Monday's football pieces

• The riot police break up Durban wages demonstration. AP.
  
  
• In defense of the vuvuzela. Hooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooonk. Anton Vowl.
  
  
• But Fifa is considering banning the vuvuzela. Guardian.
  
  
• The world cup is not xenophobic. Robert Sharp.
  
  
• Why I love the world cup. Random Blowe.
  
  
• World cup good, athletics rubbish. Reuben.
  
  
• I was surprised to read this World Cup analysis from all round good guy Paul Mason.

Football pieces, Sunday

• Madam Miaow speculates "the only thing worse than watching a team sport is playing one".
  
  
• The New York Post has a sober account of yesterday's match.
  
  
• Beansprouts has more personal, touching, reflections on the Cup.
  
  
• Links magazine looks at the economic price to South Africa's workers.
  
  
• ITV has apologised to viewers after they cut away from England's first goal of the cup in order to sell us shit. One viewer imagines what 1966 would have looked like in their hands.
  
  
• Talking of naked capitalism... it's outrageous that free condoms are forbidden from stadiums because Durex is a sponsor. In fact the sponsors have completely crowded out local vendors who are entirely excluded from the games. This is particularly off because of the pre-World Cup fuss made about prostitution, a discussion which has almost completely disappeared.
  
  
• This is a really fun little gadget from the Guardian. It's the twitter action replay, with time line, from all the various games. I've checked out a couple of examples and it works brilliantly as well as being slightly mesmeric. Do check it out.
  

Bring on the clowns

We all know that Latin America is a hot bed of Communism. So much so that the very bastion of conservative comedy has been infected. Yes, the clowns are on the march in El Salvador.

The demonstration of one hundred professional clowns and their supporters included fire-eating, tricycling, sitting in the road and, of course, a quick break for prayers was in response to the fact that a man had been shot dead by two clowns after he had refused to give them money.

One banner read "real clowns are not criminals". A clowns union spokesman (yes, you read that right) told Sky News "If the criminals can get hold of police uniforms imagine how easy it is for them to get hold of a clown's outfit."

The union is calling for clowns to be issued with official documents which they can show members of the public to show they are "real" clowns. The clowns are concerned that their livelihoods depend upon the public (like buskers) and that any ill-will shown towards them may cost them their ability to put food on the table.

Football pieces

• Mike Maqusee in the Guardian explains how to enjoy football more by being unaffiliated.
  
  
• Reading the Maps discusses why we should support the New Zealand team.
  
  
• Liam is only interested in the singing.
  
  
• Charlie Brooker vents against patriotism.
  
  
• The Morning Star has a piece on how football helped to bring down apartheid.
  
  
• Richard Osley stares in horror at John Barnes.
  

What is Schwarzenegger playing at?

Interesting news has come out of this week's US primaries (a process which selects the parties' candidates for the major elections later this year). In California Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger has come to the end of his allotted time as governor and will soon be passing on the baton.

You might assume that he's automatically endorsed the Republican nominee. Not so. You see there's a problem because the Republicans have selected a Tea Bagger, one of the new right and follower of Sarah Palin, whose politics are decidedly at odds with Arnold's more moderate Republicanism.

Meg Whitman, the former CEO of eBay, was personally endorsed by Dick Cheney, and her selection was greeted with glee among the right-wing commentators.

According to her website she plans to create two million new private sector jobs in California by 2015 using targeted tax cuts alone, including abolishing capital gains tax. She's either a genius, a fool or a liar - or perhaps a bit of each. Of course, while she's creating jobs with her magic beans she'll also be laying off state workers with her proposed $15 billion cuts in public spending.

However, I'm sure this kind of conservative economic plan is not what's putting the current governor off. Rather it's her social conservatism that has him worried. Her anti-immigration stance, her pro-death penalty approach to law and order and most of all her approach to climate change.

It's her threat to suspend climate change legislation that has particularly smarted the current governor. He's been passionate about the need to tackle climate change and reduce our emissions and, in difficult fiscal circumstances, he has tried to carve out a strong reputation on the subject. This put him at odds with many in the party and saw the oil industry lobby hard against his proposals, a fight which, to his credit, he won. Now Whitman threatens to undo all the fruits of what was a colossal political fight.

It's no wonder Schwarzenegger is unwilling to leap to endorse her, and has even started saying nice things about the Democratic candidate. Could he really be preparing to endorse the opposition in order to save his legacy?

She will be facing a heavy weight opponent in former Democratic governor Jerry Brown (who was nick named "Governor Moonbeam" for his supposedly left-liberal approach). His main claim to fame as far as I'm concerned is that The Dead Kennedys ditty "California Uber Alles" is actually sung from the fictionalised perspective of Jerry Brown during his time in office. How cool is that?

Both Democratic and Republican primaries were evenly matched with 1.7 million people voting in each with Brown the runaway favourite for Democrats (84.1%) and Whitman more controversial among Republicans (64.2%).

Of course she still won a strong victory over her Republican opponents, which is a good job seeing as she used $80 million dollars of her own money just to secure the nomination, a sum which exceeds the combined spend of Republicans and Democrats on the entire 2006 Gubernatorial race. Astonishing.

Schwarzenegger spoke to the Washington Post telling them that "You're assuming I'm going to endorse the Republican". The Post went on;

"The governor did say he could change his mind "and endorse someone 14 days out. I don't know." ... he pulls back a little and suggests it's likely he would endorse Whitman -- if he endorses, that is. But he also said in the session with the editorial board that Brown had done some good things and some bad things during his two terms as governor. Schwarzenegger didn't elaborate, but the mere fact that he had a nugget of niceness for the Democrat two days into the general election is stunning. I can't wait to see how the party elders in California and here in Washington react to this."

Of course he may well end up endorsing his Republican successor, but can you imagine that happening here? A Labour or Tory MP explicitly refusing to endorse fellow party members standing for election. It speaks to the growing split in the US right between a vocal and, frankly, moronic Palinite movement and more traditional Republicans who are often less theological in their approach to climate change, gay marriage and not bombing foreigners.

The Democrats have got a good chance of beating Whitman who is likely to polarise Republicans without winning many friends in the Democrat camp, but Whitman still has her billion dollar fortune to draw on so if they want to save California's climate legislation they better make sure they take her seriously.

Tweet of the day

Spotted this one earlier which kind of summed it up for me.

mrmarksteel Great that Diane Abbott's in leadership contest for variety - black, female and left-wing. If only she wasn't also fucking hopeless.

It's going to be a long old Labour leadership contest, with the winner decided at the end of September, so my advice is.... don't get too excited too soon. It's a marathon not a sprint.

Dutch election: far right gains

The Dutch election yesterday saw an increasing polarisation of society and a dangerous shift that benefits the far right.

Although the right only moved forwards by 3 representatives (now 83 out of 150 in total) this is made up from five parties and there was a shift inside the right vote away from the more moderate Christian democrats, with the most shocking gains being made by Geert Wilders 'Party for Freedom' who went from 9 to 24 seats in one fell swoop making them the third largest party.

This is extremely worrying as the Party for Freedom is unashamedly anti-Muslim and anti-immigration. the fact that the three explicitly Christian parties all lost seats to the other two parties of the right might indicate a more general growing secularism, opposing both Islam and other religions, but this should not obscure the fact that Wilders' party is a clearly racist organisation, however they like to dress up their proposals.

The Labour Party and Socialist Party between them lost thirteen seats (3 and 10 respectively), which mainly appear to have been lost to the liberal Democrats 66 (who went from 3 to 10 seats) and the Green Left (who went from 7 to 10 seats).

I've put together this little chart of the new political make up of the Dutch House of Representatives, which I hope is helpful. Click on it to enlarge.


Quick explanation of chart:

The Party for Freedom is in black and the centre right parties in blue. The Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), Christian Union and Reformed Political Party are all Christian parties who all lost vote share to the far right and the more secular VVD.

I've put Democrats 66 in yellow and in the middle although I'm aware that politically this is slightly more complex and they could well go in with the blue team ideologically.

The two center left parties are in red and the Green Left and the Party for Animals (!) in green. The fact I've placed the animal people on the far left does not denote that they are a bunch of commies, I just didn't know where else to put them, and next to the Greens seemed sensible.

Bits and bobs

• Bright Green Scotland has a round up of union news.
  
  
• War on Want has an interesting campaign against supermarkets.
  
  
• NCADC, the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns has cleaned up their web site.
  
  
• People and Planet have published their university Green league table.
  
  
• Odds tracker can't spell Oona, but other than that they predict the next London Mayor.
  
  
• Just a reminder that They Work For You will track what your MP is getting up to, or you can even track subjects. It's a great resource, and with all these new MPs there may well be people, like Caroline Lucas, that you'll want to follow.
  

King Livingstone

Good to see that Diane Abbott is on the ballot paper for Labour leader after a number of MPs who wont be voting for her backed her candidacy, in order to ensure that the contest was not simply between white men in suits. They may well get a shock if she does well though, but tough.

However, while the hoo ha continues about whether someone left of the center gets to lose the leadership to the Miliband franchise there is a far more important selection taking place inside of Labour. Namely, who is their best shot at winning the London Mayoralty where, in contrast to the national picture, it is the left who are ensconced in the arms of the establishment and the right who are the plucky outsiders raring to put some 'fresh ideas'.


As things stand right now it's going to be a Oona King vs Ken Livingstone stand-off with the winner to be decided at the Labour caber tossing contest late September. I'm interested not just because I'm a nosy beggar, but also because a) I live in London and so I'm curious as to who hopes to rule over me and b) we get a second preference in the Mayorals which, last time round, the Green Party officially recommended using for the Labour candidate.

This was the first time that the Greens had made a public recommendation on the second preference vote (you can see some of the joint leaflets in this campaign pic from 2008) and, while I know from first hand experience it made some sort of difference, it's not something that we gave away easily.

If Labour select Ken I'm confident we'll repeat that happy experience, but if they select some bomb loving politician-for-the-sake-of-it then I doubt London Greens would be shy about publicly critiquing the lack of progressive credentials in Labour candidate and we may well have a less supportive stance.

The two hopefuls are like chalk and cheese in many ways. King spent her time in Parliament as an ultra-loyal speak your policy machine while Livingstone has been a thorn in Labour's side for decades.

King has always been eminently ignorable and defeatable while Livingstone is a formidable customer, who walks the walk and is able to defeat real opponents both internal and external. He took on all comers, including Labour's Frank Dobson, to win the Mayoralty in the first place. His medal cabinet is unique in British politics, King on the other hand is "fresh" and essentially untested.

Labour MP David Lammy is backing Ken saying that "Above all, we need a political heavyweight. In 2012 the euphoria of the Olympics may well be tempered by the harsh realities of everyday life."

GMB union leader Paul Kenny is backing Ken saying “I am totally confident that with Ken elected as London Mayor in 2012 our transport, social housing and employment needs will once again receive the attention that London demands.”

Alternatively Oona says of her candidacy that "We can’t kid ourselves that we can beat Boris Johnson by using the same rhetoric or policy platform that failed last time. We need fresh new ideas. We need an honest conversation with London based on our values and aspirations – that’s what this site and my candidacy is about."

It's nice to hear she's going to single-handedly overturn Labour's entire policy platform, but her website gives little indication of in what way she intends to this. Does she mean she's going to reverse policy on transport and the congestion charge? Will she issue all Brazilians with bullet proof vests on the tube? What?

You see, for me, this selling point of freshness (and its related diversity) just doesn't work. Oona's politics aren't fresh at all. In the context of British politics it's always been Ken who has brought forward strong, new ideas and he continues to explore new ways of concretely improving London. Fresh and empty are not synonymous with each other.

Londoners like outsiders and, in general, I think they like the way Ken clearly loves the city. He's given his heart and soul to it for forty years or more. Where's Oona been in the five years she was out of Parliament? She just doesn't have the political grit required for the job as far as I can see and I suspect most people will see her candidacy as fuelled by personal ambition in a way quite different from Ken's ambitions that have always been tied to taking the hard road in politics.

The final argument against Ken is that he lost the last election because Londoners were 'sick off him' and that he was 'rejected' by London, but the facts tell a very different story. Year on year more Londoners voted for Ken at each successive election, despite the fact that 2008 saw Labour's vote slump across the rest of the country - something that was astounding feat for a Labour candidate.


Ken didn't lose the election Boris Johnson won it, taking Steven Norris' 28% in 2004 and turning it into a whopping 42% of the vote. Anyone who's going to overturn that level of support, particularly when Boris has not horrified most voters in the way he has us lefty politicos has got to have a proven track record of winning hard battles. Oona does not have that.

It's not that the Greens agree with Ken all the time, far from it, but he's a serious politician who we can work with on friendly terms and with whom we genuinely do share a great deal of political ground. The same cannot be said for King whose track record of coalition building does not extend beyond the Iraq invasion.

It's good that there's a choice and quite rightly I don't get a vote in Labour's selection process, but I will get a say in whether the Greens recommend a second preference for Labour in 2012 and that rests entirely on who they pick as their candidate.

What's going on (naked edition)

Why don't people just keep their clothes on for heaven's sake. Oh well.

If you're at a loose end you might want to take your loose ends on the World Naked Bike Ride which meets at 3pm Saturday 12th June by the Achilles Statue in Hyde Park, which is near Hyde Park Corner tube.

You don't need to be naked to go, but it only seems polite.

If all this peace and love is not to your liking you might like to take part in giving the master race a piece of your mind. The UAF and others are organising against the racist EDL marching through Tower Hamlets. This Sunday (13th) at 7pm there is a rally at London Muslim Centre, 46 Whitechapel Road, London E1 1JX and then next week on Sunday 20 June, Assemble 11am, Stepney Green Park, march to Altab Ali Park, Whitechapel.

Then there's the question of the health service, you might like to go to the Keep Our NHS Public AGM, Saturday 12th June 10 for 11am, Somers Town Community Centre, Ossulston St, NW1; Link

Sadly, at the same time is the COMPASS "A New Hope" Annual conference which has a range of blinding speakers at it. Saturday 12th June, Institute of Education, lots of speakers including Caroline Lucas, Hilary Wainwright, Paul Mason, loads more.

If sitting in stuffy rooms is your thing then there are even more conferences the week after. The pick of these would be the Morning Star Conference, Saturday 19th June from 10am Bob Crow, George Galloway and co. Congress House.

Alternatively you might like to assist the democratisation of this backward little island with the good people from Take Back Parliament. On Sunday 13th June at 2pm there will be a democracy picnic and flower laying. Victoria Tower Gardens, Adjacent to Parliament, London, SW1A 0AA

Thinking further ahead on Saturday 10th July at 2 p.m. there will be a protest against nuclear waste being transported through London. Victoria Park, Cadogan Gate entrance, Cadogan Terrace, E9. Nearest station Hackney Wick, March to Stratford Station.

Beautiful urban foxes

There's a mini-tabloid storm brewing against urban foxes because, apparently, a fox wandered into someone's home bit a couple of kids for kicks and then wandered off again. The papers do not record whether the fox's friends filmed the incident on their mobile phones, or whether the fox had arrived in London from Poland in a secret compartment in a lorry.

Whatever the ins and outs of the case, and let's assume it's all true, this would make it an extremely rare occurrence.

The Guardian tells us that "Vulpes vulpes has long fascinated and repelled us", which is news to me. Who is this "us" who have long been "repelled" by beautiful urban foxes? Bed wetting Guardian journalists no doubt.

The article ends with a list of ways of "off foxing the fox" which are basically a number of ways of moving the fox into your neighbour's garden.

Thankfully the Guardian's eco-wing has a better article by the sainted Terry Nutkins which a) casts doubt on whether this was a fox at all and b) reminds us that foxes not go out of their way to harm humans, the harm is purely a one-way process. Well worth a read.

The BBC reports that the authorities went and found a fox and killed it in retaliation but they also quote a fox expert, John Bryant, who says that a fox attack of this kind makes no sense what-so-ever.

Whatever really happened in this case I'm concerned that, in typical knee jerk fashion, we may be facing a reprisal fox cull which will make no one any the safer but do yet more to purge our cities of some of its most delightful inhabitants.

n.b. I wondered whether foxes ate rats in order for me to make a case that they were useful, but wikipedia seems to think they mainly eat insects and worms, but whether we can trust this source or not I don't know as it doesn't even mention their main diet, discarded kebabs.

Six blogs of interest

Half a dozen blogs I've not linked to previously.

• The Refugee and Migrant Forum of East London blogs what it says on the tin.
  
  
• Adam Pogonowski is one of our new Green Party councillors. He blogs rather well.
  
  
• Crooked Timber is a well established group blog that I've been reading for some time.
  
  
• Pippa Crerar blogs for the Evening Standard.
  
  
• An Australian left of centre group blog Larvatus Prodeo (h/t Hackney Pippa)
  
  
• I may or may not have linked to Left Foot Forward, so consider this a double check.
  

Sunday selection

• It appears that industry lobbyists helped draw up the Food Standard Agency's report on GM. That was helpful of them. Guardian.
  
  
• Are the media institutionally biased in favour of Israel? Splintered Sunrise takes a look.
  
  
• Questions about how to response to The English Defense League continue. Bob from Brockley has some thoughts.
  
  
• The war film that shocked Denmark. Guardian (again).
  
  
• Coalition reneges on plans to scrap NHS data base. Independent.
  
  
• It seems that the UK's religious education has been officially criticised as 'inadequate' as one in five teachers were "unsure of what they were trying to achieve in the subject". Sounds like healthy skepticism to me. BBC.
  

Those right-wing Greens

There's nothing particularly left-wing about caring about the environment. I know plenty of Tories who are passionate about tackling climate change for instance. And when I say plenty I mean two, but I've no reason to doubt their sincerity. In fact conservationism, the movements to preserve the lesser spotted voles of Dingle Wood and chums, has often been the preserve of the more conservative elements of society.

The Charter of the Global Greens sees Green Party politics as something far wider than simply caring about the environment. The six core strands are "Ecological Wisdom, Social Justice, Participatory Democracy, Nonviolence, Sustainability, Respect for Diversity" which looks to four movements; "the peace movement, the civil rights movement, the environmental movement, and the labour movement."

In other words the politics of the Green Parties around the world are not just about single issue campaigning, there is a specific and integrated political philosophy even if, like all parties, this is often realised in very different ways in different countries.

Internationally each Green Party has a unique history as well as common political ground.

In Holland the franchise is called the Green Left and was formed in 1989 by a merger of the Communist Party of the Netherlands, Pacifist Socialist Party, the Political Party of Radicals and the Evangelical People's Party. In Denmark the Green sister party is the Socialistisk Folkeparti, or Socialist People's Party, a party formed decades ago by leading Communist Party members who'd been expelled for opposing the crushing of the Hungarian revolution in 1956.

These are left parties very comfortably nestled in the international brotherhood of tree huggers.

Ireland: Green suicide

Other parties have a more "deep green" history. The Irish Greens tell us that they were the brainchild, in 1981, of Christopher Fettes (right) who was "[a]ctive in the Vegetarian Society, the Esperanto movement and Friends of the Earth".

It's just speculation on my part but it may be that this eclectic collection of nice interests were not a strong enough foundation on which to stand when they were given the opportunity to prop up a discredited right-wing government without gaining any significant policy concessions.

Indeed the fact that they got into bed with Fianna Fáil at all when their leader at the time had gone into the election saying that he would not lead the party into such a coalition (he resigned in order to keep his word) was not just an electoral error of judgment it was, in my view, an unprincipled placing of seats at the table of government before the political purpose of the Green Party.

They placed the interests of the party above fighting for what they believed in. As one ex-member put it;

It has been painful, then, to observe the conduct of the Greens since they joined a coalition government with Fianna Fáil, Ireland's largest party, in 2007. Principles once regarded as sacrosanct have been abandoned, as the Greens have morphed from the party of education and equality into one that accepts cutbacks for schools, bailouts for feckless bankers and "civil partnerships" that deny gays and lesbians the same rights as heterosexuals.

That is not to say that the Irish Greens leap on each and every opportunity to steer right, far from it. John Gormley's Parliamentary speech on the Gaza flotilla this week is powerful stuff, for example, but you can't ignore the fact that the Irish Greens have embraced the kind of right-wing economic policies of cuts and privatisation that would make any self-respecting socialist's hair curl.

By seperating its own interests from the movements in which it should have been based the Greens in Ireland not only threw away their own political compass they discarded any reason for people to actually vote for them. They were heftily punished in last year's European and council elections more than halving their vote and seeing their representation slashed. You can't posture as a progressive force while selling your soul for a seat at the big man's table.

Czech mates chosen poorly

The Irish Greens are not alone in finding themselves out in the cold after unwise coalitions with the right. Czech Green leader Ondrej Liska, right, must know how they feel.

The Czech Greens had just started to make electoral headway achieving 6.3% in the 2006 elections, winning 6 of 200 Parliamentary seats. However, they used those votes to go into government with two right-wing parties, the Civic Democrats and the Christian Democrats, taking the education and environment ministries.

This year, after three years of association with corruption, mismanagement and instability, the Greens received just over a third of their previous vote and didn't win a single seat. In a year when all the parties of the establishment were being punished new and radical parties made great headway - the Greens found themselves on the wrong side of that division crashing and burning as a party of the stale elites rather than rising like the new political stars offering a new political direction, sadly further to the right.

For a party that's meant to be looking to the long term rather than the short termist PR approach of the old politics these are poor decisions. The argument may be that you have to take these opportunities in order to be 'influential' but in reality if you want to be an influential political force for the next twenty years going into the first coalition that comes your way and getting completely wiped out isn't wise.

In fairness to these parties it's not that they are natural parties of the right but that they weren't politically astute enough to see the traps and too opportunist to care that they were committing to fatally compromise a radical vision to a conservative ungreen future where a few Ministers wear sandals.

German examples

My last example, for sake of brevity (!) will be from Germany. Die Grünen is one of the largest Green Parties in the world and has its roots in the environmental, anti-nuclear and peace movements. Just to show that Green parties do not always go into coalition with the centre right in 1998 they went into a Red-Green coalition with the Social Democratic Party (SPD).

Certainly this is not unusual. In France the coalition partners of choice are the Socialist Party, in Italy the Greens were an ultra-left part of the Prodi cabinet and when the coalition fell apart they joined forces with the hard left to contest the next elections, just as in Portugal the Greens there are all but merged with ex-Communist Party types.

That does not mean all went well, as before the ink was dry on the coalition deal we saw the launch of the Kosovan war courtesy of Mr Blair and Mr Clinton. The German government, including its bright and shiny Green Ministers supported the bombing. Understandably many previous supporters were disgusted and left the party. However whilst their vote dipped temporarily in the long term they were able to balance pragmatism with gaining electoral support.

The Greens also found the coalition difficult terrain to negotiate and many critics feel they were too ready to concede to the pro-business agenda of the SPD and could have, or should have, pushed for the dismantling of nuclear power stations more vigorously - it's difficult to know what was possible within the confines of the alliance but what is clear is that the experience has left the German Greens with burned fingers and on a local level some areas have begun to consider center-right coalition partners.

This is a process that's still in motion and hotly contested within the German party. Just as the leftist Die Linke has its different wings, the Greens have not become entirely consumed by either the respectability of government nor the logic of compromise that define the Irish and Czech experience, which may account for their record breaking representation in the Bundestag (right), but these tendencies exist and have real influence.

Green shoots and roots

The three very different examples I've given of Green Parties that leaned to the right share a number of factors. First, they were all in a strong enough position to become national players. Second, that they took the right fork in the road in a way that the Greens in Finland, Italy and Australia, for example, have not in similar situations. Third, these coalitions tend to be marriages of convenience rather than love. Fourth, that in each case it threw the party in question into a turmoil that only the Germans were able to survive meaningfully.

This could be because Green voters will forgive coalitions with Labour but not the Tories. Whatever the views of specific Green politicians the voting demographic of the Green Party is overwhelming to the left, pro-immigration, anti-war, and anti-privatisation.

While I'm not against coalitions in principle I do think there are two questions that should be considered. Are you strong enough to win concessions and do your partners share enough political ground with you. If the answer to either of these questions are no then you're better off fighting to build political support for your ideas outside the cabinet than trying to win ground inside of it.

I think it's a reasonable conclusion to say that in none of these cases were the Greens parties of the right, but the choices that they made in order to win government power made them indistinguishable from the parties of the right. It's also reasonable to say that all Green Parties have the same tendencies and currents within them that could pull them to the left or right.

That means that in Leeds when the Green councillors were in a position to forge alliances they have got into bed with the Tories and are now sleeping with Labour, the trollops. In other areas, like Lewisham, when offered a coalition with Labour in 2006 they refused in order to maintain political independence.

My tentative conclusions

In each of these cases I believe the fatal flaw was an inadequate relationship to the movements on which Green politics is supposed to be based which allowed party bigwigs to see their political decisions as boardroom maneuvers rather than a battle for a sustainable future. In other words they took a managerial approach to politics and this naturally pulled them to the right.

It's not an inevitable condition of government, but it is an ever present force. The Scottish Greens, for example, were right to keep an arms length approach to the SNP while refusing to pull the government down. Taking the decision to support or oppose on a case by case basis may not always reap rewards but over time the ability to take an independent line at least allows for the possibility of growth regardless of the fortunes of the ruling party.

In short all parties are effected by both the specific circumstances of the country they are based in and the repercussions of the decisions that they take. There is no such thing as an abstract political philosophy immune from the trials and tribulations of the world. The best we can do is arm ourselves with the facts and ensure we learn from them.

Saturday's national demonstration

Tomorrow there will be a national demonstration against the actions of the Israeli government called by a number of anti-war, Muslim and solidarity organisations. If you can get to it, I'd encourage you to attend.

The actions against the blockade busting flotilla are widely seen as a crime and this is a moment of opportunity to help lift the sanctions against Gaza and free all of those unjustly imprisoned by the Israeli state.

London:
Assemble at 1.30 pm outside Downing Street and the demonstration will head to the Israeli embassy.

Edinburgh:
Assemble at 2pm at the Mound.

There are probably other local demos across the country (and also internationally, like the Paris demo which starts at the Place de la Bastille saturday 3pm) for those who cannot make the event in London. Leave a comment if you want to let people know about it.

It's important that we keep up international solidarity in order to ensure that Israel pulls its head back in. Yesterday in the Israeli Parliament one Arab MP, Haneen Zuabi, was attacked on Parliament floor and has recieved numerous death threats for her support for the flotilla.

I'll try to keep up with tracking some of the local events so feel free to keep me up to date so I can big up your events. You might also like to encourage your MP to sign EDM 127 on the flotilla attack.

Eco-Miscellany

• The Morning Star looks at problems in the tar sands.
  
  
• The BBC advocates 'citizen science' to save birds.
  
  
• Michael Greenwall discovers you can bet on which animals go extinct first.
  
  
• The Guardian reports on a resignation from the food standards watchdog over 'GM propaganda'.
  
  
• The Australian reports on extraordinary legislation passed in Papua New Guinea that protects companies from litigation on environmental destruction.
  
  
• The Caledonian Mercury discovers that after 25 years a banned pesticide is still causing havoc with the Scottish environment.
  

Protest Israel's Pirate State: this Saturday

This Saturday in London there is a national demonstration called by Stop the War, CND, PCS and others to protest against the actions of the Israeli state in their attack on the aid convey yesterday. There has been an incredible surge of protests across the world and on every continent against the murderous actions of the Israeli commandos.

Assemble: 1.30 pm at Downing Street and the march will go to the Israeli embassy.

Despite the usual thick skinned claims from the Israeli government many of its friends are finding it difficult to defend this action. For instance Harry Place, a blog pretty much dedicated to attacking the left and defending Israel, does its best to defend the actions but has to admit that;

"there were disastrous and self-defeating strategic and tactical failures on the Israeli side. Once again, the Israeli government has failed to grasp that just because they may have the right to do something doesn’t mean it’s always wise to do it. Allowing the ships to dock in Gaza, unload their cargo and be on their way– as the Israelis have done in the recent past– might have provided some minimal aid and comfort to Hamas, but nothing like the propaganda coup that yesterday’s events did.... Almost everything Israel does these days seems plodding and obvious and designed to make it look like the villain."

Tory blogger Iain Dale says;

"whatever propensities I have to support Israel, the key point which makes me critical of this incident is this. If a peace flotilla had been making its way to the Iranian coast and it had been boarded by the Revolutionary Guard and people had been shot dead, I and many other supporters of Israel would be spitting blood in outrage. So that's why I can't man the barricades and automatically jump to Israel's defence here. Sometimes Israel makes life very difficult for even its most ardent supporters."

Worst of all we have this from the Telegraph's executive foreign editor, a man who Israel should be able to rely on in even the worst crisis;

"Israel has developed a worrying habit of conducting itself in a way that even its friends find hard to defend... Israel’s inept handling of the affair, which has resulted with the deaths of as many as 19 people, it has turned it into a national disaster. There were many methods the Israeli military could have used to prevent the flotilla reaching Gaza without loss of life. But they used a tactic that was bound to cause provocation, and are now paying the cost."

When even Israel's friends are casting doubt over their actions you know there is an opportunity to help gain some justice for the Palestinian people.

Monday's link share

• Excellent interview with Ken Livingstone covering Frank Dobson, the Greens and much more. Part one and part two.
  
  
• An article in the Independent on Gail Cartman who's running for the leadership of UNITE.
  
  
• Hate to see blog articles full of links? Perhaps you're not the only one, Nicholas Carr speaks.
  
  
• Luna17 has some excellent footage of John Rees speaking at today's flotilla protest in London.
  
  
• The void reports on a very unchristian eviction.
  
  
• Lay scientist has some hints and tips on lobbying Parliament.
  

Freedom Flottilla Attacked

The attack on the freedom flotilla delivering aid to Gaza is completely unwarranted and disgraceful. Reports of the number of dead and wounded vary but we're talking about at least a dozen killed and thirty seriously wounded by the Isreali Navy.

Israel made the ludicrous claim that the peaceniks opened fire on them and attacked them with baseball bats, which is why so many of them had to been killed. This is not credible. These murders, in international waters, are all in aid of ensuring that Gaza remains impoverished and denied medical equipment and other aid.

Words fail me. International protests and condemnation has already begun, but nothing yet from the UK government.



There will be protests today in;

London, Downing Street, 2pm

Aberdeen - St Nicholas Square, 5pm
Banff - Low Street, Council Buildings, 5pm
Brighton, Churchill Square, 6pm
Bristol, Centre (opposite the Hippodrome) starting at 3pm
Birmingham City Centre Waterstones 4pm
Cambridge, outside Guildhall, 2pm
Cardiff - Queen Street at Nye Bevan statue 3pm
Dundee - City Square, 5pm
Edinburgh - Foot of the Mound, 5pm
Glasgow - George Square, 5pm
Inverness - Townhouse, 5pm
Manchester outside the BBC on Oxford Rd, 5pm
Moffat - 2 Holm Street, 5pm
York St Sampsons Square, 2pm

Please do let me know of any I've missed.

Sunday Reading: anti-racist edition

A few handy links, today's theme is disapproving of the whole racism business.

• I see that the UAF (Unite Against Fascism) have a new website. Pretty.
  
  
• Conversely Lancaster Unity reports on the BNP's troubles with their website.
  
  
• The Morning Star reviews an anti-fascist exhibition that's coming to Newcastle, Manchester and Nottingham.
  
  
• Croydon Today reports that BNP candidate David Clarke has been convicted of assault.
  
  
• Fresh politics reports on the anti-fascist protests in Newcastle.
  
  
• The Centre for a Stateless Society says that when it comes to immigration - anarchy works.
  

A surprise Eurovision post

I take little interest in the Eurovision song contest so it's a tiny bit surprising to find myself writing a quick piece on the thing. Apparently the UK came last, for the third time in a decade, with some dismal sub-pop tripe. It constantly bemuses me why we enter tunes that patently have no artistic merit.

I suppose it's worth noting that the UK have only started coming last after we began deciding our entries on a public vote. If you're going to let the public decide I suppose you will get Stock, Aitkin and Waterman - without the Aitkin even.

Of course the nay sayers have two essential arguments about why the world is so unfair. Firstly that, yes, our song was shit - but it's Eurovision for heavens sake - it's meant to be shit. Au contraire mon frere, it's music and therefore meant to be tolerable at the very least. It's a general rule that the winners of the contest tend to be better than the losers. Next year why not maximise the UK's chances of wining by entering a song that it's possible to listen to without retching.

The second point they make is that all the voting is political so we just don't have a chance. Well, it's nice that these people admit that a decade of international belligerence has made us a pariah state, but sadly it's just not true. Last year we came in the top five by using the sneaky technique of getting people who know what they're doing to put our entry together. It's possible to do well, but not if we enter the musical equivalent of scabies, but without the glamour.

This year we had possibly the classyest entry from Armenia, if by classy you mean cheap where the camera wuld literally have had to climb into the lead singers cleavage to get a more obvious breast shot at the beginning of the piece and there was also a well meaning stage invasion during the Spanish entry which I found rather charming.

Anyway, this is the second time that Germany have won the competition, the first time being in sunny Harrogate in 1982, a Eurovision that was wracked with controversy as the French refused to enter saying that "The absence of talent and the mediocrity of the songs were where annoyance set in. [Eurovision is] a monument to inanity."

How things have changed.

Anyway, 1982 was the year that my very favourite Eurovision song was entered, by Finland it was entitled "Bomb out" a piece dedicated to international brotherhood and the simple plea that nobody was to drop a nuclear weapon on the band, a Eurovision practice that has certainly had it's worthy advocates over the years.

Kojo's cold war anthem Nuku Pomiin had a great deal to merit it, even if it were not exactly a cultural masterpiece. You can find the lyrics here, but I think if I tell you that the opening lines pose the rarely asked question "If someone soon throws some nuclear poo here on our Europe, What will you say when we get all the filth on our faces?"

Enjoy.



Who could believe that it received just nul points? A scandal Eurovision has yet to recover from.

A little bit of party business

You can probably ignore this if you're not a member of the Green Party, but feel free to be nosy if you must.

It's that time again where deadlines approach for the September national conference. For example Tuesday at 9am is the deadline for motions to conference (for the first agenda).

I'm only submitting the one this time, my ill fated joint lists motion that has been having difficulties getting heard, mainly through a lack of plenary time - so I've got my fingers crossed that I can get it to conference floor this time as it always gets good support in the workshops.

This is how I described it last time, and as it is exactly the same motion so I may as well repeat myself "Currently the Party constitution forbids joint election lists with other parties or independents at proportional representation elections. This motion removes that bar whilst putting in place safeguards against 'unwise' decisions and ensuring the final decision is always with the members of the region concerned."

If you want to support this motion, and are a member, send me an email straight away. Ta.

Internal elections

That's not all though, if you can possibly contain your excitement, because nominations for the national executive open on Monday week. We have a whole host of positions that members might like to apply for, well eleven of them anyway (publications, equalities, external communications, policy and chair for example).

You need to have been a member for two years and get ten party members to nominated you for the post. My ideal is that every post is contested and that there's at least one candidate for each post who actually wants to do it! One day, perhaps, one day.

If you are thinking of putting yourself forward - please do, even for the posts where I'll be supporting someone else! Even if you don't think you'll win it's a good chance to make a point and good practice for later elections that you might win. There's nothing worse than a ballot paper where half the posts only have one candidate on them.

This year we also have leader and deputy leader posts up for grabs.

I'll be honest with you unless you are either Caroline Lucas or Adrian Ramsay you wont win if you put yourself up... however I can't be the only person who hopes that both roles are contested and the opportunity for a debate about the direction of the party is seized with both hands at this interesting time. I'll even nominate you if you like - although be prepared for the fact that I might not vote for you.

Today's Miscellany

• Peter Serafinowicz is an excellent comic actor (you may know him from Shaun of the Dead) and a stupendous, prolific tweeter. He's also written a very cogent argument for internet theft.
  
  
• Weggis looks at the BA dispute and the perils of facebook privacy settings, which is the second disgraceful BA strike / facebook story I've heard in a matter of days.
  
  
• AVPS examines crop trashing and social movement theory.
  
  
• Green Christian asks how should politicians relate to faith groups.
  
  
• Natalie Bennett, the Green Party's commissar for information, reviews Raising My Voice: The Extraordinary Story of the Afghan Woman Who Dares to Speak Out by Afghan MP Malalai Joya
  
  
• Left Foot Forward asks whether the Lib Dems have gone AWOL on international development.
  

Miscellany

Today's miscellany comes sponsored by the letters E, J and the number 4.

• The Morning Star puts out an appeal for support.
• Liam has a shocking story about ipad workers being asked to sign an anti-suicide contract.
• In a story that sent me ballistic with rage Madame Miaow compares the treatment given to Baroness Scotland with her cleaner.
• If you missed Caroline Lucas' maiden speech in parliament you can find it here and also check out the extraordinary front page of the Independent today.
• Do you need an armoured car? One careful owner who only used it to drive to church on a Sunday.
• Mark Steel relates what it's like being rung up by the Daily Mail.
  

News flash: "mephedrone deaths" not drugs related

Yes. You heard that right.

Those two poor lads whose deaths caused the almighty drugs panic around mephedrone had not even taken the drug (what I said at the time was wait for the scientific analysis before jumping to conclusions here).

The BBC reports;

Toxicology tests have shown that two teenagers whose deaths were linked to mephedrone had not taken the drug.

The deaths of Louis Wainwright, 18, and Nicholas Smith, 19, in March 2010 sparked concern about the synthetic stimulant, which was then legal.

The Labour government banned the so-called "legal high" in April, making it a Class B drug alongside amphetamines and cannabis.

But tests have revealed there were no traces of mephedrone in their blood.

It is thought further tests are being conducted to try to establish what, if any, substances the pair had taken.

Mephedrone - also known as Meow, Bubbles and M-CAT - is derived from cathinone, a compound found in a plant called Khat.

Humberside Police, which carried out the initial investigation into the teenagers' deaths, said in March it had "information to suggest these deaths are linked to M-CAT".

Its statement went on to say: "We would encourage anyone who may have taken the drug to attend a local hospital as a matter of urgency."

At the time, police believed the pair had been drinking and had also taken methadone - a similar-sounding but completely different drug to mephedrone.

On Friday, a spokeswoman said the force could not confirm or deny the results of the toxicology tests.

She said: "The pathology report, which includes toxicology findings, is prepared on behalf of the coroner and is not yet complete.

"The findings of the report, once completed, will be forwarded to the coroner and may be discussed at any inquest and will not be disclosed without the authority of HM Coroner."

North East Lincolnshire Coroners Court has refused to comment ahead of the inquest.

Mephedrone has been implicated in the deaths of 34 people in the UK - 26 in England and eight in Scotland.

But so far, the drug has been established as a cause of death in only one case in England, that of John Stirling Smith.

I expect you'll see a load of MPs (and ex-MPs) retracting their ill thought out drugs nonsense any day now....

What's left and right?

Simon requests that I say something about "right-wing Greens" no doubt to help people come to terms with the fact that the Green Party here-abouts stands on a clearly left-wing manifesto yet we hear about greens in foreign lands, and sadly sometimes closer to home, who're not exactly over burdened with socialist credentials.

I think this is a useful and interesting topic, so useful and interesting in fact that I'm going to take a little bit of a run up to it, so this is going to be the prequel to the readers request post itself.

The reason for this is not just that I'm an insufferable windbag who can't stop blathering on, it's also because I'd like to quickly grapple with a couple of points that would only clutter up the Green Right post.

The first is on the left-right spectrum and the second is the nature of parties.

I'm not one of those people who think that it's possible to step outside of the left-right axis. Loosely defined the left are people who want to see society become more egalitarian and are willing to challenge existing social structures to do so, and the right are those who hope to preserve the current way of doing things, or even move things backwards so that capitalism can function free and unhindered.

Whatever your politics you are somewhere on this scale. Objectively you will be either reinforcing inequality or challenging it no matter how slick your "new politics" PR machine may be.

However, this axis has never been an adequate way of describing someone's politics meaningfully. Simply saying that someone is more left or right wing than someone else is unlikely to tell you much about their politics unless you're hindered by a truly ultra-orthodox dogma.

For instance, there are people on the right who want a small state, low taxes, and think that the law should regulate the absolute minimum amount. There are others on the right who believe in a strong, authoritarian state with rock hard legislation to prevent anyone messing with an employer's right to make money - by joining a union or being unwell. Neither side of the big/small state argument is more or less right wing by default - they just disagree.

Add to this the complication that whilst political philosophies may be ideal types human beings rarely are. You can have those who do a bang up job challenging sexism but who despise immigrants. There are those who want to see radical progressive taxation create real redistribution of welath and who think the Queen is goodness personified. People are lovely and messy like that.

Then add on top of all this that sometimes political questions can be pretty tricky. For years even the most hardened socialists debated whether 'revolutionaries' should be members of the Labour Party. Whatever nuance you put on it you either end up with a party card or you don't and it's pretty hard to co-exist in the same organisation when glaring differences in strategy flow from that decision.

That's why I think it's fair to say that the thing that most divided the politics of the SWP and Militant in the eighties was not a competition about who was the most left wing but rather how they went about trying to achieve very similar programs for change.

Then you have emphasis. At anyone time a concentration on abortion laws, strike action, anti-war activity, building a rally, standing for Parliament or whatever may or may not be the right thing to do - but none of them are inherently more left or right wing than each other, but rather they are tactical considerations albeit ones that may have unintended political consequences.

All in all you have this complex mallange of strategy, tactics, personal history and tastes, errors of judgment, ways of working, accidents of philosophy, style and specific approaches to specific issues and the whole left/right thing starts to look less and less adequate as anything but a loose explanation.

Then we come to the second part of what I wanted to say - that all real parties, which have an actual internal life, are alliances of different political tendencies. Sometimes this is formal with specific in-party organisations (like the Fabians or Christian Socialists) and sometimes it's looser but no less real (like Blairites and Brownies).

Some people talk about Green Parties being divided between 'realos' and 'fundies' (or suits and tunics as I call them) but there are few Parties, if any, that actually have party groupings along those lines.

This means in general that parties can have both racists and anti-racists as members, pro-union and anti-union members, those who see elections as the be all and end all and those who come out in a rash at the very thought of canvassing the neighbourhood and asking for a vote or two. And, weirdly, that works.

There can be tensions or bouts of civil war but generally these alliances, of often very different kinds of politician, are stable, at least in established parties. That's stable and dynamic simultaneously, because of that very fact that we disagree and yet still come together.

When trying to capture the dynamic of any party we need to keep in mind that a) key fissures may not be left/right or revolutionary/reformist but over other kinds of disagreement, b) that parties are always in a process of change and development, c) that parties are also part of and influenced by more general social shifts and d) that decisions those parties take impact on how they behave in the future.

When I take a look at the 'Green Right' next time I'll try to keep things a little more concrete and practical, but I thought this might be a useful discussion to have first just to provide a kind of framework for debate.

Can't pay. Wont pay.

I went to the excellent 'Can't Pay. Wont Pay' meeting last night with a constellation of lefty speakers including BA workers. You can read reports from Liam, and Brendan, you can also see Caroline Lucas's speech here and read the text of one of the Greek speakers.

As a solidarity meeting with Greek workers and those resisting cuts across Europe, including in the UK, it was really useful. In particular I found the speaker from Unite when she was talking about the BA dispute enlightening and inspiring - which is what you want from an evening like this really.

What's clear is that while we face our own government's slash and burn approach to public spending here this is part of a global picture where the conditions of the poorest are under threat and jobs and services are in the firing line.

I thought I'd look up a few examples from Europe over the last couple of days, and I'm not even including Greece.

In France they are striking to protect retirement rights, including a protest of a million people.

Italy, they face wage freezes and public sector cuts, all to save the Euro. The unions say this could spark a national strike.

The German government, which is coordinating the Euro bailout packages is looking to ways of regulating the banking sector and are banning short selling, which is good... but of course the bail out packages they are arranging are the ones that come with strings attached to attack workers conditions. At least they are blowing up banks in retaliation.

In Spain it's likely there will be a general strike as the austerity package squeaks through Parliament.

Belgium may be the favourites to win Eurovision but they face higher education cuts, and private sector one day strikes and wildcat actions.

Denmark is seeing protests about aid cuts, and welfare cuts. in Ireland, which is still officially in recession, the spending cuts have begun to bite.

in the Czech Republic, they are trying to piece together some sort of political consensus in order to initiate economic 'reforms'.

There are mass protests in Romania. Albania is in political turmoil. Meanwhile the Wall Street Journal reports that the US is ticking us off for not having a stern enough response to the crisis.

Of course in the United Kingdom we're squealing as we get hit with a fraction of the cuts to come.

I think I see which way the wind is blowing right now. I guess we have two choices. We can suck up the job cuts and withdrawal of public services or... we can pose and alternative while throwing a spanner in the works.

Green Reading Request

Prior to the election I had been reading up on how the hard left had grappled with getting elected to local councils in the past - which led me to some very interesting places that I may write up at some point - however, that all seems a bit pointless now so I'm going to focus on a different set of reading.

What I think I really need to do is brush up on my green politics. I know it's probably an odd thing to say but it's completely true - I've got no real grounding in green political thought.

Well, on second thoughts perhaps this doesn't surprise you.

While I've read a few things to be honest I'm just a reasonably straight forward socialist and find the Green Party a comfortable home for now, so I've never really made any attempt to come to terms with what, if anything, would constitute a specifically green politics.

Perhaps you could help me out?

My request is this - do you have any recommendations for me? What should I be reading in order to bolster my eco-credentials? I'm looking for politics and philosophy rather than science and issue based reading, which I'm probably stronger/less weak on. All help gratefully received.

Internet bashing

Just listening to the radio wheel out old, lazy cliches about the internet making people more isolated and lonely. Personally I think this is rubbish, people have never communicated with each other more, just because we do it in new ways does not make it a social problem.

I'd like to remind these people that isolation and loneliness is not new. Exhibit one, The Members wrote and performed this song long before anyone knew they'd be such a thing as the world wide web.



The idea that making it easier to keep in touch with those you know and create social networks of people you'd never normally get to meet is an isolating experience just seems strange to me.

It's far too easy to look at the past through rose tinted glasses and underplay the impact of poverty, rural isolation or what people with sociology degrees call 'social deviation' (not as fun as it sounds) could have upon people. All problems that are mitigated through the rise of social media, although obviously not eradicated.

I think it's true that today we have communities with little sense of community, but this is a process that began long before the internet came about and while there were lots of upsides to strogner community cohesion this came at a price where people were expected to conform to social standards far more tightly than they are today.

I suspect being trapped in a marriage because it's the thing you are meant to do was a far more depressing experience than anything Bebo has managed to conjure up.

The Oona file

So Oona King has put her media friendly hat into the London Mayoral ring as a potential challenger to Ken Livingstone for the Labour ticket. Her candidacy has been welcomed by quite a few Labour leaning folk who want to see a proper selection contest and have been concerned about the lack of diversity among the political class.

I share those concerns but, in the absence of Ms King putting forward any vision as to *why* she wants to be London's Mayor, I thought I might take a little look at her track record to see what we might glean from her past behaviour.

King was an MP from 1997 to 2005 in Bethnal Green and Bow, a reign that was cruelly cut off by 823 votes when she was beaten by George Galloway at the height of his powers. When she was first elected she was just the second black woman to be elected to Parliament, the first one being current Labour leadership challenger Diane Abbott.

I took a look at her voting record in the House for this period to see what kind of policies we might expect from her majesty.

• She voted strongly for student fees.
• Very strongly for ID cards.
• Very strongly for foundation hospitals.
• Very strongly for the Iraq War, and very strongly against an investigation into that war once it went balls up in a plastic handcart.
• She voted against measures to prevent climate change.
• Very strongly for a stricter asylum system (you know the one where we deport gay people to their deaths and lock up children - she wanted that toughened up).

In fact the only measures she voted for that can be regarded as progressive (fox hunting ban, gay rights, hereditary peers) were all the party line, a line from which she very rarely strayed. In fact politically she was possibly the most loyal minor bag carriers of the Blair years.

If there's one thing history has shown us it's that London likes their politicians on message and loyal to the party, so a DNA New Labourite should be just the ticket, no?

A few more links

Don't normally give two helpings of these a day but we've had some very special ones come in.

• Oona King is running for Mayor of London. I believe the expression is "facepalm". The article is doubly worth reading because it lists how many MPs each Labour leadership candidate has so far and how McDonnell supporters are bullying Abbott supporting MPs.
  
  
• A good link I've seen today is Brutish Airways.
  
  
• Following up from the BA direct action fuss yesterday I thought I'd post Martin Smith, SWP national organiser, on C4 news justifying the actions of his organisation. Other commentators that have discussed this are Lenin, HarpyMarx, AVPS, Air Strikes, Socialist Unity 1, Socialist Unity 2, People's Republic of Hove, Morning Star, Aled Fisher, Luna 17 the list goes on... More interestingly still it seems that the theory that this was youthful exuberance has rather gone out the window because exactly the same thing happened in Ireland the week before, so it now looks like a new model of protest for the SWP.
  
  
• In the Guardian a worrying, if expected, piece on how people are less concered about climate change. Meanwhile Lake Tanganeyka is hotter than it has been in 1,500 years.
  
  
• The journal Revolutionary History has an Iran issue out... looking forward to it.
  
  
• Last of all the Bolivian general in charge of rounding up Che Guevara has been arrested, for plotting against President Evo Morales.
  

Events coming up

Feel free to let me know of any events I've missed. I tend to go for national or London because that's where I live...

• DEFEND WHITTINGTON HOSPITAL COALITION MEETING

Monday 24 May 7pm, Whittington Community Centre, Yerbury Rd, N19. Nr Archway Tube

• Solidarity with the Greek Protests
  

Wednesday 26th May 7pm, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London, WC1. Speakers.

• Camden Green Fair
  

Sunday 6th June from Midday until 7pm; Details

• Dreamers of a New Day – Women Who Invented the Twentieth Century

Thu 10 Jun, 6.30pm Bookmarks talk,with author Sheila Rowbotham WC1B 3QE link

• Keep Our NHS Public AGM

Saturday 12th June 10 for 11am, Somers Town Community Centre, Ossulston St, NW1; Link

• COMPASS "A New Hope" Annual conference
  

Saturday 12th June, Institute of Education, lots of speakers including Caroline Lucas, Hilary Wainwright, Paul Mason, loads more Link

• Morning Star Conference
  

Saturday 19th June from 10am Bob Crow, George Galloway and co. Congress House link

• Lewisham People's Day
  

Saturday 10th July Mountsfield Park, Catford music, cool things, stalls link

• Green Party Conference
  

Friday 10th September to Monday 13th in Birmingham; Details