After the unveiling of yet another political suit with no real life experience as leader, the Labour Party is making believe that it is a ‘new generation’ ready to lead the fight against the ConDems. What rubbish! Gathered around the Shadow Cabinet table at Westminster will be the same people who have spent the last thirteen years in office making the poor poorer and the rich richer, whilst throwing billions of taxpayers pounds at the glorified bookies’ runners who run the banks. The same people that led the Labour Party away from its working class roots to lick the boots of the rich and privileged. The same people that destroyed the pensions of thousands, and penalised the elderly who had saved and supported themselves for over fifty years. The same people who gave ninety per cent of all new jobs to immigrants whilst allowing the sale of English companies such as Cadburys and calling on English workers to take pay cuts.

Typically the ‘new’ Labour leader, Ed Milliband, used his first speech to stab the people who elected him in the back, warning the trade unions that he would not support their campaign against the savage cuts planned by the ConDems. Once again same Labour; abandoning the millions who look to it in defence of their interests, against the Sunday Times Rich List, sorry ConDems cabinet, that runs the country on behalf of overseas bankers and speculators. No wonder his brother, the banana expert, retired to the back benches, who would want to be associated with this discredited shower of losers? Ed Milliband was no doubt taking lessons from his mentor Neil Kinnock, who when Labour leader also abandoned the grass roots in the face of the last extreme right Tory regime. Kinnock was so good at his job he was sent packing to the house of the failed – the European Commission – in another five years Ed Milliband will join him. It is sad to see the thousands of genuine Labour members and supporters putting their weight behind this lightweight leader, when will they ever learn that modern politicians do not care for the millions of ordinary people; they all want to be Tony Blair and use politics to amass a fortune, regardless of the lives lost or destroyed in the process.

What Labour members and supporters need to realise is that it is not a new leader, or a new generation that is needed to protect their futures but a new politics. A new politics that gives more power to local communities, breaks up the banks and the building societies and takes them back to their local roots. A new politics that puts people ahead of profits and that encourages every citizen to play a part in the building of a new future. A new politics that brings our soldiers home from foreign wars and puts the emphasis on fighting crime on our doorstep instead. We call upon anyone thinking of joining or supporting Old Labour to abandon those who would abandon you and join the only organisation willing to fight the ConDem dictatorship as it prepares to target the elderly and the vulnerable. We, in the English Radical Alliance, will be supporting our communities in this dark hour, and we call upon all who oppose the unnecessary cuts to join our campaign.
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English Radicals are disgusted by the actions of the two sides in the BA dispute: Chief Executive, Willie Walsh, grins like a Cheshire cat as he contemplates the freehand he will get to sack and bully his workforce following the Unite union’s decision to go on strike; while for their part, Unite leaders are less interested in the future for their members than they are about dictating the future of the Labour party. Both sides in this dispute have clear goals: Walsh was brought in to BA to prune its workforce and turn it into a flying version of Netto. Whilst the Unite leaders want rid of the New Labour leadership and beating up the flying public on the eve of a General Election was the obvious weapon of choice.  Sadly, it is the BA workforce, bullied by the management and by the union, and the general public who want to fly, who are the innocent victims of this Left versus Right industrial battle.

Many people have commented on how this ‘Spring of Discontent’ is like some throwback to the 1980s and, in some ways, they are right. Like then there are industrial leaders who want to shed jobs in a time of recession, regardless of the poverty and hardship this will cause for their workforce. And also, like then, the workforce was part of a trade union that had political motivations as its primary goal, rather than the welfare of its members. Sadly, this is always going to be the case when our businesses are part of global corporations and our unions are run by extremists. The BA workers have a strong argument; BA’s problems are not caused by the workforce but by the decisions made over recent years by its management, yet it is the workforce who will pay the price by losing their jobs, or by working longer hours for less money (and won’t that be a comfort for you when you’re half way across the Atlantic?). But, and it is a big but, being right doesn’t get you anywhere if you are badly led and badly advised. The miners were right in the 1980s, but they were lions who let themselves be led by a donkey called Arthur Scargill, a man more interested in bringing down a government than in protecting his members jobs. And so it is with Unite, they are led by men who want to bring down Gordon Brown and the New Labour leadership, even if that means losing the General Election and, therefore, allowing into power a party that would decimate the public and private sector workforce in order to maximise the profits of its global capitalist backers.

The sad fact is that the BA workforce should have given greater consideration to guerrilla action against BA management rather than taking on Walsh AND the public with a strike. They should also have examined the motives of their union leadership and not allowed themselves to be cannon fodder in the class warfare ambitions of a pair of Marxist losers like Derek Simpson and Tony Woodley. Crucially, the union leaders have failed to bring out the majority of their members and have left those on the picket line at the mercy of Willie Walsh’s axe. However, before the public blame the workforce for this strike, they should also examine the actions of Willie Walsh. He has deliberately set out to provoke a strike regardless of how this will affect the general public. He’s been clever. He knows that, with a General Election due, he will get the support of both major parties. Whilst, for their part, the travelling public will obviously support him (solidarity with a bullied workforce will be low on the priority list of a modern ‘me-first’ society). And so, after this strike, he will be unopposed when he sets out to decimate the workforce and trample on its working conditions.

English Radicals believe that companies such as BA would be better-off being owned by their workforce rather than by global corporations who can hire hit men like Walsh to duff up the workforce and make the customers lives difficult. Furthermore, co-operative businesses would not require the presence of obnoxious Marxist-led unions, whose sole reason to exist is to bring chaos and disorder to our lives. The BA strike is a primary example of how Capitalism and Socialism cause hardship and disruption to our society, there has to be a better way of doing things.

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Football has often been described as ‘the beautiful game’ or sometimes ‘a game of two halves’. However when you look at the financial situations some of our clubs are in and the huge divide between the salaries of football’s superstars in the Premiership and the income of a club further down the soccer pyramid, the sport does not look so beautiful. It can even be described as a ‘game of two haves’ – between the haves and the have nots.

Many genuine supporters travel the length and breadth of England supporting their teams through thick and thin. Yet many of these teams that grace the lower leagues and non-league football face a tremendous struggle just to survive. You will not see Aston Martins, Bentleys or Ferraris parked outside these grounds. What you will find is ordinary folk selling programmes, sweeping the terraces and even painting the stands because they love their club and they love football.

A classic example of such a club is non-league Kettering Town, a club with a proud tradition and loyal support and a club that is part of the fabric of the Northamptonshire town. Yet despite all this Kettering Town F.C could no longer exist in the not too distant future. They do not own their own ground, and it has been earmarked for housing development by the local council. Fans of ‘The Poppies’, as the club is affectionately known, formed a trust to keep the club in business. More recently they launched a ‘Give Kettering Council the Red Card’ campaign. This is the effort of genuine fans that go to work and then give their all for the local football club in an effort to keep it in their community.

Compare this to the likes of Premiership stars such as Gerrard, Drogba, Rooney and Fabregas. It is true each star has his adopted charity, and will make occasional donations and appear at certain functions adorned in sportswear gained as part of a lucrative sponsorship deal. Yet these donations amount to nothing but loose change in the bottom of the players pockets. What are the likes of such superstars putting back into the game itself? The answer is, apart from maybe the odd celebrity appearance, absolutely nothing.

Kettering Town are probably one of a number of clubs in a similar situation. As English Radicals we care about the social make up of England. Football clubs are a major part of that social make up and should be part of the community. Therefore we feel our superstars should put something back into the game through contributions deducted from their salaries into a Trust Fund. This fund could help players further down the ladder whose careers have been ended through injury and it could help smaller clubs survive. As well as the superstars of the game, we believe it should be up to local councils to support their teams as part of the community. Why take Kettering’s ground away from them? Surely another area could be earmarked for housing? Instead Kettering have been hindered every step of the way in their bid for survival by a council and out of touch politicians that simply do not care. Football has also been described as ‘the people’s game’, and as English Radicals we want to return the game to the people. In the meantime what do fans have to do to make hard nose council officers and the footballing hierarchy listen – take drastic radical action occupy the grounds?

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CLASS WAR IN PUBLIC SERVICE CUTS
After ten weeks of strikes by Leeds refuse workers, city council leader, Lib-Dem Richard Brett revealed the truth behind the future of public service cuts when he told reporters that it was not right that binmen got salaries of £18,000-£20,000, whilst university graduates struggled to get anywhere near that much.
Brett is a former teacher now living off a big fat pension (paid for by??) and obviously, having never left school, he would hardly sympathise with the manual worker. The strikes were caused by a decision taken by the Tory/LibDem Leeds city council to reduce the wages of refuse workers by a third and ‘modernise’ their industry (now where have we heard that before lately?). By modernise they mean work harder, longer and for less pay. This ‘modernisation’ is the way in which future Tory governments and their local authorities, will reduce the wages of the lower paid so that their Fatcat friends have more money left to buy BMWs and lapdancers.
No surprise then that Tory and LibDem councils are now leading the charge to attack the lower paid on behalf of the bankers that our taxes have bailed out. In Leeds and other cities the councils are hiding behind the equal pay legislation, reducing the wages of male workers to fund the salaries of its female employees, just like a Third World banana republic.
Oh, and Mr Brett, how come you’re not standing up for the binmen, after all they are only doing a job that you and your kind won’t do. It's an affront that teachers get paid more than binmen!

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