mainstream. What did increase, though, was the level of support for “single issue” campaigns, and, under the Cameron-Clegg coalition, these have continued to increase. And long may they continue to do so. The activities of groups like UKuncut, the “Occupy” anti-capitalist camps, and resistance by the public sector unions are all healthy signs of democratic protest.

Now, I hesitate to use the word “sectarian”. After all, its use is a value judgement. Neither would I like to lump together such parties as the SP, the SWP, the SLP, etc. But what they tend to have in common is a prescriptive approach to politics and action which inhibits any major political breakthrough.

Tony Benn once described the Labour Party as a “broad church”. Despite the stifling impact of the Blair regime, it still is today. It is a (comparatively) mass party, representing a range of views and groups (including the trade unions and the co-operative movement). And this has long been its strength. Hopefully in the future we will be able to look back on “New Labour” as an aberration.

As for Diana’s strictures on our local councillors, I think this needs to be taken in the context of the steady emasculation of local government since the days of Thatcher. Local authorities have in effect become commissioners of local services rather than providers, and few nowadays have much control over their destinies or those of the people who vote for them.  And, I suspect, this has narrowed the vision of many hard working councillors who, at heart, still want to serve the communities they represent.

I can also sympathise with Diana’s point that being a political activist can be tedious and take one away from family, friends, etc. But this, of course, is the consequence of the marginalisation of politics. Once it could be inclusive, but not these days – for which the politicians are to blame!

ALISTAIR GRAHAM

The last time that Labour met in Liverpool was eighty six years ago, in 1925. This was in the wake of the defeat of the first ever Labour government, hounded from office in November 1924 by “red scares” and the Daily Mail’s brandishing of the infamous forged “Ziniovev Letter”purporting to show that the Communist Party in Britain was being told by its Soviet masters to prepare for an imminent uprising. Within five years, in 1929, Labour was back in power.

This time around it will not automatically be that swift a return.

In Liverpool, the most eloquent statements of this were made in the Exhibition Hall, rather than from the podium or platform. While many delegates spoke as if Labour’s bounce back to power at the next election was assured, the same was not true of Labour’s corporate collaborators from our years in power. They were largely absent without leave, taking the view that Labour was here to stay in opposition. Certainly Tory gerrymandering with fixed term parliaments and the shaving down of a bloated House of Commons by a scanty fifty MPs to maximise their electoral advantage, makes the task that much harder in May 2015. But making it all worse is the “blame game”, media bias and the malaise infecting traditional social democratic parties across the European Union.

DOGGED BY CLAIMS:

Labour is constantly dogged by the ConDem alliance’s claims that the current crisis is the fault of Labour – stating simultaneously that it’s the global crisis that’s getting in the way of a British recovery. Now, we have to take some responsibility. Labour failed to tackle the greedy bankers, bent coppers and feral press. We didn’t tighten up banking regulation after the Tories’ big bang, ignored evidence of police corruption and kowtowed to Murdoch. Yet none of these would have helped avoid the toxic crisis in the US or the problems with the Irish, Greek or Italian economies.

Second, the very idea of a coalition seems to have stood the BBC’s idea of “balance” on its head. It’s no longer Government and Opposition, but rather Con versus Lib as the two coalition partners have their say centre stage with Labour having a mere walk-on part after those two have finished. Worse, when Labour does get a word in edgeways, it’s not our current spokesman who appears but one of yesterday’s men, and women, often now washed up in the Lords from the flood that swept Labour away.

DECLINE OF THE LEFT:

Third, our problem is one at the heart of western-style democracies. Socialists and Social Democrats less than a generation ago were in government in the majority of EU member states. Not so today. But what about Denmark, made much of in Liverpool? I’m delighted that the Danish Socialists are in power, but we need to be honest with ourselves. They had their worst result in ninety years and actually lost seats. They are in power because of the success of two small left partners and a radical liberal party who are sustaining them in coalition.

So what’s the message, and where do we go from here? More of the same and mere triangulation won’t work. New Labour with all its faults served us well. But in the end it brought us down. Nor will the electorate buy Labour as “Tory-lite”, a party whose cuts will be just that much smaller and made with genuine sadness rather than hidden joy. People know that times will continue to be tough, but they want a different vision of society from that of Cameron and Clegg.

GLIMMER OF HOPE:

The best glimmer of hope in Liverpool came from Ed Miliband’s speech. It was the first social democratic leader’s speech since 1992. It was not perfectly structured or delivered, but it began the process of putting into place a new framework of thinking for Labour. Ed derided rigged markets, asset strippers and vested interests, promising to become the voice of the hard-working majority, the squeezed middle and the crushed bottom. As he said in his devastating attack on the Tory leader, “only David Cameron could believe that you make ordinary families work harder by making them poorer and you make the rich work harder by making them richer.”

There is a long way to go, but Liverpool set Labour off in the right direction. If we can build on this over the next eighteen months to two years, we can attract back those who left us in 2010, keep those who remained with us and attract back those who had given up on politics in favour of abstention, or been seduced by the siren voices of the mad, bad and sad – UKIP and the BNP – and the regional and political sectarians.

Capitalism has failed us. Particularly the finance capitalism of the big banking corporations that has ruled the global economy in recent decades. There must be another, better, way – a way that we can equate with Socialism.

That, basically, is the message of those who have involved themselves in the “Occupy” movement, which kicked off in September with the camp city erected near Wall Street – America’s financial centre.

It soon spread to other cities in the USA, and then crossed the Atlantic to protest camps set up outside St. Paul’s in the City of London and sites in other cities in Britain, including College Green in Bristol.

The slogan of the protesters is based on the fact that the top financial elite make up (roughly) one per cent of the population. By their manipulation of the money markets, their actions affect the lives of the rest of us – the remaining 99 per cent of the world population.

The message of the movement was reinforced in October, with the news that top directors in the UK had given themselves a pay rise of 49 per cent – at a time when others in the population were suffering cuts in their standards of living and their pensions – or being thrown out of work. The gap between rich and poor in this country has been growing for some time – and it’s been growing particularly since the present government came to power.

MAKING MONEY:

But what do the financiers in the City actually produce? Is it anything useful, like food, houses, railways, or the stuff of engineering or technology? No, it’s money – money made on the backs of those who do produce the goods and services that the rest of us need to carry on our lives.

No doubt a bank or investment trust would claim that they provide the capital that allows those who work on the farms, build the homes, etc., etc., to do their bit in the social structure. Up to a point – but it’s largely other people’s money they’re investing, and at the end of the day its not altruism that guides their actions – it’s profit. And all too often their actions wreak havoc with other people’s lives.

THE TERRIBLE COST:

This drive for profit at all costs can have terrible consequences – as happened with the financial collapse of 2007-08 when toxic investments (largely in the housing markets) spread like a man-made plague throughout the world’s financial system. The banks who’d gambled with our money were bailed out – but the rest of us had to pick up the tab.

We can trace the roots of this financial disaster back at least to Thatcher’s de-regulation of the banking system in the 1980s and ’90s. Or we could go back to the grim thirties for another object lesson. Indeed, there have been many times when the system that gambled with money entrusted to them by other people had played havoc with the economy – and people’s lives. Of course we don’t have to go back to the financial collapse of 1929. There are those who’ll recall the dark days of the early 1990s when shares tumbled and panic in the City nearly brought about another disintegration in the markets.

SYMPATHY:

It’s significant that the “Occupy” movement has gained a level of sympathy amongst many, and the authorities in the USA and Britain seemed at first reluctant to move against them. since 2008, it’s been difficult, even for supporters of capitalism, to defend the bankers and the system that they uphold.

Of course the right-wing press has done its best to belittle the camp communities. But it wasn’t until November that the authorities in America moved in with riot police to evict forcibly the camps that had sprung up in New York and elsewhere in the USA. Over here, the Corporation of the City of London finally decided to take action.

“ROBIN HOOD” TAX:

And whilst the authorities may be successful in dispersing the protesters, they haven’t quelled the ideas of those who set up the camps in the first place. More and more people are backing the idea of a “Robin Hood” Tax (roughly based on the proposal for a “Tobin Tax” put forward by the economist of that name) – for a modest tax on financial transactions which could be used to ward off the impact of any further collapse.

The City as a whole, of course, is against it. After all, why should they be expected pay for their greed? But many, more thoughtful, economists and businessmen have given their backing, and so has the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The camps HAVE made an impact. They have created debate, and wrong-footed even the most ardent supporters of finance capitalism. Whatever happens next (and with winter approaching and a tougher libe being proposed by the authorities it may be that they won’t be able to sustain themselves), the debate that they have provoked will no doubt carry on for some time.

ALISTAIR GRAHAM

It’s been a rough ride for most of us over the past year. For some, of course it’s been rougher than others – and the Government’s claim that “we’re all in this together” has been exposed as a load of spin and nonsense. It certainly hasn’t included the bonus hungry executives in and around the City.

SAVING THE FOREST:

For those of us in the Dean, the year started with the campaign to stop the Forest being privatised. – and the first warnings that the NHS was under threat. In the fight to save the Forest, the campaign was spearheaded by HOOF (Hands Off Our Forest). Over 3,000 turned out for a rally on New Years’ Day at Speech House, despite appalling weather.

The HOOF campaign steadily gained momentum – until abruptly, on February 16th, the Government announced that it was withdrawing its plans. Instead, a panel was to be set up to consider the future of our woodlands. Campaigners celebrated victory – but HOOF warned that we weren’t out of the woods yet. The emasculation of the Forestry Commission and the piecemeal sale of our woodlands could still provide a threat to the forest as we know it.

FIGHTING THE CUTS:

On March 26th, coachloads of demonstrators headed up from the Dean and the Wye Valley to London, to join the TUC sponsored march against the cuts – and to present their alternative. It was the biggest demonstration seen in the capital since the march against the Iraq war in 2003. It was only natural that the public sector unions were in the vanguard of the protest. Their jobs and living standards were directly threatened by Government plans to decimate the public services.

CAMPAIGNING FOR THE NHS:

By the summer of 2011, we were facing the reality of the Government’s threat to the National Health Service Their destructive Health and Social Care Bill was a recipe for the privatisation and fragmentation of our NHS. The door would be opened to Private health care companies, “competition” encouraged – and the concept of collaboration or co-operation between the different providers of health services was left nowhere.

Doctors, nurses, and even the Liberal Democrats in conference voiced their opposition. And those who really cared about our system of health care were outraged. Meanwhile, whilst the Bill was still passing through Parliament, it became clear that changes were taking place in health service provision whether we liked it or not. Too late in the day to protest, it seemed, the public learned that health care throughout the county was being outsourced to a new social enterprise trust, Gloucestershire Care Services (GCS).  GCS was due to take over the running of health care services on October 1st – until a last minute legal challenge from campaigners in Stroud halted it in its tracks.

THE COLLAPSE OF THE MURDOCH EMPIRE:

Meanwhile, like a dam bursting, came the collapse of Murdoch’s media empire in the UK. A flood of allegations of telephone tapping and other dirty tricks reached right to the top of the organisation. Politicians who had long courted the Murdoch press now moved swiftly to distance themselves from it all. David Cameron suddenly decided that his carefully nurtured friendship with the Murdoch family was no longer sustainable.

One casualty was the venerable News of  the World. It was now labelled a “toxic brand”, and abruptly it was closed down.

TAKING TO THE STREETS:

At the beginning of August, rioting spread from the streets of Tottenham to other areas in London and elsewhere. The riots lasted five days, before they burned themselves out. During the troubles, buildings were set aflame and shops looted in an orgy of destruction not seen since the dark days of Thatcher. As one commentator remarked, “one thing you can say about the Tories – they do know how to provoke a riot.”

For the Government, the response was swift and punitive. Harsh penalties were dished out to those who’d been identified as taking part. Families of those who were involved were threatened with the loss of their benefits or even their homes. But nothing was done to try to look at the underlying causes of this outbreak of street violence – let alone do anything about them.

WHAT ABOUT THE ECONOMY?

By the end of summer it had become quite clear that the Government’s economic policies just weren’t working. Savage cuts, aggravated by problems within the Euro zone, had resulted in our economy flat lining. Unemployment was rising (particularly amongst young people) and any signs of economic growth had disappeared.

Within the Euro zone, attempts were being made to prevent collapsing economies such as those of Greece and Italy infecting other European countries. The governments of both Greece and Italy have been replaced by administrations headed by “technocrats” – in other words, non-elected leaders drawn from the world of banking. Democracy, it seems, is one of the first casualties of economic collapse.

As we enter the new year, the storm clouds continue to gather. There is no sign of any “economic recovery”. Unemployment is likely to keep on rising – whilst the Liberal Democrats seem intent on maintaining their support for a government that’s proving to be as right wing as those of Thatcher and Major.

I presume that we’ve all been paying attention to that recent bust-up between Home Secretary Teresa May and her former head of the “border force”, Brodie Clarke.

Personally I’m not really bothered about who did what to whom, and who gave the orders. And I doubt that our security was really jeopardised one jot by it all.

But as a reasonably law abiding Dinosaur, born in primeval Britain with a UK passport tucked away somewhere, I’ve long objected to the hoops we have to go through to leave or re-enter this country. Personally I neither have the predilection or the ability to commit “terrorist acts”. But whoever we are, we all have to put up with the nightmare of what’s known as UK “airport controls” – tediously lengthy check-in times, searches and scans, and invariably hostile looking officials who seem to assume that potentially we’re all up to no good.

Getting back into the UK is almost as bad. It usually involves long shuffling queues that snake around a bleak entry hall the size of an aircraft hanger. And that’s just trying to get back into one’s own country!

Incidentally, for those who come in to Britain by car or coach, have you noticed that Britain’s border controls are now actually just outside Calais? It’s here that you’re expected to rummage for your passports and face the steely-eyed “border force”.

Of course the experience varies. Arriving in Canada, for example, is usually quite welcoming. But my worst encounter to date was on a flight to New Zealand involving a stop for refuelling in Los Angeles, USA. We were all taken off the plane, made to wait in a  corridor for an hour, before being herded into a “transit lounge”: an interior room with no natural light and with armed guards posted around the walls. We had our passports examined and stamped, were subjected to an “iris test”, and made to sit until we were allowed to re-board our Air New Zealand plane.

I wouldn’t imagine that Teresa May, or any member of her Government, has to go through that kind of ordeal. They’re probably given the red carpet treatment.

Come fly with me?

Darting off at a tangent slightly, I’ve recently been to see the film, The Age of Stupid, a production with a powerful green message, looking at how our own stupidity and greed led to global warming, and (in the film) the final destruction of human civilisation.

One of the many points hammered home in the film is the environmental damage caused by the increasing number of aeroplanes in our skies. The implicit message is “don’t fly” – Airlines are bad for us all.

I don’t have any argument against the message. But the only problem is that if we want or need to visit those faraway places across the Atlantic or Pacific, how do we do it without taking to the air? The era of ocean liners is now over, and no genius has yet come up with an environmentally friendly alternative for global travel. So, do we merely stay put in our own land-locked continents, never having any physical contact with those across the seas?

Or could we merely accept the “virtual reality” offered via the computer and the world wide web? Or those travelogues on the telly showing us life in faraway places? Or do we just wait for the oil that powers the aircraft to run out?

For this particular Dinosaur it’s a dilemma. If anyone has the answer, let’s have it!

The Olympic ideal…

Whatever happened to the Olympic ideal? That ideal of friendly sporting competition between the nations has long since been sullied by interests that believe that winning at all costs is what counts. That of course all began at the Berlin games mounted as a showcase for Aryan supremacy back in the 1930s.

Now on top of that, we’re told that the London Olympics will take place in an atmosphere of tight security. Demonstrations will be banned anywhere near the site, homes may be searched at will and any political material confiscated – and there’s even been talk of missiles being alerted in case of “terrorist attacks”.

Is all this worth all the money, the dislocation and the razzmatazz?  Let’s scroll back to the first post-war Olympics held in London. That was a cut-price affair held in a bomb-damaged city. We didn’t win much on that occasion – but didn’t we all enjoy it! And that’s what it should be all about.

{this is a revised edition of the article, which has some significant differences to the edition that went to print – please consider this version definitive}

Most if not all the campaigns and struggles that I have been involved with have failed. But as any seasoned fellow traveller will tell you, that alone is not a reason enough to give up the fight. It only begs that we fight harder.

One way to do this is to learn from our campaigns. Forest of Dean Against the Cuts spearheaded the local SOS Again campaign, seeking to keep local community health services within the NHS. It opposed the formation of Gloucestershire Care Services (GCS) as a non-NHS, non-public sector provider of local health services.

But it was the Forest of Dean & Wye Valley Morning Star group which kicked off local opposition against the savage cuts in public spending with UNISON’s Peter Short taking some of the lead. After a couple ofmonths we connected with a fledgling Forest of Dean group. Both sent coaches to the March 2011 march for Public Services in London, which was still seeing activists arrive at Hyde Park as the speeches came to a close at about 4pm that afternoon.

The Forest side of the Morning Star group joined what had now become Forest of Dean Against the Cuts. But the national movement faltered. For sure, UK-Uncut was doing good work with their bail-in’s against legal tax loop-holers like Vodafone, but it was Pete Stanway of the Forest group who brought to the local agenda the issue of community hospitals and health services that were under direct threat through the creation of GCS.

GCS had all the right acronyms: it was to be a CIC(Community Interest Company) created in the guidelines of the SET (Social Enterprise Trust). But, as we warned, GCS was not a charity, and it was not part of the NHS. And it was not in the public sector even, irrespective of how it classified its surplus, not for profit or otherwise.

FoD Against the Cuts bailed-in into Lydney Tesco to highlight the price of public sector cuts, which would, of course, affect the health budget. Meanwhile Tesco was named amongst the biggest legal tax avoiders. There was an almost weekly rant by the group’s activists in the letters pages of the local press, and gradually the profile of our opposition was steadily raised. We were aware, however, that we couldn’t fight a battle on two fronts. The national NHS reform bill and public sector cuts were an entirely different issue to the formation of GCS. What was happening locally was, instead, a warning of what would happen nationally under the reform bill. Either way, the GCS takeover would happen irrespective of whichever way Parliament would vote on the national issue.

So, the takeover of formerly NHS-run local community health services by GCS became the sole preoccupation of the group, which was guided by the 1st October 2011 go-live of the new company.

We believed that few people knew of this out-sourcing, and ever fewer had had the opportunity to voice their opposition to the most fundamental change to our local community NHS health services.

Out of this anxiety and tight deadline arose our first strategic error. In a rush to oppose the formation of GCS we were sloppy with our wording of the petition. It referred to the ‘privatisation of community services’ with specific reference to Lydney and the Dilke hospitals. In my opinion the word ‘privatised’ is publicly loaded with ‘profit’, and this is exactly as Harper read it, and rejected it. Thus when we presented the 2,000 or so signatures to Mark Harper MP, he discounted the claim out of hand and would not countenance any public debate precisely because of the petitions’ wording.

Granted, a Tory MP is unlikely to rebel against his own government on the national issue (of the NHS reform bill), but on the local issue of GCS we at least had Harper on the fact that he had come out in favour of the SOS campaign first time around, when he was in opposition. What should have been awkward and embarrassing for him was brushed aside because of his rejection of our petitions’ claim. No wonder he was happy to write and explain this personally to all 2,000 who had opposed the take-over.

We argued that the spirit of the petition revealed that there was a real fear among the public, that the overwhelming majority of those asked to sign did so gladly and had heard nothing of GCS and the changes –highlighting the lack of proper consultation. But while this enabled us to dissect his position, it still didn’t change the fact of the petition’s wording which is how he was obliged to accept it. Incidentally, when pushed on why he wouldn’t hold a public meeting and/or debate on the topic he simply declined saying ‘He didn’t have to,’ and ‘Didn’t want to.’

Our meeting with Harper wasn’t helped by a number of us seeking to oppose both the local issue and the national NHS reform bill at the same time. This presented a mish-mash of opposition based on ideology alone, not solid argument. He clearly thought we opposed what was happening by default and took none of our claims seriously. These two separate issues was used by Harper to belittle our concerns for attempting to mix them. Despite assurances that we knew they were separate we failed to present a coherent opposition at that meeting and had no solid demands of our MP. He was good enough to entertain our views for 45 minutes or so, but that was the extent of it. Otherwise we had handed him a useless petition which he would rebuff in his own letters to signatories, and without a voice for our argument.

Bruised but undeterred we sought to organise our own public meeting. We arranged good speakers from both the Royal College of Nursing and UNISON NHS.

But here again, we failed to present an entirely coherent front sending mixed messages over whether or not people should challenge GCS execs at a forthcoming presentation to the Dean Health Forum, for example.

We did, at least, have a letter prepared on the national issue and Diana Gash personally delivered the letters to Harper’s Westminster office on the day of the Bill’s next reading in Parliament. But Harper was undeterred and supported the Bill’s onward progress.

Someone in the audience that night raised what seemed like an odd question at the time, asking why hadn’t we done something before? October by that point was barely weeks away. This seemed obtuse – we are all voluntary activists trying to do what we can with what we have – but, on hindsight, it was a point well made, even if the questioner didn’t realise how pertinent their enquiry actually was.

In fact, the issue only came to light after we had repeatedly been fed by GCS and its allies that the decision to outsource the services was not made by GCS, but by the board of the Gloucestershire Primary Care Trust (PCT) and that we had to direct our questions and opposition to them.

In what I see as the last days of the local campaign, we finally got to the nub of the problem and it all began with New Labour. In reality we had missed the policy created by the former government which gave rise to GCS, and the legislation which sought to split commissioning of services with provision. The stark reality is that we had missed the point at which our opposition should have started.

The original SOS campaign had halted closures of our community hospitals, but in its wake the New Labour government had created the NHS Operating Framework (in2010). This sought to split PCT commissioning so that they couldn’t be providers and commissioners of their services at the same (you will recall the new NHS reform bill seeks to achieve this with GP commissioning and ‘any willing provider’). This has left the door wide open for what many see as creeping privatisation in the NHS.

All of this should have been uncovered at the start of our campaign. We had passion and anger in spades, but I feel we failed to take responsibility for our claims and for the detail. Of course, as a member of the group I too hold that responsibility and had failed.

We missed the boat and should have opposed the original policy and legislation first came into being. Perhaps it was – but I am unaware of any such local attempt to oppose it, and therefore any such attempt failed.

It was all too little too late. We had some victories, though. Ironically, the local Labour Party executive issued a statement against the formation of GCS, pushed by our lobbying of it.

As the countdown to the 1st October transfer finally came a last minute legal challenge seems to have postponed GCS at the last breath. This seeks to oppose the transfer based on irregularities of the tendering process. But in a letter issued to GCS staff on the back of the challenge, the PCT said: “If taken to its logical conclusion the challenge would mean that community services would be competitively tendered with the result that bodies both within and outside the NHS sector could respond.“

Well, YES, that was kind of OUR point, which is why we were worried. We don’t want private companies wading in. But you can be sure the PCT will hide behind the policy instruments. Even if we won that contest, we’d actually be bringing forward our worst fears. It is a risky strategy.

Perhaps a groundswell will enable us to oppose the national policy now – now that we can see the consequences of it. But I rather doubt we will get the Tories to reverse it when their national NHS reform bill seeks to put the GCS project example into legislation at best, ‘any willing provider’ at worst.

The lesson learned is that we came to the argument too late. For sure, we asked GCS some embarrassing questions in public meetings and got about 100 people to our own meeting at the Miner’s Welfare Hall. But the question really was spot on when it was asked ‘Why haven’t we done anything before?’

This is more philosophical than it first appears.

How is it possible for activists let alone concerned citizens to be aware of all policies, legislation and boardroom decisions and their ramifications all of the time? Whose duty is it to impart this information? How accessible is this information, both physically and intellectually? How can we hold governments and local public bodies to account, particularly when policies go across the floor from Parliament to Parliament even with a change of government?

Perhaps it is this powerlessness which is truly the best example of what it really means to be living in a ‘Broken Britain’.

Perhaps it is from this powerlessness that the ‘occupy’ movement is drawn. The anti-war march of 2003 proved that marching alone probably isn’t enough anymore.

This is a personal view and does NOT represent the views of Forest of Dean Against the Cuts, The Clarion or the SOS Again campaign. On the national NHS reform Bill, please ensure you write to as many Lords as you can to ensure they don’t allow the Bill to proceed.

This is a timely book. In the light of recent revelations it’s fitting that we should know something about how Rupert Murdoch built his media empire in Britain, culminating in the bitter dispute at his Wapping plant.

In January 1986, some 5,500 workers at the Sun, News of the World, the Times and Sunday Times were sacked. The bitter dispute that followed lasted over a year.

Those who were sacked were all members of the Society of Graphical and Allied Trades (SOGAT). Not all of them were printers – those who were fired on Murdoch’s orders included secretaries, librarians, copy typists and messengers. Indeed, the two authors of this book had been librarians at the Times and Sunday Times. They went on to become active participants in the strike. And they have been able to give us a blow by blow account of the long drawn-out dispute, and how it finally ended in bitter defeat for those who had been effectively locked out.

It was to leave deep scars – and there were many of us who supported the sacked workers, either actively or at least in spirit, who vowed never again to buy a Murdoch newspaper.

MURDOCH MOVES IN:

Rupert Murdoch inherited his first newspaper from his father, back in Australia. He swiftly built on this, launching the country’s first national newspaper and acquiring a television station. But he had ambitions elsewhere – and in 1968 he managed to acquire a stake in the News of the World, then owned by the Carr family. Within a few weeks, by a process of chicanery, he had become a majority shareholder and chairman of the board.

By November 1969 he had added the Sun to his growing tally of trophies. The Sun was the successor to the Daily Herald, which had been bought by the Mirror group in 1961 and re-branded with a new title in 1964. His acquisition of The Times and Sunday Times followed in 1981.

MOVING TO WAPPING:

Supporters of Murdoch and his tactics (who included Margaret Thatcher) claim that events at Wapping were necessary, to force a new technology on to a stubborn, recalcitrant trade union opposition who were no better than Luddites. This book, however, tells a very different story.

True, Murdoch wanted to instal new printing techniques that could be operated by a de-skilled workforce. Other newspapers were already in negotiation with the unions over the introduction of the new technology. But Murdoch’s main aim was to smash the unions, break union agreements and carry out mass redundancies. What better way to do it than by provoking a strike?

At first SOGAT (the major union involved) was prepared to negotiate, even though Murdoch had presented a list of demands that must have stuck in the throat of trade unions. These included the withdrawal of recognition of the unions and the introduction of complete flexibility of working. And the company would have exclusive rights to manage as it saw fit.

Meanwhile, a scab labour force (recruited by the Electricians’ Union) was being secretly trained to take over the print workers’ jobs.

On January 21, 1986, a ballot of SOGAT members gave overwhelming support to a call for strike action. All those involved were promptly sacked by Murdoch. The strike was on, and it was to last for over a year.

Of course, Murdoch had his allies. He was supported by Thatcher, and was now able to make use of the now-politicised Metropolitan Police. And the role played by the Electricians union, led by Eric Hammond, was roundly condemned within the trade union movement.

POWER OF THE STATE:

In an introduction to the book, Tony Benn writes: “The Thatcher Government took up the case for Murdoch and huge demonstrations were held at Wapping in which the full power of the state was mobilised against the printers with the Metropolitan Police being called in to destroy these demonstrations.”

Coming so soon after the bitter miners’ strike, it was a chilling reminder of how far the Thatcherites were prepared to go, to destroy union militancy. A review of this sort, of course, can’t really do justice to the detailed account (including eye-witness accounts) given in this book – I recommend that those who who want to be reminded of what went on in Wapping – and why – should read it for themselves. And draw their own conclusions.

We usually associate vast areas of tents with short-term solutions to natural disasters. But in the USA, where more than five million homes have been repossessed in the last five years, tent cities have sprung up around conurbations which house millions of homeless people.

An article in a recent issue of Red Pepper magazine by Stuart Hodkinson argues that in Britain “all the elements of a perfect storm are gathering in the wider housing system”. In the five years to 2009 repossessions in the UK had increased eight-fold, to 48,000. For many people, repossession of their home means a worsening credit rating, so that getting back on to the housing ladder is difficult. The Government’s homeowner support scheme (giving support for up to two years to those facing a loss of income) was closed down in April.

SLUMP IN NEW HOMES: Since 2006 house building completions have slumped to their lowest level in 90 years. Although house prices have fallen by 25 per cent in the last three years, for most first-time buyers on an average income, owning their own home remains an impossible

dream. The days of 100 per cent mortgages are well and truly over. The average house price (currently £226,648) would need a £60,000 deposit and a salary of £56,000 plus.

What about renting? The local authority waiting lists have doubled since 1997 to around five million. And increased demand for private rented accomodation has caused rents to rise considerably.

Stuart Hodkinson’s article gives a historical perspective to the current situation. Engels, 140 years ago, wrote that sub-standard housing for many with, periodically, a wider crisis is endemic to capitalism. Council house provision gained ground from the beginning of the last century. A mixed economy of public and private home-building (with priority given to council housing in the years immediately after the war) helped to mitigate the boom-bust cycles since the early 1970s . But the reluctant withdrawal of local authorities from house building has increased the instability of the housing market.

BURSTING THE BUBBLE: Thatcher’s policy of “popular capitalism” encouraged us all to aspire to home ownership. The combination of extravagant lending, speculation and most significantly the financial commodification of housing drove the market higher and higher. All this was sustainable only so long as house prises continued to rise. But finally the bubble has burst.

New Labour followed the privatisation agenda. At present, under Ed Miliband, the Labour Party is conducting a “housing policy review”, but this will most likely continue to promote home ownership and a market-dominated approach to the provision of affordable housing.

There is an urgent need for resistance to the coalition’s current housing policy. A number of pressure groups such as “Defend Council Housing” and “London Coalition Against Poverty” have been set up, but mobilising mass resistance is very difficult. An additional source of affordable housing might be co-operative housing schemes, particularly the establishment of community land trusts (CLTs). The CLT would own the freehold, and thus stop speculative and inflationary forces driving up property prices and rents. It’s doubtful though whether CLTs can make more than a marginal difference to the current situation.

RADICAL RE-THINK: Stuart Hodkinson calls for a radical re-think in our housing policy, including a moratorium on all repossessions, compulsory purchases and benefit cuts, stronger rent controls and the refurbishment of existing council house stock. Homeowners could be encouraged to sell their homes to a new housing co-op, swapping their mortgages for rents that build up an equity stake within the housing co-op.

Two core attributes might assure the success of such a movement, he suggests. Firstly, the movement would bring together public and private tenants, homeowners and the homeless, around a shared agenda – the provision of decent quality affordable housing for all. And people would gain a degree of security against eviction and repossession.

Significantly, Hodkinson sees these proposals as a step towards ending capitalism completely in our country. Some may think that a claim too far. It also seems to side-step the urgent (and perhaps immediate) need for a new generation of local authority homes providing security of tenure for tenants.

But events in the worlds of housing, finance and employment over recent years indicate the need for effective controls over the capitalist forces that dominate our lives.