KEN LIVINGSTONE IS INNOCENT AND SO WAS I.

As someone who was accused of being anti Semitic (by a right wing Tory blogger), suspended and then found innocent by the Labour Party NEC. I recommend the following article by A German Jew called Walter Wolfgang who fled Nazi Germany at the age of 13 years and is now in his 90's. He gets it right about Ken Livingstone and those who continue to try to damage him. 

:- AS A Jewish member of the Labour Party, who escaped Nazi Germany, I take the issue of antisemitism extremely seriously. I am 93 years old. I was born in Germany in 1923. My family were persecuted by the Nazis. So in 1937, at the age of 13, I left and came to live in Britain. The Nazis embraced antisemitism and exterminated six million Jews. Their vile ideology must be fought and defeated. It was the strength of my commitment to Judaism and Jewish ethical values of human equality which caused me to join the Labour Party in 1948.I was a member of its national executive committee from 2006 to 2008.

Allegations of anti-semitism should be made only when people express hostility to Jewish people because they are Jewish. Such allegations should not be made when this is not the case. It is not anti-Semitic to hold or express views about the government of Israel or about Zionism. Anti-antisemitism is hostility to Jews because of their religion, race, culture or ethnicity. Many Jews, Zionist and non-Zionist — including myself — disagree with the present policies of the Israeli government, many of which are clearly contrary to UN resolutions and against international law. #In terms of the current international situation, those who confuse opposition to the policies of Israeli governments with anti-antisemitism render a great disservice to all Jews around the world and to the Palestinians, but also to Israelis who, like the Palestinians, need a peaceful settlement.

Indeed, the lack of international pressure on Israel to make the necessary concessions to achieve a two state solution which respects Palestinian rights has prevented a resolution of the last colonial conflict — the Palestinian-Israeli one. Political views on this conflict, such as opposing the policies of the government of Israel or opposing zionism, are entirely legitimate opinions for people to express.Zionist political opinions — that is support for the state of Israel or its policies — are views held by Jewish people and non-Jewish people. It is also the case that anti-zionist views are also held by Jewish people and non-Jewish people. Freedom of expression of such views should be defended by the Labour Party. It is important that the Labour Party does not conflate antisemitism and anti-Zionism. It should uphold the distinction between opposition to a person or people because of their race, religion, culture or ethnicity (racism, including antisemitism and Islamophobia) and opposition to a political view such as Zionism.

Within this context, Labour’s national constitutional committee hearing into Ken Livingstone this week is a travesty. His observations about the 1933 Transfer Agreement are broadly and historically correct. At that time Hitler was in favour of Jews leaving Germany for Palestine. The agreement reached between the Nazis and some Zionists are simply indisputable facts. It is not anti-semitic to discuss this period of history. Advocacy of Jews leaving for Palestine was made by some Jews who were Zionist, some non-Jews who were anti-Semitic, by some non-Jews who were friendly and some who were indifferent to Jews.

Livingstone has an outstanding record of fighting against racism and anti-semitism, including in his time as leader of the Greater London Council and two terms as mayor of London. Thanks to Livingstone, Jewish community organisations and cultural events received significant support and the annual Holocaust Memorial Day was appropriately marked by the capital’s government. And these initiatives against antisemitism were one part of a widely acknowledged broader programme of activities celebrating multiculturalism and our diversity, including through the promotion of public, free, celebrations and commemorations of all the main faith and secular cultural festivals and anniversaries observed by London’s communities.

In Livingstone’s own words: “The purpose of such events was twofold. On the one hand to celebrate the cultural and social contribution of London’s diverse communities and on the other to encourage inter-faith and inter-community awareness to reduce prejudice born of ignorance and promote understanding.To me, it is evident that Livingstone is being attacked because of his long record as a leading figure in the left and because he supports the Palestinians, and not because he is either offensive or anti-Semitic. His suspension this past year has been entirely unjustified. The Labour Party owes him an apology and should restore his membership forthwith.

LABOUR MSP NEIL FINDLAY SHINES A LIGHT ON THE SNP RECORD.

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THE fourth session of the Scottish Parliament is now coming to an end. This was a parliament dominated by the referendum — a referendum that took up such a huge amount of time and effort by all concerned that making real, lasting and radical change was placed firmly on the back burner.

But we did see one real and very significant act of social change with passing of the Same-Sex Marriage Bill — supported across the political divide in a debate that I believe showed the Parliament at its best.

Contrast that with the absurdity of The Offensive Behaviour at Football Bill, which resulted in a group of people — largely working-class young men and women — denied the same rights as other citizens by virtue of them purchasing a ticket to a football match.

This Act should be repealed at the earliest opportunity. In so many ways the parliamentary session represents a huge missed opportunity with little in the way of radical change. There was no use of the parliament’s tax powers to redistribute resources to tackle Scotland’s appalling health and wealth inequalities. The gap between rich and poor has in fact grown. Budget decisions made by the Tories at Westminster were largely passed on, with local government forced to sign up to even greater cuts than George Osborne has imposed on English councils and do the government’s dirty work with cut after cut or receive a penalty should councils choose to protect services.

Some 60,000 council jobs have gone but these have been dismissed by SNP trade union group convener Christina McKelvie and Finance Secretary John Swinney as “exaggerated” and “made up.”

Only days later SNP councils announced hundreds more job losses following another half billion of cuts imposed on them.

In Scotland’s further education sector there are 156,000 fewer student places following Mike Russell’s shambolic college reforms. Some £90 million has been paid out in redundancies to over 3,500 staff who have lost their jobs.

Across our NHS, staff and budgets are under pressure like never before and the failed social care system leaves people in hospital for weeks on end when they could and should be at home recovering.

In the police service the new organisation that is Police Scotland has made what can at best be described as a very shaky start with one chief constable having already been dispatched.

So across public services we see problem after problem and cut after cut. Against this background you would expect any government — but more so one that claims social democratic credentials — to be putting forward a suite of proposals to address the pressing demands of our vital public services.

But alas, no. There will be no redistribution, no progressive use of the Parliament’s tax policies to inject much-needed cash into our essential services, no “scrapping of the unfair council tax” — just tinkering — no commitment to tax high earners.

Cuts to benefit the wealthy — no 50p tax rate for high earners, no progressive or redistributive measures, just the scrapping of air passenger duty as a gift to big business. At this election Scottish Labour is offering an alternative that puts clear red water between us and the managerialist establishment of the SNP.

We will end austerity with a 1p tax increase while protecting lowpaid workers, set a 50p rate for high earners, reject Osborne’s amendments to thresholds for those at the top and cancel any cut to air passenger duty as both an economic and environmental policy — with all that we will be putting money back into the vital public services that civilise our society. This is good for jobs, good for services and good for our country’s future prosperity and wellbeing.

In the run-up to May’s election, socialists will have to decide whether they choose to support a Labour Party that is arguing for a progressive economic policy that asks those with most to pay more to fund the services that help those in need, or a nationalist party committed to little change and a steady-as-you-go strategy that fails to challenge the social and economic inequality that scars our society.

• Neil Findlay is Labour MSP for Lothian.

GOODBYE 'EL COMANDANTE'

What do Dwight D Eisenhower – John F Kennedy – Lyndon Baines Johnson –Richard Nixon – Gerald Ford – Jimmy Carter – Ronald Reagan – George Bush – Bill Clinton – George Bush 2 and Barack Obama have in common? --- They all had the misfortune to be presidents of America while Fidel Castro was in power in Cuba; Fidel has also managed to steal the thunder of President elect Donald Trump by himself passing away, thus knocking the serial crook Trump off the front pages of the newspapers and the TV news screens all around the world. None of the men traditionally referred to as the most powerful men in the world 'The Presidents of America' was never able to get the better of a revolutionary Socialist leader who dominated them from 90 miles away in the tiny island of Cuba with ease. Despite the efforts of the mightiest nation on Earth’s attempts to invade Cuba, to destroy their revolution with sanctions and even assassinate Fidel many times he was able to ridicule and laugh at them for over 5 decades. 

His poverty stricken 3^rd world country managed to provide better health care completely free to everyone, and better education, free to all from infancy through to university, better infant mortality rates and so much more than the world’s richest country America.

Cuba exported healthcare throughout Latin America and Africa, 325, 710 Cuban health workers have worked in 158 countries since 19 69. And they also gave military aid to the ANC in their revolutionary struggle. 

Castro and the Cuban revolution above all brought hope to the downtrodden of this world, in every corner of the earth people heard and learned from Cuba that they could in fact defy the odds and win the struggle against the exploiters, capitalist crooks and colonialists if they stood together, displayed loyalty to the cause and believed in solidarity. We may never see his like again, and he joins the list of heroes who have gone before him who were fighters for justice for the poor and downtrodden, like Lenin, Marx, Trotsky, Robespierre, Danton, (La Pasionaria - Dolores Irraburi), Rosa Luxembourg, James Connolly, John MacLean and so many more who fought for the greatest cause in the history of the world, Socialism, it was a privilege to have shared this earth with him and to have supported him and his revolution.  

TRUMP ELECTED AND THE WORLD TREMBLES.

“Struggling Americans never admit to being poor, they are brainwashed into thinking that they are only temporarily embarrassed millionaires” – John Steinbeck. This is the “American Dream” which is of course one of the cruellest and biggest lies in history.

Donald Trump, President of the United States! It has really happened; we now know that Americans can indeed be that dim-witted. It’s time to warn immigrants that they will be hunted and deported, Women will be punished for having an abortion if they can find a doctor to perform one, The LGBT community can expect to be hounded and their marriages classed as illegal and those who are not WASPS (white Anglo Saxon Protestants) will face greater discrimination and persecution.   

Climate change will now be relegated, and Muslims will be banned and those already in America will be abused. These things will come to pass because a man who is a racist bigot, a misogynistic pig, and a practiced liar and crook is now the President elect of the USA.

There can be no doubt that these events have occurred because the political establishment in America; Democrat and Republican, have abandoned millions of regular Americans to their fate in the worst ‘dog eat dog’ capitalist society in the world, a place where there is no mercy, no matter how many times they salute the flag or rehearse the mantra that they live in “the home of the brave and the land of the free” Trump’s political instincts and his temperament will show them no mercy, the rich are about to get richer and the poor about to get poorer. And the poorest of the poor, Indigenous Indians, African Americans and Latinos will be trampled on; as Orwell said in 19 84 “imagine a boot stamping on a human face — for ever”.

It hardly seems possible that America could become more lawless, more brutal or more unequal but we are about to see that it will. There is a price to be paid ultimately for exploiting millions of your own people and replacing aspirations with flag waving and national anthems and we will I think see that. America above all is about to pay the price for its failure to properly educate its own people, they are the richest as well as the dumbest country in the world and they could be about to pay a heavy price for their corporate greed and their negligence of their ‘fellow Americans’, God Help America.     

CORBYN ELECTABLE?

The sustained attacks on Jeremy Corbyn accusing him of anti Semitism are nonsensical and desperate, nonsensical because he has an unblemished history of unwavering opposition to any kind of racism, sectarianism or bigotry. They are also desperate because they are being hysterically pursued by Israeli Zionists and the reason for that should bring reassurance to Labour and Corbyn supporters. Anyone who clings to the fiction that Corbyn is unelectable should consider carefully why this is happening, it is clear that when it comes to Corbyn's electability there is certainly one very powerful and influential group who know that he is electable and that is the Israeli Zionists. The last thing they want to see is a UK Labour Prime Minister with a long and honourable record of support for the Palestinian cause, hence the slurs and false accusations against him. Their accusations however are becoming less and less credible and the fact that they emanate from the same old sources marks them as completely contrived.   

SNP WAITING TO BE "BEAMED UP" SCOTTY.

Has anyone like me been wondering what has happened to the SNP MP’S at Westminster, they all seem to have taken a vow of silence quite a while ago. It seems they have been secretly planning a master stroke to shake the Palace of Westminster to its foundations, no it’s not independence, none of them mention that anymore, it’s not Brexit either, they realise that that horse has bolted and they are left with just the shrieks of Nicola Sturgeon hilariously threatening Theresa May who just looks terrified doesn’t she?.

The secret has been revealed in all its splendour and daring, they have rallied behind their saltire and

advanced on Westminster as a mob demanding that the government officially recognise the 50^th. Birthday of Star Trek, this motion to the house was put down by SNP MP Patrick Grady yesterday. Forget homelessness, The NHS, Food Banks, cuts etc. Star Trek is apparently far more important to the SNP trekkies. So the next time you hear anyone asking what good the SNP MP’S are you can stand up for them by stating the SNP MP’S fought like bravehearts to have the country recognise the benefits bestowed on us all by the children’s space adventure series Star Trek. Their next heroic mission I’m told is to force Westminster to recognise the cultural significance of legendary Scottish heroes like oor Wullie, the Broons, Wee Willie Winkie and William Wallace.     

DEMOCRATIC DECISIONS BEING ATTACKED AND UNDERMINED BY DESPERATE POLITICIANS.

There is an interesting similarity in the way Nicola Sturgeon and Owen Smith represent their cases against the democratic decisions of the people they are trying to persuade to support them. Sturgeon continues to barely keep herself afloat by sabre rattling against the verdict of the electorate to leave Europe and still issues empty threats against those who decided that Scotland will remain as part of the UK. Both of their positions are patently untenable when you remove the bombast and empty rhetoric.

In Sturgeon’s case, she is now in the absurd position of telling people she will re run the independence referendum which they lost some two years ago and she also insists in trying to interfere with the decision taken in the European referendum which she also lost just recently, democracy evidently is not her strong point. The unpalatable truth for her and her credulous followers who believe the nonsense she continues to spout is that she has no cards to play, hence the reason that she continues to shout loud and long about repeat referendums without mentioning how she will set about achieving this. The answer is of course that she can’t, if she could we would have heard by now how she will go about doing it. She is now paying the price for the part she played in returning David Cameron to Downing Street, a more intelligent and experienced politician would have been far more aware of how vulnerable Cameron would be in a Euro. Election but she went with Salmond’s orders again, she must be one of the few people who did not realize that Salmond by then was incapable of walking and chewing gum at the same time since his career and his reputation crashed and burned among the flames of the SNP’s farcical independence referendum campaign.

The wretched Owen Smith like Sturgeon now looks like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a bus and he has no way of escaping. How on Earth did they convince him to run? Had I been in his position I might have looked around me and thought to myself, where is Balls? Benn, Burnham, Hodge, Watson, Bryant? Where have all the big hitters who planned this gone? It should have occurred to him that because of the actions of himself and the rest of the PLP he was a dead man walking, even many of those who do not want Corbyn to win were frowning on such deceitful behaviour and so it proved. He has now had to submit himself to a humiliating series of hustings, and rallies which have been totally eclipsed by his opponent’s activities, his opponent who by comparison looks like a rock star at a concert and he is sixty seven years old! Alas the big name instigators of this debacle have left him to swing in the wind. He apes the same tactics as Sturgeon in that he attacks Corbyn over the Brexit campaign without being able to tell the members what it is that he either did not do or did not do well enough. He also says that he will fight Brexit harder than Corbyn without telling us how he will do this, he condemns Corbyn as being useless but as Jeremy pointed out with a sickening thud at a hustings he wants him in his cabinet if he wins!.

Smith and those people who created this awful mess will be lucky to cling to careers as back benchers if Corbyn wins and becomes PM and there will be no drama about the process, it will be inevitable and the Labour Party will unite and emerge stronger as a force for Socialism.      

RENFREW SOUTH & GALLOWHILL BY ELECTION 11/08/2016.

Renfrew South & Gallowhill By Election Thursday August 11^th. 20 16 – Vote Labour – Vote for Edward Grady.   

CORBYN AND LABOUR VINDICATED AGAIN.

Today I received notification from The Labour Party that my suspension has been lifted. I know that those people who could not stop mentioning it when they wrote to me in glee would like to know the outcome so I thought it right to let them know. This was a classic smear against me and others in the party by a coalition consisting of Israeli Zionist extremists,’ opportunistic right wing Tories and the usual fetid SNP suspects, It failed quite spectacularly. It was doomed to fail because they targeted Labour Party people who had reputations for campaigning against racism and bigotry all their lives. In over 43 years in The Labour Party I have never heard one anti Semitic remark made, it was gutter politics at its worst.

Using tactics that would have disgraced the squalid old Senator for Wisconsin Joe McCarthy they created a climate of fear aided and abetted by the UK media. Despite being wrongly accused by a right wing Tory blogger, I understand why the party put these suspensions in place, the pressure was being built up and to stop that pressure in its tracks the party played safe and they and the other accused have been vindicated. Because of the swift action by the party this vile slur if ever attempted again will gain no traction.

There is a very significant message here as a result of this failed attempt to damage Labour; it’s a message that is very important to the party and the wider country if they care to heed it. The Zionist ‘powers that be’ in Israel are very strong, very determined and utterly ruthless and the last thing they want to see is a Labour Prime Minister in number 10 who has a decade’s long commitment to Palestine, and opposition to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land. My suggestion therefore is, the next time you hear anyone say that Jeremy Corbyn is incapable of winning a UK general election, remind yourselves of what Zionist Israel which is one of the most powerful countries in the world backed by American money tried to do to Jeremy Corbyn. The conclusion is clear the Israeli Government know that Corbyn can win and our job is to make sure that he does just that. I want to thank all the people within the party and out with the party for their kind messages of support for me throughout this grubby business.     

TO PARAPHRASE MARK TWAIN - 'REPORTS OF THE DEATH OF THE LABOUR PARTY ARE AN EXAGGERATION'.

 “Labour membership is on course to hit 600,000, a half-century peak”, (The New Statesman). after a second successive day in which more than 100,000 people have applied to become party members.

As far as social media presence is concerned, 'Saving Labour', which is a right wing group funded by private money has over 4,000 likes at time of writing, while 'Momentum' which is a grassroots rank and file Corbyn supporting group has 53,808. 

If this was a fight, the referee would have stopped it by now to save the PLP 

Blairites further punishment. 

EQUAL RIGHTS IN THE LABOUR PARTY.

If it is permissible for the PLP to challenge Jeremy Corbyn then it must follow that we, the party members can challenge those Labour MP’S who challenged Jeremy, right?. 

WHY WON'T THE SNP BAN FRACKING OUTRIGHT? - READ THIS.

The suspicion remains that the SNP are not prepared to come clean over their dealings with fracking and this recent  Herald story shows why. I have been sent posts from an SNP apologist called Gordon Walker who has been tying himself in knots in his attempts to defend the SNP’S stance over fracking, I look forward to his view on this.  

 From the Herald. ------ THE former cabinet secretary in charge of planning took thousands of pounds from a family business linked to fracking for his re-election campaign, it has emerged. Alex Neil accepted almost £3000 in donations from the family behind a leading drilling company that stands to benefit if the SNP allows fracking in Scotland.  According to official election records, Hydracrat Ltd donated £490 to Neil on March 21, and five members of the Hill family then gave a further £2420 between them by March 25. Bobby Hill, 54, the company’s director and sole shareholder, gave £485; his 80-year-old mother Jean gave £495; his wife Linda, 52, gave £470; and his sons Robert, 24, and Ross, 21, gave £490 and £480 respectively.

The threshold for reporting a donation to the Electoral Commission is £500.

Neil took the cash while Cabinet Secretary for Communities, which gave him responsibility for planning, despite controversy over previous Hydracrat donations because of its fracking links.In November, it emerged SNP candidate Neil Gray, now the Airdrie & Shotts MP, took £3750 from the firm in 2015, despite taking a public stance against fracking. Hydracrat also donated £17,500 to the SNP in 2010, and Bobby Hill gave £6500 to the Airdrie & Shotts constituency branch in 2011, though not to Neil directly. Over the last 5 years or so this company Hydracat which is linked to fracking have donated nearly £31,000 to the SNP, through the party itself, one of its branches and two of its candidates.

Central Scotland Labour MSP Richard Leonard, who stood against Neil, said: “Alex Neil has some explaining to do. People in Scotland need to know that government ministers are making decisions based on the evidence, not on who is funding their political campaigns. An SNP spokeswoman said: “Alex Neil instructed government officials months ago that any application from any donor to his campaign would have to be decided upon by another minister to avoid any conflict of interest, or suspicion of any conflict of interest. The insinuation here is a red herring." It would appear therefore that according to this SNP statement that even if Neil is squeaky clean that another SNP minister and the party itself are happy with donations being designed to avoid being declared by a company who are linked to fracking. Are their members also OK with this?. 

THE LATE GREAT AMERICAN FOLK SINGER PETE SEEGER HAD THESE WORDS PRINTED ON HIS FAMOUS BANJO - "THIS MACHINE SURROUNDS HATRED AND FORCES IT TO SURRENDER".

Time perhaps to listen to the singer. Every time a politician makes a disparaging remark about immigrants, asylum seekers or refugees they bring the day closer that another terrible incident like the one which took the life of young Labour MP Jo Cox will occur. We now live in a febrile anti Muslim cauldron of hatred because of the constant fraudulent propaganda being put out by right wing groups and reactionary racist MP’S and their fellow travellers, no one would now be in the least surprised if similar attacks are carried out again, such is the unstable nature of our society today and still, the propaganda and hate speech continues. The crime of inciting hatred is now largely ignored because it has been allowed to fester by the authorities who are afraid to enforce the law.     

The other day we saw a truly nauseating billboard displayed by the fascist Nigel Farage who is responsible for stirring up this poison. This billboard showed a large queue of what were clearly foreigners waiting to enter the UK, it was positively Goebblesesque in its conception and display and reached a new depth of racist malice, created and displayed by people who claim to be white UK Christians!. The ‘mob’ is ever susceptible to this kind of filth and no one knows when the propaganda will reach a point where some vulnerable bigot will decide to take action which will lead to tragedy. I do not accept for one minute that those who provoke such incidents can genuinely claim to be innocent of incitement. Here in Scotland we witnessed a pattern of racist hatred against English people which built up over several years which culminated in Scotland being one of the most hate filled countries in the world as we approached the referendum, this was demonstrated in the awful scenes in George Square when the Nationalists lost, some disingenuously expressed alarm and surprise at the events which took place but those who knew the truth saw it coming over a long period of time. Abusive language and constant displays of hatred perpetrated against people who are targeted for being ‘different’ will eventually bubble over and there is no telling where it will lead.         

Action has to be taken now before it is too late to put a stop to those who pedal hatred, particularly prominent people such as MP’S and leaders of political groups and ad hoc rabble rousers who are not happy unless they are abusing someone or beating up someone who is according to their twisted minds the wrong colour. That process should start with The Daily Mail, The Daily Express, the SUN, The Telegraph and the rest of that ilk. Free speech does not mean that the spreading of hatred and encouragement of racist violence should be tolerated. 

HOW DO YOU OPPOSE FRACKING? ‘BY ABSTAINING’ – SNP.

  

Unedifying obfuscation is now the default position of the SNP and their mob of supporters in relation to Fracking as they twist and turn while refusing to ban it entirely. In the course of the past year they have gone from sabre rattling against Fracking to being terrified to mention it at all, they adopted the prison camp guard’s excuse of ‘we are following orders, we can’t ban it’ when in actual fact they can ban it, so why the tissue of lies?.  

Such was the determination of the SNP hierarchy to stamp out dissent on this that they made sure that it would not be debated at their conference, so to those SNP members who are opposed to it which means most of them before they were stood on by Nicola and her guards the order is ‘whatever you say, say nothing’, or else. This deception got them by the recent Holyrood election but it helped to lose the SNP its overall majority, this in turn led to a situation which could only be described as humiliating for Sturgeon and her now minority government as she instructed her party to abstain and the remaining MSP’S led by Labour recorded a victory for banning over it’s then only supporters the Tories. It all begs the question, how long can the SNP keep going without a rebellion in the ranks, bit by bit the things which the SNP once stood for are being dismantled by the likes of Sturgeon, Swinney and Neil who chose the careerist path a long time ago.  

There is a spectre hanging over this whole business and that spectre is called Jim Ratcliffe the owner of Ineos who, with the help of the SNP destroyed so many jobs at Grangemouth. It was he who smiled to the cameras on leaving a meeting with the SNP as he stated ‘I see no problem with Fracking going ahead’ could the sinister smirking face of Fergus Ewing who was right behind him have had anything to do with Mr. Ratcliffe’s confidence?. I smell an SNP rat and that is why they are in such a mess over this issue. Make no mistake about it when a man like Ratcliffe looks at someone like Nicola Sturgeon he sees what con men call a ‘mark’.