Wonderful Leeds
Leeds has regularly topped polls for one of the best places to live in England. The New Labour councillors have basked in its reflected glory. However they have remained silent about a recent poll which shows that the actual inhabitants of Leeds are among the most dissatisfied in the country.
This is not a surprising result. The economic development of the city has been driven by retail, financial and legal services. The vast majority of the jobs created however have been at call centres or serving behind counters. These jobs have created a large low-paid and highly dissatisfied workforce. Annual job turnover in these areas is running at nearly 40%.
The jobs have been traditionally non-unionised but increased pressure on the workforce has begun to change this. For instance, my old gym friend Stephen Huckerby has had some success in recruiting members to the GMB when the management of one call centre failed to pay its workforce what they were due.
Tens of thousands of mainly young people work in call centres in Leeds. They are usually paid wages close to the minimum. This is not however low enough for their bosses, who are increasingly transferring the work to India where costs are up to 70% lower. On top of this the development of voice recognition technology will eliminate many of these jobs over the next five years.
What is Leeds New Labour's response to this threat of mass unemployment in the City? Nothing. They simply hope that it will not happen. No wonder the actual citizens (and voters) are so dissatisfied.
Middy Blogger
A typical Leeds new Councillor is Stuart Bruce (http://www.20six.co.uk/middletonpark). He represents Middleton and is a public relations consultant. His claim to fame is that he publishes an internet diary. This is called blogging, which is derived from web logging.
This has enabled us to follow his slavish support for Blairism. Bruce cut his political teeth working for New Labour during the Blair election victory and has not moved on much since then.
He visited the Labour Party conference in Bournemouth, sending back reports from his mobile computer. Visitors are more important than delegates but have to pay more heavily for the privilege. My mate Dave Hinchliffe, the MP for Wakefield, ended up paying £135 to get into the conference for a fringe meeting at which he was the main speaker.
It is not possible for me to parody Bruce's self-important tone, so hopefully the quotes below give some insights into the thought processes of this New Labour paragon:
Now I'm at the Labour Academy seminar on ForeSight - the New Labour internal think tank. It's being led by my fellow blogger Paul Richards. It's interesting to see that Paul is using a Lewis Carroll quote to illustrate the difficulty of defining socialism. I often use Carroll quotes when I'm doing PR training. I think that this opportunity to think outside the box and help redefine progressive Labour thought is very exciting. In Leeds some Labour members and councillors are beginning to think about how we can introduce fresh new ideas into regional and local politics. Too much new thinking comes from London based think-tanks. That's why I welcome the IPPR setting up a Newcastle office. But I think we in Leeds need to be bolder and more courageous in developing new Labour thought.
Latest research figures indicate there will be ten million blogs by the end of 2004 but almost all of them will be dead.
The fad is most popular amongst teenage girls. A survey of 3000 blogs found teenagers run half of them. A teenage girl who uses it twice a month to update her friends and classmates on happenings in her life writes the typical blog.
Over one third of the blogs surveyed had been abandoned after a day. The average blog is only updated once every fourteen days. The majority of blogs started become graveyard blogs after one year. Most young people have better things to do.
However Bruce doesn't read like a man who was ever young, and he should go far with New Labour.
A Tale of Two Conferences
Councillor Bruce's opinion that more policy should be made in Leeds rather than in London reflects the lack of new policies at the New Labour conference. The carefully staged and spun rally avoided any controversy over issues like the occupation of Iraq. And despite the threats of the 'left' union leaders, Blair was only defeated once. However this was at the expense of a conference entirely given over to appearance rather than content.
The Tory party conference was a complete disaster for the Smith leadership. However a number of important polices were adopted which could spell trouble for New Labour at the General Election. New Labour's deceitful and unfair taxes were exposed. The Tories promised to raise pensions in line with earnings and to reintroduce the inflation indexing of tax allowances. This will mean that millions of poorer workers will no longer have to pay taxes and have better pensions.
Of course the Tories haven't spelled out how they intend to pay for education and the health services. They have hinted at more privatisation.
New Labour has failed to tackle the effect of rising taxes on the poor and middle class. The gap between the rich and the poor under New Labour has reached the level of 1886. Volume One of Karl Marx's Capital, which explains the consequences of such contradictions, was published in English just one year later in 1887. The chief executives of UK companies have been giving themselves wage increases three times that of their workforces over the last ten years. And over the last three years they have raided shareholders' assets to maintain their differential. One consequence of this has been the complete collapse of private pensions under Blair.
American law
I have already warned of the unequal deportation treaty that Blunkett has signed with the US. This allows UK citizens to be deported rapidly to the US without courts being able to examine their cases. There is no reciprocal arrangement for deportation from the US to the UK.
A sharp example of what could happen here comes from Canada. A Canadian citizen was going home from a family holiday in Tunisia via New York. There he was picked up, in the airport transportation lounge, by the US authorities and deported against his will to Syria. He had dual Canadian and Syrian nationality. He was held in Syrian jail for a year without charge and allegedly tortured before being sent back to Canada.
The Canadian government has refused to hold an inquiry. The leader of the National Democratic Party (the equivalent of the UK Labour Party) has condemned the whole affair.
Farewell to Mick Rix?
It should have been a wake at the Quo Vadis bar in Leeds. But the Leeds ASLEF party held to say thank you to Mick Rix, who was defeated in the election of General Secretary, was much more upbeat. The general feeling among the Leeds members was that Mick would be back. Mick recognised that that the members had voted him out but he was still committed to helping them. He had dedicated his life to the movement and he intended to continue to campaign for a socialist future. The need to continue to struggle was endorsed by local ASLEF official Nick Whitehead who praised Mick's devotion to the union.
Chapeltown Community Nursery
 | Thirty years of Chapeltown Community Nursery was celebrated at a 70s party. Parents and staff from the early days of the nursery turned in their well-preserved gear. There was even a chance for younger people to dress up in 70s costumes. Maggie kept the party moving with a selection 70's LPs.
The presence of Bridgett Onyett and Mrs Ranu who were key workers from the beginning of the nursery was particularly pleasing.
The food, including some very tasteful curries, went down well. Wendy Frankland's 'sputniks' brought that little retro touch.
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Leeds West Indian Carnival Prize Giving
 | The Leeds West Indian Centre this month saw the annual Carnival prizegiving. This combination of dinner, prizegiving and dance gets better every year. It has become one of the highlights of the Leeds social scene. This year was particularly memorable for the praise given to older residents of Leeds who had passed on their skills to those who run the Carnival. Susan Pitter was an admirable Mistress of Ceremonies although even she wasn't able to maintain control over those wild nurses. And as for the stage displays of carnival dancing you could feel the heat rising and the cheers raised the roof. It was good to see both Lorna Cohen and Councillor Moxon among the guests. The dancing continued to the early hours.
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Chimes of Freedom
 | The historic Cittie of York in London saw the launch of Mike Marqusee's new book Chimes of Freedom: the Politics of Bob Dylan's Art (ISBN 1-56584-825-X). Links: Publisher ... Amazon
Many of the independent free thinkers of the left were there to celebrate this important book. They included Bruce Kent, Mark Steel, Hilary Wainwright and Jeremy Corbyn. The Alliance for Green Socialism will be carrying an in-depth review soon. However Mike deserves praise for his powerful writings and for rescuing the 1960s from New Labour's attempts to bury them. Following his masterly account of Mohammad Ali in Redemption Song: Mohammad Ali and the Spirit of the Sixties, Mike has established himself as one of the foremost intellectuals and popularisers in drawing out the lessons for today's activists. The 1960s and above all the Vietnam war changed the face of world politics. There is a sense in which both Thatcherism and New Labour are part of a series of increasingly frantic attempts to turn the clocks back to the 1950s. Mike is providing political ammunition for us to gain from those long-ago struggles. Bob Dylan's music was both a reflection and driving force of the politics of the 1960s.
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Alternative Media
Twenty members and supporters of the Alliance for Green Socialism had an entertaining and educational time at their Alternative Media Brains Trust. Tony Harcup, a former editor of Leeds Other Paper and member of the editorial board of the Journalist, along with the well-known former television producer Duncan Dallas, led a thoughtful discussion.
Tony emphasised the problems of running an alternative newspaper but found some hope in the changes in the local media, especially Radio Leeds and even the Yorkshire Evening Post. Duncan gave examples how it was now possible for 'ordinary' people to make extraordinary films due to the cheapness of new technology.
The lively discussion ranged over issues from problems with the license fee to the use of cable. At one stage Councillor Moxon appeared to be about join the discussion but apparently she had just turned up a week early for her New Labour meeting.
Concert for Kwale
The concert room of the Queens Arms was packed for a concert in support of the Kwale School for the Deaf in Kenya. The school provides support for 80 children. In order for them to survive the head teacher runs a chicken farm. This provides both food for the children and a source of income for the school. The Leeds based Friends of Kwale, organised by the excellent Maggie Loughran, has been dedicated to raising funds, which go directly to helping the school.
The concert saw performances from St Louis Zipper, Ramon, Carole Pickett, Kwame D, Carole Eve Bell and Stewart Garden and the Durbervilles. Pie and peas were served and the whole event compered by the masterful Andrew Gilliver.
Fire on Chapeltown Road
September 23rd saw four fires in the Harehills/Chapeltown area of Leeds. The largest was on Chapeltown Road. 30 fire-fighters with six appliances saved the main section of a Grade II listed building, formerly St Mary's Church and now owned by the Sikh Temple. The central importance both of skilled fire-fighters and a knowledgeable and dedicated central control room was proved beyond doubt.
Mike Davies, Newton Park Residents' Association member (and leading member of the Alliance for Green Socialism), told the media they had been campaigning for three years to get the building secure and had cited the risk of fire, damage and unlawful entry to the buildings.
"We wanted the church secured and repaired, so that it could be put to good use. Nothing has been done."
St Mary's is now the key historic building in Chapeltown after the New Labour Council had encouraged the demolition of the historic Hayfield and the former synagogue on Reginald Terrace. St Mary's played a central role in the development of non-conformist religion in Leeds. Many of its preachers were very radical, one even quoted Marx's Capital from the pulpit. The owners of the Sikh Temple and local residents are keen to restore the building. The building was also key in the development of Sikhism in Leeds. However despite an offer of a half-million pound grant from English Heritage, Leeds City New Labour Council appears to be trying to find somewhere else to spend the money.
-- Half-Celestial Khan
