Met Police Boss Mark Rowley’s view of the policing of Palestine demonstrations in London since October 2023 might reasonably be described as contentious, possibly even by himself.
His view on who the person behind 25% of them is, may well command more general agreement
He said 360 arrests had been made including for public order and terrorism offences. Of those arrests, 90 were of far-right supporters, with police believing Braverman’s comments immediately before a protest on Remembrance Sunday weekend incited trouble, at least in part.
In his Friday evening speech outside Downing St last week Sunak wittered on about mobs and expressed concern that the voters of Rochdale had elected as an MP someone he didn’t like, perhaps particularly on Palestine.
The Murdoch owned Times (5th March) devotes an editorial to Mr Galloway and describes his election as alarming.
Reality needs to intervene. George Galloway has been around in politics for a long time. He has consistently taken a line against Western imperial adventures (rather less so elsewhere..) and that continues to annoy Governments that support them, including the British.
His economic programme is mildly social democratic although probably a bit left-wing for Starmer. He is also a social conservative.
This mixture is far from unusual in politics though it often seems to bypass media commentary on Galloway. Ben Quinn in the Guardian (5th March) describes him as ‘far left’ a label he certainly never accepts anymore than most of those on the far left do.
There is a wider point. Talk of protest and mobs suggests that the proper way to do politics is at the ballot box. That is certainly something the Times supports. It disapproves of any protest in the UK (elsewhere is fine)beyond noting that of course theoretically there is a right to protest.
The answer surely is to follow the point made by Bertolt Brecht. If the voters of Rochdale have elected the wrong MP its time to elect some new voters in Rochdale
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has criticised the new series of Big Brother for including hirsute 58 year old Gary Goldsmith, a relation of some sort to Kate Middleton, amongst the contestants.
Mr Goldsmith has no obvious qualification for appearing on Big Brother, although it may be that none are required.
He does however have a conviction in 2017 for punching his wife in the face.
The campaigners say that if Mr Goldsmith remains on the show, which is probably a big ‘if’ he will bring the hirsute into disrepute
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, beards and Big Brother don’t really compute. Not only do we have Mr Goldsmith but there is the example of the newly elected MP for Rochdale. His appearance helped him or his beard
Why its important to remember the miners strike 40 years on
March 4th marks the anniversary of the 1984/5 miners strike when miners walked out at Cortonwood colliery.
Unlike the strikes of 1972 and 1974 it ended in defeat and pit closures compounded in 1992. The Thatcher Government fought a decisive battle in the class war and won.
It deserves to be remembered above all because it was an important episode in British history. There is a lot to remember.
I was active as a supporter in the strike in the Durham coalfield at Easington and in London support groups, geographically in North London and industrially- I ran a London Telecoms Miners Support Group
I may recount those probably unreliable memories during the year but at the moment I’m looking at some of the key aspects of the strike.
The role of the State in trying to break the strike- Orgreave symbolises this but there is much else
Moments when the strike might have been won- when dockers struck in the summer of 1984
How well the Tories and how well the labour movement had prepared for the strike
The important role of support groups and in particular women’s support groups and lesbians and gays support the miners
The impact the strike had in working class areas
There are many other questions. There was a fair bit of research after the end of the strike and there has been more on the 40th anniversary.
Remembering and recording that history is important but so also is looking at historical lessons on issues like the role of the State and how the working class is organised that go well beyond the Great Strike itself
This weekend 51 years ago then Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe was in discussion with Tory leader Ted Heath about forming a coalition Government. The talks failed and Harold Wilson became Prime Minister at the head of a minority Labour administration.
Another feature of that Election, less noticed, is representation in three out of the four nations of the UK started to change. From 1945 the Tories and Labour had dominated Parliament with a handful of Liberals.
The February 1974 Election saw the first election of numbers of SNP, Plaid Cymru and Ulster Unionist MPs. The last having broken with their historic links with the Tory Party.
That representation has maintained, and in the case of the SNP, grown, at subsequent elections.
Parliamentary elections are a basic echo of actual moods on the ground and it can be argued 51 years ago that the February 1974 Election began to suggest the break up of Britain
Michael Foot d 3rd March 2010. The Cenotaph, the Duffle Coat & the media
Michael Foot the former Labour leader died on this day in 2010 aged 96.
Well known as an early CND campaigner and someone on the left of the Labour Party, one incident in his lengthy career underlined how the media sees Labour leaders left and right.
In 1981 Michael Foot was criticised for wearing a ‘donkey jacket’ at the Cenotaph. In fact it was a perfectly decent winter coat (see below).
Michael Foot at the Cenotaph in 1981 wore a rather smart and warm coat. It’s now in the National Museum of Labour History (the People’s History Museum in Manchester)
one of the museum’s most striking exhibits – the coat worn by the Labour Party leader Michael Foot at the National Service of Remembrance, held at The Cenotaph in Whitehall, London, on Remembrance Sunday, 1981. This coat was depicted in the press as a donkey jacket, which is something a manual worker might wear. As a result, it was widely believed that Foot, whose party then supported unilateral nuclear disarmament, had disrespected those who had sacrificed their lives in defence of the nation. He was, the argument went, consequently unfit to become Prime Minister. Yet, if you see the coat in the museum it is perfectly respectable and indeed Foot was praised by the Queen Mother for his choice. But, as Foot’s private papers held in the museum archive show, he received many letters from those who believed he had worn a donkey jacket.
Susan and Neil have been on a helicopter ride over Ambridge to mark Susan’s birthday. Neil discovers that the construction of the much discussed charging station seems to involve the chopping down of an oak tree, one of the oldest in Ambridge. A protest is surely needed and on this occasion a mob at midnight would be a good plan. It will certainly achieve more than Jim and Neil being fobbed off by Damara Capital’s Justin with vague plans to plant more trees.
Quiz Night at the Bull
Kenton has resumed his role as quizmaster but attendance was limited as Jazzer had warned all and sundry that the Bull is a bit dodgy. Later Jazzer was contrite and the masses returned
Alistair & Lurve
Alistair has been proclaiming his lurve for Denise. This story has (at the very least) weeks to run yet so be prepared
Alice has given Harry the boot
We hope
Is Sergeant Knacker Burns knackered?
In recent times we have learnt a good deal about police disciplinary procedures. Sgt Knacker Burns is being investigated for unprofessional behaviour in respect of leaking confidential details about Harry to Fallon and Alice. The Ambridge Socialist confidently predicts that he will be found guilty and told to carry on. After all if all officers who behaved unprofessionally were given the boot how many would be left?
In a chapter in People’s History and Socialist Theory(edited by Raphael Samuel) E P Thompson discusses how people’s ideas change.
He draws a distinction between people’s direct experience of events- Experience 1 and the view of the world that the media and politicians bring forward-Experience 2. Where the two don’t match people’s understanding is challenged and the possibility of a different future starts to arise.
Think what millions see every day about what is happening in Gaza and what the media and politicians say. The two are often in direct contradiction and in that gap things like the Rochdale By-Election happen
..experience walks in without knocking at the door, and announces deaths, crisis of subsistence, trench warfare, unemployment, inflation, genocide. People starve, their survivors think in new ways about the market. People are imprisoned: in prison they meditate in new ways about the law
Rishi Sunak’s Downing St address on Friday criticised extremism in British politics without mentioning Lee Anderson, Suella Braverman and Liz Truss. Instead he focused on George Galloway’s election victory in Rochdale.
Galloway is not an extremist but a political disrupter at least since Blair purged him from Labour for opposing the Iraq War. His victory saw Labour, the LibDems and Tories get 27% of the vote between them. Galloway and a local independent candidate who came second got 60%.
It underlines that particularly on Gaza Westminster politics is completely out of touch with grassroots voters.
Sunak’s speech was called out for what it was by Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey who said: “The British people will take no lessons from a prime minister and Conservative party who have sowed the seeds of division for years. SNP MP Alison Thewliss said Mr Sunak had “repeatedly, and very deliberately, sought to stoke up divisions, pander to the far-right and pit communities against each other for electoral gain”.(BBC Report)
Keir Starmer by contrast foolishly backed Sunak, a trap set no doubt by Sunak’s advisors. If the leader of the change Party in an Election year can’t manage to identify and address a mood for change amongst electors, even if its one they find uncomfortable,there is a growing crisis of legitimacy in British politics.
At the moment those protesting about Gaza have more political legitimacy than most politicians in Westminster
On 1st March 1984 just days before the start of the miners strike, Tony Benn won the Chesterfield By-Election. His majority over the LibDems was 6,264 votes. There were sixteen candidates as well as Benn including Screaming Lord Sutch (pictured)
Benn recorded in his Diary ‘The Sun had an article ‘Benn on the couch-a top psychiarists view of Britain’s leading leftie’ in which they said they had fed my personal and political details to a top ,psychiarist in America who had concluded that I was power mad, would do anything to satisfy my hunger, was prone to periods of fantasy and so on..’
