Ten things everyone should know about the Labour Party - Paul Foot

1. Labour, which is linked to organised workers, is better at any time than the Tories, who are linked to organised capital.
    
2. ‘Without struggle there is no progress’: everything worth winning by the workers and the dispossessed has to be fought for.
    
3. The less Labour fights the Tories, the less it is likely to beat them at the polls or anywhere else.
    
4. The more Labour compromises and prevaricates, the more the fighting spirit of the people who vote Labour is dampened.
    
5. The more that fighting spirit is dampened, the stronger and more confident grow employers, racialists and reactionaries of every description.
    
6. The power of the elected parliament is all the time frustrated by the power of the undemocratic banks, corporations, judges and the media.
    
7. The more a Labour government tries to be fair to the banks, corporations, judges or media, the more it becomes their captive.
    
8. The more it becomes their captive, the more it attacks the people who vote Labour, thus ensuring a Labour defeat next time.
    
9. This vicious circle is written into the history of the whole century. Clement Attlee and Harold Wilson couldn’t avoid it. There’s no chance that Blair and Co, further to the right even than Attlee and Wilson, will avoid it either.
    
10. (Conclusion) Vote Labour, but keep up the fight down below to build the resistance into a force which is strong enough to dictate to the undemocratic elite at the top of society – and put an end to their interminable dictatorship.  
Paul Foot, 'Ten things everyone should know about the Labour Party', Socialist Review, 179, (October 1994)
11. 

I love the smell of Blairites crying in the morning...

On the anniversary of 7/7

One of the strange things about having a blog - and keeping it going (well, just about...) for over a decade - is that when anniversaries come around, you think - 'hang on, I wrote something about that'. Anyway, for what it is worth - this is the piece I wrote in the aftermath of the 7/7 London bombings at the time: The roar of bombs and the deep sleep of England - for the record, my opinion about British foreign policy has not changed - and as the British ruling class prepare to contemplate a fresh imperialist slaughter in Syria, I guess it remains worth reposting.

How Blair can help the Labour Party win

The fact that Ed Miliband seems to think that Tony Blair might be an electoral asset tells you everything you need to know about the desperation, weakness and general uselessness of Miliband's leadership. But Tony Blair has offered to 'do whatever it takes' to ensure a Labour victory in May - given this, here are a few things any Labour leader who actually wanted to win should suggest Blair goes and does:

1) Resign from the Labour Party
2) Call for any remaining Blairites in the Labour Party to do the honourable thing and also resign
3) Resign as Middle East Peace Envoy, and from all his lucrative advisor posts to big business / banks / dictatorships internationally - and give his riches to charities such as the Red Cross and Medical Aid for Palestinians
4) Apologise for the Iraq War
5) Hand himself into the International Criminal Court and ask to be tried for war crimes

Paul Foot on Why You Should Vote Socialist

Since the Marxists Internet Archive is currently in the news, Histomat readers might note there have been a number of recent additions to the archive of interest - Donny Gluckstein on Tony Benn's Diaries (a 1991 article), David Widgery's 1981 appreciation of the late great socialist cartoonist Phil Evans, and some new additions to the Julie Waterson archive. Two new things I want to particularly highlight though - firstly a fine little 2008 pamphlet on Capitalism's New Crisis: What do socialist say? by Chris Harman. Harman's pamphlet coming online is timely given some of the current discussions about the 'return of Marx' as a new generation of emerging intellectuals engaging with Marx's ideas in the aftermath of the economic crisis - and might encourage some of them to go and check out Harman's 2009 work Zombie Capitalism.

It is also worth highlighting Paul Foot's 2001 booklet Why You Should Vote Socialist, which is worth revisiting given we are now well and truly in an election period for the upcoming Euro-elections, and a pre-election period for the 2015 general election. There are also indeed some socialist candidates to vote for in many of the upcoming council elections - including from the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition and a few Left Unity candidates too. Yet Foot's booklet really stands as one of the clearest and most devastating indictments of the failings of the first New Labour government under Blair (1997-2001). Today, for example, when the racist party UKIP are on the rise as a result of mainstream parties own racism towards migrant workers, we hear the argument from the Labour Party front bench that they were too soft on migrants when in power. This is Foot on the reality of New Labour's record on refugees from 1997-2001:

Asylum seekers coming to Britain found themselves under sharp attack not just from racists and right wing fanatics but also from the New Labour government and its minister at the Home Office, Barbara Roche. She accused asylum seekers of ‘milking the system’ and then set about organising the system to ensure that there was nothing for asylum seekers to milk. Under her regime asylum seekers are deprived of social security benefits and provided instead with £36.54 a week in vouchers to buy food and clothes plus £10 a week in cash (there is no change from the vouchers). Asylum seekers are treated with the most disgusting contempt, housed in conditions unfit for human habitation and dispersed continually from refuge to refuge without discussion or consultation. Their vouchers and cash benefits are conditional on obeying orders to move. 

 When the Tory leader William Hague suggested locking up all asylum seekers, New Labour reacted with horror at such a gross breach of civil liberty, and promptly started building more detention centres for asylum seekers. The numbers of asylum seekers detained by New Labour have gone up from 800 to 1,200, and two new detention centres just built will take many more. More and more asylum seekers’ applications to stay in Britain are being turned down, including all such applications from Iraqi Kurds. A high point for New Labour policy was the refusal of an application to stay from a 24 year old Iraqi Kurd Ramin Khadeji. When he got his refusal he killed himself. Refusals have gone up from 35 percent of applications when New Labour took over to 60 percent.

As an aside, one of my fondest memories of Tony Benn was when he agreed to call and lead a demonstration in 2000 in London in defence of migrant workers and for the scrapping of the racist voucher system New Labour had introduced.

Currently Ed Miliband is considering whether to introduce the demand to renationalise the railways as part of Labour's manifesto for 2015 as many in the Labour Party and trade union movement are rightly demanding he do. Foot's booklet is damning of Labour's past record on this question (see here and here. In short, despite prior warnings about where privatisation would end, once in power in 1997:

The railways were not renationalised. The hideous mess constructed by the Tories, the different competing railway organisations and the speculative millionaires they created, continued with hardly any change. The reason was trumpeted proudly by Blair, Prescott and Co whenever they were asked about it, usually by the transport unions which had contributed so many millions to Labour. They explained that they could not possibly afford the £4 billion it would have cost to create what Blair had promised – a ‘publicly owned, publicly accountable railway’. They had so many other priorities, they bleated, that they could not possibly waste public money on paying railway shareholders for their assets. 

Then came the great triumphs of railway privatisation, the disasters at Southall, Paddington and Hatfield. At Hatfield, it was revealed, a train had come off the track because of a broken rail. Railtrack, the privatised company which owned and controlled the network, had known perfectly well of the dangers of broken rails. They had been spelled out to the company in great detail a year before the Hatfield crash by the new rail regulator, Tom Winsor, whose militant approach to the railway monopolies was held out by the government as proof of its continuing concern for and control over the railway. Winsor’s memorandum about the dangers of broken rails was scrupulously ignored in the interests of keeping trains moving and profits flowing. After Hatfield, Railtrack panicked and subjected millions of long-suffering passengers to months of chaos and delays as some of the track was renewed. The militant Winsor decided that what was most important was that he should have a private company to regulate, so he announced that another £4 billion of taxpayers’ money would be released to keep the privatised railways running. By coincidence, £4 billion was the exact sum that Blair, Prescott and Co had estimated as the likely cost of renationalising the railways. The money they had ‘saved’ the taxpayer by leaving the railways in private hands was now being passed into those same private hands without any public accountability for it. 

 The sheer extravagance of the decision not to renationalise the railways was set out in an article early in 2001 in the journal Public Finance. The author, Jean Shaoul, calculated the cost of public subsidies in the four years before privatisation and the four years after. Adjusted for inflation, the figures were: 1991–94 £2,556 million; 1997–2000 £6,848 million. The cost to the taxpayer of subsidising the privately-owned railway had grown to three times the cost of subsidising the publicly-owned railway.

The pamphlet stands as a timely reminder that Labour may promise one thing to get elected, but once in power will quite easily renege on them - something campaigners over the bedroom tax need to remember today. It is the strength of mass movements and class confidence on the ground and in the workplace that is decisive and leads to change - not the election of Labour governments. It also stands as an eloquent counterblast to many careerist Labour politicians such as Jack Straw (of whom Tony Benn once noted, ''No one takes Jack Straw seriously. He is just a little sort of weathercock, blowing with every wind.'').

 Finally as middle class Guardian journalists desperately try to whitewash the record of the last Labour Government and rehabilitate even Tony Blair (witness this appalling recent column by Zoe Williams) Foot's booklet - written before September 11th and the 'war on terror' - shows beyond any doubt that there was nothing redeemable about Blairism or Brownism in power on any level, even putting aside the war crimes and mass murder. Indeed, Foot was warning about the dangers of economic crisis on the horizon while Gordon Brown as Chancellor was courting the City of London and heralding the end of 'boom and bust'. The last words should go to Foot, as he takes on not only Brown but also those Guardian journalists like Polly Toynbee who defended Blair in the past and now continue to tell us now that the only hope for the future lies with Ed Miliband and a future New Labour government:

Four years of New Labour in extremely favourable economic circumstances have left the Tory balance between rich and poor almost exactly what it was when the Tories left it. Millions are still plunged in hopeless poverty. The gap between rich and poor has actually widened under New Labour...

Prudence Brown boasts that under his careful stewardship unemployment and inflation have come down. Modestly he ascribes this miracle to his own genius. Yet from the first moment he took office and handed the level of interest rates (previously set by elected government) to unelected bankers who benefit from high interest rates, he in effect admitted what he knows to be true – that elected governments of whatever colour cannot and do not determine what happens to the international capitalist economy unless they embark on the most determined and ruthless economic intervention.

Under capitalism, unemployment, inflation, the rise and fall of booms and slumps, are not brought about by governments, but by economic forces beyond government control. No one knows, for instance, why there was a recession in the so-called Tiger economies of Asia in 1998. Those economies were previously heralded as evidence that capitalism worked better when it was unfettered by trade unions or government regulation. The impact of that illusion is still being felt by the working people and the poor of those economies, notably in Indonesia where one corrupt and dictatorial government has been toppled, and its successor teeters on the brink of revolution on the one side and unspeakable racial violence on the other. 

 The most predictable feature of any capitalist economy is its unpredictability. Gordon Brown knows that perfectly well, which is probably why he prefers capitalist caution to socialist advance. He also knows that the more his government loosens its democratic grip on the engines of the economy, the less control he will have in the event of any future slump, and the more he consigns the future to a private enterprise chaos out of which he knows no road. Against the background of chaos and unpredictability, his refusal to spend his ‘war chest’ on the people and services who need it most is all the more reprehensible. 

 This, then, is the central charge against the New Labour government. All through the 20th century the Labour Party sought at least to some extent to use the power conferred on it by the votes of working people to shift the balance of wealth and power in their direction. Often the party failed miserably in that endeavour. Again and again elected governments bowed to what they regarded as superior forces in unelected private capital. They were, in Harold Wilson’s famous phrase, ‘blown off course’ by runs on sterling, investment strikes, judicial arrogance, media blitzes and other forces they did not understand, and did not dare to counter. But at least some effort was made in the right direction. At least some commitment was made to public ownership, to civil liberties, and to the building of strong trade unions. New Labour in the late 1990s and early 21st century has shifted so far to the right that almost all its policies and achievements have converged with those of its Tory predecessors... 

 One answer to Polly Toynbee is that she, as she recognises, was one of the prominent defectors from Labour to the SDP in 1981, and thus can be held at least partly responsible for all the Tory excesses that followed. But another has more resonance. It is that she and all her fellow ‘Vote Labour for real change’ enthusiasts are not listening to their leaders. Tony Blair’s speeches about his next term of office carry not a whisper of trade union reform, or of a new era of public ownership and democratic responsibility, or of a widening of the comprehensive element in schools, or of a new assault on the grotesque bonanzas of the rich. Everything Blair says about the future points in exactly the opposite direction, towards more privatisation, more inequality, more chaos on road and rail, less planning, less intervention, and a fiercer attack on what his press officer calls bog-standard comprehensives, bog-standard council housing, bog-standard anything which derives from the traditional cooperation and solidarity of working class people. The Toynbee-Walker thesis, that a new New Labour government would put the errors, omissions and mistakes of the last one behind it and engage on a new road to reform, is to ignore completely the triumphalism of Labour ministers and their single minded devotion to office whatever the price that has to be paid by the people who vote for them. They have abandoned their social democratic credentials without a word of regret, but with the singular jubilation of bog-standard politicians who have suddenly discovered the full fruits of high office and intend above all else to go on enjoying them. 

 There is another reaction to all these developments which is even more corrosive than Toynbee’s and Walker’s. This is Colin Hay’s assertion that there is ‘no alternative to neo-liberalism and globalisation’. He appears to argue that because Labour governments have now been corralled by capitalism, and forced to abandon their social democratic credentials, there is now no alternative to their policies. This is the policy of resignation and despair. There is no democratic alternative to Tory policies, argue the New Pessimists, so we had better accept them even when they are carried out by ministers calling themselves Labour. The inevitability of corporate power and corporate control commends itself most sweetly to the directors of corporations. 

But there is no reason why any of the rest of us should bow before them. There is plenty of evidence in the past and even now that these policies can be resisted and reversed. Corporations do not always get their own way. The establishment of the British National Health Service, the ending of apartheid in South Africa, the toppling of post-war dictatorships in Greece, Spain and Portugal – all these were accomplished against the corporate stream. Even today, while capitalism boasts its omnipotence, it is stopped in its tracks by mass protests in Seattle, Prague and Nice. Resistance can be as international, as globalised, as capitalism is, and, unlike capitalism, it offers hope and life to the exploited millions. There is nothing mystical or superhuman about capitalist power. It is managed and controlled by human beings and can also be changed by human beings. It can and must be resisted with all the power at our disposal... 

 Voting is only one infrequent and often emasculated form of protest. But voting is still a crucial opportunity to make use of our democratic rights. Our votes are important in proportion to their links to the real powers at our disposal. Every vote for [socialists] will put new heart and spirit into the growing ranks of people prepared to fight. Socialist candidates are standing not to further their own careers, still less to secure a parliamentary salary (they will only take an average wage if they get elected), but because they are horrified by what has happened to the labour movement and are determined to set it back on track. 

In a recent pamphlet, The Captive Party, the veteran socialist Michael Barratt Brown appealed to socialists to recall the alternative society that socialism promises: 

All forms of health and childcare and the care of the disabled would be free. Education would be free at every age right through to lifelong learning. Housing would be available at reasonable rents with access by foot to shops and parks and gardens, and to many workplaces. There would be a wide range of opportunities for work in production and services with appropriate training built in. There would be no discrimination at work on grounds of gender, race, age or sexual orientation. Pensions for the aged and invalid, and payments during sickness and unemployment would be provided on a universal scheme based on contributions related to income. Planning of land use, road and rail transport, industrial location, and the balance of urban and rural activities would be subject to the most open examination and discussion. In all walks of life, at work and at home, in all workplaces and public institutions, management would be subject to agreed forms of consumers’ and workers’ controls. We have the resources for all this. We just have to find how to change the system from one of private greed to that of public gain.

 As a start, just a start, you should vote socialist.'

''The Blairs have a very bloody history''

Longstanding (or perhaps more accurately, long suffering) readers of Histomat might recall a brief discussion back in 2006 on George Orwell and Suffolk, where in the comment boxes Michael Rosen among other people joined in a speculative discussion about why Eric Blair chose the pseudonym 'George Orwell'.  Today, perusing Spanish Diary by the forgotten socialist John McNair, who like Orwell went to fight in the Spanish Civil War with the Independent Labour Party contingent, I stumbled upon a passage which brings us much closer to the answer - McNair's recollections of a conversation he had with Orwell while out in Spain:

"Never mind about that; tell us, George, why you changed your original name, Eric Blair."
"Well, I hated the name Eric Blair. Eric seemed to smack of that phoney school story, 'Eric, or little by little' (Dean Farrar), and the Blairs have a very bloody history."
"But why George Orwell?" we enquired.
"I wanted a working-class name. George is good working-class, as you Geordies ought to know, and, of course, you've heard of the 'Orwell' - a good Suffolk proletarian river."

I like this quote a lot - both the bit about the River Orwell being 'proletarian', while Orwell was certainly onto something about 'the Blairs', at least if their modern descendants are anything to go by...

Tony Blair on the "Spirit of '45"

Labour in 1945 combined idealism and practicality in equal measure to lead a national crusade for a Britain based on social justice, equality of opportunity and social solidarity.  Out of the ruins of war, the 1945 Labour government set out to fulfil the age-old promise of a "land fit for heroes".  To a remarkable extent, it succeeded.
      The Second World War was a people's war, fought in the name of democracy and humanity against fascism.  Labour promised a people's peace.  It delivered a national insurance system to provide security against unemployment and old age.  It established a national, integrated rail system.  It was instrumental in the establishment of international institutions - like the UN, born in London in 1948.  And it set up the pride and joy of British socialism - the National Health Service.   What is more, at the end of its period in office, the Labour government secured the largest vote ever achieved by the Party.
       [1945 was] a remarkable political era ... it summons up the spirit of hope, expectation and - in the cases of defeated Tory candidates - bemusement that marked the 1945 General Election.  The lesson of 1945 should be clear: democratic socialism can be both practical and popular.
Tony Blair, 'Foreword', to Austin Mitchell, Election '45: Reflections on the Revolution in Britain (London, 1995), p. 7. 

On David Miliband's departure from British politics

From the BBC report

Labour leader Ed Miliband says his brother David's decision to quit as an MP and move to a US-based charity leaves UK politics "a poorer place".

Certainly does - David Miliband has been one of the richer UK politicians having made so much money over the last few years while moon-lighting on the side as an MP he had to set up his own company, 'The Office of David Miliband Limited'.

David Miliband announced he was to accept the "new challenge and new start" of running the International Rescue Committee in New York... In his letter to his constituency party chairman, David Miliband said the International Rescue Committee was founded in the 1930s at Albert Einstein's suggestion to help people fleeing the Nazis. And his own family history - his parents both fled Germany in the 1930s - meant "I feel that in doing this job I will be repaying a personal debt".  "This job brings together my personal story and political life - it represents a new challenge and a new start," he said.

David - any chance before you go of having a quiet word with your brother Ed Miliband, reminding him of your family history, and trying and stop New Labour joining the Tories in playing the race card and attacking migrant workers today?

The former foreign secretary, 47, was beaten by a narrow margin by brother Ed in the 2010 Labour leadership contest.

Yep, I remember it well - one of the funniest moments in recent British politics.  David Miliband could have won that election easily if he had dared to deviate just one milimetre to the left from Blairism. 

David said it was "very difficult" to leave Parliament and UK politics.

I bet it was - like his brother, David Miliband was always a careerist first and foremost.

But after serving as an MP for 12 years, he said: "I now have to make a choice about how to give full vent to my ideas and ideals."

Ideas? Ideals? Well David's dad certainly had some ideas and ideals, but if David ever had some,  I agree they didn't get any vent - let alone 'full vent' - while he was an MP, so there is at least some logic to this argument. 

Tony Blair, former Labour leader and prime minister, said: "I congratulate David on his appointment to a major international position. It shows the huge regard in which David is held worldwide. I'm sure he will do a great job. He is obviously a massive loss to UK politics.
"He was the head of my policy unit and then a truly distinguished minister in the government and remains one of the most capable progressive thinkers and leaders globally. I hope and believe this is time out, not time over."

Such praise from a mass murdering war-criminal like Tony Blair says everything you need to know about David Miliband's 'contribution' to UK politics - lets hope David Miliband's departure is not only 'time over' for this complete and utter Blairite standard-bearer, but for Blairism in general. 

David Miliband's former cabinet colleagues, Lord Mandelson and Jack Straw, said they did not think it was the end of his political career.... Mr Straw said he would be "welcomed back into the Labour movement".

The Labour movement?  I guess with a capital 'L', it is reasonable to talk of the 'Labour movement' in this manner - as in a 'movement' devoted to the Labour Party getting power.  But Labour movement with a small 'l'?  As far as the labour movement in the sense of trade unions and working class people collectively organising to change society goes, surely both Jack Straw and David Miliband - sorry the 'The Office of David Miliband Limited' -  left that a very long time ago...

Anyway, lets hope the British Left can unite in order to give the voters of South Shields a socialist alternative  to the austerity politics and racism on offer from the main three parties in the forthcoming by-election...

Tony2012 initiative: Video about a war criminal goes viral

The Tony2012 initiative, supported by the non-profit group Stop the War Coalition, demands the trial of leader Anthony 'Tony' Charles Lynton Blair head of the Tony Blair Foundation, who has terrorised villagers in at least two Middle Eastern countries for nearly a decade.

Stop Tony
He stands accused of overseeing the systematic killing of countless Iraqi and Afghan children and brainwashing young working class British boys into fighting for him. His forces are believed to have slaughtered tens of thousands of people in Iraq and Afghanistan. Tony should have been wanted by the International Criminal Court since 2001 on charges that include crimes against humanity. He has been living as an international 'peace envoy' to the Middle East since that time, but it is feared that he favours more bloodshed in Iran and must be stopped before he kills again...
see more here and here

Tony Blair does his bit for the unemployed

Readers of Histomat currently out of work might be interested in the following 'job' I came across recently:

Senior Research Analyst
Tony Blair Faith Foundation
Location: London

Report to: Director of Projects and Corporate Operations

Start: Immediate start

Application Close Date: Friday 10th February

About the role

The faithandglobalisation.org site will be a factual and analytical tool designed to inform users about the role of religion in the world. It will be a pioneering online database of key facts about religion and globalisation, using mapping based technology to bring the data alive from a range of authoritative resources. This combined data will be brought to life through cutting edge research, analysis, debate and daily news updates. We will engage some of the world's foremost thinkers to lead the debate on how faith interacts with globalisation.


The 'main duties' include 'maintaining a rigorous and ethical approach to the quality of research' and 'required skills' include 'high attention to detail' and would 'suit post-holders' if they are 'keen to be involved in a ground breaking project', 'mature in attitude' and above all 'well presented and business-like'.

Its nice that Blair seems to have learnt something about the importance of 'rigour and ethics in research' since his infamous bullshit over the dodgy Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction dossier, but I'm guessing those who think that one particularly 'ethical' way to contribute to a debate about how 'faith interacts with globalisation' might be to bring the founder of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation himself to an international criminal court for war crimes need not apply - however 'well presented and business-like' they were. They would doubtless be displaying an 'immature attitude'.

John Pilger on Murdoch's magical hypocrisy

'In 1995, Murdoch flew Tony and Cherie Blair first-class to Hayman Island, Australia, where the aspiring war criminal spoke about "the need for a new moral purpose in politics", which included the lifting of government regulations on the media. Murdoch shook his hand warmly. The next day the Sun commented: "Mr Blair has vision, he has purpose and he speaks our language on morality and family life..."

Edited to add:John Pilger and Socialist Worker's report on the latest News International phone-hacking scandal

It's okay Tony, we haven't forgotten about you

'The operation shows those who commit acts of terror against the innocent will be brought to justice, however long it takes.'
Tony Blair on the killing of Bin Laden

While Blair is of course wrong that the killing of Osama Bin Laden represents justice instead of an act of vengeance, he surely has a point about the necessity of bringing those who commit acts of terror against the innocent to justice for their crimes. Blair may have slipped the mind of the Royal Family recently, but some of us will not forget about Blair's state terrorism so lightly. His day of reckoning will come one day for sure, 'however long it takes'...

Partners in Crime

'Tony Blair has an excellent relationship with my father...For us, he is a personal family friend. I first met him around four years ago at Number 10. Since then I've met him several times in Libya where he stays with my father. He has come to Libya many, many times.'
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of Colonel Gaddafi, 2010.

Tony Blair's "10 lessons for peace-making"

From Tony Blair's A Journey:

1. Establish a framework of agreed principles.
2. Focus relentlessly on achieving your goals.
3. Accept that "small things can be big things".
4. Be creative.
5. Give the parties outside help.
6. Accept that peace is "a process, not an event".
7. Be prepared for disruption.
8. Recognise that leadership matters.
9. Accept that external circumstances must work in favour of peace, not against it.
10. Never give up.

I like the bit about being 'creative' - though presumably this is critical if anyone is going to accept the legitimacy of a war criminal giving lessons on matters of 'peace-making' in the first place...I guess we should all just be grateful that Blair hasn't got round to setting up the 'Tony Blair Centre for Peace Studies'...yet.

Protest at Blair's Memoir Launch, 12.30pm, 8 September, Waterstones, Piccadilly London.

The Guilty Men

There is a classic scene in The Godfather, where Don Vito Corleone sits down for a meeting with the other heads of the Five Families, and agrees to make the peace if only it is guaranteed his son Michael is safe from reprisals for killing a police captain. As Don Corleone warns though,

'I'm a superstitious man -- and if some unlucky accident should befall him -- if he should get shot in the head by a police officer -- or if he -- should hang himself in his jail cell -- or if he's struck by a bolt of lightning -- then I'm going to blame some of the people in this room. And that, I do not forgive.'

In a similarish spirit of unforgiveness, it might be worth compiling a list of the top ten people who are worthy of blame should the worst case scenario happen and the British Nazi Party either take control of a council or even take a seat in this general election. Of course, as a Marxist, I understand that it is not the fault of individuals if a fascist party makes any kind of breakthrough - rather one should blame a crisis prone system of exploitation in which people are forced to compete with each other for jobs, the racism against migrant workers that results combined with the past failure of any British government to ever fully come to terms with the legacy of empire, the recent invasions and occupations of Muslim countries and concurrent rise in Islamophobia, the 13 years of attacks on the working class made by a so-called 'Labour Government' and so on and so forth. Nonetheless, individuals do play a role as well, and while theoretically every single member of Parliament who fiddled their expenses deserves to be on this list, this post aims to highlight the ten key individuals who I personally will not forgive should the fascists make any kind of breakthrough in two weeks time...

1. Mark Thompson, Director General of the BBC - for giving the Nazis unprecedented favourable and largely uncritical media coverage in the run up to the election - essentially he (like most others on the list) might properly be regarded as 'an appeaser of fascism'.
2. Jeremy Paxman, BBC Newsnight presenter - for giving 'Nazi Nick' Griffin some of the most friendly and cosy interviews imagineable (eg on Newsnight on 24/4/10).
3. David Dimbleby, BBC Question Time Presenter
4. Tony Blair, former PM and war criminal.
5. Gordon Brown, current PM for his obsession with 'Britishness' and spinning the racist 'British Jobs for British Workers' line in 2007
6. Jack Straw MP - for both trying and failing to beat Griffin in public debate
7. Margaret Hodge MP (not strictly a 'guilty man' but an appallingly useless)
8. Peter Hill (editor Daily Express) - for relentlessly whipping up racism against migrant workers
9. Dominic Mohan (editor The Sun) - ditto
10. Paul Dacre (editor, Daily Mail) - ditto

Feel free to suggest others I have missed out etc... How for example did racist Immigration Minister Phil Woolas slip under the radar? Should Rod Liddle have made it on? What of Martin Amis? Or the likes of Nick Cohen and others on the pro-war 'Left' who gave intellectual legitimacy to racist terms such as 'Islamo-fascism'?

International outrage as 'bomber' goes free

The man wanted in connection with the criminal bombing of Iraq and Afghanistan is free and greeted by Col. Gaddafi instead of spending the rest of his life in prison

Irresponsible Historians # 94: Sir Martin Gilbert

'Historical responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men'.
- Lord Acton, historian, 1887

With that quote about 'historical responsibility' with respect to 'great men' in mind, meet Sir Martin Gilbert:

Exhibit A, 'Statesmen for these times' by Sir Martin Gilbert, dated December 2004:
'Many comment that today's leaders look small compared with the giants of the past. This is, I believe, a misconception...Although it can easily be argued that George W Bush and Tony Blair face a far lesser challenge than Roosevelt and Churchill did - that the war on terror is not a third world war - they may well, with the passage of time and the opening of the archives, join the ranks of Roosevelt and Churchill...'

Exhibit B, news report dated June 2008:
'Mr and Mrs Bush went on to Downing Street last night for an informal dinner of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding with the Browns and three historians...David Cannadine, Churchill's official biographer Martin Gilbert and Simon Schama, presenter of the popular television series A History Of Britain, were invited after Mr Bush expressed an interest in meeting some historians, a No 10 source said'.

Exhibit C, news report dated August 2009.
In mid-June Gordon Brown announced that there would be a "non-judgmental", behind-closed-doors inquiry into the Iraq war, conducted by hand-picked insiders...members of the inquiry include historian Sir Law­rence Freedman, who helped Blair develop the doctrine of "liberal interventionism" that he used to justify the war. Historian Sir Martin Gilbert, who wrote an article in 2004 saying Blair and George Bush could one day be compared to Churchill and Roosevelt, is also a member of the inquiry.

Without Michael Jackson There Would Be No Tap

After a weekend spent lounging around in the sun reading an introduction to Martin Heidegger (don't ask) and watching Glastonbury highlights on TV (do ask - and incidently, what was it with all the Loyalist flags flying about all over the place?), I am not really in the best position to comment on what is going on politically in Britain and internationally (though I did gather a much loved icon from the world of music died last week - as did this chap - and that Wimbledon is underway). Hopefully I will have a better idea and understanding after this weekend's Marxism festival (while there is always good old Lenin's Tomb).

But briefly surmising the headlines, I see New Labour are still defiantly insistent on making the working class pay for the crisis of capitalism by removing unemployment benefit from under-25 year olds deemed not to be working hard enough at finding a job - while silmulaneously freezing student grants and loans (though not tuition fees). There was a time when a threat to cut unemployment benefit would bring down a Labour Government through internal rebellion - but the Party has long stopped worrying about such things and learnt to love not simply Peter Mandleson, but also fraud and corruption around expenses going to the highest level of government as well as bailouts for bankers that have to be paid for somehow.

Still, if New Labour can't provide bread, at least it is providing circuses. Lets not worry about the billions to be spent renewing Trident nuclear submarine or the killing fields of Afghanistan - lets get all nostalgic for the old imperial spirit and kick back and enjoy the spectacle of 'Armed Forces Day'! Let's party like its 1945!

Tony Blair is doing his bit to raise people's spirits too. At a time when most people are worried about whether they will have one job at the end of the week, Blair is bravely leading the fight for the right to work. Though Blair already has so many jobs it is difficult to keep count (there was bringing peace to the Middle East, saving the planet from climate change, ending world poverty, as well as advising the bankers JP Morgan, Zurich Insurance, and running the Blair Faith Foundation thing, but I am sure I have forgotten something) he is now bravely battling to also be the next European president regardless. As the Guardian notes 'the Briton's main assets are name and brand recognition, international contacts, and the absence, so far, of any serious rival for the post.' There is just one minor problem which might stop Blair adding yet one more job to his CV - most people in Europe, for some odd reason, associate the 'Blair brand' with lying and committing war crimes. Oh yeah, and also being a complete and utter wanker.

Meanwhile, Ed Balls, currently New Labour's schools secretary but also the man who dreams of being a future Labour leader, is doing his bit to get people to smile through the recession with his own distinct brand of political comedy. Not only was Balls-by-name recently caught out putting through Mark Steel's classic Reasons to be Cheerful on his expenses, Balls-by-nature has now also come up with the cheery idea of introducing a five year MOT 'license' for weeding out incompetent professionals. Which profession in British society is it that has most failed in its duty, that is full to the brim of the most shady and sinister characters? Which profession is the weakest link that most needs the introduction of a five year license to practice? Greedy bankers? City traders and speculators? No, underpaid and overworked teachers of course! Brilliant stuff Balls!

The only possible 'reason to be cheerful' will be if New Labour's anti-working class policies and measures such as these fail to get onto the statute book because this utterly useless Brown government fails to renew its own 'license to govern' when it comes up for renewal next year (and long before reaching the five years in office mark). Those wishing to help build something new from the ashes of New Labour, a socialist phoenix that can rise from the flames, should join those protesting at the Labour Party conference, Sunday 27 Sept, in Brighton at the demonstration called by the UCU and NUJ, supported by the Fight for the Right to Work campaign.

Not Great

'Politics really matters, but a lot of what goes on is not great'
- Tony Blair from a recent £182,000 speech entitled 'The Leader as Nation Builder in a Time of Globalisation'.

'Deceit and conspiracy for war, and providing false news to incite passions for war, causing in the order of one million deaths, four million refugees, countless maimings and traumas'
- The first indictment of the Blair War Crimes Foundation

When two messiahs met

I want to thank my good friend Tony Blair for coming today, somebody who did it first and perhaps did it better than I will do. He has been an example for so many people around the world of what dedicated leadership can accomplish. And we are very grateful to him.
- Obama on Blair

'As you begin your leadership of this great country, Mr President, you are fortunate, as is your nation, that you have already shown in your life, courage in abundance.'
- Blair on Obama

Even before Blair and Obama met, John Pilger in a prophetic piece, warned us that 'there is a lot of bollocks about at the moment.' But the meeting between these two has seen the 'bollocks meter' hit an entirely new (and hitherto unsuspected) level. According to Guardian columnist Martin Kettle, 'Obama grasps that Blair's experience can have lessons for other centre-left leaders like himself who are trying to sustain coalitions of support and carry out effective political leadership...Obama met Blair because these are two very serious political leaders who never stop thinking about how progressive politicians can build support and solve political problems...if Obama treats Blair seriously, then, rather than the usual sneering, maybe the rest of us could make an effort to do so too.'

Still, in glorifying Blair as a 'progressive' and 'centre-left' politician instead of sneering at this power-tripping banker on account of his past lies and war crimes, at least Martin Kettle is fittingly upholding a longstanding family tradition of fervent support for mass murderers. His father, Dr. Arnold Kettle, was a Stalinist literary critic who defended the bloody suppression of the Hungarian Revolution by Russian tanks in 1956. Just as Kettle senior thought that the mandarins of Soviet imperial power could be a force for good, so Kettle junior champions the powerful new mandarins of the American Empire.

As Pilger notes, 'it is time the Obama lovers grew up. It is time those paid to keep the record straight gave us the opportunity to debate informatively. In the 21st century, people power remains a huge and exciting and largely untapped force for change, but it is nothing without truth. "In the time of universal deceit," wrote George Orwell, "telling the truth is a revolutionary act."'

Marxists have to go one step further, and point to another important truth in our age of propaganda - that the real power to change the world still ultimately lies where Marx first noticed it lay - with the international working class. What a pity neither Kettle senior nor junior ever grasped even something of this.