Support Alan’s Dryathlon for Cancer Research
As it’s the Season of Goodwill and the Alan Thomas in question (under his nom de guerre ‘Voltair’s Priest’) founded Shiraz Socialist, we are happy to republish the following appeal:
From The Gerasites:–
Dear Eustonites, Gerasites, Red Tories, associated scum and villainy,
As you know, Norman Geras died of cancer on October 18 2013, and as such we feel strongly about doing our part to provide support to those looking to improve treatment and find a cure.
It has come to our attention that a Corbynite by the name of Alan Thomas is raising money for Cancer Research UK. Unfortunately, it turns out that he’s not having much luck raising funds from his comrades. Well, this is an important cause and we’d like to help.
So, in the spirit of Christmas, let’s band together and raise some money in honour of Norman Geras, and the work that has inspired us all. Sure, it might annoy Alan a little, but what a small price to pay to help to cure cancer?
Remember to sign your names as A Eustonite/A Gerasite/A Zionist, so he can be sure to know where the money is coming from. Give generously.
Let’s bring a smile to his face. Bottoms up, Alan.
A Eustonite.
JD adds: be sure to sign yourself as A Shachtmanite/ A Matgamnaite / A Shirazer, or whatever … just so the Eustonite scum don’t get the credit.
Where to get news from Turkey
‘Voltaire’s Priest’, who founded Shiraz Socialist back in 2006, is exceptionally well informed about Turkish politics and has a number of Turkish contacts. Sadly, he’s no longer involved with the blog, but we’re still friends. I contacted him yesterday for advice about sources of information on the fast-developing crisis in Turkey, and Erdogan’s brutal clampdown on protesters…
Above: riot police in Taksim Square yesterday
…he recommended the mainstream liberal- secular Hurriyet Daily News (English language version here), and a fascinating blog called Istanbul and Beyond:
Here’s a flavour:
I must be careful of words—the old cliches don’t work anymore. Freedom, democracy, liberty, tolerance—the wrong people have used them for the wrong things for so many years. Sometimes with good intentions, sometimes with bad. My ears hurt to hear them.
A break from the blogging
There’s one more thing. I’ve decided, due both to my own lack of output and also lack of time to properly deal with its administration at present, to take a break from this blog. I’m handing over ownership of it to the other authors, and will also no longer be the administrator for the site.
I’ll still be around in the comments box etc, but will not have a role in determining or writing the content of the site.
See you all around!
Comments about editorial policy
A brief word, folks.
This blog has historically had a liberal stance when it comes to editing and publishing posts. There is no full-time editor, and overall control of what is published rests with no-one. We try to do the right thing, balancing posts from people of divergent political views on topics which are often controversial.
Similarly, with regard to comments policy, we try to be as liberal as we can. allowing even highly critical views the maximum possible airing (hi, Red Maria!).
However, we are also receptive to polite requests to reconsider what is written, and to general comments about the tone and tenor of the blog. These can be addressed in the comments boxes and also to the email address at the top of our main page. All such comments and requests will get a fair hearing.
That is all.
Coventry Launch of Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition
Last Sunday, I attended the Coventry launch meeting of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC). This is an electoral initiative set up between the RMT union and some of the various left groups which formed the backbone of the Socialist Alliance in the early 2000s, along with elements of the Communist Party of Britain.
The meeting was relatively large for a party political gathering in a city the size of Coventry. There were about 70 people in attendance, mainly though not exclusively members of the Socialist Party. The original plan had been for the meeting to be addressed by both RMT leader Bob Crow and Coventry Socialist Party councillor Dave Nellist, however Crow was tied up with what (prior to subsequent court action by Network Rail) looked like a prospective national strike by his members. Therefore Nellist addressed the meeting alone.
As someone who knows the SP in Coventry fairly well, I found the meeting quite interesting. However it was clearly geared towards the SP itself. Nellist made it very clear that, whilst he would find the votes of the SP’s candidates across the city “interesting”, their overriding priority was to re-elect his comrade Rob Windsor, who is facing a challenge from Labour in the SP’s traditional stronghold of St Michael’s ward.
It isn’t that I can’t see Nellist’s point here. The SP currently has two councillors in the city of Coventry, down from a previous total of three in the same ward. The third councillor in St Michaels is Brownite Jim O’Boyle, a former TGWU steward without any ties to the union’s left of which I am aware. If the SP were to lose Windsor, then they would not be able to form a “group” on the city council, leaving Nellist a rather ineffectual representative in terms of several procedural mechanisms which he would no longer be able to use.
However, let’s not forget that this was the launch meeting in the West Midlands of a challenge to New Labour.. It speaks to a certain lack of political confidence on the SP’s part that Nellist would even raise their worries about the possible (if unlikely) loss of a single council seat, in such a setting.
The substance of the meeting, though, was spent on major national political questions. It was good, standard fayre, laying into New Labour’s support of the banks, supporting the repeal of the anti-trade union laws, and other such issues. There were also issues specific to Coventry mentioned – in particular the enormously costly PFI hospital at Walsgrave, which has set taxpayers back a vast amount of money whilst providing not-noticeably-better medical care. All of this went down well with the assembled audience.
It has to be said that TUSC (cringe-inducing name aside) is a worthy political initiative. It doesn’t have a candidate in my own constituency, otherwise I would probably vote for it. But for me it does have the ring of “more of the same” about it. What’s so different about TUSC that means it will endure and grow beyond the next election? I’ve seen very little to convince me that it has any more likelihood of an enduring political presence than did the Socialist Alliance or the SP/CPB’s wrong-headed “No2EU” slate at last year’s Euro-elections. Indeed, its existence or otherwise seems to me incidental even to the SP’s work in Coventry – they’d be doing exactly the same thing whether TUSC had come about or not.
That having been said, there isn’t a lot else on offer. At this election, there are only various protest votes to the left of the three main parties, other than in rare cases such as Brighton Pavillion where the Greens’ Caroline Lucas has a chance of an upset. In terms of critical Labour votes, the Socialist Campaign to stop the Tories and Fascists sounds to me like nothing more than a warmed-over version of the 1979 Socialist Campaign for a Labour Victory. It’s a nostalgia exercise backed by good people who just don’t want to understand that today’s Labour Party is no longer worthy of the name.
Unfortunately that’s the way this election looks – like a deeply unappetising choice between three rotten main courses, or plates of leftovers from a tasty meal cooked some time ago.
Okayokayokay… Defend David T
Thought I’d add my two-penneth following on from Rosie’s excellent post. Long-term readers of this blog will know that I’m not politically a fan of Harry’s Place. I find much of the coverage boorish and anti-left, and frankly I find many of their posters’ and commenters’ obsession with organised Islamist groups in the UK to be disturbing. That having been said, they do sometimes carry material that is of interest, and do have some posters whose material can be both valuable and informative. However, in general I am a long, long way from that site’s political wavelength.
My opinions of that site cease to matter, though, when it comes to the legal demand that HP supremo David T has received from George Galloway and Kevin Ovenden. Although I obviously have not had sight of it, apparently it demands financial settlement to the tune of £50,000. Presumably if that demand is not me then a libel action will follow. This furore has arisen because of a comment made by David T… on Respect member Andy Newman’s blog, Socialist Unity.
This raises a number of issues for me.
Firstly, if Galloway and Ovenden feel so slighted, then why not simply have Newman delete the comment?
Secondly, given that it is Newman’s site, and last I heard the comment was still up, why are they not threatening Newman with similar action if he does not remove the comment?
Thirdly, what’s the real motive here? It’s risible to think that David T’s comment would have caused material damage to either Galloway’s or Ovenden’s reputation. Not only do relatively few people read hard-left blogs such as Socialist Unity (or this one), the percentage of those who do, that would look at a comment like David T’s and have their views swung by it, is surely microscopic.
It has been said by people from many different political backgrounds in recent months that the growing culture of libel litigation in this country is a danger to people’s right to express a controversial opinion – unless, of course, they have a large bank balance. It is also pathetic in the extreme for people on the “left” to make use of laws like the UK’s current libel legislation, which enshrine nothing more or less than the right of the privileged and the obsessed to shut up those who speak out against them.
So yes, defend David T, whether you like him and his site or not.
Lenny vs Laurie
On a more substantive note, and possibly one of wider interest, two posts over at Liberal Conspiracy debate out the role of organised Marxist groups and the wider left. Firstly, regular LC contributor Laurie Penny puts a case for the prosecution, in particular criticising the fractious and sectarian ways of working which exist in many of the left groups. She takes the SWP as an example:
The SWP has been at the forefront of every attempt to scupper cohesion on the left over the past decade, gaining themselves a reputation for petty squabbling that, for many, overshadows their valuable work in opposing the Iraq war and propelling the anti-capitalist mobilisations of the start of the decade.
Lenny of the Tomb takes the opportunity to offer a defence on the same site, and I’d have to say it’s one of his better efforts. I do, however, think he has slightly missed Laurie’s point – I read her post as a call for pluralism in politics and unity in action on the left, and not as a simple attack on the SWP.
It’s worth reading Seymour’s whole post, but a crucial paragraph is this:
This isn’t a boast. We are a small party, and our ability to influence events in any given campaign is limited. But we are, it must be conceded, disproportionately active in such campaigns, relative to our size. And for such a small party, and one that is highly unattractive in Penny’s view, we do find a fair number of our activists ending up with leading roles because of their proven abilities and commitment.
It will undoubtedly grate with many who have had bad experiences with the SWP in the past, that Seymour details the SWP’s role in various wider campaigns in this way. However, substitute “SWP” with “left groups in general” throughout his post. It’s a fact that without the organised left’s ability to devote time and resources to building campaigns, those campaigns would either collapse or else exist on a much smaller scale. This statement could equally as easily apply to the SWP, Socialist Party, AWL, CPGB and others in various contexts, whether that be the ANL, HOPI, Defend Council Housing, or many, many other campaigns which have existed on a national or local level. For that ability to profile and build movements, surely, we should at least be a little glad of the groups’ existence.
I am not a member of any organised left group, but I’m nevertheless glad that they exist and I hope that they continue to remain a feature of the UK’s political landscape in the future. I also favour debate, discussion and disagreement within and between campaigns and organisations, even as the main thrust of a campaign or movement is driven home in unity. In that sense, I suspect, I agree with both Seymour and Penny even as they disagree with each other.
60 Members resign from SWP, sign open letter
Well, well, well!
Yes, they’re all probably part of the politically virtually-indistinguishable “Left Faction”. Yes, this is a bit of sectarian gossip. But hey, it’s interesting to those of us who are connoisseurs of these matters, right?
Alex Snowdon of Luna17 publishes the letter and signatories. He’s understandably closed the comments on that thread. They’re open here.
(H/T – Red Maria)
Shiraz Socialist 
