"HE AINT HEAVY HE'S MY BROTHER"

The above title will be remembered by my age group as a song sung by pop band the Hollies, long ago when hair was long and time was short. It’s actually a line lifted from a famous movie called “Boystown” Starring Spencer Tracy, Mickey Rooney and the Bowery Boys. The boys are in an American style borstal run by a priest called Father Flanagan. Father Flanagan watches the gang of boys crossing the borstal yard and he notices that one of the boys seems to carried everywhere by another boy, the priest says to the carrier “I notice you carry him everywhere that must be tough and quite a weight” and the carrier says, and this my attempt at a New York accent “ he aint heavy fadda he’s my brudda”.  

Once again we are witnessing the Tory Government and their gutter press allies foaming at the mouth as they embark on one of their now regular displays of synthetic rage, this time we are back to immigration. The population is being diverted by a show of sabre rattling from the Tories who are desperate to be seen as tough on immigrants and once again many of the UK citizens display their lack of awareness and judgement by falling for it.

Firstly the evidence does not show that the UK makes itself attractive to illegal immigrants by being a soft touch, quite the contrary in fact, that is a Rupert Murdoch style myth. The UK is in fact shirking its duty to the EU by reneging on agreements with Europe on quotas. There are Illegal Immigrants and asylum seekers scattered over many European countries and the UK is no different.

The whole issue of immigration and asylum has in fact become an inadvertent test of what kind of people we are. Do we want to behave like rats or humans?, do we want to be the kind of people who will stop an overcrowded leaking unseaworthy boat full of wretched people including the sick, pregnant, frail elderly and children and send them back across hundreds of miles of open sea to where God only knows what awaits them?.  Who would like to volunteer to take this new born baby from its mother's arms and throw it in to the sea? No one eh? But, when you stick your head in the sand and say it’s nothing to do with me, that is effectively what you are doing. Look at the hungry child and see a hungry child, look at a pregnant mother and see a pregnant mother not an illegal immigrant not an asylum seeker, a hungry child and a pregnant mother, first and always,  that is what you need to see, the rest is extraneous. 

My grandparents were immigrants; many members of my family have immigrated to various countries. How could I deny these desperate people a chance of a better life? I think it is normal that a human being when seeing another human being in trouble should intervene in whatever way they can to help them. I find people who can ignore others who are in a desperate situation very disturbing.

There is hardly a problem that is not associated with them by people who thrive on hatred and our appalling media but the facts do not support the accusations. I look at desperate young men risking their lives to escape tyranny and I look at families of elderly grandparents pregnant women and tiny children living in squalor without food, water or medicine and it is not in the least bit complicated for me. We live in the 6th richest country in the world, they are our fellow members of the 'family of man' I repeat, it's not in the least complicated.

I say to the media and the racists among us who say “why are we sending aid to these countries when the people are leaving in droves?”  The tradition and system of better off countries providing 3rd world aid is something to be proud of, it's one of the reasons that most of us are proud to call ourselves human beings. Sometimes I can’t help thinking that judging by many of the cruel comments we hear that there are a lot of people who are clearly unhappy with the outcome of World War 2. I have never met an immigrant who did not want to work. I worked for many years with Polish immigrants to this country and I have never met harder working or more generous people in my life. None of the European Countries including the UK make it easy for them and they are not the cause of any of our problems. To those who blame and scapegoat immigrants I say, Immigrants are not your enemy, the Capitalist Society which we all live in is your enemy. David Cameron and his government are not illegal immigrants, they are the ones who make the rules not the immigrants. Many of the countries that they flee from were in times gone by exploited and their forefathers persecuted by us in fact.  

It is inconceivable that illegal immigrants or Asylum Seekers would choose the UK because it is more attractive and somehow more welcoming, it is anything but. It's not difficult to work out that Calais becomes their last stop in Europe when they have been hounded out of so many countries; Calais to Dover becomes the obvious geographical last chance. The Tory press distort immigration and Asylum figures shamefully. E.G. Britain took in more immigrants last year than 17 other EU countries combined they say, this is technically true but they don’t tell us that Britain took in less 32,00 than 5 other EU countries namely Germany with 202,000, Sweden 81,000, Italy 65,000. France also 65,000 and Hungary 43,000. Nor did they tell us that the 17 other countries were all comparatively small. Asylum seeker numbers are similar where Britain were 7^th with 14,000 and again Germany 1^st. with 48,000. Sweden 35,000, Italy 21,000, France 21,000, Switzerland 17,ooo, and the Netherland 15,ooo. Surely it’s time to stop reading the Murdoch version and read the official version and try to get the figures in to context.   

I watch and listen to the people concerned, they are at the end of their tether, not getting to Dover/UK means they have to go back the way; after everything they have been through. The truth is that they would jump at the chance of settling in any of the EU countries, if France would take them or Germany or Italy etc. they would not be trying to cling on to the backs of moving lorries to come here, to suggest otherwise is risible. Imagine walking in their shoes for a while, swapping you house for their tent for a week or two, remember, we are all human beings right?.  

LABOUR MSP MARY FEE'S BILL "SUPPORT FOR CHILDREN OF PRISONERS".

Prison should have two key purposes, punishment and rehabilitation, regrettably we fail miserably to rehabilitate. Our aim should be to reintroduce a prisoner to society as a properly functioning component of that society which means them being similar as much as is possible to other members of society for our efforts to be successful. It is normal and desirable for parents to have close and caring relationships with their children, prison makes this aim exceedingly difficult with the father/mother being absent from the home, this absence alone makes for a complex situation for all; but above all for the innocent children.

It is imperative therefore that society makes suitable provision for these children to lead as normal a life as it is possible to have. This; as any parent will tell you can provide hurdles for the parent to surmount, not least of which relates to their capacity to ensure that the child does not suffer unduly by not having the wherewithal to be part of their peer group; this is more often than not the norm when a parent is incarcerated. To help a prisoner re-enter society and rebuild ties with his/her family, backing is required, in particular relation to those children. For these reasons I strongly support the morality and principles behind the private members bill in the name of Labour MSP Mary Fee entitled, “Support for Children of Prisoners”.

This bill is a step in the direction of improving the results provided by our prison system which are, despite the best efforts of many dedicated workers quite candidly appalling. The rates of recidivism are massive. This creates what has become known as “the prison revolving door scandal”, this describes the prisoner returning to prison to serve repeat sentences for repeat crimes which often causes the prisoner to be lost to society through becoming institutionalised. In many many cases that cycle is contributed to by the prisoners not being able to re-establish close caring relationships with their children thus resulting in damage to the prisoner and his/her family. I am convinced and so are the majority of penal experts that while proper rehabilitation is a long and expensive business, in the long term it would provide a net gain to society in terms of finance and a generally more civilised and happy environment.

I urge those of you who share this view to write to your MSP’S and ask them to support MSP Mary Fee’s bill “SUPPORT FOR CHILDREN OF PRISONERS”.   

A MESSAGE FROM PROSPECTIVE LABOUR LEADER JEREMY CORBYN.

"Our timeless task in the Labour Party is to stand up against injustice wherever we find it. That notion has driven me throughout my political life – and it’s what drove me to

stand for Parliament in the first place."

Jeremy Corbyn.

I have been proud to be a trade union rep, a trade union official, a local councillor and a Labour MP for the last 32 years. My purpose in every role has been to share that power, providing a platform to the voiceless, at home and abroad, and to stand up with them.

I am now asking for your support to become Labour leader. I want that role for the same reason – to work with you to right the many wrongs we see around us.

Our party must become a social movement again. It was founded to stand up to injustice, and too often we have lost our way, ignored our supporters or been cowed by powerful commercial interests and the press.

Austerity policies are harming people’s life chances and taking away opportunities. We must reject the notion that the journey to prosperity tramples over people – and become an anti-austerity movement. You can’t build a fair economy by casting people aside.

No leader has a monopoly on wisdom, so we need to organise like a social movement too, building on our party’s unique base: our trade union link to millions of working people, our quarter of a million members, and our growing band of registered supporters.

The more we exclude them, the weaker we are. The more we involve them, the stronger we will be. So to win, our party must draw on its greatest strength: the people.

Ours is a movement to give people hope – the hope of a better world, with less injustice and more equality, peace and solidarity. Together we need to agree policies that will achieve those goals and then campaign for them, winning more people over to these principles – and giving them hope.

If that vision inspires you like it inspires me, then join us to deliver it together.

Contact

email info@jeremyforlabour.com or call 0333 444 1945.

Jeremy's campaign team are on Twitter at @Corbyn4Leader whilst Jeremy himself is @JeremyCorbyn,

You can also join the campaign on Facebook.

"THANK GOD WE HAVE LIVED SO LONG AND DONE SO LITTLE HARM" - JAMES JOYCE - PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN.

I gave politics a rest yesterday as it was the day when international tributes are paid to my favourite writer and I have been re reading chunks of his work.  June 16^Th. Is a special day in Ireland and particularly in Dublin where it is referred to as “Bloomsday” in honour of one of literature’s greatest ever literary comic creations, the Jewish Irish everyman Leopold Bloom, hero of the great novel “Ulysses” based on Homer’s Ulysses which would have been familiar to a young student taught Greek classics by the Jesuits. Here it was that one of the greatest writers who ever lived was born, some say thee greatest, the Jesuit educated James Joyce 02/02/1832 – 13/01/1941. 

He revolutionised the novel and perplexed great English scholars with his writing and he continues to do so today. Evidently I am not an ‘English scholar’ I am simply an ordinary guy who developed a great love of reading when I was a child and sixty years on I am still keen on reading although my eye sight is not as good as it once was. In relation to Joyce I can say that in 60 years of reading I have never come across anything quite like him, his output was not massive but it was astonishing. He was famously proscribed in Ireland by ‘mother church’ and, fancying myself as a young rebellious type I resolved to find a copy of his most famous work the aforementioned “Ulysess” as soon as I could; and even then it took a few years to lay hands on a copy, I often wonder how many copies of this great masterpiece there were lying hidden under beds and in attics during Joyce’s period in the wilderness. The book scandalised Ireland and other societies as well because alongside the hero Leopold Bloom was his wife Molly who was his equal and soul mate, she was based on Joyce’s wife Nora Barnacle, a Galway girl and the inspiration for Molly in the book, it is not hyperbole to say that even today Nora/Molly’s antics and her delightful candour would have been regarded by some as scandalous, gloriously, wonderfully scandalous. She is a literary heroine to rank with any of them and the answer to every youthful schoolboy’s imaginings.

His other great works like ‘A portrait of the artist as a young man’ and ‘Dubliners’ a collection of short stories are dazzling and it’s quite impossible to find a comma or full stop out of place in any of them. Joyce however left a single blight on my life and it is called “Finnegan’s Wake”, a book I have been reading on and off for approximately 40 years, such is its complexity that I resolved many years ago to read it in irate chunks. He writes this in what has become known as a “stream of consciousness” style, it is by turns hugely rewarding and hugely frustrating, I confess that I resorted to deception by reading other great writers books about ‘Finnegans Wake’ to no avail, I have given up hope of ever finishing it.

Unfortunately, like it seems so many great artistes, Joyce led large parts of his life in penury, he suffered terrible trouble with his failing eye sight and was also beleaguered with family problems but, despite constant advice to write less controversial books and take the easy road to fame and fortune which was his for the asking he never compromised. He was not only a great writer but also an inspiring man. I am off to read some more of his work and leave politics for tomorrow.           

THE SNP KETTLE CALLS THE LIBDEM POT BLACK.

Alistair Carmichael Libdem MP is being hounded by nationalists for getting rumbled telling porkies about a leak to the press. Part of the reason they are after him is because "he knew this before the election and withheld it from voters" therefore they didn't cast their vote in possession of the full facts.”  Meanwhile the SNP went into the election saying they wanted Full Fiscal autonomy (it was their central demand) and now they are immediately binning that proposal. Does the Carmichael principle not apply here too? Surely they knew they were going to run a mile from this policy as soon as the election was over.

I welcome the fact they are running like Usain Bolt from this crazy idea that would leave us £8billion worse off but the point is they are just as guilty as Carmichael of misleading the public. (Neil Findlay Labour MSP.)  

Make no mistake about it dear readers I hold no brief for Alistair Carmichael MP. He is after all a Libdem which makes him in my experience akin to the Tories who were described so eloquently and famously by Nye Bevan as lower than vermin. They have shown themselves over the years to be the political whores of British politics, prepared to do deals with whoever pays them enough. They provide a political home for the mediocre and spineless who know that they would sink without trace in a bigger political pond, one example of this is the ex Libdem MP, the unctuous, squalid Simon Hughes who won his seat by beating Labour Candidate Peter Tatchell for the Bermondsey seat 1983 he lost the seat at the last election after 33 years. What makes his victory and lengthy parliamentary career so notable is that that Bermondsey election was and is still referred to today as one of the dirtiest most vicious electoral contests in British political history. Tatchell was openly gay and was subjected to the most atrocious abuse observers had ever seen, his opponents, prominent among whom was Simon Hughes persecuted him because of his sexuality and Hughes won. What no one except Hughes and a close number of equally squalid friends knew was that Hughes was also gay. 23 years after his election he was forced to admit this and issue an apology to Mr. Tatchell. This is the Liberal Democrat Party. And this is the SNP.                 

SNP CHALLENGED ON THE ORANGE ORDER AND THEY GO IN TO HIDING.

Since I wrote the article on the Orange Order I have received 5 replies.  I printed 2 and pointed out to them that they had completely ignored my points and substituted argument with abuse. The next three I did not print because none of them addressed any of the points I made in the article either. Not much of a response from such an apparently hot subject. It looks like I got it spot on. All 5 were of course anonymous which tends to happen when you are dealing with cowards.    

WHO ARE THE REAL PHILISTINES, THE ORANGE ORDER OR THE SNP?.

Having found it impossible to get The Glasgow Herald to print my posts on this subject, I decided to give up and write it here. 

Once again we are seeing the now habitual outburst of synthetic rage from the snp directed at the Orange Order. This is interesting when you consider that they criticise them for being anti Catholic when the snp themselves were founded as an anti Catholic group to save the loyal protestant people of Scotland from the threat to their religious beliefs and their protestant culture by the influx of the Irish peasants who arrived here to flee the famine in Ireland and brought their Roman Catholic religion with them. The real cause of their animosity to the Orange Order though has developed over recent years when they (the snp) perceived a danger to their ambition of independence because of the OO’s unyielding devotion to Britain and the British monarchy. Consider if you will that not so long ago the leadership of the snp ‘cheek by jowl’ with the OO tried to ban the then Polish Pope John II from visiting Scotland. Hypocrisy does not begin to describe them.

Many of these snp members and supporters want to proscribe the OO, the reasons? They cause trouble, they are not part of Scotland’s culture and most importantly, the snp don’t like them. Their narrative is now highlighted by their decidedly subjective version of the trouble which happened in George Square just after the referendum. We have seen examples of this kind of behaviour before, when organisations have their democratic rights taken away from them we are living in a dictatorship and images of Mussolini, Franco and Hitler come to mind.  The Orange Order is a legal organisation and is entitled to the same treatment as any other legal organisation and that is exactly as it should be. We do not live in a society that bans organisations because some people don't like them, at least not yet we don't. The snp really need to choose their words more carefully, I am bigoted against racism, sectarianism, fascism, homophobia etc. and I am proud to say that, should I and others like me be banned as well by the snp?. The only way an Orange or any other kind of parade or demonstration can be banned is on the grounds of safety and law and order and that is the responsibility of the Police and crowd control professionals. Given that the average Celtic Rangers match produces enough safety and law and order problems to make the Orange Order supporters behaviour pale in to insignificance how would the powers that be justify banning an Orange Parade and allowing an Old Firm match?.

As for the OO not being part of Scotland’s culture is concerned, that can mean anything you want it to mean, when Herman Goering who wasn’t a holiday camp comedian said “when I hear the word culture I reach for my revolver” he was saying ‘’we will decide what German culture is’’ he would have been a supporter of the snp’s attitude to free speech and democracy.  I ask are the snp custodians of Scottish culture? Do they decide what is and isn’t Scottish culture? This is a glimpse through the tartan specs at what the future might hold for a more powerful snp.  

The OO go back a long way, certainly a lot further back than the snp and their members fought and died to save democracy in WW2 while the snp were trying to undermine the struggle against Hitler and the nazis and they do have their own history and culture, you may not be impressed by it but it does exist. My own Irish Catholic Celtic supporting background did not prevent me from learning about these events which date back to the late 17th century through the Battle of the Boyne and The Siege of Derry and the Siege of Cork and much more, I found it fascinating and still do whether you dear reader or other snp supporters like it or not it undoubtedly plays a huge part in British political and cultural history. The snp have their history and culture as well, it starts with anti Irish / English racism and anti Catholic sectarianism all the way up to marching beside Flemish Nazis at Calton Hill Edinburgh in 2014 and on to street violence all through the referendum and the disruption of political meetings. My surprise is that the more excitable Orange loyalists did not confront them long before they did. Democratic rights and freedoms are precious and constant vigilance is the price we pay to protect them.