Lansbury's Lido

Phil at A Very Public Sociologist: Birthday Song Meme is asking what was the #1 single when you were born. So here's mine, Gerry & The Pacemakers - How do you do you do it?

Nowt as encouraging as Dennis in full flow.

So Osborne and Laws, the dynamic duo at the Treasury have announced plans to knock Child Trust Funds (CTF) on the head. For those who don't know CTF are savings accounts set up to provide a cash fund when a child reaches 18. The Government puts in £250 when a child is born. When the child reaches 7 then the Government shells out some more cash. Parents and relatives are encouraged to add money when they can afford it. For some it seems a good deal - providing a handy nest egg for University or house buying. Others deride it as giving money away to the poor and undeserving. Ian Cowie in the Telegraph is certain that pulling the plug on the CTF was the right thing to do. Here and now, unpopular though it may be to scrap the CTF, it is undoubtedly the right thing to do at this stage of the credit crisis. The reason is that these payments were gifts from a government up to its neck in debt. This scheme was an egregious example of Gordon Brown’s Great Debt Delusion. And Kate Green MP, ...

Just been reading the paper on the 'Big Society' put out by the Government of all the talentless. It's not pretty reading. http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/407789/building-big-society.pdf Running through it all is the theme of offloading services from local and national government to so called 'local' initiatives. It doesn't take a genius to understand why. Take people's taxes and instead of redistributing them via local councils and national initiatives you pass the loot over to local organisations. And of course all these local organisations will need 'managing'. From Secretaries to Treasurers to Committees, all posts that will undoubtedly come at a price and can be filled by men and women of good upstanding, of course. 'Jobs for the boys', the 'old school tie network', it's not what you know it's who you know. Unelected as well, no doubt. There's talk of local people being able to start up their own schools if enou...

This song has left me absolutely gobsmacked. Getting to my age and never knowing about Phil Ochs - inexcusable!

There's a certain cartoon in the Morning Star archives by the excellent Martin Rowson. It goes something like this: Who's that in the window?

Call centre workers at one of Britain's biggest energy companies, E. ON, have had their pay slashed while their bosses have escaped from any wage cuts.At least 2,500 of the lowest paid staff at the gas and electricity firm have been told their pay will be cut by about £2,000. The announcement comes just a day after the business, which is owned by a German company, had increased its profits six fold in Britain thanks to keeping customer bills high, despite enjoying substantial falls in wholesale prices. It comes to something when a Tory paper like the Telegraph posts a damning item on corporate greed yet the party that claims to represent the workers is woefully complicit in this sort of activity by refusing to repeal the repressive anti-union laws brought in by the Tories. Any party with balls would have been vociferously condemning this sort of industrial activity. I can only conclude that the Labour Party is for all intents and purposes defunct. To be honest it has ever since...

Rummaging around for some David Rovic songs I came across the Riot Folk Collective at www.riotfolk.org. A collection of folk musicians whose aim as the website says is "Making folk a threat again!" Here's Ryan Harvey.

That's what I'll be asking my local Lib Dem councillor should I have the misfortune to bump into him. Mind you, the way the Lib Dem councillors have behaved in the past I don't expect to hear a peep from him until the next council elections. I put my hands up and admit to voting for Lib Dems in the national poll. There was no chance of them getting elected in Aldershot, even less of Labour but there was hope, however miniscule that Howarth could be given the heave-ho. I mean, could it be so bad? After all, the Lib Dems are a progressive party with some policies to the left of Labour. In the end Howarth increased his percentage of the vote. So I suppose I can wear the badge that says "I voted Lib Dem but all I got was a stinking Tory/Lib Dem Coalition Government". Now Clegg must be old enough to remember the last Tory administrations under Thatcher and Major, how the poor, the weak, the disenfranchised, the minorities were treated, how unemployment was a "...

So the UK is in a state of flux because of the situation of being in a hung Parliament. Good and bad news for those on the left. But bad news for the Tories and the Lib Dems. The Tories have failed to capitalise on 13 years of right-wing Labour government which has given us 3 foreign wars of dubious legality,  a massive encroachment onto civil liberties with calls for 90 days detention without trial, ID cards and trial without jury on the mainland. Even with the Cashcroft coffers they just can't muster the support of the people. We've seen numerous business talking heads talking bullshit with no sign of the media bringing on board the trades union leaders to give a balance. But still the Tories flopped. The Lib Dems were given a totally unjustified equal platform with TV debates amongst the leaders yet we see no increase in the number of MPs. What a farce, pure media hype to try and spin some viewer interest. On the left the good news is that left leaning Labour MPs have ...

Image via Wikipedia So who wrote this? "England is the land of justice." Nine in ten of the comfortable classes take this for granted. Yet it is false. Where is justice when, in times of slump, two million unemployed are restrained by force from access to land, machines, and tools with which they could be profitably employed, and condemned to eke out a miserable existence in enforced idleness and dwarfing poverty? Where is justice when, in an age of potential plenty, millions live in needless want; and half Britain is paralysed by fears of sickness, old age, or the other insecurities and vicissitudes of life ? It is taken from a publication called " The Socialist Sixth Of The World " by The Very Reverend Hewlett Johnson who was commonly know as the Red Dean. He was the Dean of Canterbury from 1929 to 1963 and was infamous for his support of the Soviet Union from the October Revolution until his death in 1966. He died in 1966 but it's only now that his fami...

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Just received a local election leaflet from the local conservative candidate Lucy Kurjeza for my ward, Mayfield in Farnborough, Hampshire. I think she's received her encouragement from Gillian Duffy and 'Bigotgate'. Let's have a look at what's splurged on the page: ...many in Mayfield are alarmed at the increase in the number of Nepalese.. ...Borough of Rushmoor has 2nd highest number of Nepalese in England... ...local schools unable to cope... ...GPs' surgeries unable to cope... ...not able to keep up with the relentless influx of not only the Nepalese, but also those from mainland Europe... All the usual stirring you'd expect from a party like the BNP. Except that it's not the BNP but Cameron's Tories. And with quite a high level of BNP support in this ward perhaps it's what you'd expect. But with such a tactic comes the message of dividing a community and encouraging racism. Perhaps a true reflection of how the Tories care about what she s...

I like this! Sung to the tune of "We Plough The Fields And Scatter" H/T The Episcopelican An Anglo-Catholic Socialist hymn, for May Day. Original lyrics by Charles Dalmon. Revisions by Fr. Kenneth Leech for the Jubilee Group, and Ted Mellor. 1. You faithful saints and martyrs Who fought for truth and right, We ask your prayers and blessings To aid us in our fight. Your faith shall be our watchword, Your cause shall be our own - To fight against oppression Till it be overthrown. Lift up the people's banner And let the ancient cry For justice and for freedom Re-echo to the sky. 2. In many a golden story, On many a golden page, The poets in their poems Have sung the golden age, The age of love and beauty, The age of joy and peace, When everyone lived gladly And shared the earth's increase. Lift up the people's banner And let the ancient cry For justice and for freedom Re-echo to the sky. 3. Today the tyrants triumph And bind us for their gains, But Jesu...

Image via Wikipedia As international capital seeks to strip the resources and dignity of the Greek people the KKE , the Greek Communists, have released a statement this May Day. Worth reading all the way through. Can't say I disagree with a word of it. All power to them and their cause. Comrades, workers, Greeks and immigrants, young women and men, pensioners, unemployed, KKE calls you to turn the events of this year’s 1st May in honour of the struggles and the sacrifices of our class into a new beginning of class political awareness and militant uplift in order to repel and overthrow the criminal policy of the government and the plutocracy that leads the working class, our families and children to the most savage and brutal exploitation, to permanent poverty and unemployment. It is our duty, especially towards young workers, men and women, towards the children of the workers and the people, to defend the conquests that the previous generations have shed their blood for. N...