The Left Alliance Garden Party
The fifth Left Alliance Garden Party, held at Oak Road for the first time, was a wonderful success. Despite lacking the stately magnificence of Bron's marvellous Roundhay garden the two gardens with their stylish patios provided all the old fun. There was roll-a-penny, bric a brac, tombola, beer and wine, books, raffle, hunt the duck, and much more. The guests enjoyed themselves despite the huge hailstorm that linked them to their comrades in Genoa. Much money was raised for the cause.
Of course the Left Alliance is actually solvent (although it could do with more money), unlike the Labour Party. Their debt is now running at £6 million or £8 million depending on which set of National Executive minutes you receive. This need to expand the Labour Party has led the NEC to consider and reject Ken Livingstone's application for membership, after lobbying against from John Prescott and Tony Blair. So having rejected expansion and pluralism the Labour Party has decided cut back on their staff and put the fees up to the level of a Leeds United ticket.
The Left Alliance in Leeds, some of whose leading members were expelled from New Labour, have been considering rejoining. However after Livingstone's rejection and the debt crisis they will need some sweet-talking. They don't like the idea of joining an expensive sinking ship.
The Hebron-Leeds Friendship Link
The Hebron-Leeds Friendship Link goes from strength to strength. Peter Lazenby, a well-known National of Journalists activist, gave a thoughtful report on his recent trip to Palestine to a large appreciative audience at the Leeds Civic Hall. Steps are now being taken to develop links between Hebron and Leeds at all levels in the city.
This is a task that has become extremely urgent. There is an attempt backed by the Israeli Army by some American settlers to drive the Arab population out of the Hebron city centre. Much of the driving force for the present crisis comes from the USA. Bush's practically uncritical support for the right-wing Sharon administration in Israel has allowed unbridled assaults on the areas where the Palestinians live. Christian fundamentalists and Zionists in the USA have bizarrely joined forces to attack all those who criticise present Israeli actions.
Councillor Neil Taggart, former Chair of West Yorkshire Police
The case of Councillor Neil Taggart's removal as chair of West Yorkshire Police gets curiouser and curiouser.
The Yorkshire Evening Post published a letter calling on Taggart to fight for real democracy on the Police Authority by campaigning to remove the unelected business people and magistrates. In a further letter Councillor Mark Harris, leader of the Leeds Liberal Democrats, defends the non-elected members on the Authority, saying they were more trusted than the politicians. Presumably he was writing about himself as a member and his Liberal Democrat party.
Taggart has joined in an attack on the newly-elected Chair for continuing as a magistrate. There is something not quite right about the coup on the Police authority and we have not quite finished our investigations.
But perhaps Taggart engineered his own removal. Yorkshire has now become the crime capital of the UK. There has been a 90% rise in street crime in Bradford and Calderdale. Yorkshire and Humberside have had the largest drop in the detection rates in the UK. People are asking, "Why?" However, in West Yorkshire some of the answers are fairly clear and can be laid at Taggart's door. The closure of Police Stations and breakdown of relations between the Police and the community in Bradford are the result of West Yorkshire Police Authority policies.
Many feel that Taggart has been losing the plot since his attendance in 1999 at the secret FBI briefing on Millennium, crank and of course left-wing groups held at the meeting of the International Association of Chiefs of Police in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Another example of losing the plot has been his attempt, as previously reported, to gain cross-party support for his New Labour boundary proposals. These, despite his behind-the-scenes charm offensive, have come unstuck. Both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat leaders on Leeds City Council are attacking the scheme and the way that it is being foisted on the council.
However despite the major parties' attempts to keep the consultation of the boundary reorganisations secret there will be some radical alternatives presented to the Local Government Boundaries Commission. The Left Alliance has got together with its allies in the Socialist Alliance, Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party to present a more democratic alternative to the present ward system.
Nigerian women fight back
150 Nigerian women, armed with cooking pots, captured an oil platform. They are demanding that more of the huge oil wealth be used to help their local communities. However because of safety considerations, the oil terminal is feeding the women from their staff canteen.
The women then threatened to strip naked unless local people were given jobs. This would have been a huge insult.
The oil company Chevron Total backed down. They have begun a programme to employ local people and improve conditions in the local villages.
Snippets
Is Prince Phillip the father of Prince Charles?
Prince Philip Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glucksburg became Philip Mountbatten when he married Lilibet. However the marriage was not a happy one and those way-out republicans of http://www.throneout.com/ are calling for DNA tests before Prince Charles is allowed to become king. They present considerable evidence in support of their case at their web site.
Socialist Workers Party goes up market
The Socialist Workers Party has read my criticisms in the last Umbrella. Chris Bambery, a leading SWP person, told the assembled activists at the Marxist forum to move out of the scruffy "old halls" where their branches normally meet, as these "reek of defeat". In Leeds the old Chapeltown SWP has reconstructed itself as the Marxist Forum and is going to be meeting at the brand new shiny HQ Club.
Coal
My old Rossington friend, folksinger and coalminer, Dave Douglas, in a thoughtful article in the Weekly Worker, analyses Arthur Scargill's legacy in the National Union of Miners. The Union has been severely weakened by Arthur's dictatorial policies over the last few years.
The union members in the Selby coalfields face losing their jobs. This was a direct consequence of the removal of Richard Budge from UK Coal and his replacement by bean-counters.
The weakness of the NUM is being compounded by local MP and jogger John Grogan's craven refusal to fight to keep the mines. Instead he has tried to direct attention to the size of the compensation packets and alternative jobs. He has not yet succeeded in finding a single job that pays as much a coalminer. And one of the companies supposedly providing an alternative biofuel option has gone bust.
However the Selby coalfields represent an important strategic asset in Britain against the domination of the energy market by oil and nuclear power. A failure to defend this asset and the jobs and skills of the workers at Selby represents a complete capitulation to the oil millionaires and the bin Laden-Bush axis of evil.
Endpiece
And finally from the wonderful Dark Tales website " Sometimes, reading Goethe, I have the paralysing suspicion that he is trying to be funny."
-- Half-Celestial Khan
