Wealden Progressive Movement

We live in truly Orwellian times:

I am in possession of a concessionary bus permit as I am precluded from holding a driver’s licence.

I was waiting at the Bus Stop and two busses arrived at once (insert the old joke here).

I made to board the first bus and placed my permit onto its automated card reader, after which I ascertained from the driver of Bus # 1 that it did not go the route I wanted to travel. I therefore needed then to board the second bus quickly and dashed off from the first bus.

I then went to board second bus, which had, by now, arrived at the stop. This other Bus was going to my destination. I boarded this Second Bus and again placed my permit onto the electronic ‘reader’ only to have it refuse my permit as ‘not valid’. I was told by the driver of the second bus that my permit had only been refused because I had only very shortly before used it on the other Bus. This means that the Permits are being used as the means to track people’s individual journeys. The implication is that all the Bus ticket machines are somehow connected remotely.

I was already aware that the ticket machines on the Buses use GPS as a means of automatically determining where the Bus is on its route at any given time (to automatically update the stop information). However, combined with this function and the aforementioned fact, I conclude that indivduals’ bus journeys can be ‘logged’ and recorded at the time they are made and then, theoretically, this information can be looked up / referenced at a later time by parties unknown (the Police?).

Why do the Bus companies need to ‘log’ people’s journeys. To which agencies is this collected information made available?

The United Kingdom already has more CCTV cameras than any other country in the world. It also appears that people’s bus journeys are being logged. Combined with this, an idea has been put forward by a Government Think Tank that all cars be equipped with ‘micro dot’ technology to (purportedly) automatically determine the distances being travelled to determine each person’s P.A.Y.G. road tax. Which agencies (aside from HM Revenue) would be able to access this information?

We live in truly Orwellian times.

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.

The Health & Social Care act has just gone through the House of Lords……

 

‘Nuff said

Frank Owen

The Budget is on Wednesday…..

‘Nuff said

Frank Owen

For the last two Saturdays we have shown The Great Money Trick in the town centres of Tunbridge Wells and Tonbridge. At Tunbridge Wells on 10th March, aided by excellent weather, the numbers watching may have been about one hundred – including local Tory MP Greg Clark. Today in Tonbridge the weather was less good but we also got a fair crowd at times.

What is The Great Money Trick? It is a chapter in the Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, a book
written by Robert Tressell and published after his death in 1911. I have never seen a clearer and more accessible explanation of the way in which capitalism exploits the worker and leads to periodic slumps and rising unemployment.

We hope to film The Great Money Trick in the next few weeks. If anyone living within easy travelling distance of us would like us to perform it in their estate or town or village centre, please contact us.

 

 

Unions have reacted angrily to reports that next week’s budget will scrap national pay rates for public sector workers, such as teachers, nurses and civil servants.

It’s understood that the Chancellor, George Osborne, will say that workers in poorer parts of the country should have their pay frozen until it comes into line with employees in the private sector. Mr Osborne initially set out the idea in the Autumn Statement.

Ravi Subramanian, the Regional Secretary for the West Midlands for Unison, Britain’s biggest public sector union, said Mr Osborne effectively ‘wanted nurses and care workers in the Midlands to take a pay cut to fund his 50p tax cut for millionaires in southern England’.

Mr Subramanian also stated the move shows that the Conservatives are the ‘nasty’ party: “…This is about setting North against South, Public against Private. This is the politics of division from a Tory Party who are determined to make public sector workers the scapegoat for a crash that they didn’t cause… It was the greedy bankers who caused the global financial crash. Instead of taxing banker’s bonuses, he wants to cut the 50p tax rate for the very wealthy and attack public sector workers. It’s patently unfair… It’s the politics of division and it shows that the Tories really are the nasty party,” he said.

Wales’s First Minister Carwyn Jones, said the government should be trying to improve regional disparities in pay, not making them worse: “Why should they be penalised because of where they live? Surely we should be looking at a situation where we look to close the gap in income between different parts of the UK rather than make it worse, which is exactly what this will do. All this will do is drive workers to the better paid regions”

The NASUWT, the largest teachers’ union, also criticised the suggestion. General secretary Chris Keates said: “As usual, the chancellor holds up the private sector as the comparator. The inconvenient truth he chooses to ignore is that large organisations in the private sector have national pay and conditions frameworks.”

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: “Moving to regional pay will not just reduce the pay of millions of public servants, but hit regional economies outside London and the South East when people have less to spend.”

Len McCluskey, Unite’s general secretary, added: “All this will do is drive workers to the better paid regions, leaving large parts of the country without the professionals essential to sustain local services.”

Meanwhile, the government continues to promulgate the mantra that if they taxed the Banks, they would ‘simply move to Geneva’. In fact, the famous ‘vito’ that David Cameron used in the European Parliament was, in effect, an opt-out for a Tobin Tax on the Banks proposed for the rest of Europe. Jingoists might (cynically) state: ‘…it is an Englishman’s inherent and inalienable right to be ripped-off by its Banking system!’

The words ‘self aggrandisement’ spring to mind.

(CUE: sound of hollow laughter)

(EXIT: Far………………… Right !)