Saturday, September 11, 2010

How I voted in the Labour Leadership Election

I'm going to have words with my Unison's branch's membership secretary - I could have sworn I filled in a form to opt out of the political fund. Yet, yesterday, I receivd my Unison Labour Leadership ballot paper.

I agonised over what to do with it.

To have it even count you have to tick a box affirming "I support the policies and principles of the Labour Party, and am not a supporter of any organisation opposed to it and pay a political subscription to the body that issued this website."

So, technically, I should have just binned it. But, the urge was upon me. Reader, I lied, I ticked the box.

So, how did I vote?

I wrote: "No Leaders WORLD SOCIALISM" across it, and ticked the box so they would have to count it as a valid spoilt ballot. At the least I've cost the Labour Party a bit of money. At best, thousands of people doing the same could send a message. If your union includes you, go for it mes braves.

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posted by Bill at 12:22 0 comments

Wednesday, September 01, 2010

Discussion with Spufford

This is an interesting audio file discussion with Francis Spufford. I've only heard as far as his disputing that Marx ever intended communism to mean abundance, I wonder if anyone out there can suggest any counter evidence?

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posted by Bill at 08:52 0 comments

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Very interesting

Via Grinding.be

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posted by Bill at 15:39 1 comments

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

PediaPress – Book “The Socialist Party of Great Britain”

PediaPress – Book “The Socialist Party of Great Britain”

More adventures in Print on Demand - I've arranged this, and printed one copy to place in the Socialist Party Library, chiefly for archival purposes. Simply a compilation of Wikipedia articles about the SPGB.

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posted by Bill at 14:39 1 comments

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Mr. 3%

What price power?

Well, it seems for the Lib-Dems it's 3%:
Before the election, the Tories promised that 80% of the work of cutting the deficit would come from cutting spending and 20% from raising taxes.

In fact, the chancellor has announced that the figures are 77% to 23%.

That 3% is the impact of the coalition.
According to Nick Robinson It's possibly debatable, but the Yellow Tories will surely argue that for all they are worth. Indeed (I won't look for it) but Luke Akehurst pointed out that Lib-Dem pre-election plans involved 0% tax rises to deal with the deficit.

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posted by Bill at 13:47 0 comments

Friday, June 18, 2010

Here come the robots!!!!

Robot hospital 'Nuff said?
They will also have to keep at least one human on standby, should any of the robots break down.
No, not replacing staff, then. At least this is robots to save lives.

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posted by Bill at 09:34 0 comments

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Labouring in vain

According to New Statesman Labour leadership contenders had a hustings at teh Fabian society, and were asked whether they were socialists.

I'll leave you to read the article directly, but will simply draw your attention to this paragraph
That hint of disdain for the usefulness of ideological speculation may be a rather more authentic Labourist tradition than any theory of Socialism has ever been (The trade unions would never have founded the party if it had really wanted to be a Socialist one).

The Fabian intellectual GDH Cole had written, somewhat approvingly, of Labour having a "socialism so undefined in its doctrinal basis as to make recruits readily among people of different types".
Labour is not, and never has been a socialist party, it does not stand for socialism, but is trade unionism carried on into politics, it is the use of political power to defend and advance the inetrests of working people within capitalism. Just like a trade union, it has to tack, turn and sometimes cut a bad deal for its members.

Socialism is not sticking up for the bottom dog, it is using the organised power (and, yes, wealth) of the workers to completely overturn the economic system to one which is permenantly run in our interests. It is political action that can do that.

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posted by Bill at 11:13 0 comments