Climate 9 celebrate court victory despite guilty verdict
Nine protesters who shut down Aberdeen airport in March last year have been found guilty of breach of the peace. The charges were significantly reduced over the course of the two week trial, with all vandalism charges being dropped.
The jury in Aberdeen – the oil capital of Europe, were the first to hear evidence from climate scientists on the need for action since the failure of the Copenhagen talks.
Thailand is no Human Rights Champion
by Pokpong Lawansiri
Thai Buddhist Monks being arrested during the May 2010 crackdown in Bangkok
The recently concluded session of the UN Human Rights Council, an intergovernmental organisation tasked to promote and protect human rights worldwide, ended with the election of Thailand as the new president to the 47-member council.
Capitalism is destroying Football
From the texts I got last night, it appears a lot of my English friends are all Ghanaians now with the disgraceful crashing out of the Capello’s men. England is going home, unsurprising when England failed to beat Algeria, it was a harbinger of worse things to come. The millionaire footballers failed to deliver and Sunny Hundal, editor of Liberal Conspiracy tweeted last night:
England today destroyed right-wing meme that more incentives means people work harder. Cut footballers & boardroom pay!
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.
Beyond Resistance: Coalition Government has declared Class War
From The Commune
With its first cuts plans the Conservative-LibDem coalition has declared war on the working class.
Day by day we hear fresh appeals to accept mass redundancies, tighten our belts and heap blame on the ‘work-shy’ who are somehow meant to find jobs.
The Undead Hand of New Labour Strikes Back
Just when you thought it was safe to turn on the TV without seeing a Blairite taking control of some part of government policy… the Coalition Government once again disappoint.
Prime Minister David Cameron has recently been playing a steady public relations game of trying to appear tough and Thatcherite on the deficit but also as reasonable and caring in regard to public servants. However the guile and PR wizardry shown in offsetting bribes to those who give their lives for an unnecessary war, against cutting £105 million in the regeneration of jobs in Sheffield this week, is already wearing thin. George Osborne not to be outdone by Cameron has performed even greater political sorcery by raising back from the political grave some of the worst elements of the late New Labour government. Arch-Blairite, the former Work and Pensions Secretary John Hutton, has been announced by the Chancellor today, as the head of a new public sector pensions commission, thereby showing once again New Labour’s efforts in helping to legitimise the Coalition Government’s attacks on British public sector workers and pensions.
In truth, there is a woeful disparity between private sector pensions and public sector ones. Osborne states that it is unacceptable for nurses, teachers, low paid workers in local government and in other sectors of the state enjoy their above meagre pensions whilst many low paid workers in the private sector workers don’t even get meagre pensions. His cunning solution is to resolve this imbalance is by further impoverishing public sector workers in their retirement, leaving it to Clegg to announce an ambiguous axe to Members of Parliament pensions though they will probably remain gold plated with their generous golden goodbyes in this parliament. We’re all in this together then.
Can Diane Abbott be Leader of the Labour Party?
A guest post by Kwaw Nelson
So at the eleventh hour, Diane Abbott MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington squeaked through the nominations process and made it on to the final short list of contenders for the leadership of the Labour Party. But did she do it on merit and she is capable of being leader of the Labour Party?
These are provocative questions and especially so because Diane Abbott is black. But they are also legitimate questions given Diane Abbott’s record as a parliamentarian over some 23 years.
The Islamic case for Academies – “Free our schools!”
At The Multicultural Politic, we want to stimulate debate and give a voice to those who aren’t usually given time by the mainstream media. Though the editorial team disagrees with the idea of Academies, debates cannot be had if only one point of view is published. We have and will continue to publish anti-Academy articles but today we have decided to publish this pro-Academy article. Leave your comments below.
This is a guest post by Iftikhar Ahmad
Almost all children now believe they go to school to pass exams. The idea that they may be there for an education is irrelevant. State schools have become exam factories, interested only in A to C Grades. They do not educate children. Exam results do not reflect a candidate’s innate ability. Employers have moaned for years that too many employees cannot read or write properly. According to a survey, school-leavers and even graduates lack basic literacy and numeracy skills. More and more companies are having to provide remedial training to new staff, who can’t write clear instructions, do simple maths, or solve problems. Both graduates and school-leavers were also criticised for their sloppy time-keeping, ignorance of basic customer service and lack of self-discipline.
The EDL and The Islamist Far-Right
From The Commune
Last month the English Defence League announced plans to march in Tower Hamlets, East London, in protest at an Islamist conference planned for June 20th at the Troxy centre. The conference was planned by groups tied to Islamic Forum Europe, among the major Islamist groups in the area.
Anti-racists planned to demonstrate against the EDL: but the SWP-run Unite Against Fascism and its front group United East End insisted this should be on the basis of uncritical support for — and collaboration with — the conference organisers. This meant whitewashing the worst religious fundamentalists and supporting their right to represent the Bengali community in the borough.
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