Women Workers - Fellowship Is Life

The famous poster of the National
Federation of Women Workers

In recent weeks, there has - quite rightly - been much celebration of the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage, and the fact that it wasn't granted by the Establishment, but was earned only after hard-fought and at times costly and painful battle. On International Women's Day, we should remember another struggle that women faced 100 years ago.

It wasn't only in the world of politics that women faced resistance: organised labour in the UK often did not welcome women workers. Some trade unions resisted accepting women members entirely, while others left the decision up to local branches. The historic London matchgirls strike of 1888 had been pivotal in improving dangerous working conditions in that industry but had not led to any general acceptance of women as union members.

The all-women National Federation of Women Workers was formed in 1906 and was led by the inspirational Scottish suffragist and trade unionist, Mary Macarthur. She recognised the relationship between the low wages that women received and their lack of collective organisation. While the union was set up to address that problem, it was never intended to be permanently separate from the mainstream, male-dominated union movement of the time. 

The NFWW represented its members like any other union, but its long-term aim was to break down gender barriers where they existed in the labour movement. Accordingly, they willingly passed over their own members to any union or branch that decided to open its ranks to women members, and in 1921 it merged with the National Union of General Workers (now the GMB). 

The struggle for the right of women workers to be organised in trade unions was as important as the battle for the vote, although it has scarcely been mentioned in any the recent celebrations. For Mary Macarthur, suffrage and union organisation were not separate issues. This is a struggle that deserves to be more than a footnote in our history.

The quotation on the poster is from William Morris:

"Forsooth, brethren, fellowship is heaven and lack of fellowship is hell; 

fellowship is life and lack of fellowship is death; 

and the deeds that ye do upon the earth, it is for fellowship's sake that ye do them."

Blairism lurks behind Jeremy

Someone's not looking very happy

Some Labour supporters have charged advocates of democratisation of the Labour Party, including mandatory reselection, as being ‘obsessed’ with holding MPs to account. We socialists argue that it’s not an ‘obsession’ but is a fundamental prerequisite of building a Party capable of securing the election of and sustaining a Corbyn-led Labour government.

The fundamental contradictions facing the Labour Party are:

• It is led by Jeremy Corbyn with the support of the overwhelming majority of the 600,000 members making a break with the policies of austerity advocated by the Blairites. 
• The Party machine and the Parliamentary Labour Party is still controlled by a right wing which colonised the Party, particularly during the Blair and Mandelson years, who adhered to free market capitalism, the maintenance of austerity and shackling the trade unions. 

It would be an error to imagine that, because of JC’s popularity, they have changed their outlook. The present rules and constitution make it very difficult for the mass party membership to exercise control and accountability over their elected representatives. The solution is for the party rule book to return the power to the membership by democratising its structures.

To bring this about rules changes should include:

1. A procedure of mandatory reselection of elected representatives before each election to allow the members to judge the performance of MPs and Councillors and to decide whether to readopt or select an alternative. 
2. The formulation of policy to be determined by the Party membership via the vehicle of a City or District Labour representing all Labour movement organisations which would be binding on elected councillors and MPs. As it was under the rule book of 1985 which was ripped up by the Neil Kinnock-led administration. A key clause was: the DLP will ‘…..formulate an electoral programme and to compile a panel of candidates.’ This rule involved all sections of the Labour Movement in the decision-making process, a concept now alien to the right wing who are determined to hang on to control from the top. 

These proposals will open the discussion on how to forge a Labour Party capable of not only securing the election of a Corbyn-led government but to sustain it in the face of a ferocious campaign of opposition from the capitalists and their media.

Tony Mulhearn
Merseyside ARMS

Hitler: Nazi or Alt-Right?

Heather Heyer, murdered in Charlottesville

I recently looked up the term 'Alt-Right' as I wasn't certain what it meant. Obviously I realised it had something to do with Far Right politics, but what did it mean specifically? It turns out it is short for Alternative Right, which, according to Wikipedia, is 'a loosely defined group of people with far-right ideologies who reject mainstream conservatism in favor [sic] of white nationalism, principally in the United States, but also to a lesser degree in Canada and Europe'. The term is attributed to Richard Spencer, an American white supremacist who is president of the National Policy Institute, a white nationalist think tank.

The recent events in Charlottesville in Virginia, where Heather Heyer was killed and nineteen others injured by a murderous 20-year old bigot deliberately driving a car into a crowd of people, show us that the street thugs are not so mealy-mouthed about describing themselves. Swastikas, Hitler T-shirts and placards, KKK outfits, Confederate flags, flaming torches, Nazi salutes and chanted Nazi slogans could leave no one in any doubt about their political role models.

In the face of such overt demonstrations of their allegiances, why does the media use the term Alt-Right? This is a euphemism coined by those who seek to intellectualise Far Right hatred with the aim of bestowing upon it some utterly fraudulent respectability. The pseudo-science of racial biology has long been abandoned, not for politically correct reasons, but because there was simply no scientific evidence to support it.

Similarly, Far Right injunctions against homosexuality have no rational basis and are justified with reference to the Old Testament. This is despite the instruction in the New Testament to "Love your enemy", but bigots who base their prejudice upon religion tend to ignore inconvenient Biblical directives. Whatever other qualities the Old Testament may have for believers, it cannot be viewed as a scientific treatise.

It is clear that attempts to justify Far Right politics will fail any genuine rational examination, but that is irrelevant to those who are determined to believe what they want to believe, especially when it reinforces their pre-existing prejudices.

By using the term Alt-Right, the media is inadvertently granting the Far Right precisely the element of respectability that the promoters of the phrase wanted to achieve. It is a euphemism that obscures the reality of a world view based on hatred. Except that their actions and attitudes are so vile, one could almost feel pity for anyone who has become enveloped by such a loathsome mindset, but we must never forget they have a choice: there was no predestination that made being a bigot inevitable. As Charlottesville has shown us, some people, faced with the same environment, have come to different conclusions.

Let's call them what they are: Nazis, fascists, racists, anti-Semites, Islamophobes, homophobes, white supremacists, misogynists and thugs. It's not as though we're short of accurate terms.

Neville Grundy
ARMS Mersey

AI: servant or master?

What technological future awaits us?

Silicon Valley - the road to Armageddon or Utopia? The future is violent revolt or harmonious use of AI [artificial intelligence] depending on who you speak to as revealed by the BBC’s 'Silicon Valley'. AI can be used to diagnose disease from a CT scan in a fraction of a second. Uber can drive impoverished taxi drivers to suicide. Airbnb claim to help people earn money while they travel abroad, with catastrophic effects on working class rents in Barcelona. The Industrial Revolution was nothing compared to what is coming, says one tech genius whose software could replace doctors. 

One idealistic nerd predicts a life of leisure for the masses who will be paid a decent income for not working while new technology will create the necessary wealth to fund it. The key question is the ownership of these wonders. It is certain that Dystopia await us if they remain in private hands. Ultimately on the basis of capitalism the rule of the market will apply to AI: deliver the highest rewards to shareholders, and if that means dispensing with millions of workers’ labour then so be it. This programme provided further evidence that Socialism cannot be postponed much longer.

Tony Mulhearn

ARMS

Women's pensions stolen to fund spivs' tax cuts

PM Theresa May and Liverpool Mayor Joe Anderson,
facing the rigours of austerity with brave smiles.

Two significant stories are linked. 

The Tories have filched £4.2bn from state pensions and other benefits. The household incomes for women aged 60 to 62 has fallen by at least £32 per week on average. This thieves' kitchen masquerading as the government use this loot to fund the tax cuts to the hedge fund managers and assorted financial spivs who bankroll the Tory Party. They make the mafia look like a boy scout troop.

Len McCluskey’s call for Labour councils to set legal no cuts budgets and end austerity should be acted on immediately. Let’s hear no more excuses from TU leaders who have argued that councillors have 'no choice' but to slash millions from social provision. Action is called for now.

Tony Mulhearn
ARMS Mersey

Unaffordable justice is no justice at all

No one should underestimate the significance of this week's Employment Tribunal (ET) fees victory in the Supreme Court. The highest court in the land has taken a nasty piece of anti-worker legislation and completely ripped it to shreds. The Government has no way of wriggling off this particular hook, so they are trying to sound magnanimous in defeat, when in reality they have no choice. The scheme has been stopped with immediate effect and fees paid to date are to be refunded at an estimated cost of £27 million.

After the introduction of the fees, ET cases dropped by nearly 70% and, regrettably, many working people couldn't afford to uphold their rights at work. It is extremely unlikely that there will be any remedy for such people whose grievances remain unresolved.

The ostensible aim of the fees regime was to deter frivolous or vexatious claims. While I'm sure there have always been such claims, the experiences of reps who have dealt with ETs is that most were genuine. Any trade union rep who has dealt with personal cases will on occasions have been in the position of having to tell a disgruntled union member that, whether we like it or not, the employer is entitled to take the action in question. Everyone knows that employers have the right to discipline or dismiss staff for inefficiency or misconduct, and sometimes the role of a rep can be little more than ensuring that the employer follows correct procedures. When they do, then there is usually no point in going to an ET, which is intended to deal with discrimination and unfair dismissal.

And this is the key point: if an employer goes by the book, there is little a rep can do other than argue for mitigation as part of a damage limitation exercise. It does no one any good to take a hopeless case to an ET: it merely raises false hopes in the member, and wastes both the rep's and the tribunal's time. Charlie Mullins, an employer with 300 staff, complained on Radio 4 that the Supreme Court decision will open the floodgates. However, he has been in business for 31 years and has in all that time had one ET taken out against him: with tribunal fees only payable for 4 years, one claim in the other 27 is more of a trickle than a flood. Mullins is a Tory donor, so perhaps he feels he's not getting his money's worth.

The Government must have known how uncommon vexatious claims are - they are one of the biggest employers in the land, after all - so why did they introduce these fees? I can see no other reason than to remove a 'burden on business' by putting a price on employees' rights, but without any corresponding measures to deal with unreasonable or malicious actions by employers. While employment rights hadn't in themselves been abolished, ET fees discouraged workers from exercising them. It is a measure of how out of touch successive governments are that they do not understand that sums like £1200 are simply not available to many people - for many MPs that's considerably less than they may spend on a night out. Or, alternatively, they simply didn't care.

There will always be people who will abuse whatever system is in place, whether it be tax, social security benefits or MPs' expenses. Imposing penalties on the innocent majority ostensibly to deter the minority is unjust and - when applied to ETs - now unlawful. No one should ever have to pay crippling fees just to access basic justice.

Justice is not the prerogative solely of the rich and the powerful: it belongs to everyone.

Neville Grundy

ARMS Merseyside

Afterthought: ET fees were introduced by the Coalition. What now of the LibDems' claim that their presence in Government moderated the worst Tory excesses?

Blairites: "Do as we say, not as we do!"

Full marks to Jeremy for personally backing a rule change that will allow new Labour Party members to participate in selection meetings. Previously only those who joined before summer of 2015 were allowed a vote.

The Whingeing Tendency are in full cry. The democratic decision of the Wavertree members to elect an EC of their choice has been greeted with horror by the Blairites. Yvette Cooper has described the eminently reasonable suggestion for Luciana Berger to 'get on board' as intimidation.

These sensitive souls seem to forget their diatribe of hate, and sabotage against JC and calls for many of his supporters to be expelled. Caroline Flint, apparently suffering from amnesia, called for talk of reselection to be abandoned as being a distraction when Labour should be concentrating on fighting the Tories who are 'in disarray'. Even right wing BBC hack Andrew Neil reminded her that the Blairites had done exactly that after Cameron and Co resigned. Instead of attacking the Tories they turned their fire on the democratically elected leader.

The fantastic reception for JC at Durham and the clear hostility to the Blairites indicated massive support for empowering the members to select the candidates of their choice.

Tony Mulhearn

ARMS

Grenfell Tower - lessons from 1980s Liverpool

Flats in Croxteth, Liverpool,
being demolished

Amid the righteous grief, anger and calls for criminal investigation, Guardian writer Simon Jenkins, not usually a friend of Militant Liverpool, in a searing piece attacking the architects of the disaster, made this significant observation: 'Besides, people are entitled to the city they want. When in the 1980's Liverpool's Militant movement asked Everton's inhabitants what should be done with their towers, the reply was pull them down and give us back the streets. It was done.'

Proof, if any further was needed, that a council that listens to communities and meets their aspirations usually clashes with vested interests who are interested only in the bottom line and how much profit they can deliver to their big shareholders. Hence the outpouring of abuse against that socialist council by the political representatives of corporate Britain.

The public enquiry proposed by Teresa May should be treated with utmost scepticism unless it includes tenants, trade unions and anti-cuts campaigners with the power to interview all those whose decisions determined safety factors, including any sub-contractors who, to escape their responsibilities, no longer trade. Anything less is unacceptable.

Tony Mulhearn
ARMS

P.S. This was sent to me for the blog on 16 June, but owing to illness, I failed to publish it at the time. The argument remains valid. Apologies, Neville Grundy.

MPA endorses pro-NHS candidate

MPA also deplores political divisions arising from thwarted Westminster ambitions

The MPA (Merseyside Pensioners Association) has agreed to adopt Margaret Greenwood as meriting maximum support in her campaign to be re-elected as the MP for Wirral West. We recognise her staunch stance to keep the NHS wholly publicly owned and her unequivocal support for Jeremy Corbyn.

We also deplore the intemperate language of Mayor Anderson in attacking Dan Cardin as PPC for Walton. Mr Cardin was selected in accordance with Labour Party procedure which, prior to the result, was not questioned by the Mayor.

To declare that Unite General Secretary is a bully and declaring he will not work with the candidate for whom he claims to have 'nothing but contempt' is not appropriate language from someone who occupies the lofty position of Liverpool's Mayor. His declaration that he wanted to be an MP to carry the fight to the Tories in Westminster is hardly consistent with granting the freedom of the city to Tory grandee Michael Heseltine who enthusiastically supports continuing austerity and anti-trade union laws. This is in addition to carrying out the most draconian cuts in Liverpool’s history without organising any serious opposition.

The MPA hopes that Mr Anderson’s stance will reinvigorate the anti-austerity movement which is campaigning for a Corbyn victory while the mayor agonises over a thwarted Parliamentary ambition.

Corbyn's Fighting Stance

This is the spirit that will defeat the Tories, the political wing of the hedge fund managers:

"Don’t wake on up on 9 June to see celebrations from the tax cheats, the press barons, the greedy bankers, Philip Green, the Southern Rail directors and crooked financiers that take our wealth, who have got away with it because the party they own, the Conservative party, has won." Jeremy Corbyn - when launching his manifesto. 

Right-wing Labour MPs who continue to snipe at Corbyn should be given notice: support JC’s fighting stance or get out now.

Tony Mulhearn

ARMS

Blair: the dangerous con artist

Blair's biographer Tom Bower starts from the assumption that 'Blair was nothing more than a gameshow con artist.' But Blair doesn't play it for laughs; he loves dictators, anti-trade union laws, starting wars, and then picking up a fortune from the consequences of the chaos he creates. 

The ruling class keep this bloke on the back-burner to be wheeled out from time to time and given mass coverage to undermine Jeremy Corbyn. 70% of the public believe he should be on trial for war crimes. Incredibly this Labour traitor is still a member of the Labour Party. Why aren't the 170 back stabbers and Tom Watson demanding his expulsion?

We need a government to help us realise our potential

Rebecca Long-Bailey MP

Rebecca Long-Bailey, Labour MP for Salford and Eccles and Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy impressed Greater Manchester ARMS members at their meeting last month.

At our meeting, Rebecca Long-Bailey spoke about decent pensions, social care, WASPI issues, PIP, benefit sanctions and expectations on staff regarding sanctions, the importance of trade unions and retired members campaigning. Here is her response to the announcement of the general election, which covers much of the same ground.

The media has been busy destroying Jeremy Corbyn's reputation. Time to ignore them and vote for the best policies for the NHS, the homeless, to get rid of food banks, to get rid of cuts in education, cuts in care, cuts in public sector pay, closure of job centres, cuts in benefits, ever increasing pension age etc. In my view that can only be a Jeremy Corbyn led government.

Jacquie Hadfield

ARMS

Useless politics?

Tony Mulhearn of ARMS responds to a letter in the Liverpool Echo dismissive of Labour's record in Liverpool in the 1980s.

It was noticeable that your correspondent made no effort to challenge the argument that parents are getting ripped off by the travel companies, also that he/she decides to remain anonymous (Useless Politics 17/4/2017). As for public ownership of ice cream vans, that’s a ridiculous notion. Who suggested that?

Before dismissing the politics of the 80s as being prehistoric, he/she should check out what was achieved in the 80s in the fields of housing, jobs, services, nursery schools, apprenticeships, not to mention the millions won back from the government. Somewhat different from his idol Mayor Joe who, it is claimed, has done more than us for the city he loves. Does that include slashing £349m from the city’s provision for the neediest whilst facilitating the needs of Peel Holdings and Everton Football Club when they are big and ugly enough to fend for themselves?

As for my writing a positive letter about the city, I’ve written plenty of those. But I’m not blind to what life is like for thousands as revealed in the excellent piece by Liam Thorpe (Echo 17/4/17) in which he highlights the atrocious living conditions of people living in Kensington, two miles from our wonderful waterfront. It is the job of our elected leaders to fight government cuts and campaign for the resources to remedy the blight revealed by Liam.

When thieves fall out

I'm curious about the cause of the blood-letting between Liverpool Labour councillors and Metro Mayor candidate Steve Rotheram as they both embrace the insane strategy of carrying through Tory cuts as the best way of defending the city. Why then are Labour Councillors refusing to distribute election literature for Labour's Metro Mayor candidate?

It appears that Rotheram's reference to the damage wreaked on Liverpool by Thatcher has triggered unease among Labour councillors on the grounds it will remind people of the campaign to defend the city spearheaded by the socialist council in the 1980s. Councillor Steve Mumby is quoted as bleating that he 'can’t think of anything more damaging than to put out a leaflet evoking the 80s which will remind people of Militant.' His anxiety is justified. The more the younger generation learn about the magnificent campaign of resistance to Thatcher spearheaded by the 47 the more they will question the role of Labour Councillors and MPs who meekly accept Tory cuts without any semblance of a fight-back.

This follows on from an incident in the local Garston and Halewood Labour Party, when a resolution supporting the RMT's campaign against driver only trains was ruled out of order on the grounds that it would embarrass Rotheram. This is another reason for supporting TUSC’s Roger Bannister, the only anti-austerity pro-RMT Metro Mayor candidate.

Tony Mulhearn

ARMS

Blame the message, not the messenger

A PCS rep posted this on Facebook:

PCS has started a petition against all of the proposed [Jobcentre] closures. Please consider signing and sharing with others. 

Someone wrote underneath: 

PCS scum still doing the Tories dirty work. Now you've outlived your usefulness ...

To which I replied:

Doing the government's dirty work by:
Marching to support the NHS on 4 March against Tory attacks.
Opposing fascism and racism.
Opposing Tory-approved tax gap that loses the UK economy £120 billion a year.
Opposing Tory Jobcentre closures.
Campaigning against Tory attacks on benefits.
Opposing Tory HMRC office closures.
Supporting strike action in EHRC to protect jobs against Tory cuts.

Immediately I posted that, a 'like' by a woman appeared, far too quickly for anyone to have read the whole comment. A few seconds later the 'like' vanished: presumably it hadn't been what she'd expected after all.

This exchange summarises a problem I have experienced quite a few times previously. I recall in the late 80s/early 90s trying to set up liaison with local NALGO representing social workers and council welfare rights advisers to campaign on welfare issues. They didn't have the courtesy to reply to any of my approaches.

I have argued with people who claim that PCS members should refuse to implement sanctions on principle. I've told them quite clearly that:

• Individuals who do so of their own initiative will be disciplined; if they still refuse to do their job as required, they'd be sacked.
• If the union told DWP staff not to implement sanctions, it would be taken to court. If it persisted in such illegal industrial action, then all its funds would be sequestrated.
• Reps would be systematically picked off by individually being ordered to carry out sanctions, and sacked when they refused. Union organisation within DWP would disappear.
• Members would desert PCS in droves because the union would have thrown away all their money on a political action that was doomed to failure from the start. Plus there wouldn't be any reps left anyway.
• We would have a non-unionised DWP, which is what the Tories would love.

I've found that, faced with that scenario, the critic concerned usually has had no response.

I'd previously had similar arguments about Crisis Loans with people who told me we should pay everyone who applied, and not turn them down on judgemental grounds. I'd explain that if we had done that, we'd have blown our monthly budget too soon, after which we'd have to reject every application for the rest of the month. They too preferred to see the staff as the villains, rather than blame the people who devised the system.

There's no easy answer to this problem. All we can do is challenge such attitudes as and when they occur, and try to reason with any organisations if they spout such arrant prejudice, because that is what it is. In my experience, most people don't feel this way, but the minority that does is very vocal, self-righteous and sometimes ill-mannered, as above.

Attacking PCS members because of the injustices caused by sanctions is a bit like criticising hospital staff because of unacceptable waiting times in A&E. Too many people cannot distinguish the messenger from the message, but it is particularly exasperating when such political short-sightedness comes from people who, presumably being somewhere on the Left, should be capable of pinning the blame where it truly belongs. When they don't, they are falling into the Tories' favourite trap: divide and rule.

The petition opposing Jobcentre closures is here.

Neville Grundy

ARMS NW

For a socialist - not red, white & blue - post-EU Britain

Derek Hatton’s criticism of Jeremy Corbyn’s proposed support for May’s Brexit position is off the mark (Liverpool Echo 31/1/17). Corbyn is reflecting the majority 'Out' vote which I supported on the basis that the EU is a pro-capitalist, pro-austerity institution. Derek will remember that we campaigned for a socialist Brexit because EU directives opposed public ownership and enshrined privatisation. I remain implacably opposed to May’s 'red, white and blue Brexit' as an attempt to offer more of the same.

Corbyn had the choice of voting against Brexit, thus ignoring the wish of the majority or voting 'For' while demanding that the interests of the working class be protected. Correctly, he chose to do this.

Some Labour MPs are justifying their criticism of Corbyn by quoting the majority Remain vote in their own constituencies. It's a pity they didn't reflect that wish when poll after poll showed support for the public ownership of rail, energy, and the whole of the NHS.

In or out of the EU the working class will still be faced with facing down the most savage attack on the trade unions and social provision for a hundred years. That’s why I will continue to support Corbyn, albeit with the call for him to go further in transforming Labour into a fighting socialist party.

Tony Mulhearn

Letter to the Liverpool Echo

UK's violations of the UN disability convention

How it was reported months ago

Our government is on the back foot, acutely embarrassed after a United Nation's report concluded that the UK is guilty of "grave or systematic violations" of the UN’s disability convention. Changes (wrongly called 'reforms' by the media) to the welfare system - partly due to austerity measures and partly to the Tories' deep-seated loathing of paying money to people they consider to be 'shirkers' - are the reason for this assessment.

Predictably, the Tories have resorted to pompous, but meaningless, huffing and puffing, declaring that the report was "patronising and offensive". This would be almost laughable, seeing that MPs voted themselves massive pay rises while cutting disability benefits, if the consequences weren't so serious.

To read more, here is what the Independent had to say, and here are the views of the Disability News Service.

Neville Grundy
ARMS Mersey

Words are not enough

Mere words will not force a Tory retreat. The cant, hypocrisy and callousness of the Tories is displayed by just two of its latest measures.

1. The cuts in benefit entitlement to the unfortunate which will plunge thousands of families into even deeper poverty. The phoney mantra that work should pay more than benefits is deployed to depict the workless as scroungers, the oldest slander in the book. 
2. The rejection of the Orgreave campaigners for a public enquiry into the behaviour of the police. This is a monumental cover-up designed to protect those who gave the police the order to smash the miners by any means necessary, including the use of army detachments. The revolting spectacle of heavily protected police being unleashed with military precision on miners dressed in summer tops and trainers will live in infamy in this country’s history. 

But words of condemnation are not enough. We need a powerful mass movement to defeat a Tory party bankrolled by hedge fund managers, private equity spivs, rack renting landlords and international tax dodgers. As a first step Labour councils should refuse to implement any more draconic Tory cuts. Secondly, give full backing for the Orgreave campaigners in their fight for justice.

Tony Mulhearn

White poppies for peace

The white poppy dates back to 1934. It expressed the fear that was steadily growing between the wars that the First World War was likely to be followed by an even worse war; the sad fact is there hasn't been a year without war since 'the war to end wars' a hundred years ago.

There are three elements to the meaning of white poppies:

• Remembrance for all victims of war. 
• A commitment to work for a world where conflicts are resolved without violence and with justice. 
• A challenge to attempts to glamorise or celebrate war.

Throughout history there always have been non-combatant deaths in war, but in modern warfare, most casualties are civilians. The red poppy specifically commemorates British and Commonwealth military casualties, but the white poppy commemorates all victims of war. Some people wear both. 

They are distributed by the Peace Pledge Union (PPU). You can get white poppies:

• Direct from the PPU here.
• From News From Nowhere, 96 Bold Street, Liverpool L1 4HY.
• From Merseyside CND, 151 Dale Street, Liverpool, L2 2AH.

Neville Grundy

Do as I say, not as I do

The report into Wallasey CLP is a master class of distortion and weighted naturally in support of the Blairite wing of the Party, who are protected by its continued suspension with any selection process to be implemented by regional mini-McNicholls.

The report rebukes the members with 'It appears that meetings in Wallasey have been increasingly adversarial and challenging for some time.' Any party worth its salt is precisely adversarial and challenging, that is how policy is thrashed out. It is not in dispute that 'bullying' is unacceptable, but if challenging MPs or councillors is bullying then the bullying of Jeremy Corbyn by the 170 Blairite MPs suggests the PLP should have been suspended long ago.

Horror of horrors, some members are 'accused' of demanding that Labour (yes Labour) councillors should refuse to carry out cuts. As that is the policy of the TUC, Unite the union, the RMT, the FBU, the POA and many others, should the whole Labour movement be suspended?

In 1985 a similar report was published by Kinnock’s witch-hunt committee into the Liverpool District Labour Party, it was challenged in court and the judge threw it out on the grounds that it was based on tittle-tattle, gossip and innuendo and therefore totally unreliable as evidence.

Unlike then, the tide of history is flowing AGAINST the Blairites. A mass response of all those committed to anti-austerity and internal democracy is now essential to force this discredited right-wing bureaucracy to retreat. The working class need a leadership which fights the Tory attacks on the poor and needy rather than attacking its own membership.

Tony Mulhearn

NW ARMS