Forgive me reader for I have sinned. It has been over 7 months since my last post but that's not important right now. What IS important is that this report is read by as many people as possiblehttp://www.ekklesia.co.uk/files/response_to_proposed_dla_reforms.pdf I adhere to the Disability Movement slogan "Nothing About Us Without Us" and will let the report speak for itself on that basis.
Please read it, please distribute it further and please promote it to the best of your ability. Now, more than ever as much support as can be garnered is needed. Thank you.

"Old, New, Borrowed and Blue..."

In a post on Labour List today, Joe Ottaway outlines why he feels that "Labour must reject sectional politics". I tend to a contrary view: Labour must not entirely reject sectional politics but must not entirely embrace them either.

The Labour Party is looking to the future, it is assessing where we are, how we came to be here, where we wish to go from here and what is the best route to follow in order to get there. This is a positive state of affairs, reflection, discussion and debate are all essential to the democratic process and it is right and proper that they should be favoured over policy formulations set in stone being handed down from on high.

At such a time, people are naturally going to take sides, emphasise their perspectives and priorities and point out the shortcomings of other, competing views.
Once again, this is healthy. Everybody has a piece of the jigsaw but nobody has possession of the big picture, given that, we all have to work together to figure out how all of those pieces fit together.

This will entail differing views and this will almost inevitably lead to a degree of conflict somewhere along the line. However, most Labour Party members will remain, as I do, proudly eclectic and unashamedly unaligned.

If it works let us use it irrespective of its provenance. GEER, Blue Labour, Purple Labour, Green Labour,
Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Labour. All will have areas of merit, all will have weaknesses, all represent a section of the party and all will contribute something to the Party as a whole. They all require and deserve a fair hearing

Just a brief note on Ed Miliband . . .

I will now acknowledge that I voted for Ed as my first choice as Labour leader although I felt and still do that all of the candidates were far more capable than either Cameron or Clegg.

Back in our last period of vicious Right wing government I was very much of the opinion that political change created cultural change and that most of the changes in our society that I perceive as being both necessary and desirable would, in the first instance at least, be initiated via Parliament.
 Experience has not supported this view point. Although this does sometimes happen, far more frequently it is cultural change that creates political change. For this reason much of my own advocacy for change is extra-parliamentary   in nature. Nonetheless Government remains centrally important  as does the idea of the enabling state (Neil Kinnock's term, compare and contrast with the vacuous platitude "Small State" which Orange Tories so frequently parrot as some kind of rationale for their actions.)

Nonetheless there is a minimal programme which I would expect any political party to adhere to in order to be considered worthy of my support. Simply this
: (1) To maintain and where possible improve pay and conditions for ordinary working people.
  (2) To support and where necessary defend the maximum possible levels of personal (including sexual) freedoms.
  (3) To provide a consistent, unequivocal and unambiguous opposition to Fascism in all forms.

I have complete trust in Ed Miliband on all counts. I also trust the Labour Party and , amongst major parties, the Labour Party alone on all counts .

Pointing The Finger At Clegg

This is a supplemental entry to the one I did on Friday (See Below) The invaluable Disability Now has done an excellent piece on the Liberal Democrats duplicitous position on Disability Living Allowance. Link
Think about that. Then think about how far Clegg has moved his party to the Right. Another Link
Now bear in mind that we have an ongoing smear campaign against Disabled claimants across the Right wing press that looks very much as though it is being orchestrated. Take into account that Clegg is part of a government that sees fit to employ the deeply unpleasant Andy Coulson as its official Director of Communications.Yet another link As I have stated before there has been a four fold increase in hate crimes against Disabled people while this has been ongoing. People have been driven to suicide by the way Clegg's "Simple Test" wrecks lives. All LibDem members have been compelled to choose whether their loyalty is to their party or their principles. A full third of party members have gone for option B and left the party altogether since the forming of the coalition. We have now reached the point when any of those who have gone for option A (or are pretending that they don't have to make that choice) but still purport to be in any way of the Left will quite simply not be believed.

Thoughts On Becoming A Folk Devil

A little background to the terminology to begin with Folk Devil (Apologies to those who have  reservations about the reliability of Wikipedia but their overview is as good as any and better than most in this instance)

I myself (and many, many others) have recently  acquired this hideous status courtesy of our rabidly Right Wing Government.
So what did I do to become an enemy of the state?

Did I get so overexcited at the prospect of becoming Deputy Prime Minister that I entered a coalition without acquiring power of veto over bad policy formulation by my coalition partners? No. That was somebody else.

Was I appointed as an advisor on public sector economic efficiency despite having evaded £1.2 Billion of taxes? Not me either.

Did I encourage journalists to illegally hack mobile phones whilst serving as a Newspaper editor? Don't be silly.

Did I fall in love with a disabled woman, marry her, give up my career to be her carer, live on a pittance for most of the Major years, get a significant increase to my still very low income under the last Labour government then see myself & my wife and people like us demonised by this government as part of its policy of slashing services at all costs whilst turning a blind eye to bloated salaries & blatant tax evasion amongst its cronies? Guilty as charged. I know, I'm evil. Aren't I?
Actually, I don't think I am. People like me save the country far more than we cost. We are told that people on disability benefits are shiftless scroungers, that disabled people get prostitutes at the taxpayers expense, that Disability Living Allowance is a form of unemployment benefit. (It's not, the clue's in the name)

So why we are being subjected to this abuse? Why has there been a four fold increase in hate crimes against disabled people since this government came to power? Two little completely harmless sounding words: "Small State". That the state should be made smaller, not for some practical function but as a point of principle.
Even when (as is the case here) the state is too small to meet its minimum obligations, you reduce it further on principle. A shopping list contains more thought than went into this idea .


Some would say that this is the logical entailment of a coalition of Tories (Who help the wealthy and no one else) and the LibDems (Who favour sloganeering over analysis in policy formulation & expediency over principle in the business of government) I would not dispute that but it doesn't make the consequences any easier to live with. We're not hypothetical abstracts we are real people living real lives in the real world. Please remember that. As for me, if we ever meet please forget what you have been encouraged to think. If you do, who knows, you might even like me.

This is what false consciousness really looks like.

The Socialist Workers Party (Which contains no Socialists, no workers & nobody who knows how to party) Have now taken it upon themselves to rewrite history in order to make Hitler look like the innocent victim of circumstance. Don't believe me?  Judge for yourself: http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=22209
To be sure ultra Authoritarianism is the common denominator between Leninists & Fascists but it is seldom as explicit as it is made here.
Never the most realistic people in the world, I thought the SWP had finally lost what little of the plot they had when they started denouncing Atheism as "Racism" but this goes even further.

I now expect them to come out as Holocaust Deniers in the very near future. They've been travelling in that direction for decades.

Choosing A Leader . . .

Next Wednesday ballot papers will be distributed for the Labour Party Leadership election.
I have not said who I intend to vote for much less told anybody else how they should vote and I shall not do so here as I dislike the "Go Thou And Do Likewise" aspect of such exercises. I am neither qualified nor entitled to tell you what to think.

However I shall say this;
* If you have chosen to vote for David Miliband then you have chosen wisely because you have chosen a candidate who recognises that Labour must be a mass, democratic party.

* If you have chosen to vote for Ed Miliband then you have chosen wisely because you have chosen a candidate who recognises the need to reinvigorate our participation in the democratic process as a nation.

* If you have chosen Ed Balls then you have chosen wisely because you have chosen you have chosen a candidate who has led the fight against unfair VAT rises.

* If you have chosen Andy Burnham then you have chosen wisely because you have chosen a candidate who connects with ordinary members.

*If you have chosen Diane Abbott then you have chosen wisely because you have chosen the most experienced Parliamentarian standing.

I want to see the strongest possible Labour Party. A Labour party that represents the Left of the possible.

I am impressed by the positive atmosphere within which the campaign has taken place.

A point to ponder: Whoever emerges as Leader of the Labour Party and hence Leader of the Opposition will face, across the floor of the Commons, a Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister who became leaders of their respective parties by stabbing their respective predecessors in the back.
Our way is better.