Guardians of Law and Order

From Ian Bone's blog
Case Study One: Gerald Kaufman MP fraudulently claimed £750 for a Bang and Olufsen television on his parliamentary expenses.

He was not prosecuted but asked to repay the £750

Case Study Two: A young woman with no previous is alleged to have looted a Bang and Olufsen television from a store in Manchester

She was remanded in custody to crown court to get a sentence longer than 6 months

PLEASE SPREAD THIS FACT AS WIDELY AS POSSIBLE. …..‘ONE LAW FOR THEM ANOTHER LAW FOR US’……as a certain band once sung.

Kaufman could be seen in parliament today demanding ROBUST action against rioters. Robust…..robust..fucking ROBUST….FUCKING ROBUST…..IF I HEAR THAT AGAIN…………………….ROBUST AAAARGGHH!

order reigns in Tottenham, order reigns in Clapham

“Order prevails in Warsaw!” declared Minister Sebastiani to the Paris Chamber of Deputies in 1831, when after having stormed the suburb of Praga, Paskevich’s marauding troops invaded the Polish capital to begin their butchery of the rebels.

“Order prevails in Berlin!” So proclaims the bourgeois press triumphantly, so proclaim Ebert and Noske, and the officers of the “victorious troops,” who are being cheered by the petty-bourgeois mob in Berlin waving handkerchiefs and shouting “Hurrah!”
Who is not reminded of that drunken celebration by the “law and order” mob in Paris, that Bacchanal of the bourgeoisie celebrated over the corpses of the Communards? That same bourgeoisie who had just shamefully capitulated to the Prussians and abandoned the capital to the invading enemy, taking to their heels like abject cowards. Oh, how the manly courage of those darling sons of the bourgeoisie, of the “golden youth,” and of the officer corps flared back to life against the poorly armed, starving Parisian proletariat and their defenseless women and children. How these courageous sons of Mars, who had buckled before the foreign enemy, raged with bestial cruelty against defenseless people, prisoners, and the fallen.

“Order prevails in Warsaw!” “Order prevails in Paris!” “Order prevails in Berlin!” Every half-century that is what the bulletins from the guardians of “order” proclaim from one center of the world-historic struggle to the next. And the jubilant “victors” fail to notice that any “order” that needs to be regularly maintained through bloody slaughter heads inexorably toward its historic destiny; its own demise.


“Order prevails in Berlin!” You foolish lackeys! Your “order” is built on sand. Tomorrow the revolution will “rise up again, clashing its weapons,” and to your horror it will proclaim with trumpets blazing:

I was, I am, I shall be!

Rosa Luxemburg. Berlin 1919. shortly before she was murdered by victorious reaction

No Class (my arse)

They say that class don't matter,
But that just cannot be,
The jury said they're innocent,
They each had a degree.
No previous bad character,
And references galore,
A soldier and a nurse for friends,
Well who could ask for more?
They say we are all equal,
It's simply just not true,
The way the law applies to me,
Does not apply to you.
We all sat in the courtroom,
Accused of the same crime,
You're getting on with your life,
I'm in here doing time.
I'm angry at the system,
The judges and the law,
That sit in ivory towers,
The rich above the poor.
This is our 'big society',
It isn't worth a cus,
There'll always be one law for them,
Another one for us.

Sean Cregan A5769CE HMP Wormwood Scrubs

solidarity is a two way street

from the Norfolk Community Action Group
by Ruahri ó Cléirigh



It’s been an interesting week, watching the media talk up a riot, public servants ‘STRIKING…RALLYING…MARCHING!’

Yet it seems it doesn’t have enough ‘oomph’ anymore for the press. It’s only newsworthy if there’s a ruckus involving ‘latchers on’ from the ‘anarchist movement’…heaven forbid an anarchist might themselves be part of a Labour Party recognised trade union…

HEADLINE! READ ALL ABOUT IT! THE SCARY UNIONS HAVE LOST THEIR MOJO! HOODED MENACE TO TAKE OVER PLANET! More dangerous than Al Qaida…till next week…

Likewise it’s been an interesting and pleasing week watching friends and comrades rising to the challenge in defending the unions and taking the struggle to the streets against the Tory/Liberal ‘coalition’ government…who seem hell bent on destroying our welfare state…much to the derision of the press and unions in equal measure of course…

It’s also been a sad sad week. A week where comrades have been taken from us…

You know solidarity is a great great thing. There’s not enough of it about these days. So it fills me with joy to see it on display.

It is however a two-way street. And it is rarely reciprocated.

Over the last year I’ve spent a lot of my time involved with my organisation in our local ‘Coalition Against The Cuts’. Those on the inside ‘leading the fight’ are a hodge podge bunch, of local and regional union officials, some permanently involved in the usual paper-sale and petitioning for this months big issues, others less politicised but falling into place behind their more ‘senior’ union members. Hidden caucuses, caucuses hidden or within caucuses that are hidden from caucuses…

They use great and meaningful words like ‘worker’ and ‘working-class’. Even…’comrade’…although it’s often followed my a snigger and a red face…

These words however just seem to roll off the tongue.

There’s little passion there. It’s as if they’re acting out a part and the main lines of the script have become their catch phrases.

They talk of ‘fighting’ and ‘uniting the class’…

And this friends is where they start to lose me…when they eagerly discuss booking whole trains to take down to demos held in London which would ‘easily be filled to the carriage’ by a happy throng of ‘the class’…who would be eager to ‘rally to the cause’…

Only it’s all just fantasy…

As is all the talk of ‘the class’…

Class… They don’t belong to my class. Increasingly…they don’t belong to my class…Increasingly they don’t share the same life experiences, of dole, and housing office queue…of the prison…

They work for the state, they increasingly have the degree (that’s not a dig), often work in comfy offices, they have ‘expenses’, and something called’by the mile’… they work a rigidly set working week, hours never to be tampered with or there’ll be hell to pay…most of us don’t…and they have things called pensions…and their idea of conflict with the state…

Many of us too are currently in conflict with the state…and all it’s little branches…it’s offshoots…it’s wheels and centres of enforcement…

They work in the police station, the social services, the job centre, the housing office…’the public services’…the very services that many of these individuals will never ever have to utilise themselves… the very services that many of us have to deal with on a regular basis when we’re unemployed or in need of housing or desperate for work and money…or banged up…

‘NOW JUST HOLD ON!’ I hear you cry…’There’s nothing wrong with having a degree or working for the state and going on strike over pensions!’

You’re absolutely right, there’s not and my hat goes off to them…Likewise I remain steadfast and committed to the principle ‘a grievance to one is a grievance to all, I SHALL NEVER CROSS A PICKET LINE…’

But It would be nice if the solidarity that you and I believe in would be…and here’s that word again’…’reciprocated’.

It would be nice to know that those on the marches and rallies waving their flags shouting ‘support us’ and ‘join us’…that those same people this Monday weren’t going to be throwing us out of our houses, taking or children away, cutting our dole money, putting us in prison, and being the holders of the keys to our cell doors…

Because they will be.

Yes it would be nice if there was…solidarity…

The recent attempts made by the Norfolk Community Action Group within the local coalition to try and bridge this situation fell on deaf ears. So we chose to part company.

Our arguments that if they want ‘popular support’, and yes folks that does mean engaging with the Sun reader and the Daily Mail reader, then they will have to stop solely ‘agitating’ within their unions…an ‘agitation’ that often is nothing more than an email and a flyer on the union notice board or a phone call to the very same people who attended the meeting the week before, the pathological ‘preach to the converted’ who can only be bothered if it affects ‘them and theirs’…and get off their arses and physically start engaging with their local population explaining and arguing why they BELIEVE they are RIGHT to take the actions they are taking, in plain words with the use of plain English, without the use of a pre-script or the handing over of a leaflet that will never ever ever in a million years dear God get read because it’s cold, it’s heartless, it will not engage…

It can not engage.

Because there’s no soul in a leaflet…or a petition…especially when it’s a petition for OUR benefit…and our benefit only…

Yes that means job centre staff walking onto council estates, Yes that means teachers walking onto council estates, Yes that means housing officers walking onto council estates…Yes that means social workers walking onto council estates, Yes that means trade unionist from each and every sector of public services in this ‘country’ of ours walking onto council estates…

And engaging…

Not destroying peoples lives and being the first port of call of the oppressive state…

Only they won’t will they?

They won’t because there is a barrier…

They won’t because there is a barrier of ‘us’ and ‘them’…

They won’t because there is a barrier of ‘us’ and ‘them’ and ‘service provider’ and ‘service user’…

That is…dare I say it…a barrier…of one class against another, even if that ‘class’ can not be easily differentiated. They would if they could though comrades…’differentiate that is…

Long gone are the days of Dave Douglass and the great Hatfield Main branch of the NUM, all the miners, the steel workers, the toilers, the manufacturers, the print workers…

They have been taken over…by the bureaucrat…the degree in trade union studies…and the Tolpuddle Martyrs, more an historical quaintness than a model, example, direction and template of struggle…

Increasingly…not…my…class…

Increasingly…not…my… fight…

Unless miraculously new Dave Douglass’ appear and return the trade unions to their rightful place…holding meetings at the bottom of our streets, discussing and showing ‘solidarity’ and helping the unemployed with education and training, and building a real resistance to the aggressive Tory doctrine that has recently returned to plague us…

Unless…

You know comrades, only 26% of the workforce in Britain today are unionised…and it’s falling daily…

They had better appear soon…before trade unions go the way of the Tolpuddle Martyrs..and become ‘a quaintness’..

reflections on J30

Miliband on BBC yesterday

I must admit to heretical thoughts in the lead up to J30, the first concerted national strike action in response to the Condem assault has been the subject to paeons of hyperbole from the left press whose salivating coverage was mirrored by the fake horror of the right wing press at what one might have thought from the coverage was the presage to the establishment of a revolutionary commune.
the truth was that a one day strike by teachers, civil servants and college lecturers involved far less strikers than any of the TUC 'days of action' that peppered the early years of Thatcher's reign, all of which were derided by the Left at the time as tokenistic and ineffectual.
the day to day roles of those who were taking action was also problematic. the PCS, UCU, the NUT and the ATL all benefitted from the rapid expansion of white collar trades unionism in the 1980s, the majority of contact that the working class are likely to have had with their members is almost uniformly negative ; from the engineered failiure of the school system, its indoctrination and petty rules in preparation of a life of regimentation as a wage slave, to the policing of the undeserving poor by the fortnightly humilitation and sly vindictiveness of the Job centre interview. Those on strike on thursday would be back at their desks by friday investigating 'dole scroungers' and arranging the detention and expulsion of asylum seekers; there was little to promote solidarity from the wider working class, and much to permit their demonisation by the Goverment and press.
But that isn't the way it worked out. The ham fisted attempts to accuse the unions of greed in demanding high pensions at the expense of the private sector tax payer faltered as private sector workers recalled the bankers and bosses that stole their pensions and now sit pretty on the ConDem benches.
As Rick Dutton pointed out on facebook-

"I hated most of my teachers when I was a kid, always got shit off the Jobcentre when I went to sign on, regularly took crap from the housing office when I was homeless, have had bad experiences of prison officers, hate the police, despise careerist Trot trade union officials...in fact most public servants I've had contact with are c~~~s...but I wouldn't cross their picket line ;)"

Basic solidarity.

the Tower Hamlets ALARM website reports from the London demonstration:

I felt a bit funny marching with lots of teachers, they deserve a good pension and good money, but whenever I’m around teachers all I can remember is getting detention for some pointless reason, sexually repressed RE teachers flying into rage at homework not being done, art teachers thinking their class matters, French teachers convinced they can teach another language to a group of kids that are mostly failing English…the list goes on. But I marched with them, avoiding detention.

Clearly no one was expecting anything more than a few pickets and a fun family march, but the police hadn’t got the message, after a bit of walking and a few speeches a group began to move up Whitehall. A kettle sprang out at the crowd. Police lines formed to the shock of everyone. Snatch Squads (a gaggle of police out to snatch people away from the crowd) circled targeting anyone under 18 who wasn’t white, and then moved on to just grabbing anyone.

Here I saw teachers at their best, not the scum from my childhood, but concerned teachers jumping forward and grabbing back their students from the claws of the police. Teachers willing to confront the crazed uniformed thugs, a real solidarity between the EMA kids of last year and the striking staff off today. Brilliant.

Basic Solidarity.

In fact the only person in the country who appears to have swallowed the ConDem Bollocks is the sad sock puppet that it is rumoured is in charge of the Labour party.

solidarity with anti fascist prisoners

Six antifascists were recently fitted-up and sent to prison. Because of ongoing legal issues, for the moment we are unable to say more about their case, but a full report will eventually be issued. Suffice to say, they have been well and truly fucked over and deserve our fullest support and solidarity. Please write to them. (One person has asked to be left off lists and therefere no longer appears here). As always, assume your letters are being read by our enemies and ensure you do not compromise your own security or that of others. Also please note that Thomas Blak and Austin Jackson are as yet unsentenced. For advice on writing to prisoners see the Leeds ABC website. La lucha continua!
Andy Baker (21 months)
A5768CE
HMP Wormwood Scrubs
PO Box 757
Du Cane Rd
London
W12 OAE

Thomas Blak (Unsentenced)
A5728CE
HMP Wormwood Scrubs
PO Box 757
Du Cane Rd
London
W12 OAE

Sean Cregan (21 months)
A5769CE
HMP Wormwood Scrubs
PO Box 757
Du Cane Rd
London
W12 OAE

Ravi Gill (21 months)
A5770CE
HMP Wormwood Scrubs
PO Box 757
Du Cane Rd
London
W12 OAE

Austen Jackson (Unsentenced)
A5729CE
HMP Wormwood Scrubs
PO Box 757
Du Cane Rd
London W12 OAE

1984 reviewed on amazon

1984 Nineteen Eighty-Four (Penguin Modern Classics)
by George OrwellEdition: Paperback
Price: £5.78
Availability: In stock
257 of 354 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Completely misleading, 11 Oct 2009
This review is from: 1984 Nineteen Eighty-Four (Penguin Modern Classics) (Paperback)
Do not buy this book if you're expecting to find out anything at all about 1984, as this writer seems to have been living on a different planet. I was trying to do a bit of research into the influence of New Wave on cross-over dance music in the Mid-Eighties, but I found "1984" a complete waste of time... Jackson's "Thriller"?(the soundtrack of the summer, and the biggest selling album of all-time) - not mentioned; Frankie Goes To Hollywood (their breakthrough year leading to world pop domination) - not a whisper; Style Council? (Not Paul Weller's finest hour, but still an honest nod to the white soul roots of Mod culture) - you'd have thought they didn't exist if you read this book. Nik Kershaw? Ray Parker Junior? Sister Sledge? Nope, nope nope. Instead this man seems to have moped around in his room and at work, watching some kind of depressing news channel (was his remote broken? This isn't explained - but you'd have thought they'd have had MTV on at least one of the channels in his office). Orwell completely fails to capture the uplifting vibe that was the pop explosion of the summer of '84... maybe he lived in Norwood. 0 Stars.
Oh, and don't read "the Road to Wigan Pier" either, as we drove around for ages last August Bank Holiday before asking a traffic warden, who said that the sea was about 30 miles away, by which time it was too late. I don't think Orwell had actually ever been to Wigan. What does he do - just sit in his room making this stuff up for kicks or something? 0 stars also."

"graceless, voracious, crass, always on the take"

Glastonbury is nowadays a dull, corporatised affair, the place where middle aged advertising executives and public sector managers go to pretend that they are still as 'radical' and 'with it' as they were when they were 19 and once smoked a herbal cigarette at Live Aid. Even the (fairly limp) attempt by UKuncut to embarrass U2, was punctured by the festival security, determined to keep EavisWorld a safe place for tax dodgers.
The procession of the Bland was punctured by the discovery at 9 am sunday morning of the body of Christopher Shale, David Cameron's consituency chairman, in a portaloo in the exclusive VIP (ie pay for nothing) section of the site.
Although at the moment, this is not in the same class as other great 'dead tory' moments- Steven Millington is still all time champion on that score- the thought of him briefly surfacing for the third and final time before finally sinking beneath the feotid ocean of human faeces and urine, brings a certain song of joy to the heart.
once again: "Ha Ha Dead Tory!"

Counterfire: when rape is relative...

Victoria Darbyshire Radio 5 "But rape is rape"
Kenneth Clarke "No it isn't"

There was a great deal of justified anger when the oiliest of an oily bunch, ken clarke suggested that certain catergories of rape should be considered lesser crimes. the outrage he caused brought many more out to join the Slut Walk protests at the start of June.
however as Sofie Buckland has shown on her blog he has an interesting co- thinker amongst the neo trots of the Counterfire site, Lindsey German, who regularly trumpets a bogus authority as "the voice" of a marxist 'true' femininism, and in doing so has promoted the Islamist burka as the epitome of feminist freedom (sic, sick)

Strauss-Kahn v. Assange

Counterfire have published an article by Lindsey German, questioning what it says about the French ‘left’ (or rather, Parti Socialiste) that a man with the reputation of Dominic Strauss-Kahn might be considered an acceptable Presidential candidate.

It takes the allegations made against him very seriously: the “truly shocking story”, with details of the accusations that Strauss-Kahn “physically and brutally” attacked a cleaner in his New York hotel room, is fully relayed.

The article doesn’t say he’s definitely guilty. Rightly: we don’t know yet. But it’s perfectly valid to discuss what the emerging picture of Strauss-Kahn’s behaviour tells us about the French political system and the sweeping under the carpet of vile sexist behaviour towards women in case it damages the cause.

Funny, then, that German is unable to apply the same analysis to the Julian Assange case. Of course, Wikileaks is of the left – German talks at great length on this video about the “great service they have done for us”, meaning the anti-war movement – unlike Parti Socialiste. She likes Wikileaks, thinks it needs defending, and so… participated in the exact same behaviour she’s accusing the French social democrats of here.

I’ve written about the Guardian letter calling for all charges to be dropped against Assange. You might have seen the set of Youtube videos of the Stop the War ‘Defend Wikileaks and Julian Assange’ meeting, particularly the one where Tony Benn makes light of rape, suggesting violence is a necessary component for a crime to have taken place. Lindsey German pops up on another, with a toe-curlingly embarrassing attempt to dismiss the rape accusations against Assange just seconds after reiterating her solid feminist credentials; the case, she says, is “not about what happened, and nobody knows what happened in this case, it’s about the politics of ensuring Julian Assange is discredited” (around 8:16).

Could there be any clearer statement of utter contempt for Assange’s alleged victims here? They’re not genuine complainants, they’re stooges of the CIA. We don’t know what happened, but really, we do: nothing. Unlike the Strauss-Kahn case, you won’t find the allegations against Assange on the Counterfire site. As Angus Johnston has pointed out repeatedly, failure to accurately report the allegations has become a central tactic of the Assange Defenders Club. Their followers/listeners/readers don’t need to know the ‘facts’, because the conspiracy is obvious.

Just like DSK’s chums in the French political system, German springs to the defence of someone she is politically invested in defending, regardless of the ongoing struggle for rape allegations to be taken seriously; if we like them, if we appreciate their politics, if they’re on our side, they’re innocent and their accusers are lying for political reasons. Is German’s dismissal of the Assange allegations any different from Jean-Marie Le Guen’s desperate assertion that a conspiracy to bring down Strauss-Kahn is behind his arrest? Not really. You couldn’t slide a cigarette paper between their responses. German is on the side of taking rape seriously here because Strauss-Kahn heads the IMF and PS are a centre-left party, not America-kicking, conspiracy-busting internet cowboys.

The hypocrisy here is just another sad indictment of the state of the British left when it comes to feminism. This article was a nice opportunity to look a bit radical, to say something about gender and sex to keep those feminist credentials updated, but it fails miserably. Quite aside from the Assange issue, the article goes on to a generally pathetic attempt at feminist analysis, displaying all the hallmarks of today’s popular feminism picked up and turned round into something ‘socialist’; the impulse to zeitgeist (“the present political culture has turned a new page in its attitudes to women and sex”, the “culture of the new rich”), the anti-capitalism of idiots (casually linking “conspicuous consumption”, the sale of sex, women as “sex objects” and sexual assault in a way that’d make an anti-porn rad fem proud), the portrayal of a Big Bad Patriarchy (Berlusconi, check. Sarkozy, check. “politicians, bankers, industrialists and media tycoons”, check) over sober analysis of power, class interest and political expediency – there’s nothing here that couldn’t be answered by calling for more women politicians and a nice social democratic government to rein in the excesses of consumer culture.

It’s just so insufficient, as if wheeling out a few tropes of popular feminism, chucking in a few anti-capitalist stock phrases and name-checking some bad guys makes up for failing to stick to socialist feminist principles when it actually matters. It matters when it’s difficult. On Assange, German and her group Counterfire fell at the first hurdle, headlong into the mire of conspiracy and denial. The same cesspit fuels the defence of Strauss-Kahn, of all these rich powerful men this article rails hard against – the conspiracy rumours, the denial, the victim-blaming allow them to get away with rape and sexual assault. Forgive me if I remain somewhat sceptical of the commitment to feminism of a group who appear perfectly happy to throw this mud around when it suits them.

angry Brigade communique #1

from the AMP. download PDF here print and paste widely.

why George Galloway is a lying bastard

OK, deep breath

these six posts which make up the first part of Captain bollox's magnum opus. The second part(entitled the ideology of the british left) I think still needs tidying up, and I will post it soon. Don't be scared off by the length it is worth persevering with.

Class struggle & Class War: the Resurrection. part 6: What I think needs to be done differently if Class War is to have it’s time again.

1. Organisation: Class War would often have an ongoing battle with the odd member who would draw up some new complex structure for the organisation. These structures would be the sort that you expect for an organisation of thousands not 10’s. But I think these members where hitting on something that was lacking in Class War. Class War lacked an ideology or even a considered clear view of being a permanent body for class and people I think need to know you’re in for the long haul. Just as the Americans have found in Afghanistan! Class War needed a firmer central structure as local groups did not have the have the necessarily resources for the basis of local campaigns. Part of the problem was that Class War was carrying certain sections that either
1. Didn’t believe in doing anything apart from being a local talking shop and complaining about female hospitalised coppers
2. and/or didn’t believe in having any positive political line beyond of what we support and what we didn’t support but it would only be comment on what others were doing. or
3.their only political line was let’s have a punch up or produce a spectacle. I will also add that those sort where not much cop at doing either and have only ever managed such on the basis of piggy backing. It’s hardly showing you can carry an independent working class line

It’s very difficult to attract and nigh impossible to hold onto people on that basis, if you consider that it’s find just to be a scene and things should come down to being in the ‘know’ and who your mates with and who has the longest history in the scene I guess the above stuff is fine. But I consider it all rather useless before I even have to consider whether it is elitist.
Class War should have stopped pretending to have being a ‘Federation’ and just admitted we where a ‘party’. Though after the break with Leeds/Bristol we were more down to being a group specially as those folk held almost all the national contact system. Recognising we were a group solved a lot of problems and allowed us to operate far more coherently politically for quite a while we managed to punch at the same weight as we had previously to the break even though the wreckers had done their damnedest to vandalise the whole organisation and we had less money and members.

Pride in the organisation should be part of culture and we did get there at times.
While Class War was never about being the ‘vanguard’ (in the Leninist meaning of the word- I’m quite happy with Class War being the vanguard of working class politics in the normal meaning of the word)or building the revolutionary organisation that will over throw capitalism that doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be a role for our organisation as long as the new Jerusalem hasn’t be build.

2. Recruitment: Class War was not only poor at recruitment we were pretty terrible at integrating new people into the organisation. I think we where welcoming and personable but people need to feel their making a useful contribution. Any future organisation should have a direct discussion about members talents and get people actively contributing in a directed fashion to the organisation- this should be done on the basis of each local organisation.

3. Groups/sections need to be at least 5 people anything smaller feels isolating.

4. Money. A comrade not long ago said each time a person bought a paper we should have been selling them a t-shirt and a hat. Merchandise was never as run as professionally and profitably as it should have been. We should have had a levy of members to get the proper finance to set things up properly and we should have co-opted people who we knew that worked in related businesses. If that can work for the EDL, it seems to their source of most falling outs, so such things need a tight and reliable reign.

If biker gangs could become drugs cartels how pathetic and stupid the British left of the 60’s must have been. And they go on about being in the clandestine traditions of Trotsky and Stalin!

4. Co opt people we know with the necessary skills that we our organisation needs but we don’t have. We were always a bit shy of going off and finding such folk and also seem to think that we had to find the skills from the people within the organisation. We were missing out on an excellent way of building the organisation. Partially we could have done with finding people with good artistic skills, you should never be shy of trying to exploit a bohemian as they are only trying to use our politics and working class solidarity to build their arty portfolio.

5. Dumping all the lumpen talking like your down with the kids and ignorant people who can’t string a sentence together stuff. For starters it sound patronising secondly it is patronising. The reason the Class War could reach places that other political journals couldn’t was because of the subject matter we could and would deal with.

6. The highest quality publications and materials should be aimed for. How can you argue that the working class should be in power if you offer up sub standard merchandise! What Class War produced should look as professional as possible and not be out of place in WH Smiths or whatever regular store that would be appropriate for that product. The last decent product I think Class War produced was 2004 Miners Strike Anniversary Calendar maybe the odd paper afterwards.

7. Analysis of why people leave. Of course you can’t keep everyone happy and you can’t be running around after people and it is the nature that people that come and go and often come back. One of Class Wars strengths was that it was open to people coming back.

A bit of an aside here but I didn’t want it the earlier bit because it would have taken away from the points made when I was talking about the pride all the ex Class war members can have for what they contributed to.

The most significant reason for my leaving Class war apart from general disillusionment and feeling a bit atomised in Luton and having a lot of troubles in my personal life. I was not impressed when there was going to a huge demonstration against the closure of Vauxhall car plant in 2002 and no one in London could be arsed to come and help me sell Class war’s paper at the demo even though I’ve been down to London countless times. Not to be unfair P.S. had comments that day and would have come but it should hardly be down to one person stopping me feeling really fucked off. Never mind that the event was the sort of local type event about a community coming together and also about the politics of the unions of not having a real clue of what to do in that situation although they got an ok pay off for their members. Which is typical of trade unionism they do alright by their members but all their talk and rallying forces of the town is just another form of exploitation of working class solidarity and abusive of the class in general. In General Motors, sorry for a poor pun. Another thing was around 2006 the paper was taking a tumble in quality an unacceptable tumble which I also suspected would lead to even more of a downward slide and the group wanted to print a paper ready for Thatcher died even though they spent fuck all time and thought on raising money or paying their dues. I had argued for an a serious increase in dues which got poo poo’d- because members would be lost and I was of the view that we needed to get down to a hardcore that was prepared to thoroughly sort our shit out or it wasn’t worth bothering with and I certainly wasn’t going to be bothered as I could see no one was really being bothered or being prepared to face up to the shit we were in as an organisation. I also pointed out that Thatcher could live a mighty long time and it was doubtful it would be 12 months as everyone else seemed to think. She had finest health care money can buy and a lot of fawning and money to live for, that was my class analysis of that situation.


8. Members pay meaningful dues! And promptly.

9. A thought out ethic of camaraderie, I think we did have that but we sort of poo poo’d it a bit as we didn’t want to be like twats for the communist scene. But to be honest there is fuck all real camaraderie in that scene.

10. I wish we had done more satire. If I was doing a paper now I’d have a whole page dedicated to it called News of the Screws. This page would have a series of stock characters that we could lampoon the decadence of the rich, powerful and ruling class and maybe their minions with. We would take all the banned so called liable stories that the courts hush up and be attached to our stock characters.

I think a further critique of popular culture could be explored and expanded particularly in the field of literature and the ideological battle that is being fought in fiction. One side is doing this to a plan our side is coming up with great weapons but has lousy tactics and strategy

.

(Also why are all Left wing comic strips completely unfunny shit, never have any of that crap about your organisation and no pandering to it. If it ain’t good enough for proper comedy it isn’t good enough.)
11. The level of political debate and articles in our internal bulletin was second to very few. We never quite translated that to a broader debate. I think we could have occasionally used the centre pages to greater effect. And class war did make some good strides in that direction before the split but such articles do take a great deal of effort- the best way I think of getting around that is to commission people to write them maybe even as named articles. Anyway nowadays we could just steal something from the internet and re jig it.
I think partly because those who debate such things then to like to talk in academic wank and not English and partly because groups in the UK are only interested in talking in their own milieu. I think the best ways round this would be to have a more literature and history review type thing.
A Touch of Class (not the very poor punk album by the Ejected, but the CW publication) was an improvement over the Heavy Stuff, better name as well but we didn’t have the organisation or political ideology and experience at the time to support it. That sort of thing comes easier when your membership has a reasonable amount of people around 40 instead 30. It was still a bit neither fish nor fowl. I think the main way of dealing with sort of thing is my making sure you have a great high quality letters page. That can made by running round getting people to put in competing well constructed letters.


12. Never lie to the class.

Don’t worry about upsetting the leftie milieu and don’t worry about their stupid nonsensical shibboleths. The only time I consider CW to have lied to the class is issue 73 and at the end of the of a very good centre pages on race etc (what issue was that?) at the end was tacked on and rather in contradiction to the article the pinko liberal mantra that immigration had no effect on wages. A statement that contradicts all mathematical laws of demand and supply in capitalism. It is of course standard practice for left wing groups to play and lose with reality when it is inconvenient to their politics, ideology or argument which is one of the many reasons that the public have no respect for the socialist politics. British people as a whole don’t like to spoken to as idiots when they can clearly see that you are talking to them as if they are idiots and they don’t like liars. And when you’re claiming that your better than the lieing pigs in power you should show that you’re not a lair yourself.

13. Class War operated with great ethics. The class would be proud of us and they wouldn’t be proud of much of the left especially in that regard. I think a statement of ethic practice would be helpful to any future political organisation.

14. No putting up with members with clear anti social psychiatric problems including alcohol problems or other serious personality disorders that prevents those people from working in a decent manor with any member. This isn’t a club for your mates, unless their prepared to get along with people who aren’t their mates. Especially when such arseholes get a member of the public beaten up and on more than occasion also almost get a load of Class War member needlessly arrested. Most Class War members who where around when I was will know about a particular individual I’m referring to, who has a major tendency to be a lumpen scum bag. I could write a big massif on the sort of alcoholic bums that make up Luton SWP but they really ain’t worth the effort except to say not only are they disgrace to political organisation their disgrace to the human race. This point will be further discussed in part two when discussing the nature of Leninist recruitment.

Some role models for our youth- where’s your British pride kids?

15. No pandering to the lumpen, backward scum of the working class. Anyone who doesn’t recognise that there are sections of the working class who look as part of their nature to rip of any one particular other working class or unfortunates hasn’t spent enough time with enough variety in the working class. These people are always with us and they where the building blocks of Nazi terror or the fur lock tugging thugs of the countryside alliance. As Hunter Thompson said of the Sonny Barger and the Hells Angels after they attacked Anti Vietnam War in San Francisco in 1965 that such elements will always look to the simplistic right wing populists to pander to their ignorant prejudices. I have far more hope in Jarvis Cockers Misshapes. Not that I believe in closing off avenues while I can point to far more cases of football crews being reasonable for some terrible atrocities when societies have been plunged in ethnic and social chaos and can find some redeeming cases.

There have always been two lots of objectors at either end of Class War to my attitude both of which I consider cry baby misty eyed sentimentalist nonsense. One lot are the sort of people you cried about the ‘No Buggers, No Burglars’ stickers, that somehow it was racist- well that tells you enough about Leeds Class War and the a social worker from Bristol. I’m a firm believer of working class vigilantism. Working class vigilantism as an ethos should be considered as part of 14. The other lot give me some crap about how these people are ready to be salt of the earth and some other clap trap that these people are just demonised by the right wing press and the middle classes. The decent working classes demonise these far more and they are part of the true enemy within. Such people don’t find it hard to get all hysterical about ‘Nazi’s’ even though it seems to be bloody hard to find any unless you go actively looking for one. But I know of plenty of people in my town who will beat you up for having ‘funny hair’ being perceived to be gay, the wrong colour or nationality or religion and numerous other non reasons depending on the whim of the bastard and of course you get the other sort who make sure you get the sack or don’t get the job because they don’t like the look of you. It isn’t only the middle class that has bastards in it and pretending otherwise just makes you like fool or a charlatan top the working classes. I might add that ‘No Muggers, No buglers’ has been one of Class Wars most popular stickers. I think I came up with that one .

16. If you ever have a group set up in Ireland, don’t pander to the Irish nationalist numpties in your organisation. They only come running to the English and try and get you to be involved with them bullying their former comrades. Class War should have stuck to being an all Britain organisation, there was far too much pandering to various Scottish and Irish nationalism in Class War, if they don’t like it they should fuck off and join one of the mad groups who are living in the 17th century.

17. The paper is our public face and our most important interface, it should be treated as if we are creating as an icon of working class empowerment.

18. The British left socialist, communist, anarchist whatever has been completely been lead up the garden path by British left groups, parties, sects and propagandists. The average person with working class political aspirations can have got decent politics from experience, thinking, literature, films, music, art, books, TV, discussion with their peers, understanding history and economics but they won’t have learnt fuck all worth learning from talking to the British left or reading almost all it’s publications.



If only it was that much fun!  The whole British left could do with some lightening up!
19. There is nothing wrong in feeling pissed off at times, this isn’t about being a martyr or going down in history or being holier than thou. It’s about getting the best normal folk together because our world and lives are ruined by arseholes. Well Class War had that but there can’t be any harm in repeating it.
But the further point is when you have a destructive element that can always come up with a clever and true critique about how wrong what Class War is doing but can never come up with anything positive to do about it and never do anything positive, though the bastards out.

20. Class War is the best tradition the British working class politics, socialism, anarchism and communism has- if we have rise up again let’s not let it get fucked up again. Our side needs to be able to learn from our mistakes and build on our successes. But we keep on going back to square one while the opposition keeps on building on what it has. You can’t expect your enemies to go easy on you just because we’re the good guys.




The good old days! That’s what everyday should be like when you take the queens shilling, fucking pigs. Anyway you can hardly have a book about Class War with a Poll Tax picture!

Class struggle & Class War: the Resurrection. part 5:We got a lot of stuff right when everybody was telling us we we’re wrong. We had balls of steel!

London Class War was the first group to organise a protest and campaign against the Criminal Justice Bill. We tried to organise a protest against the state opening of parliament. They used some law from the 1860’s to give us some sort of standing arrest; they can only use that law within a mile of parliament. It goes back to the old Chartists days . How many groups get wacked with laws that were used against the Chartists! We all rather stood out as being British we rather stood out from the tourists. My favourite bit of that day was a cop demanding a description of Karen’s hair colour and getting the answer flaming copper.

We were never so arrogant to think we were always right. I remember after one the Criminal Justice Bill demos and some trouble London Class War spent a great deal of effort in producing a very well argued defence of Class War’s position and against the passivist tendencies that condemned us and the combative elements. Those pacifist tenancies are the forefathers of those groups that appear to have been riddled with coppers during the last 10 years. Anyway Birmingham produced the now famous ‘Keep it Spiky’ leaflet in response to the Keep it Fluffy campaign which was financed by amongst others the singer from the Levellers. We we’re gob smacked in London as we always considered the Birmingham group as a bit wet and untogether, anyway we rushed off to the printers to get a load more of the Birmingham written leaflets and were dually rewarded with a copper complaining about said leaflet on the news.


Protesting against the criminal justice bill. Class War also organised a wet t-shirt competition in Trafalgar Square after a punch up outside Downing St. Can’t remember which CJB demo it was that I scared the shit out of BBC camera team who thought they had the right to get in the middle of a melee and film everyone. The posh bastard from the BBC thought that saying he was from the BBC gave him diplomatic immunity, think again coppers narks of the BBC!
Class War was right about most of the shit. The police are not workers in uniform but bastards in blue, pigs, Babylon, filth , murdering bastards that tax you and give you shit on demo’s, it’s not like there isn’t enough real scum for them to be chasing, pricks. And far too many are on coke in my view and have small penis complexes. Government bureaucrats - self serving scum- the more middle class they get the more of an exploitative bastard and hypocrite their likely to be. The unions where shit and not good enough to beat Thatcher and defeat the cuts- and they were not too fucking interested in winning that often. At least Arthur Scargill was trying to win even if his head was in cloud Stalinist cook coo land. I always sold more papers on a trade unionist demo than a leftie one. And now we’re grateful for trade union leaders who are even more part of the official political process. Our town halls across the country are corrupt and don’t work for the normal people. Labour didn’t give a fuck for normal folk, the only real difference between then and the Tories is that Labour will make the state do a little more for the towns & cities while feathering the nest of top council folks etc while stopping us smoking and making this country even more authoritarian. They even forelock tug to the monarchy.

Class War proudly campaigned against the monarchy and help support ‘MAM’ (Movement Against the Monarchy) which was another case of every other group on the left of not giving a shit of going to the class and not being prepared to work even ex members of Class War. In fact it was very much a case of Class War stepping into the breach in the case of MAM, as we had taken a back seat and let the people who set up MAM lead and hoped to see other political groups collapse around them in a fraternal manner. Little hope of that of course. Which doesn’t stop a load of bell ends writing to the Weekly Worker (journal of the CPGG) demanding all sorts of anti royalist platforms but none of those folk got of their backsides and supported MAM even though it managed to organise a successful demonstration down the Mall of over a thousand on a very wet day.

Class War also started a campaign against the high street store Wilkinsons using cheap prison labour for the packaging of their goods. This campaign was very well received on the high street. We all managed to annoy Ann Roddick of the Body Shop for leafleting her shops against her anti trade union policies. Solidarity Federation supporting us in the Wilkinsons campaign is the only time that any other group national group ever in any practical word or deed supporting a Class War initiative that I can think off and it would have been hard for them not to as it was so directly up their street that it would have been seriously embarrassing for them to have not done so. We were years ahead of UK Uncut!

But we celebrated the artful dodgers of the working class while condemning the lumpen gangsters, sharks, spivs, whatever you like to call ‘em. We celebrated how great working class live could be if society was organised for us the working class. We condemned celebrity culture – the culture which is so little different from the great men (and women) of history so secretly longed for by the sad failing British left (anarchist inc). We found bits of mass culture to enjoy- not wanky middle class toss off. We bought up real counter culture than the left where to uptight to deal with.







Some pictures by punk record designers apparently.
And we were young and poor in CW! I remember our most experienced activist in London and 1 of 2 that had done degrees being 30- and thinking fuck that’s old- lol. I think CW was really designed for a situation where you had local based activist groups and all got mucked in- but that’s not we have in Britain- we have every grouplet building pathetic empires so they can claim to have the biggest dicks. I noticed CW was the only group where members usually got their other halves from outside the milu. That’s why we did brilliantly during the poll tax and the other groups did shit. I almost the only fucker in the SE with a car and it was a fucked old hand me down Skoda. We knew people would be reading Douglas Adams and listening to Crass, the Exploited and Hawkwind 30 years later and not wanting to read your old shit. More decent thought went into our front covers than your whole paper- and they were far more real politics. We knew how to be able to have a good row even if we did have to battle the passive aggressive control freak bastards to have it sometimes. We tolerated far too much of the passive aggressive control freak shit- which seem to what most trots and anarchists seem to have a fucking degree in. First group to protest against the Criminal Justice Bill and attempt to protest at the state opening of parliament- we were fucking class. Fuck we didn’t even have word processors most of us. Never mind the internet, no file sharing. Leftie papers if they got nothing interesting to fill up their pages – why not serialise a novel like Ragged Trouser Philanthropist (not my taste- I’d go for fight club first). We had the number of the Derek Hattons , George Galloways and Tommy Sheriadians. And the fucking Greens. Any idiot can say Adolf Hitler was a bad guy. When the likes of Lib Com praise- with faint praise at that- the anti fascist history of CW- they truly miss the wood for the trees the liberal fucks- it reminds of posh arty fucks praising John Heartfield for his anti fascist art so they can ignore the rest. How about that for high fucking culture. And we swore like normal people instead of talking like college fucks or worse social worker fucks. Let’s face it even the British state knew we were the coolest. And we didn’t run round like the Angry Brigade and we didn’t tell others to. And we didn’t fight strikes to the last penny of someone else’s money. And we didn’t take money from dodgy governments. I thought of a lot of writing was a bit to lowest common denominator- because it sounds patronising and/or I don’t think people who read CW are that dumb (or at least most of them) and/or I don’t think we should bother with people that dumb- I’m a bit of fucking snob I guess- but to me that seems a big problem of the left is that they will try and recruit any dumb idiot- easy to tell what to think I suppose. We never tried to recruit village idiots and the vulnerable. Not saying that never happened by accident. But we tried to be nice and improve them- not dump them as spent rubbish and not try and exploit them for our little sect. We at least tried to be a gang not a sect. We we’re right about trade unions and all the other anarchist poo pooers where/are wrong. We we’re right about the NUS. I’ve got more time for FE students and more hope (just for the fact they’re not as atomised) than twats at university. Most of decent ones are having to work their butts off!
Student power what a shower- Mensi. We didn’t have the membership, the knowhow, the know what we were even attempting, the experience, the finance, the oxygen of publicity- but we fucking struggled. And we didn’t try and repeat the same sad old failed ways. And we had balls of steel in comparison to those around us. CW was a paper made for people who knew we were being ruled by Maggie Thatcher and the Soviet Union or social workers weren’t going to ride to the fucking rescue. Nor was jah and jedhi’s or the messiah. And they’re aren’t going to ride to the rescue now.


All my adult live as reinforced the opinion that we are screwed over and fucked about , how working class people are disempowered for the common bad, how are thoughts are policed even and it never continues to get worse while the reality could never be better. New ways are being found all the time to increase the stress and worry of working class life- they even make kids worry now- are they going to be good enough to be exploited. Working class life can feel not that different to the film Brazil to me. We have more break downs than since the second world war now- while we are richer as a society than ever. Poor old people are treated worse than for a long time- while if your filthy rich they’ve never had it better.

I’d have rather been in Class War than any other group- don’t regret that one bit.

Class struggle & Class War: the Resurrection. part 4: Class War – if you ask me this is the high society!

They say the night is at its darkness and coldest just before a chilly dawn breaks, lets’ hope a new dawn is in sight. I’m sick of the darkness and the cold is killing us off. They say the hardest flowers bloom (let’s hope it’s at least a 1000) in the hardest conditions. That’s Budapest apparently.

It’s sad to hear of the demise of last incarnation of CW. At least it was never about the same old sad failed faces continuing no matter how they felt. Time for a more cunning plan I think. I can tell anyone who gives a shit about the Class War brand- it’s not going to get any good or even fair advice from the British left, Leninists and Anarchists alike. 99% of them wouldn’t have pissed on us had we been on fire. These people matter no more to me (and anyone else who was in CW I expect) than anyone else in the street who wants to chat about why the world is shit.

The ‘Left’ are no more advanced than the rest of the at least slightly thinking proletariat. In other words they are no smarter, often less smart than the man in the street. And usually with a damn sight less common sense! But they do have a very high opinion of themselves. Anarchists in my moderately large experience are amongst the more authoritarian and uptight about such pathetic shit. They really do need to get out more. And there is only one bad thing that ever happened in CW in the right on stakes anyway and it was dealt with better than any other organisation has ever managed on the UK left and that was on a stinking ship. The muck that is around the SWP is legion. Or many I’ve just heard a load of nasty rumours about a load of sexual assaults being covered up.

I give a lot more of a shit for when we (Class War) were clapped into Hyde Park by the miners and their families while having a huge police escort while the rest of the demo was marked in the main my it’s family policing to the official trade union movement. A couple of years ago Class War members on the May Day march in Chesterfield had the exact opposite experience. The local Labour MP read out the name of each contingent as they entered the square –“Well done to PCS Sheffield” and mentioned everyone except Class War. The CW contingent promptly turned round and marched past her a second time and were ignored again. What bliss! We don’t mind being judged by what enemies we manage to get.
As an aside it gets on my tits people moaning about the EDL when liberation socialists who appreciate a bit of righteous vigilante mob violence aren’t being catered to. If we were smart we would use that nationalism to be able to tell the stupid reactionary workers from the decent ones. There is no point moaning about that sort of nationalism leading people astray if you can’t feel the vacuum from the left field.


I joined CW in 1993 I think, any it was just after that pompous Welsh bald cunt windbag (the Sun where too polite) lost the general election for Labour (who where the same crocked cunts then as they are now). That the British left couldn’t see and Sun journalists and Tories could see that Kinnock was an annoying windbag cunt and that might have been the difference between winning and losing. And the cunts waffled on about ‘the issues’. The issue was they were a bunch of pompous cunts and couldn’t even see it in others. That’s the British left- that is.

I’d had been around the CPGB (both versions- but this time the pretend new version- what the fuck was therewith no CW or anything else really and I was from a CPGB family. The only time I enjoyed it and feel like I wasn’t being a wanker on the behest of some other wankers was during the general election. When as part of their very rubbish campaign you got to talk to members of the public about shit they might be interested in. And I did feel hampered by the CPGB campaign which was loaded with pc bollocks, which always gets picked up on by the public first-and so even if correct you end up talking about the wrong thing. Dumb arses! That’s the CPGB- not the proletariat, in this case at least. Not that this hasn’t always been the nature of the UK left I remember B.S. (that is her real initials and she was a member of the CPGB at the time) when I was about six years old doing the socialist equivalent of washing my mouth out for describing someone as a ‘black person’ and not using the then ‘politically correct’ term of ‘Coloured’. Such people shouldn’t be allowed near children in my opinion; then again our schools are full of such people, worrying isn’t it?

Anyway I’d had moved to London which sucked (specially as I no money as usual)- of course but I needed a break from Luton. And I think CW had markedly improved around that time- some disagree- but their talking shit on the subject- it may not have improved for them but overall as an organisation it had improved and that’s what should count. I was sweet and naïve in many ways back then- good ways to be when your 23 maybe- fuck I tried hard to get along with everyone in CW- even if I could tell they weren’t wild about me and assumed their hearts where in the right place- I’m not so sure about some now. In fact i’m very sure that the Leeds members on the whole where complete scum and I never trusted them. But I ummed on the side of thinking the best of people then- I draw a harsher line now.

I remember standing with D. and K. in parliament square just after the criminal justice bill riot –well about 3 days later- after some fine old police cunt had blamed CW for the all the trouble! And I said to my comrades that no doubt that one day we would look back at this as the good times (hmm thinking of an ATV song now). There was some crap meeting with Tony Benn and some other polite old cunts talking and not one of the cunts going would buy a paper of us- it was like we had the plague they should have felt duty bound to by our paper of us no matter if it was shit or not. It was like we had a police guard- like the 3 of us could manage to magic up a spontaneous riot with these old codgers- fuck we’d be on 3 million quid a year in the private health care sector if we could do that. I tell you it wasn’t better with the proles down at Kings Cross. But at least it wasn’t because we lacked the balls.

I remember TBH and myself having similar treatment on an student demo- maybe if they could read minds they could have us arrested for incitement- but they would have been inciting themselves my reading our minds- so they are unable to make out thoughts completely illegal at the moment. He’d be in the nut house- but I don’t think the authorities would do the decent thing and send me to my Iceland (as in Brave New World)- they’d just try harder to break me.

I remember D. and me getting into a fight in a park in Hackney with some WRPers- because some guy attacked D. as he taught D. was sleeping with his girlfriend. Not our fault if we were better looking and better in bed- anyway he doesn’t own the woman- what a nob.

Class struggle & Class War: the Resurrection. part 3: The Robin Hood Thesis

As we’re a story telling people and this is one of the great strengths of religions. Why the fuck do left wing groups think that their above the use of parable- because they lack the imagination would be the main reason.

I’ve met many people who fit the little John description. I wish they had the courage to use their brains as well as brawn. And I’ve met a few Fry Tucks. But every fucker seems to be waiting around for Robin Hood. I’ve met plenty of Hoods but no Robin Hoods. Waiting around for the Messiah isn’t for me.

Because that’s what our youth need- is a motley crew in Lincoln Black that can teach them how to be outlaws. Decent (decadent) kids who find their way to socialist and libertarian ideas/ideals our atomised and out-numbered a 20:1 by lumpen fucks. The communist kids in 1930s where beaten up by the Hitler Youth but during the weekends where organised to take revenge. We shouldn’t be romanticizing about Chav filth being rebels- they are lumpen filth- just like the character in Clockwork Orange who becomes a copper. We need to take those wuzzy emo kids and turn them into a gang. Fuck it’s what the ruling class do with the Bullington, Rotary Clubs or the Masons. We should be all those things for our side. Left wing groups like to take such huddled (whatever is the opposite of) masses and exploit them so they can continue their personality sect and loser dreams of going down in history. They do give those kids what they need to operate and have good lives- their told to feel holy for doing the collective good. They are doing the collective no good. All they do is demonstrate the resistance is miserable and futile. We need little skirmish victories, famous parties and a better social lives and learning how to drive and do up your cars and DIY for our recruits. We need to teach the Longbow of modern life, rebellion and making things good in a pirate fashion.

Now I now the left including Class War love their macho talk. At least Class War could walk what they talked and didn’t go into turd suck as military support/ revolutionary defeatism of siding with the likes of Saddam while not being able to punch their way out of a wet paper bag. I guess the reason the SPGB never bother with such talk is they couldn’t talk their way out of an empty room. For those ‘revolutionaries’ who talk ‘military support’ go get your self a firearm, it shouldn’t be that hard and shot a guard on sentary duty, it’s far easy for a madman to make a statement against the military if their really comitted in the Uk than it is in some far off country where their expecting such nonsense. But of couse such talk is just talk, like all the talk of revolution is just talk.

I see the young skinny anarchos on demos looking for a place to make their stand. To give it to the man. A load of those cops are huge bigger than me (six foot one and 15 stone) and a damn sight fitter and those kids are tiny puny things. The kids are damning inditment on physical education in our schools, if we needed mass conscription it would take the army at least a year to get those lot up to muster- and that’s just to shot with with not to duke it out with swords or fists.

It’s time to face the truth that 9 times out of 10 it’s time for a more Ghanaian approach.

Fuck motor city should be fuckin burning! They (the council) have christened this town home of the ‘Mall’. For fucks sake why do lumpens always look to America for their culture!? 300 millions cunts that are even more fucked over and daft than the peoples here!

Class struggle & Class War: the Resurrection. part 2: We ain’t knocked out- we’ve just been resting on the canvas.

I’m going to do with this piece of writing what at university some cunts taught me to do with my lessons- reflective assessment. What worked, what didn’t and why and how to do it better. The political left is much more need of such techniques than my teaching practice of 6-11 year olds- but they are less stupid in the main- but class war members were always better than eleven year olds. Not much to ask of your comrades- maybe I’ll ask even more in the future. At least eleven year olds know they don’t know everything. Trouble is that they are taught that they need a teacher to teach them everything they don’t know- which should be fine at eleven- but isn’t fine if you want a revolution or at least a jolly good shindig with those who think a revolution would be a jolly fucking excellent idea! School and the British state is hardly likely to give the working class the necessary skills for such an endeavour and it seems the British left does not believe in giving future generations a chance to learn from their mistakes. And in the art of learning often more can be learnt from pushing ourselves to the point mistakes happen but for this to be useful we have to recognise those mistakes and not try and protect any egos.

Unlike every other leftie writer who isn’t a comic. I believe that writing from experience trumps arseholes who read too many books – especially when they don’t compare them much with real life.

The British left is centred on London metropolitanism and unfortunately I will have to touch on that a great deal. It’s easy to pretend you’re not isolated when you can get a 100 people to an event, but you’re in a city of 10 million, that would translate to 2 people in my town of 200,000. I know of quite a few leading left ‘thinkers’ who don’t even have a driving licence and to my mind there is something wrong with someone from a prosperous background who can’t drive as an adult, they are almost undoubtedly missing out on a decent level of verity of experience.

The term left will be used though out these writing to collectively refer to all those who claim to support some form of socialism or communism including anarchists unless I state otherwise or is clear from the context.


Ed the great red hope or is it an action man of Adrian mole. I just have to see his face and I want to throw up!




This is your captain speaking…

Does the system work? Not for us. As Discharge said.
I don’t do motivational talks with American bullshit or the talk of an advertising man.


No plan of battle lasts contact. Funny how that maxim is never really recognised by the British ‘revolutionary’ left. I think it was different in Class War, but we never went back to the starting point – even if we wanted to we could not as we would have to start from a point that no one would want to start from.


But we’re at such a place now-for the first step to redemption we have to realise that we are truly pathetically fucked. We are all living on our knees. You can pretend otherwise, but the working class is almost kept as pets or as an old, loyal, stupid horse that is still just about worth exploiting instead of replacing with new technology.

There is no two ways about it, on the class struggle front life sucks. When you stop dreaming of storming the Winter Palace and your revolutionary justice, you’ll be facing reality. Stop dreaming of your vanguard. The only guard we need at the momment is a rear guard. This isn’t some ‘downturn’- this is- the revolutionary left, revolutionary hope is well and truly fucked from top to bottom, until we’re prepared to be honest with ourselves.

I see old comrades cutching at straws. Rattling on about the Middle East is more of “the end of history” bullshit. Hopefully the people there will have the right to moan about their government, have the odd bit of booze and internet dating and porn to escape their alienation. After all, that’s all we’ve bloody got.


Some supposed the youth, those who are even wetter behind the ears than we were, are going to rise up, when the smart ones are so busy working so they may be exploitable material later in life, like we had a clue at that age- like our peers weren’t even dumber wankers (except, may the ones who fitted in who where busy studying so they could get a good deal in the exploition game). Get fucking real- most rebellious kids are at least as atomised as we were, surrounded by a trash culture even more all-consuming than the one we faced. Fuck, we act like a class that is already dead.

The worse grasp of the straw is the faith that the financial system is set to self-destruct. All we have to do is what for the crash then storm the barricades according to this theory. We’re living through their forecast crisis and the ship is righting it’s self like it always would. They can (the government of the ruling class) abolish and create debt at their own whim, they can change the relationship between money, they change its worth. Money is a social relationship and they change the value of money to how they want that relationship to be. Even funnier than the Marxist forecasters of revolution storm and crisis are the right wing ‘libertarians’ who demand ‘real money’.
There is no such thing in the paper variety, but they have lots of it so demand that it be protected. The whole of society would break down if they had their way, that’s why they’re not allowed to have their way- they would create the revolutionary crisis that ‘economic Marxists’ are always wishing for. The reason that normal people don’t understand such economics is that none of it hangs together properly and it doesn’t make proper sense, so people just end up feeling dumb when trying to understand it.

The old vets are the only ones who we can ever hope to train a new army. But all I hear from old vets is whingeing about how tired they are or why couldn’t it have been their stupid plan that they had thought out 20 years ago instead of the other stupid plan. But I see no one going back to the original plan to improve it, save to say “let’s surrender”. Fuck if I had a Bolshevik organisation (and I don’t believe in Bolshevik organisation - one in ten of you would shot. But unfortunately macho fantasies of revolutionary organisation are old hat and going to work for society. But I don’t completely give up on it internally- at least it should be kept as a protential in the locker  for internal use.

To be honest I’m rather disappointed in Class War’s tradition even if I consider it the best end of the working class/ socialist revolutary movements. Why is it left to a depressive dyslexic to set this record straight with straight talk and straight language? Most of us vets of the class war should have 20 years left in us and should stop thinking like we’re fucking dead.

Left wing politics at all levels is surround and emmersed in personal nerusis. It’s all about how each indivdal think how the world should be run or more often how they should set their personal judgment on those groups of people who they should face the justice of their punishment. It doesn’t matter a fuck how correct each indivudal is- because revoltuionary program and cause if about how we can all prosper. And you lot would rather nothing posper in revolutionary ideas unless it fits in with your personal nurusis. All this self cented behaviour should be oxymoronic to socialists/anarchists et al, so it’s not surprising that people don’t trust the people who sell them socialism.

Whenever you bring people up on their selfishness and only wanting to do their way- they accuse you of being the same. This is slways the cover of the non genuine to accuse all others of being non genuine. Fuck I don’t even like typing and my solutions are from what I often enjoy sometimes. And I’ll add my outline isn’t about a few years’ experience, a few years thought and non revision and lack of reflection. And it only claims to partical. But still a damn sight more complete in relecting on reality that those ideogalies than compete against it… Anyway this paragraph has got to wordy and grandious. So let’s put it this way- don’t judge me as you judge yourself- we’re not all self deluding egoists- though most are. The organised left recuits and organises on the base of egoististic fantasy and that’s what powers it to a large extent. Which is why it has been in collapse for years. But socialist ideas and and ideals are the direct opposite.

Class struggle & Class War: the Resurrection. part 1: Pick yourself up and dust yourself down, we’re at the bottom now.

first part of captain bollox's opus:



Surely official nice regular politics does not have to come more of a sad joke for it to be clear we are living in a land of bullshit and lowest common denominator? Cameron is/was the end of an advertising agency. Before that in the kingdom of the blind the one eyed man was made Prime Minister. He certainly didn't have the wisdom of Odin. And maybe just as little sense and grip on reality on race relations as Nick Griffin. He also put the bankers in charge of the banking system and then got us all to bail out the bastards. Labour the workers government? Bullshit. The labour party is the bankers friend. Fuckwits scum bags – Mandy partying on rich fucks yachts in the Med. Mad catholic cigarette banner and bigger righteous war monger than Pope Urban the second. I could go on about Paddy pants down- a madder bomber than Bomber Harris or the IRA. Or the Guardian claims 14000 then 20000 rapes- carried out in Serban 'rape camps'. Turns out that its around 200 rapes are authenticated. I can bet the Kosovan liberation army- are responsible for more than 200 human trafficking cases and rapes. And the that idiot Paddy- used the RAF as a their air cover. We are lead by mad bastards. And those idiots from Living Marxism thought they'd get a far trail from a British judge. Haha. They even opted for a British judge- thinking the establishment has a sense of fairness. Never mind they stupidly claimed that there was no concentration camps- it the end of the day any holding imprisoning system almost can be called a concentration camp. We have loads of bastard lawyers working in parliament – as their the only people who enjoy reading boring shit and feel always find a loop hole so as not to be punished for doing the wrong thing.

As to Ed fucking Milband- the great Red hope- for fuck sake- I think he's almost as bad as the Welsh bald windbag. Kinnock with his snout in the trough. Adrian Fucking Mole. The Tories could be setting up rape camps for the proles and that fucker would make another cry baby pathetic speech in parliament- that amount to vote for me- I'll have you raped less.
The left of course didn't get why the person in the street hated Kinnock so much. They waffled crap about how people should concentrate on the 'issues'. The Sun understood it- even a wanker like Kelvin Mckenzie can see that Kinnock was patronizing windbag- and clear bullshitter. Not that Kinnock did any concentrating on issues that mattered for normal people. Unless you count him doing everything in his power to have people stab the miners in the back. Why the hell do you think he gets his reward in Brussels? When there is fuck all difference between the master the public may as well chose the less patronising wanker for the top spot. My old man didn't even understand why that pompous Ivy League git Kerry lost against Bush jnr and the war had fuck all to do with it.

Where in a world where the the lawyers in power think they deserve to get off from their misdeads because they can claim a blow job isn't sex. When their real misdeeds are blowing up aspirin factors with cruise missiles or having their fingers in dodgy financial pies- remember white water. Didn't it leave someone dead? But their all up to that sort of thing – so it doesn't count as corruption. It doesn't count as corruption when bankers pay Gordon to say nice things to them at their dinner parties- which no doubt can be put against their companies tax bill. While on Finance- I heard some idiot on the radio claim the arresting of the head of the IMF for rape in New York showed that no one is above the law in America no matter how rich. All it shows is no French man is above the law in America no matter how rich specially if he has powerful enemies. When O' J, Clinton and Michael Jackson are in the nick I may start believing such horse shit. It doesn't count as corruption when ex cops run security firms. It doesn't count as corruption when ex generals run the defence industry or when ex council care managers get jobs running the privatised care homes after they written reports saying the council provision is too expensive because people have too many sickies- they have too many sickies because their management is fucking useless. But lefties don't like mentioning how shit the middle and upper management of the welfare state is. Don't wonder why , we all know it's because loads of their buddies work in it. From the Royal family down to the Rotary Club through to the likes of the SWP- this society is all about patronage – which is a polite why of saying corruption. All the noses of the shitbags in control are in the trough. We live in world where management encourages sociopathic types to be put on charge – who will always do the most to avoid responsibility- and generally act like an arsehole from one of Milligrams experiments. I can’t even cheer myself up with a chocolate bar as there is so much vegetable fat in it nowadays that it tastes like lard.

But it’s easy writing how terribly fucked up our world is. Some no mark always likes to point out how some other shithole is even more fucked up. But we shouldn’t compare our selfs to mad fuck ups, we should should compare ourselves with the best and the best possibilities. But anyone can write about what a horrible world we live in and come up with solutions if they had a magic wand and if they had the dicatorial levers of power, the thing though is to understand why there is so little organisation for a political challenge to those in power.

Coming soon- more by Captain Bollox

The recent announcement of Class War's demise has led to some interesting reminiscences of Class War, some by those who have other axes to grind Captain Bollox who was a member of CWF for a lot longer than I has written a reply to these, which includes his belief in the rightness of Class War and the continuing necessity of a Class War approach. I will be posting it here.
it is however 33 pages long, and I am unwilling to cut it. I will try to sort out a way of getting it online soon.

Long Live the Spanish Revolution!

The democratic Revolutions that swept across the Middle East and North Africa were a response to the economic crisis, and the inability of the dictatorial elites of those countries to be able to respond to that crisis, and their determination to make the poorest of their society endure the pain of that crisis.
Ever since the protests began the question has been when and how will they spread to the West, where democracy might be the norm, but in fact means a five yearly 'choice' between one group of privately educated neo liberals and another, slightly posher group of neo conservatives.
Now the Spanish people have taken to the streets demanding direct, real democracy and not the sham of the parliamentary farce. In Madrid, Barcalona, Valencia Seville and Bilbao, as well as numerous smaller cities, the youth, sacrificed to a lifetime of unemployement by the austerity programme of the government, are demanding a place in the sun.

Worker Dandyism

I might be too scruffy for this, but I dream of tweed and plus fours, I am a dandy trapped in a slobs clothes. I heartily endorse this, and agree that the revolution may not necessarily be televised but that is no reason for it not to be well dressed



The Worker-Dandyist Manifesto





1. The Working Class is paramount. Our Dandyism is subordinate to our class. Dandyism outside of the class is of no interest to us. Dandyism without class-consciousness is of no interest to us.
2. We are committed to total social change with the ultimate aim of absolute democracy. There is no blueprint for the New Society so we needn’t get into any pigeon-holing or championing of dead Russians just yet. Suffice to say, we are not vanguardists; we are of the seething, but smartly dressed, masses.
3. Proletarian revolution is not, as enemies of the class insist, about universally lowering living standards to the level we plebs are currently forced to live at. It is about raising our living standards to the highest levels achievable. We refuse to abandon the good things in life to those chinless dolts who have done nothing to assist in their production. We reject the stale crumbs flicked from the rich man’s table. We demand the entire bakery and one day we will take the entire bakery. What’s more; we will take the rich man’s table and ram it up his foetid posterior, one splintered leg at a time.
4. We define our Dandyism, in essence, as simply making as much of an effort as possible with the limited resources available. An effort in sartorial flair and individuality, an effort in civility, social responsibility and courtesy, and an effort in communal culture, welfare and hedonism. Our definition of Dandyism will most certainly conflict with the pompous elitists’ definition of Dandyism. Of course, we embrace and encourage popinjays, peacocks and coxcombs but we shall dispense with the conceitedness associated with such terms in favour of community and kindness.
5. The Worker-Dandy opposes sweatshop labour, child labour and forced labour. If you paid £5 for a new skirt then someone, somewhere has been paid, at most, pennies to manufacture it. The Worker-Dandy will never knowingly contribute to such exploitation.There are many ways and means of dressing well. Slavery is not one of them.
6. The Dandy will seek out what he or she regards as the very best in music, art and film. We will not allow ourselves to be bottle-fed shit by talentless, creatively bankrupt moguls. We are not affected one jot by any artificially created charts, polls or ratings and are equally unmoved by profit-driven advertising. Information is what we require to make choices, or, failing that, a coin.
7. We regard Worker-Dandyism as just one method of achieving greater happiness, friendship and social cohesion within the class. Dandyism is not for everyone and may be regarded as superficial by many. We agree: outward appearance is intrinsically superficial but, in the case of Worker-Dandyism, is the icing on the cake. Dandyism may also be thought of as silly. True enough, it is. Humans without humour are no fun to be around and fun is, after all, humanity’s raison d’être.
8. We reject religion and supernaturalism just as a growing child rejects Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy: as nothing but infantile fantasies passed from generation to generation and, in the case of organised religion, with the sole purpose of converting the class to fatalistic defeatism and apathy thus avoiding revolutionary desires. People are born atheists, they are converted to simpletons.
At worst, religion is a force for unmitigated evil directed by a hierarchy of deep-dyed degenerates with no regard for life, human or otherwise.
9. Worker-Dandyism is rational and therefore vehemently opposed to quackery. Pseudo-science is a leech that feeds on humanity both economically and physically. Reflexology, homeopathy, magnet therapy, etc., are all bunk. Snake-oil salesmen have always exploited the gullibility and desperation of the sick for financial ends and, while people are free to dispose of their earnings as they please, when people are discouraged from seeking proven medical treatment in favour of junk remedies we regard this as tantamount to criminal assault.
10. We are Anti-Fashion. Fashion, being a man-made, capitalist construct, is irrelevant. We do not change our tastes from month to month and do not need to change our wardrobe from season to season -excepting the demands of climate and weather. We appreciate that clothing design evolves through the ages but quality, style and function are, to a Worker-Dandy and, indeed, to anyone with an ounce of sense, what matters. Wear what you like, not what the High Street dictates.
11. Alcohol, when consumed imaginatively, responsibly and regularly, can act as a stimulus to hedonism, carnality and revolt. It should, therefore, be embraced with gusto.
12. The Worker-Dandyist International has no leaders, no structure and no organisation. We simply encourage YOU to declare yourself a Worker-Dandy, live by the spirit of this manifesto and encourage others to do so.

Brenda visits Dublin

the Irish and british media and goverments have been constantly informing us that the people of Ireland welcome the Windsor woman's visit
Here we see the masses who turned up to welcome the Queen




later a joyous crowd offered to take the Royal couple for a traditional Dublin supper
(ham sarnies anyone?)




Tomorrow Madge will be visiting Croke Park (yes THAT Croke Park!)
which I am sure will go down really well!

Honestly who thought that this was going to be a good idea?

Nil out of two ain't bad

having been a bit previous with Maggie, it seems that my report of the demise of Class War was also a little premature;
Ian Bone reports from his blog:

The Class War Federation has long ceased to have any meaningful political or organisational existence. However the merchandise in hooded tops and shirts has thrived,the finances kept in good order, the website maintained and the occasional paper appearing, plus recent outings in London and Birmingham for the very fine CW banner…………all achieved by ten or so people round the country…….and a load more who though inactive identified with CW. About ten days ago a statement apppeared on the CW site and Wikipedia announcing the end of the CWF. I have no idea who put this out. There also apeared on the website blog a racist reply to someone enquiring about merchandise.This was placed via the admin page by someone not authorised to use it or somehow hacked the password and was clearly of malicious intent. It has now been removed. So I thought it was time to say something.

There are five of us in LondonCW and two of us – me and Jane Nicholl – will be leaving after the weekend. I’m going to the ALARM meeting on Sunday and if it turns out any good – and they’ll have us – we’ll probably throw in our lot with them. What others do elsewhere is down to them. I have no more right than anyone else to declare CW dead and would not want to…..it’s death has been declared before and I suspect the revivalist tendency wil surface again. If so and they continue in the original spirit of CW I’ll wish them well but my energies will be going elsewhere. I think the CW merchandising arm will probably continue in good health. And I post this in the true spirit of CW by someone who still best exemplifies the true spirit of CW – Patrick MaCroidain:’ Class War will never be gone not even if it only had one member, it would still cause havoc.’

Class War is not Dead!

Though it appears that Thatchers worm-addled, rotted corpse is still twitching enough to keep her out of the grave (for now), news has reached me that Class War has been wound up:

The following statement was issued by Class War on 3rd May 2011.

The Class War Federation is no more.

Given our inability to continue to function at an organisational level and the huge amount of debt that the organisation finds it self in we have no choice but to formally dissolve the group.

Given that we only have 5 paid up members it is the decision of the five of us to end our association and in doing so end the project known as Class War

I am somewhat depressed by this news; it is clear that with the departure of many of us who were a part of London CW a few years ago to pastures new, the responsibility of maintaining the paper and the group in London fell onto the shoulders of others; the weight of such has, it seems, proved beyond them.

Class War however is not dead, the class war continues.

theres a rumour that was spread around town...

There are whispers that Thatcher has finally died
even if these prove once again to be premature..

lolz