Congo elections: Why is our revolution not being televised?
by Ubuntu Films
Congo elections: Media Blackout (Outside BBC White City)
Why I’m backing Diane Abbott for leader
By Alex Hilton / @alexhilton
The thing is, they’re all Labour, so they’d all do OK. And with preference voting, I get to support all of them to different degrees so support for one candidate or another isn’t necessarily a rejection of the others.
But none of them is an Obama waiting to bloom and that’s really the problem.
It comes down to this, if you are a special adviser who has been parachuted or “helped” into a safe Labour seat, then you have been bought and paid for by a powerful patron. Your accountability is to the person who got you the seat, not to the local members or voters. This isn’t black and white, there is a balance of accountabilities at play, but the parachuted MP’s accountability is heavily weighted in favour of their patron or faction. This isn’t particularly healthy for a party with pretensions to equality and democracy.
Comedian Mark Steel: Tory rule all over again
This was written (and amended as the day unfolded) on the day David Cameron became Prime Minister, for The Independent, but didn’t go in the paper.
The mayhem of the last few days seemed as if it would go on and splendidly on. I’m still half-expecting that by tomorrow morning the Lib-Dems will be holding talks with the Portuguese Social Democratic Party on an offer of a three way coalition with the Hell’s Angels.
The best solution might have been to keep the chaos going for four years, when it would be time for another election. So every day the news would say something like “This morning William Haig offered the Lib-Dems two places on the British Council of Buddhists, and the job of England football manager to Simon Hughes, but in a dramatic twist at 3.00 pm, following pressure from Paddy Ashdown, Peter Mandelson appeared at the treasury office and hung himself, thus removing a crucial obstacle to a pact with Labour. But further talks were stalled at midnight when David Blunkett threatened Chris Huhne with an axe, so negotiators have now offered the SNP independence for Stenhousemuir.”
BNP GE2010 results: anti-fascism doesn’t work
by Glyn Harries
At the May 2010 Barking and Dagenham council elections, the British National Party lost all their 12 Councillors, all previously elected in 2006. And their national party leader Nick Griffin, who it was suggested would take the Parliamentary seat, only came 3rd, and petulantly walked away declaring Barking and London ‘finished’.
But away from the headlines the actual results in Barking and Dagenham show the BNP nearly doubled their vote from 2006 to 2010, though where they had stood previously their vote did decline slightly. I have used their highest votes in each ward. While it is good news to see the Councillor parasites of the BNP wiped out, the Hope not Hate (HnH) victory claims are as ever deeply flawed.
Middlesex University Boardroom Occupied & Demonstration against HE cuts
From The Commune / Save Middlesex Philosophy
Report from the occupation at Middlesex University
TMP Spotlight on Andy Hewett, Green Candidate for Greenwich and Woolwich
TMP: Why did you enter politics?
AW: Although always interested in politics I had never had a moment or opportunity in life to become fully involved. I came to a point where I decided that I needed to do more other than simply voting, and use whatever abilities I have to influence and make some sort of difference. Two main factors probably made me reach my tipping point. One was the increasingly serious environmental crisis we face, the other was needing to challenge both the Labour Party selling out the working class to big business and also its increasing imperialist militarism.
Bristol and Bath Rising Tide Stopped Coal Train!
On Monday 26th April, people involved in the Rising Tide Network have literally puts their necks on the line by chaining themselves to the rails in order to block the rail link to the Ffoss y Fran Open Cast Coal mine near Merthyr Tydfil. They are currently blocking the movement of coal trains from the mine to Aberthaw Power Station. It took the combined efforts of British Rail Police and South Wales Police over 8 hours to remove the last of the protesters at 8.10pm on Monday evening.
Merthyr action shown through a drawing
18 People from Bristol and Bath have been charged under the Malicious Damages Act of 1861, a law to protect the interests of 19th Century rail owners. If convicted they face anything up to a life sentence in prison. The 18 People, who are part of the Rising Tide (UK) Network were held for over 24 hours, and were only allowed to phone out after 11.00 am yesterday (Tuesday). The house of one of those involved was raided by 8 police officers who spent 3 hours searching their home.
Defend Abdul Omer
Abdul Omer Mohsin, Unite convenor for London Sovereign, lost his appeal against dismissal on Tuesday. The Unite official who represented Omer at his appeal took the company’s case apart. Its obvious that Abdul Omer has been sacked for being an effective union convenor.
Drivers at Sovereign had the worst pay and conditions in London. That has changed, and the bosses are anxious to stop any further gains.
How Labour legitimises the BNP
A BNP election poster, 10 April 2010. Credit: Getty Images
The BNP gets a staggering amount of press coverage: columnists queue up to prove their liberal credentials by pasting them, while Nick Griffin is rarely off our screens. Yet he’s the leader of a small, poorly financed, internally divided party that is never going to be a major force in a first past the post political system. So what’s going on?
What is going on is the betrayal of the British working class and a political symbiosis disguised as opposition. The Labour Party no longer pretends to represent working class people: it’s far too busy fluffing our spectacularly incompetent city elite. And into their old role are stepping the BNP, promising not only local jobs, services and communities but that they have changed their old racist ways.
The liberal reaction to this is disastrous. I’ve written a play about the rise of the BNP, called A Day at the Racists, during which I debated Margaret Hodge, MP for Barking (where of course Griffin is challenging her). I was shocked at her argument — basically that the BNP are simple racists and therefore any decent person should vote Labour. That kind of patronising disrespect for the legitimate frustrations of her constituents also gives the BNP legitimacy — it makes them seem like they have something important or original to say, something that mainstream society doesn’t want you to hear.
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Crack-heads, racism and Occupy London
by Damien Gayle / @damiengayle
Days after the NYPD imposed a media blackout to stop the world seeing how they evicted the Occupy Wall Street camp, I fell victim to Occupy LSX’s own press ban.
I had been visiting their newest occupation, a vast network of buildings owned by banking giant UBS, on Sun Street, near Moorgate station, on the edge of the City.
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