Bob Crow fight for Bombardier jobs

Who you going to call, Ed Miliband.........don't think he would have much muscle in a fight for jobs.


UNIONS REPRESENTING the Bombardier workforce in Derby confirmed today that they will be mobilising a mass demonstration on Saturday 23rd July in the city in protest at plans to axe over 1400 jobs as a result of the Governments’ refusal to award the company the Thameslink carriage contract.

Details of the timings and the route of the Derby protest are still being agreed with the police and the council and further details will be available shortly.

Meanwhile, rail union RMT demanded a halt to the tendering process after it emerged that Bombardier have been put on alert as “ reserve bidders” in the event of something going wrong with the Siemens bid, fuelling union suspicions that the final contract has not yet been signed off and opening up the possibility for the Government to reverse their decision.

RMT is also demanding publication of the tendering evaluation as part of the statutory consultation on redundancies required by another Government department. RMT is specifically seeking justification for the Government claim that the Siemens bid represents “value for money”for the British taxpayer in light of the destruction of 13,000 jobs in and around Derby as a direct result of the plans.

RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said:

“On the 23rd July we intend to bring the whole of Derby out onto the streets in protest at plans that would destroy core manufacturing industry and 13,000 jobs in and around the city. This act of political vandalism would impact on every single person in the area.

“We also want this process stopped and stopped now to allow us to look in detail at this wholly spurious claim that the Siemens bid represents “value for money”. As part of the redundancy consultation it has to be justified that this is a genuine and unavoidable redundancy situation - we do not believe that it is as the workforce are actually the victims of a political stitch up.

“If the Government and their puppet-masters in the EU think that the fight for the future of Bombardier is over then we’ve got news for them - it has only just begun.”

Ends

Ed Miliband admits he is Rupert Murdoch's bitch

Bring on the clones!

Ed is on the way out but I no question that the New Labour leader will be loyal to Rupert Murdoch.

The fact that Ed is boycotting the Durham Miners Gala says it all.

This is worth a read,

Ed Miliband’s reneging on a commitment to speak at the Durham Miners Gala looks like a timid attempt by the leadership to distance itself from the trade unions and the working class. Such an approach would be a colossal mistake. As three quarters of a million public sector workers take industrial action on 30th June, the whole movement, including the Parliamentary Labour Party, must stand alongside them in solidarity. The Government remains weak and riven with contradictions. A united labour movement can defeat it and Ed Miliband’s responsibility is to lead that campaign – not to undermine it.

MORE HERE

Keith Taylor's Bees

Rather liked this from Green World, the Green Party Magazine about Keith Taylor, who took over from Caroline Lucas as our South East MEP after Caroline Lucas was elected to parliament.

There’s a crisis in the world of bees...Between 1985 and 2005 the number of honeybees in the UK halved. Colonies disappearing is a real and significant threat, not only to honey production but also to the production of many of our crops which depend on bees for pollination. In total the value of Europe's insect pollinators is estimated at €14.2 billion. Worldwide this rises to €153 billion - that’s 9% of the total value of global food production.

Some 87 out of the 115 leading global food crops depend upon animal pollination including important cash crops such as cocoa and coffee. The continued decline in bee numbers could make healthier foods such as fruit and vegetables much more expensive and the loss of bees could have a devastating impact on global food security. Bees are also important for pollinating wildflowers so without them our towns and countryside will lack the diversity of flora and wildlife we currently take for granted.

We simply don’t know enough about why bees are in decline. Many factors could be involved – changes in farming and land use, diseases and parasites, climate change, lowered bee immunity and the use of pesticides. Research into some existing pesticides has shown very high levels of toxicity to bees. Given the crisis we face it is foolhardy in the extreme to continue allowing their use. Until the reasons for increased bee mortality are better understood, those pesticides which are of most concern must be banned.

In the near future, the European Parliament will be consulted on the framework for authorisation of pesticides in the EU. The Greens will be calling for much greater consideration of the affect of pesticides on bee populations. Last year the European Parliament passed a resolution which called for independent and timely research into bee mortality. At a meeting I hosted recently in parliament experts and MEPs described an urgent need for detailed and extensive risk assessments of the impacts of new and existing pesticides on bees and research into the chronic effects of pesticides on bee colonies, bee survival and honeybee behaviour.
Earlier this summer I supported the Isle of Wight Festival’s ‘Let It Bee’ campaign which raises awareness of bee decline with the 70,000 festival goers. It has also helped to fund the ‘Field of Hope’ project, the first bee reserve on the Isle of Wight, converting a meadow into a bee paradise. Surveys have shown there to be over 100 species of bees and wasps on the reserve, including twenty nationally rare species and two which are completely new to the island.

Tackling the problem of a fall in bee numbers needs more research and more conservation projects. But we can all do our bit. Recently I visited a nursery school in Hove where children are planting wildflowers to attract bees to their garden. This is a simple step to support bees. By encouraging more of this sort of local action we can all help to avert the unprecedented disaster which we face if bee numbers continue to decline.

>
Keith will be hosting a fringe about bees at the Green Party’s Autumn conference in Sheffield.

‘Where will the lower orders buy their Christmas presents?’

Your new book is called Chavs:The Demonization of the Working Class. Can you briefly explain where the term ‘chavs’ comes from, what it is supposed to represent, and who is using it?

The word ‘chav’ comes from the Romani word ‘chavi’, which means ‘child’. When it first entered the Collins English Dictionary in 2005, it was defined as a ‘young working-class person who dresses in casual sports clothing’. Its use is widespread, but it is its use by middle-class people that is particularly disturbing. I open the book by discussing an anecdote: I was having dinner with people from an exclusively middle-class, professional background, and one quipped: ‘It’s a shame Woolworths is closing. Where will all the chavs buy their Christmas presents?’ What he was saying could easily be rewritten as: ‘Where will the lower orders buy their Christmas presents?’

There are several acronyms that have been made up for ‘chav’ that are dripping with class hate: like Council House Associated Vermin and Council Housed And Violent.

Several ‘chav-bashing’ books have been published which come up with definitions of those they are attacking. According to ‘The Chav Guide To Life’, as well as being ‘loud and lower class,’ ‘Most chavs come from not well-off, working-class families on council estates’. The bestselling Little Book of Chavs goes through a list of ‘chav’ jobs: supermarket checkout workers, cleaners, hairdressers, fast-food workers, etc.

As an example of how the wealthy and powerful associate ‘chavs’ with working-class people, it’s worth recalling how Prince William dressed up for a ‘chav-themed’ fancy dress party at the end of his first year at Sandhurst. When the other cadets demanded he ‘put on a chavvy accent and stop speaking like a Royal’, he couldn’t do it: ‘William’s not actually the poshest-sounding cadet, despite his family heritage, but he struggled to pull off a working-class accent,’ one cadet told The Sun.

The website ‘ChavTowns’ goes through a number of working-class communities, writing them off in their entirety as, well ‘ChavTowns’. My own hometown of Stockport gets a repeated beating: take one article attacking the town - ‘To be fair, Stockport has some very wealthy areas. Unfortunately, it has more than its fair share of scummy ones too.” Another article attacking the local population similarly moans: “I have to admit I feel ashamed to have to write Stockport on my address, despite being from one of its much, much nicer suburbs (yes they do exist).’ Or, for a Southern example, check out an example of eloquent chav-bashing directed at Basildon, which is described as a ‘seething mass of chavite humanity’.

For many, Vicky Pollard - the invention of two wealthy, privately educated comedians - is a symbol of the ‘chav’ caricature. A few years ago YouGov ran a poll of people who worked in TV: the majority thought that probably the most famous ‘chav’ icon out there, Vicky Pollard, was an ‘accurate representation’ of the white working-class.

What is most problematic is how the meanings of ‘chav’ and ‘working-class’ have fused together, even among many people who would ordinarily be described as working-class.

Interview with Owen Jones who seems to have a larger presence on the left than anyone other than Chavez

Agent Orange being used to clear Amazon

Wonder if Rory Carroll is having a nice time sitting next to the pool, a well, lets get on to some news:

Agent Orange is one of the most devastating weapons of modern warfare, a chemical which killed or injured an estimated 400,000 people during the Vietnam War -- and now it's being used against the Amazon rainforest. According to officials, ranchers in Brazil have begun spraying the highly toxic herbicide over patches of forest as a covert method to illegally clear foliage, more difficult to detect that chainsaws and tractors. In recent weeks, an aerial survey detected some 440 acres of rainforest that had been sprayed with the compound -- poisoning thousands of trees and an untold number of animals, potentially for generations.

Officials from Brazil's environmental agency IBAMA were first tipped to the illegal clearing by satellite images of the forest in Amazonia; a helicopter flyover in the region later revealed thousands of trees left ash-colored and defoliated by toxic chemicals. IBAMA says that Agent Orange was likely dispersed by aircraft by a yet unidentified rancher to clear the land for pasture because it is more difficult to detect than traditional operations that require chainsaws and tractors.

MORE HERE

Ray-gun killer statue shames London

A Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign Briefing 4 July 2011

According to Baroness Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, whose statue was unveiled outside the US Embassy in London today, was responsible for ‘winning the Cold War without firing a shot.’

However, behind the cosy facade of the great statesman and communicator who ended the Cold War was a man whose ideologically-driven foreign policy, uncluttered by facts and complexities, led to the deaths of 30,000 Nicaraguans in the 1980s.

In 1981, Ronald Reagan set about destroying the Sandinistas - who came to power in a popular insurrection to oust a US-backed dictator – by unleashing a war on all fronts: paramilitary, political, diplomatic, ideological, economic and psychological. This included arming, funding and training a mercenary force known as the ‘contras.’ For Reagan, the means - however illegal, murky and morally reprehensible - justified the ends. Former CIA director, Stansfield Turner testified to Congress that the actions of the contras ‘have to be classified as terrorism, State sponsored terrorism. ‘

In 1986 the Iran-contra scandal erupted: the Reagan administration illegally sold arms to Iran and used the proceeds to illegally fund the contras during a period from 1984-6 when Congress had imposed a ban.

Later in 1986 the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found the US guilty of breaches of international law including arming and training of an illegal paramilitary organisation, mining Nicaragua's harbours and imposing a trade embargo. The US refused to accept the jurisdiction of the ICJ or to pay the estimated US$17 billion damage to the country’s infrastructure.

As celebrations take place in London and elsewhere to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Reagan’s birth, our thoughts are with the tens of thousands of Nicaraguans who suffered the consequences of his murderous foreign policies.

Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign

86 Durham Rd, London N7 7DT, 020 7561 4836

MORE HERE

AND CAMPAIGN FOR THE REMOVAL OF HIS STATUTE HERE

Guardian correspondent writes 'advertisement features' for human rights abuser

Alvaro Uribe's methods and allegiances have been criticised, but Colombians are simply happy that, under his regime, there is relative peace and security - at least for now. Rory Carroll joined him on a typical working day.

Surely, for the sake of the Guardian's credibility, now is the time to relieve Carroll of his duties and let him to what he does best; composing 'advertisement features' for the tourist board of the country with the worst human rights record in the hemisphere.

MORE HERE