Harry's Place

Interesting and timely piece in the Guardian today from Peter Kilfoyle - the man who took on and defeated the entryist Trotskyites of the Militant tendency in the Liverpool Labour Party in the late eighties.
Kilfoyle played a major role in the clearing of the decks that was carried out under Neil Kinnock’s leadership and [...]

What will socialism be like? That is the question posed by the Socialist Workers Party (sic) and answered by them in this amazing article that I heartily recommend for anyone curious about what kind of world these people fantasise about.
According to the author Jonathan Neale, who remarkably is 54-years-old the SWP’s vision of a new [...]

The firefighters next eight day strike due to start on Wednesday has been suspended after the intervention of the consiliation service Acas.
Story and from the new TUC site FBU statement

Great piece of populist political letter-writing in the (Glasgow) Herald today from Alan McCoombes, of the Scottish Socialist Party.
Obviously it is part of the tit-for-tat political jousting that goes on during strikes like this but there is a serious point here as well. MP’s like Peter Mandelson are being paid £55,000 a year by taxpayers [...]

Stephen Pollard is right to get angry about Amnesty International’s reaction to Jack Straw’s dossier on human rights abuses in Iraq.
Amnesty UK’s general secretary Irene Khan, says: “This selective attention to human rights is nothing but a cold and calculated manipulation of the work of human rights activists”. BBC report.
Amnesty used to stand up for [...]

And predictably enough John Prescott has made a furious attack on the FBU for turning the firestrike into a “political battle”.
Is an arguement over public funding of an essential public service not by its nature political? Was Tony Blair’s labelling of Andy Gilchrist a “Scargallite” not a political attack?
What is good to see is that [...]

The Sunday papers are full of the story that Firefighters union leader Andy Gilchrist has called on the unions to “oust Tony Blair” see Independent story.
Not surprisingly the government and other opponents of the strike are weighing in saying this is proof that Tony Blair is right and Gilchrist is a “Scargillite” and therefore that [...]

Dannii Minogue, sister of Aussie ‘pixie-like pop temptress’ Kylie, may take legal action against the far-right British National Party after they claimed she backed their policies on immigration and crime.
Minogue gave an interview to GQ where she aired her views on crime and immigration but now she says: “I’ve obviously been misquoted … This is [...]