If you are right, you have the right to fight

Language: under and over estimated in equal proportions, the use of it everyday to define, refine and confine sections of the community depending on the users capability or understanding. Two words used a considerable amount at the minute are militant and protester, usually in the same sentence.

From the free online dictionary:

Militant: to be vigorously active and aggressive, especially in support of a cause: militant reformers.
Protester: an expression or declaration of an objection, disapproval, or dissent, often in opposition to something a person is powerless to prevent or avoid: a protest against increased taxation.

Or from the Oxford dictionary;

Militant: favouring confrontational or violent methods in support of a political or social cause.
Protester: a person who publicly demonstrates opposition to something; a demonstrator.

These are the words that management and the media use everyday to describe working class people who are fighting for their basic rights to a livable wage and safe working conditions. Words that are unfair in their use that serve only to alienate and separate those standing up and speaking out from the rest of the working class who may well have resigned themselves to their own fate and scare any potential fence sitters away from joining a picket line, march or rally.

To stand up for what is right does not make you militant, it makes you passionate. To be passionate about a cause is not wrong.

To know you are right gives you the right to fight and this is exactly what people such as the Essex Fire Brigades Union members are doing, the cuts being faced by Essex fire crews affect the safety of every man, woman and child living in Essex. The cuts being pushed through in Essex are not for savings, they are of an ideological nature, this in itself is a very dangerous ethos for any fire authority to operate by because, ultimately, cuts costs lives. The budget for Essex Fire Service has increased from £70m to £77m, with reserves that went up from £4m to £12m, yet the management continue to plunder the service with devastating and needless cuts. In the 36 months since the initial dispute started there have been 160 firefighters lost.

The people of Essex that are standing up rightfully against these sweeping and savage cuts are also having the very essence of their human rights eroded by a totalitarian dictatorship who have imposed restrictions on their right to freedom of expression. It is a psychological war of oppression that would not be out of place in 1930's Germany. This is a problem shared in the wider community, something I feel becoming ever more present across all our daily lives with the creep of fascism spreading through society.

It is the elephant in the room nobody wants to talk about, the George Orwell state is upon us.

Outside Essex County Council - No more cuts

Essex to their credit have stood together in the face of some vociferous adversity from senior management. From body cameras being employed to spy on firefighters to CCTV being installed on community owned fire stations at the tax payers expense! Even police escort off stations on strike dates and fear of discipline and reprisal for daring to use words on a fire station that you can use in everyday life outside those very walls. The strike in Essex is a local dispute but it has national importance for us all, not just in the fire service but across all workers in the UK suffering in these times of austerity. Unions need to up their game by supporting each other both visibly at rallies and picket lines to financially aiding those people taking the decisions to withdraw their labour. This is not a decision made lightly. The show of unity and strength in Essex is something we should use to launch our own fight backs and we too must support them however we can.

Never have truer words been spoken

Whilst it is sad that workers across the country have felt that in order to be heard and have a chance of defending their working conditions they must take the challenging steps of strike action, let us not forget that this all comes against the back drop of billions of pounds of our money being spent on buying machines that deliver nothing but death, destruction and misery to countless souls around the globe. News just this week that the new stealth bomber being delivered to the UK is to be at a cool £100m for each jet, we can afford to wage illegal wars but not ensure we can retire in comfort after a life of service.

The march and rally in Essex was a resounding success but more can be and must be done if we are to continue this fight against ill judged idealism.

The people united will never be divided

The boiling frog theory: throw a frog into a pan of hot water and he will jump out, put him into a pan of cold water and gradually turn up the heat and he will not sense the danger, he will sit there and perish.

This is the scenario today facing the public sector across the country.

Bit by bit public services are being eroded, department by department, until they are gone, privatised to be run for a profit by people that may not have our best interests at heart. These are classic divide and conquer tactics for the government and their pay masters who rely on the knowledge that (generally speaking) we will not stand up and speak out if something does not directly affect us. hey know a power grab will result in a violent kick back by the people but by picking us off one by one we will not see the bigger picture and react only when it is too late.

The result will be services that are nothing but a shell of their former selves.

The Independent today featured an article called 'how the coalition carved up the NHS' and was well worth reading. Key points it highlighted were the fact that the Tories viewed "choice, competition and a greater willingness to make use of the private sector" as the best way to improve the performance of the NHS; it goes on to say "the existing NHS executive was to be abolished and in its place a new economic regulator charged with proofing competition across the service, any willing provider as to be allowed to supply NHS care at NHS prices".

This is all well and good but as with all services that are privatised you get neither choice nor competition, prices increase steadily and then exponentially. Think train fares that happened to go up by 6% on average this year followed by the usual comments about how the increased fares will go to improving services, I guess we can live in hope.

What is more likely to happen with the NHS is that the vultures will circle and descend upon trusts across the country and fees will remain steady, for a while, but then costs will gradually increase with a number of excuses being reeled out for why and it will have happened steadily, over a period of time and the people will forget to ask what has changed?

Privatisation is a disease spreading through all public services, from vital services being outsourced such as training centres and workshops in the fire and rescue service, to entire police forces looking to privatise in some parts of the country. 

These profiteering pirates will serve only to line their pockets, not serve the people in their time of need.

The cuts agendas, the pensions lies and privatisation are all part of a bigger plan to chip away and fragment the public sector. The NHS, though the largest, is but one part of the public sector being  attacked that provide vital services to us all, with bi-weekly bin collections becoming a more regular occurrence, fewer street cleaners, fewer teachers to help shape our future generations bright minds, fewer firefighters and fewer police to arrest the banking terrorists mainly responsible for the economic crisis engulfing the world.

The need to stand up and speak out for each other is not a new concept but it is one that has become less obvious in recent times, our strength is our unity and by showing unity amongst all people within the public sector and to the very people they serve, the fight becomes a stronger one. This fight is not between each other but against the government, their paymasters and the banking terrorists. 

I shall finish with this play on words of a famous poem by Pastor Martin Niemoller:

"First they came for the Socialist,

but I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionist,

but I did not speak out because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Muslims,

but I did not speak out because I was not a Muslim.

Then they came for me,

and there was no one left to speak for me"

12 years and still roaming free

The British Grand Prix, scene of many a late night camp fire sing alongs at Camp Gallagher.

Since the ripe old age of 14 I have attended all but one of the Silverstone Formula 1 Grand Prix, with 12 of these coming by way of 4 days and 3 nights camping. In this time I have yet to put my hand in my pocket for overzealous teenage gate keepers looking to pocket a few quid and hand the rest to farmers, who I imagine have a similar tax arrangement as Jimmy Carr.

Now at the age of 29 (and old man time creeping up on me) the novelty of walking for miles on end around the area, looking for holes in fences, gates to climb or ditches to scurry through or leap over has worn as thin as Alan Shearers hair line. This year was even more off putting as carrying an injured shoulder left me with neither the gumption, nor the ability, to climb anything I could not swing my leg over.

After much deliberation (and an hour of walking in the only sun I thought I was going to see for the weekend) we stopped for a couple of pints at the village pub whilst everyone else had long given up and paid their camping fee and were now setting up. As the sun beat down my friend and I decided to bite the bullet and pay the £50 for a bit of grass, 5 toilets and 2 shower cubicles. On our slow walk to the main gate we were still debating whether we should offer the teenage gate keepers £20 quid in their pockets in exchange for letting two out of shape and out of ideas old boys in to the camp site.

Luck it seems was on our side.

As we made our way up the long drive way to the entrance a convoy of 4x4's toeing caravans sped past us and joined the back of what was an already long line of eager petrol heads, so we strolled up to and through the gate without stopping.

Success was ours and all it took was a little patience...except we were in the wrong field and separated from Camp Gallagher by some impenetrable fencing.

With defeat snatched from the jaws of victory we turned on a dime and back out of the entrance and headed towards the correct gate. I could only put our mistake down to heat exhaustion, exasperated by the Corona consumption on the village pub wall.

Our excuses were set, in through the gate we went but it must have been a change of shift. An actor on his phone was all that stood between us and the mud bath awaiting us. He did not even give us a second look, such was the importance of his call. We were in and it was almost time for dinner. In the 2 hours it took us to get in the boys had already set up.

Every cloud has a silver lining.

The face of cuts to all our services

Fire and rescue services across the country are battling against cuts to front line services, being pursued at an increasingly aggressive and alarming rate.

Essex forms part of a region locally with Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire fire and rescue services. Each one of these are facing or have under gone cuts to the frontline services with varying degrees of severity.

In recent action Essex voted overwhelmingly, 71% from a 75% return rate, to upscale their dispute to full strike. A decision not taken lightly but as a response to the total disregard for consultation and negotiation required by management over the aggressive cuts being pushed through resulting in a disregard for the safety of crews and members of the public in the communities they live and serve in.

It was a last resort and something no firefighter ever wants to do.

Brentwood station walk out.

Essex are not asking for more. This dispute is not about better pay or pensions, they are fighting to stand still, maintaining the current number of stations, fire engines and firefighters to crew these engines safely and protect the communities they live in and serve. In the case of the fire service, cuts cost lives.

Last week at the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) conference, Hertfordshire FBU Chair Derek Macleod announced that “Hertfordshire would not be crossing the boarder” in response to fire calls in Essex on any of the initial 5 dates announced, something that would severely affect fire cover in Hertfordshire if asked to do so. The first of which is to take place on June 28^th.  They also pledged £5000 to the Essex hardship fund.

Hertfordshire face new ‘super’ stations called super day crewing that effectively see the return of the Victorian working days of a 96-hour working week, firefighters are expected to live on station for the duration. A 20% increase in a firefighters wage has been offered, but in reality this equates to a pay cut when compared to the hourly rate for being on duty this length of time. All this in addition to station down grading and job cuts.

Bedfordshire recently underwent a shift change resulting in crews working for 24 consecutive hours. The cuts agenda in Bedfordshire has seen the down grading of Toddington fire station from wholetime (full time) to retained (part time) plus a reduction in 36 wholetime posts being lost through ‘natural wastage’ (retirement). Natural wastage is the term being used up and down the country to avoid compulsory redundancy; however they are the jobs of the children born tomorrow that are lost forever.

Cambridgeshire FBU delegate Cameron Matthews reported how they are facing a new restrictive shift system fundamentally reducing their ability to take leave, something that will hit hard firefighters with young families. There is the prospect of losing 40 wholetime posts out of a current 180, 2 retained fire stations, 5 fire engines and 4 out of 5 special appliances. Some redundancies will be compulsory.

Cambridgeshire FBU members polled their local communities and found that 97% of 5000 people asked, are in favour of the fight to protect their service from the cuts attacks.

Paradoxically, whilst the government and local managers push through these savage cuts, they expect the same firefighters to take on additional tasks and responsibilities that fall way outside their remit, with no extra reward and fewer personnel and resources to do so, all in the name of resilience.

As Cameron Matthews stated “we still have life in us and our service matters to us, its time to make them hear us”. Our moment is now.

Double dip closures.

When the recession started in 2008 people remarked how quickly the high street in Dunstable was affected with a number of shops closing. Now in 2012 the grip of the recession is plain for all to see in Luton.

Whilst on the face of it the sight of the Mall and the new shop front would lead you to believe everything is OK, the inside paints a different picture. Rows of empty units and quiet aisles are the generic theme.

Familiar sight in the Mall

Over recent weeks and months a number of units in the Mall have closed or become outlet stores, so following the announcement that Clinton Cards was closing some 350 nationally, I decided to count up the number of units shut in the Mall itself. Currently there are 14 empty units with 3 more due to close including Luton's own Clinton Cards store.

Clinton Cards bids farewell

One area flourishing are coffee shops with there now being 6 in the Mall. We can always find time and money to sit and talk about the recession over a cup of tea or coffee; at least we have the Jubilee to raise our spirits.

Not the King's speech

At the recent alternative march to the presence of the EDL in Luton on May the 5th 2012, there were a number of speeches made by local people, trade unionists and MP's. I have been fortunate enough to get a transcript of one particular speech and have posted here in NNI.




'WE ARE LUTON.


And we are here today because there is an ever-increasing divide in the UK between people of different heritage. This divide is pushed on us by people such as Theresa May and David Cameron. Cameron who last February made a scandalous speech, whilst you were here standing against the oppression of the EDL, when he said that multiculturalism had failed in the UK. This divide and rule is accomplished through the mainstream media, whose sole purpose it seems, is to keep us in a perpetual state of fear and terror of each other.


A Fear and terror that is preyed upon by likes of Stephen Lennon and Saiful Islam.


The challenge is to rise above this daily indoctrination, led by the media, on how we should see one another. Like Martin Luther King I am proud to be “mal-adjusted to a sick society”, a society that stands by and watches as our liberties are eroded daily and the blame laid at the feet of Muslims.
I do not need to be a Muslim to know that Muslims are being targeted today, and let me be frank, it is white males like George Bush and Tony Blair, with the exception of Barack Obama, that have been the biggest terrorists and terror threat for the past 11 years, not Islam. We have to realise we all share a common heritage, the human heritage, that we have more in common with each other than we do differences and it is this fact that has led to me speaking here today.


There are no problems but human problems.


When we start to see ourselves as being human, not divided, not separate races, then we start to realise that we cannot sit idly by and watch as groups get singled out, and not stand in defence of them. It is all to easy to sit and point the finger of blame at everyone except ourselves for not making a stand, because we were too distracted by football or X-factor.


Once we have taken responsibility for the world we live in we have a duty to act.


Tensions in the town are high and it is everybody’s responsibility to do what we can, to undo the damage being done by a minority group of ignorant people that do not truly represent the people that they claim to.


Now I am going to say something that may not be popular but feel it is important. Hating the EDL will neither make them go away nor solve the problem. This goes for all extremist views. The leadership, if you can call it that, of the EDL have ignorant views on society and have been followed blindly by a misguided and ill-informed group of people.
Ignorance breeds fear, for you’ll always fear what you do not understand.
These extremists, like all people, are products of their environment. That is to say that if Stephen Lennon had been adopted at birth by a Muslim family, then I am sure his views on Islam would be vastly different to that of the rhetoric he spouts today.


This is human nurture over nature.


If the environment and experiences of these people are of a negative nature, with regards to different parts of the community, then the extremist views of people like Stephen Lennon and Saiful Islam will find a home to fester and grow.


So long as we continue to be conned into being divided up into groups we will change nothing, Muslims will fight for the Muslim causes, the nationalists will fight for their nations and the ignorant will fight for their idea of race.


Hate will only lead to more hate.


Positive experience is one way we can help to rebuild relations, in not only this town, but across the country. We are all connected in a way that no one yet fully understands and if we do not come together in brotherhood then we will perish as fools. As Jiddu Krishnamurti said “you have to be the light”, this means WE, have to be the light.
Which is why I am proud to stand here today with people coming together to make the change.
To demonstrate in a peaceful way is a much more powerful message than letting it descend into violence and confrontation, so I urge you evoke a spirit of non-violence today and on this note I will leave you with Martin Luther Kings view on non-violence;


"I am still convinced that nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom and justice.” '

Nonviolence, the most potent weapon against oppression

Martin Luther King said that "nonviolence was the most important weapon in the fight for freedom and justice in the face of oppression." In these times of rising fascism and violence it might seem like 'human nature' to fight fire with fire.

An eye for an eye will only serve to leave the world blind.

On Saturday May 5th 2012 the English Defence League (EDL) held a rally in what they call their 'home', Luton, but faced stiff opposition from a counter rally taking place at the same time made up of people both locally and nationally. The counter rally was organised by a group of people that both live and work in the town from across all the communities.

The group are called 'We Are Luton'.

Lindsey German

We Are Luton (WAL) have been busy in recent weeks organising not only a counter rally but also a public meeting the week before, where big name speakers included Unite Against Fascism (UAF) Weyman Bennett, Yvonne Ridley from Press TV and Lindsey German from Stop the War Coalition. The evening was quite a success with all the speakers making valid points on the issues facing not only Luton, but the UK as a whole regarding the rise of fascism. Yvonne Ridley struck a chord with me particularly when she commented on the lack of positive news in the media when it comes to Muslim's and the creeping of Islamophobia in the news. Ridley also explained how the medieval laws that are being passed in Europe on the niqab have led to an increase in sales in London, where wealthy Saudi's now flock to do their shopping. I do not know if this has made it into the mainstream news but find it highly unlikely that anyone is going to report on a positive story of women wearing niqab.

Following the success of the public meeting the next target was the counter rally. It was well attended by people from Luton and areas around the country that have been affected by the presence of extremism at either end of the scale. People began gathering in the Wardown Park area from around 11am and talked amongst themselves whilst coaches began to appear with supporters from further afield, when the police then dropped a clanger by guiding in an EDL coach to the park. This was only a minor hiccup and they were quickly ushered away and to the far side of the town centre where they were due to congregate with the rest of the misguided EDL followers.

We Are Luton on the march

The first phase of speeches were held, followed by the march through town and back again, to the stage to finish up with more speakers. The speakers took to the stage with passion on the reasons why we had gathered and included local MP Gavin Shuker and Councillor Sian Timoney, who sported a rather fetching jacket. The WAL rally was well attended throughout, watching it on ITV in the evening gave a true sense of the numbers in attendance on both sides; these images seemed to suggest that the true figures in attendance were at odds with the police press release statement. The numbers quoted here of 3000 EDL to 1000 WAL have been hotly disputed by community members that oversaw the event from the central control area who believed it to be more the other way around.

The cynical amongst us may suspect that the police need to exaggerate the extent of the EDL numbers so that they can justify their claims to be left alone during times of austerity.

The press rounded up its coverage of the day with the police by focusing on a small group of United Against Fascism (UAF) protesters that broke away from the WAL march. In this small and misguided act by youngsters, the police and the media focused on the apparent disorder of the UAF, without having too much to say about the smoke bombs, flares and bottles thrown by the EDL at both the police and the protesters as they made their way under a bridge along their route.