Lansbury's Lido

Many years ago when I took a job with the Ministry of Defence a question they asked was 'Are you or have you ever been a communist', or words to that effect. Obviously they already knew with the background checks carried out on anyone joining the MOD and signing the Official Secrets Act. Decades on I've just thought what exactly did they mean with that type of question, leading on to what makes a person a communist. I suppose it's easy to have communist tendencies or to feel broadly aligned to the aims of socialism and communism. But I expect the question really implied was did I belong to the communist party. So I did a google uk search for communist party and discovered there are more parties than you can shake a stick at. We have: Communist Party of Britain Communist Party of Great Britain New Communist Party of Britain Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) The Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) Communist Party of Bri...

Coca Cola in Colombia seems to have a track record of bad working relationships with unions in Colombia. I mean really bad! Now it seems the story is repeating itself in Pakistan. Since forming a union at Coca-Cola's bottling plant in the southern Pakistan city of Multan in June 2009, members have met with death threats, abduction, firings, extortion, forgery and fraud. Management's vicious response to the workers' fight for a union is a story drenched with violence, corruption, sleaze and escalating criminality. Read more at the IUF Website  Time to roll out a classic track by David Rovics called Drink of the Death Squads. 'Seems you American workers get downsized, us we just get shot' H/T Jemmy Hope

So the bankers and the media are gushing over posh boy George's rich man's budget. They've softened us up over the past few weeks with negative superlatives on the economy like dire, tough, bloody, unavoidable and now they praise it as a job well done. There some data from the Office for National Statistics that shows that the richest 10% spend £1 in every £25 on VAT whilst at the poorer end £1 in every £7 goes towards VAT. So posh boy's knee-jerk reaction is to up VAT as it hits the poorer more than the richer. But wait, haven't we heard mention of upping VAT before? As a reminder here's some posters from not so long ago. First off the Tories with their nightmare scenario of Brown upping VAT. Then there's one from posh boy Clegg's little grouping about the Tories upping VAT. Spot the difference? No, of course not. There is no difference. This current ConDem coalition shows the Liberals for what they truly are. Where we hoped that they would ...

The Guardian has an article looking at the views of nine leading 'left-wing' thinkers. You can read it here . This is reported as the 'left-wing' of the Labour Party so there should be some radical ideas knocking about. Let's have a look. Well, I was going to go through it but I think it's easier to just list the items. If you want to know more then follow the link above. proper voting reform an Apollo-style declaration to turn Britain into the Saudi Arabia of offshore wind families and work-life balance job share in the shadow cabinet a non-selective school entrance system deciding what is the right size of the public sector move on tax avoidance scrap inheritance tax, introduce a French and Swedish-style wealth tax regulate the market democratise the state introduction of modern capital controls European-wide minimum wage and tax on bonuses and high pay directly elected education boards a 35-hour week a big examination of family law a carefu...

I'm in the market for some new reading material so if you'd be so good as to help then you can find my 'looks interesting' feed from Goodreads.com in the sidebar. If you have a Goodreads account then feel free to add me as a friend. And if you have anything else to recommend then I'd like to hear it! ** Update - just ordered these two: The Revolution Betrayed by Leon Trotsky Global Justice: Liberation and Socialism by Ernesto Guevara