Wealden Progressive Movement

Last weekend it emerged that five children had died in a house fire near Derby. A sixth victim died this week and it was revealed that the cause was arson.

This is more than a family tragedy. The family of the victims had been featured widely in organs of the gutter press such as the Daily Express. A Sun article on the family was headlined “Ex bans scrounger’s kids”.

But it is not only the press at fault. Even worse are the politicians. In 1905-6 agents of the Russian Czar organised pogroms of the Jewish population of Russia to distract popular attention from a lost war abroad and waves of economic and political strife at home. They would not necessarily get their hands dirty but would put out pamphlets encouraging others to take part in orgies of murder and looting.

Today, some Tory and Labour politicians alike frequently use terms designed to demonise those in receipt of benefits – welfare dependent, scroungers, parasites etc. We are told that they breed like rats and take our homes, especially if they are “gypsies” or “foreigners”. It is hinted that they are worthless, and the less of them the better.

Then a minority of people take these politicians at their word, people who perhaps did not enjoy the sophistication an education at Eton brings, those who are made to feel a sense of burning resentment towards those with a slightly bigger house on the estate and are taught not to question why they live on a council estate and others live in an estate of many square miles.

Meanwhile in the City of London the investment bankers, hedge fund managers and private equity bosses see their fortunes rise into the stratosphere.

Over a period of five days – from last Thursday’s council elections in the UK to today’s results in the French presidential and Greek parliamentary elections – it has become clear that austerity and government for the rich (and in Britain, government by the rich) no longer has a mandate.

The coalition parties in Britain were heavily defeated from Plymouth to the Central Belt of Scotland (if not in Tunbridge Wells and Maidstone, the two local authorities in our part of the world that held elections). With most voters now recognising that Britain’s return to recession was a matter of choice rather than external factors, the Tories look set to lose in 2015.

In France, the Socialist candidate Hollande narrowly beat Sarkozy on an anti-austerity platform. Most impressively, in Greece, a society torn to pieces by cuts, a left-wing coalition Syriza took second place. The two governing parties, New Democracy and PASOK (the equivalent to the Tories and New Labour) saw their vote crumble despite promising to ‘amend’ the austerity programme if re-elected.

For democracy to triumph over the powers of capital, however, needs more than victories at the ballot box. The power and wealth of the City, Frankfurt, Wall Street and the Gnomes of Zurich will work to undermine any government that threatens them. Ultimately, serious money may well flow into the pockets of fascists, who did very well in Greece though were utterly defeated in the UK. To oppose both the financial elite and those they may start to fund, it is time to build networks of resistance on the street and in the workplace that will enable the will of the majority to prevail, as well as networks of local, national and international solidarity that put socialist politics into action in our communities.

However, bliss it was that dawn to be alive!

Today we started work on Jack for Saturday’s Beating the Bounds. By Friday he should be covered in leaves and given a crown of May blossom. He will be seen in Tunbridge Wells Town Centre from about 10.30 on Saturday 5th May, walk in procession around the Commons of Rusthall and Tunbridge Wells and then be slain to bring the Summer. Accompanying him will be one or more drums and he will be flanked by a red flag and a flag of Kent.

More surprises can be expected, so join us on Saturday as it feels that we need to give the birth of the Summer as much help as possible this year!

The next Palestine Solidarity Campaign stall will be in Maidstone on Saturday 19th May from 11.00am. It will take place at the corner of Week Street and Earl Street.

West Kent Palestine Solidarity Campaign

Labour Peer Lord Ahmed has attracted a fair degree of controversy today in saying that he would raise money to see Tony Blair and George W Bush indicted for war crimes. He is far from perfect, with his conviction for dangerous driving and, more worryingly, seems somewhat in thrall to some religious groups.

Positively though he doesn’t claim to be doing the work of a deity, speaking to a deity on a regular basis, or planning to start a war in the hope that he can boost his retirement income as a result. He is also a lifelong Labour Party supporter, rather than a smarmy chancer (and political son of Thatcher) on the make.

No act imaginable could unite the country more successfully than throwing Call Me Tony and Mr George W into a cell at the Hague. I volunteer my services to write an economic policy for his future government, starting with the City (free one-way flights to Zurich and 150% tax on profits from financial speculation, naturally)

With a team like this, how could Middle England refuse?

UPDATE – We will be meeting at the High Brooms Tavern at 2pm on Saturday – UPDATE

We will be holding a meeting in a place with convivial atmosphere this Saturday (7th April) at 2pm. This will follow on from a stall before lunch. More details will be posted shortly.

Today it was revealed that MITIE, a large outsourcing firm for both the private and public sector, had not paid some of their cleaning staff for the last two months. The cleaners, unable to afford even to travel to work, understandably stayed away, and toilets in offices used by thousands of staff and public remained uncleaned. The stink permeated all parts of the buildings and may lead to their closure on health and safety grounds.

The jibe in the West when I was young was that in the USSR the state pretended to pay the people and the people pretended to work. Certainly after 1991 a lot of workers were paid in kind for many years. If only the British worker was so lucky!

I’m sure that top executives at the firm will be paid in full, with bonuses etc. Yet cleaners, often from ethnic minorities and paid little more than the minimum wage, have had precisely nothing to live on.

The lessons are clear. We should put an end to outsourcing these services to the spivs of the City. It is time to break with the failed economics of Thatcher, Blair and Osborne.

Today’s news that, if tanker drivers exercise their democratic right to withdraw their labour, the Tory-led Government will send in the army to break the strike should make people reflect on the nature of power in a capitalist society. In a personal capacity, I believe that we should encourage the armed forces to refuse to follow such orders in such eventuality, whatever laws may exist.

On striking during the Olympics, the only responsible course of action for trade union leaders is to take action at a time that it can have the greatest effect. Union members have suffered several years of real-terms, and sometimes absolute, pay cuts. Our members should not be forced into financial hardship for ineffective action. Trade unionists, as part of the real Big Society, also have responsibility, in that they have some power, to lead the fight in defence of those who have virtually no power, such as the unemployed and disabled who are rapidly being economically cleansed from many areas of Britain. The government have stated openly that they want to break the unions on London Underground after the strike. Why not take action at a time of our choosing rather than their choosing? It should be remembered that it is grassroots activists that were first in pushing for co-ordinated action during the Olympics.

No doubt the press will carry pictures of upset children and disappointed athletes if civil disobedience and mass strike action force the abandonment of the Olympic Games. Yet where are the reporters when families are evicted for the crime of being poor?

With Beating the Bounds coming closer, it is worth sharing details of a report from the Kent and Sussex Courier dated 24th May 1901. The article states that the Beating the Bounds procession, the first for 24 years, had started at the Pantiles, passed through London Road, Mount Ephraim, Hurst Wood Lane, Rusthall Lower Green, Gypps Cross, the “lane at the back of the High Rocks”, Hungershall Park, the Eridge Road and returned back to the Pantiles. This is very close, if not identical, to the route that we have evolved over the past few years. Another earlier cutting suggested that the procession had also taken place on occasions in the autumn.