Workers fight while Starmer does nothing

Tens of thousands of railway workers walked out in another 24 hour strike over pay, jobs, pensions and working conditions bring most of the national rail network to a halt this week. The employers are planning the biggest attack on railway workers pay and working conditions for 20 years, in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. The Tories threaten to bring in new laws to outlaw strikes that do not provide a guaranteed ‘minimum service’ to limit disruption to passengers and a new hate campaign has begun in the bourgeois media to vilify the leaders of the railway unions. But what is Sir Keir Starmer doing?
    Nothing, or at least nothing to help the railway workers. The Labour leader refuses to support the railway unions’ strikes and he’s ordered his front-benchers to stay away from the picket lines. Shadow transport minister Sam Tarry has been kicked off the Labour front-bench for defying the Starmer diktat and joining striking rail workers outside London’s Euston station. Starmer now washes his hands on the modest renationalisation pledges that included the railways that he made during his party leadership bid claiming they may not be possible in the current economic climate.
    Starmer and his Blairite clique think that the way back to power is by wooing a mythical “middle England” and seeking some sort of partnership with the Liberal Democrats. But disaffected Tories are, by and large, always going to turn to the Lib-Dems and the Liberal Democrats preferred coalition partner will inevitably be the Tories – not Labour.
    Labour’s only hope is to mobilise its traditional working class support but there’s not much chance of that with Starmer at the helm.
    One transport union leader, Mick Lynch of the RMT, says Labour will only be able to reclaim its traditional heartlands if it could “identify with working class people’s needs and their campaigns”. Another, Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA) General Secretary, Manuel Cortes, said his union was “ashamed” of Labour and suggested it was “deluded” to think the party could defeat the Conservatives without the support of union members. Many others would agree.
    Ominously the leader of the giant Unite union, Sharon Graham, told the media that: “the Labour sacking of Sam Tarry for supporting working people on strike, against cuts to their jobs and pay, is another insult to the trade union movement. Quite frankly, it would be laughable if it were not so serious.
    “At a time when people are facing a cost of living crisis, and on the day when the Conservative Government has launched a new wave of attacks on the rights of working people, the Labour Party has opted to continue to indulge in old factional wars.
    “Labour is becoming more and more irrelevant to ordinary working people who are suffering. Juvenile attacks on trade unionists will do absolutely nothing to further Labour’s prospects for power.”
    At the moment Labour is eight or nine points ahead of the Tories in the opinion polls. That’s still not enough to give them an overall majority in parliament. Labour needs a much bigger swing to take back the “Red Wall” seats in the north or make inroads north of the border.
    The Tories know when to dump a lame-duck leader. It’s time Labour did the same.

Jurassic World Dominion

by Ben Soton

Jurassic World Dominion (2022). Dir: Colin Trevorrow; Writers: Derek Connolly (story), Emily Carmichael & Colin Trevorrow (screenplay); Stars: Bryce Dallas Howard, Chris Pratt, Laura Dern, DeWanda Wise, Jeff Goldblum, Sam Neill. 12A 207 mins.

The Jurassic Park franchise, where scientists employed by a faceless corporation create cloned dinosaurs for a wild-life theme park built as an attraction for wealthy tourists, has reached its finale with Jurassic World Dominion. The film sees the return of the some of the original Jurassic Park stars, including Jeff Goldblum and Sam Neil, who meet the heroes of the later Jurassic World series, Bryce Dallas Howard and Chris Pratt. If two sets of species, separated by 66 million years can be brought back to life, why can’t two sets of actors separated by three decades do the same?
    In Dominion, Claire Deering (played by Bryce Dallas Howard) and Owen Grady (played by Chris Pratt) are living in hiding shielding a cloned child; whilst their pet velociraptor ‘Blue’ lives in a nearby forest with a child of its own. Meanwhile, Cretaceous-era locusts destroy whole swathes of the world’s grain crop.
    The villain of the film is Biosyn; the faceless corporation that created the locusts and kidnaps the child and the baby velociraptor. At this point Deering and Grady embark on a global search to rescue both missing infants. In their travels they meet up with Kayla Watts (played by DeWanda Wise), a free-lance pilot whose wreck of an aircraft is reminiscent of the Millennium Falcon in Star Wars.
    Their journey takes them to the Biosyn headquarters and dinosaur sanctuary in the Italian Dolomites. There Deering and Grady meet up with the stars of the original series: Alan Grant (played by Sam Neill), Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) and Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern). One of the features of the original Jurassic Park series was to make intellectuals look glamorous; a process possibly started with the Indiana Jones franchise. Grant and Sattler are both palæontologists whilst Malcolm is a specialist in Chaos Theory.
    The notion of out-of-control corporations is a theme in Michael Creighton’s original Jurassic Park novel and many of his other works. This has obvious progressive undertones; however, this needs to come with a health warning. Some on the utopian right believe that capitalism has been superseded by a bizarre system referred to as Corporatocracy; this concept is popular amongst Trump supporters in the USA and has been echoed by Tory weirdo Michael Gove. In other words, the existence of monopolies is not the logical evolution of capitalism but diversion from it.
    Meanwhile Dominion raises several highly important issues, including climate change, the illegal trade in endangered species and cloning. Not to mention who should have control over these activities and who should put a stop to them.
    The film contains a number of brilliant and realistic action scenes, as well as the compulsory dinosaur fight where the T-Rex comes out on top. I almost laughed out loud when the closing scenes showed pterodactyls co-existing with birds, mosasaurs swimming along with Blue whales and triceratops walking with elephants – maybe I should not take things so literally but as an analogy to existing species facing extinction.

Chinese Ambassador visits Cardiff University

A sweatshirt for old times!

by New Worker correspondent

The Chinese ambassador recalled his student days in Wales when he returned to the Welsh capital on 7th July to meet Colin Riordan, the President and Vice-Chancellor of Cardiff University to discuss deepening exchanges and co-operation between the university and People’s China.
    Prof Riordan warmly welcomed Zheng Zeguang back to his alma mater after 36 years and updated the Ambassador on the University's progress in teaching, scientific research and co-operation with Chinese universities in recent years.
    Cardiff University has established long-term co-operative relations with Xiamen University, Beijing Normal University and Peking University in China. These projects have played an important role in the improvement of teaching and scientific research capabilities on both sides.
    Some 4,000 Chinese students currently attend Cardiff University, which would like even more to come and study in the future. The University is also willing to strengthen co-operation with Chinese industry to promote the transformation and application of scientific research results.
    Zheng congratulated his alma mater on the great changes that have taken place over the years. Calling it a first-class research university, the Ambassador commended its profound historical heritage and its open and diverse campus culture. The Chinese side appreciated Cardiff University's firm commitment to promoting China–UK educational exchanges and co-operation, and the attention and care given to Chinese students during the epidemic.
    He recalled his experience as a student at Cardiff University College in the 1980s, when China was in the early years of reform and opening-up. China has undergone tremendous changes since then. China's comprehensive strength and the people's living standards have improved significantly, and socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era.
    China adheres to comprehensive and deeper reforms and higher-level opening-up to the outside world, and will continue to encourage Chinese universities to deepen exchanges and co-operation with Cardiff University. He hoped that Cardiff University would continue to play an exemplary role in China–UK educational exchanges and co-operation.

Tolpuddle returns!

By New Worker correspondent

Thousands of people braved the soaring temperatures to take part in the Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Festival after a two year Covid break and remember the pioneers of the labour movement unjustly transported to Australia in 1834 for setting up a union.
    This year we heard rail workers’ leader Mick Lynch and Angela Rayner, the deputy head of the Labour Party, talk about the cost of living crisis and the way forward for the labour movement.
    The Tolpuddle spirit has been recalled every year since the Thirties, apart from the second world war and the recent Covid crisis, in the village where the modern union movement began.
    In 1834 six agricultural labourers from the village of Tolpuddle in Dorset, England were convicted of swearing a secret oath as members of the Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers. They were arrested on charges under an obscure law during a labour dispute against cutting wages and sentenced to penal transportation in Australia. Mass protests led to their pardon in 1836 and they returned to England between 1837 and 1839.
    There has been an annual gathering since the 1930s. It began as a Sunday afternoon event with wreaths laid on the grave of one of the Martyrs, James Hammett, followed by a procession of union banners and a rally . Today, the annual event sees thousands of trade unionists from around the world descend on the small village of Tolpuddle, to celebrate the legacy they left behind.
    A Martyrs monument was erected in Tolpuddle in 1934, and a sculpture of the martyrs, made in 2001, stands in the village in front of the Tolpuddle Martyrs Museum.
    The annual Tolpuddle Martyrs festival is usually held in the third week of July, organised by the TUC and featuring a parade of banners from many trade unions, a memorial service, speeches and music.

Westward Ho!

by Ben Soton

Why is West Country drama all the rage these days? The English West Country; the region starting in Dorset and heading west across Devon, Cornwall, while including Somerset and Avon and ending around Gloucestershire is often seen as a rural backwater but the area includes major cities such as Bristol, once the home of the slave trade, as well as the cathedral city of Bath.
    It seems ironic that in recent months both major terrestrial television channels have screened Sunday night dramas set in this English region. The BBC recently hosting the second series of The Outlaws, Stephen Merchants black comedy set in his native Bristol; whilst ITV showed the third series McDonald & Dobbs set in Bath.
    However, these two dramas could not be more different. In the case of McDonald & Dobbs the focus is on the relationship between two very contrasting police officers. Jason Watkins plays Detective Sergeant Dodds a somewhat OCD officer in his fifties whilst Tala Gouveia plays Detective Sergeant McDonald, aged around thirty, on secondment from the Met with a desire for promotion. Whilst McDonald & Dobbs focuses on the police The Outlaws, perhaps by its very name, focuses on the criminal.
    The overriding theme of The Outlaws is anti-crime but pro-criminal. It’s heroes are a diverse group of minor offenders ranging from a black civil rights campaigner and a business man sacked by his own father while another leading character is a drug dealer forced into crime by lack of job opportunities. All of these characters are victims of a London based gangster known as The Dean.
    This is an obvious reference to the so-called County Lines operations where London based criminals are taking over business from local drug dealers. The Outlaws is set in the ethnically diverse, city of Bristol; a mayor seaport once noted for its aircraft industry; whilst the city came to fame in recent years when a group of its residents through the statue of slave owner, Edward Colston, into the Bristol Channel.
    On the other hands McDonald & Dobbs is essentially a whodunit with complex plots; the level of complexity resembles Jonathan Creek from the 1990s. In the series both the victims and suspects are a mix of social-media celebrities, Formula One drivers and high-level academics. Scenes are interlaced with panoramic shots of the city of Bath; with its unique eighteenth century architecture as well as views of the surrounding countryside. This unique mixture gives the show a touch of Agatha Christie meets Death in Paradise.
    It is good to see television series set outside of London once in a while although regional crime dramas are not unique. Morse and Endeavour were set in Oxford, Life on Mars and Line of Duty set in Manchester to name but a few. I can even recall the fictional television presenter suggesting a detective series based in Norwich!
    But as a Sotonian I suggest maybe it’s time we had a series based in Southampton…

Bye Bye Boris

Boris Johnson thought the world was his oyster back in 2019 when he first set foot in Downing Street as Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative & Unionist Party. He said he was going to deliver Brexit, unite the country and defeat Jeremy Corbyn – but although he did beat Labour and carry out the wish of the people to leave the European Union, he never united his own party let alone the country he led for the last three years.
    An incorrigible liar, he was surrounded by hand-picked people lesser than himself who proved incapable of dealing with the crises that beset his Government from the start. Tens of thousands died when Johnson took his lead from Donald Trump and embraced the crackpot theory of ‘herd immunity’ during the Covid pandemic. He only came to his senses after mass pressure from his own grass-roots supporters to do something forced him to impose the draconian lock-downs that held the plague in check until the vaccine breakthrough in 2021.
    Whilst the Johnson team used subsidies and “furlough” money to stave-off mass unemployment and economic collapse during the coronavirus crisis, it returned to its true-blue colours this year with draconian energy bill hikes and proposed new anti-union laws to curb the already limited right to take industrial action.
    The Tory rank-and-file could put up with his cronyism and scandalous private life as long as it kept the Corbynistas in their place. But they’re not so happy when the value of their property and their juicy pensions are threatened. Inflation has risen for the ninth month in a row; it now stands at 9.4 per cent.
    At recent by-elections some flocked to the Liberal Democrats in their droves. Others supported the long-standing moves to dump Johnson that have nothing to do with his disreputable private life nor his endless deceptions.
    Like all vain men, Boris Johnson was incapable of seeing himself as others see him. BoJo, as he liked to be called, certainly got Brexit done. But what did he do afterwards?
    Johnson put all his eggs in one basket, hoping that a Trump re-election would lead to a new trans-Atlantic free trade agreement – a Treaty of Washington to replace the Treaty of Rome, which would be paid for by selling off the NHS to American interests. It didn’t happen and Johnson had no fall-back position.
    A few paltry trade deals with friendly members of the British Commonwealth but no real exploitation of the freedom that was on the table when Britain finally left the European Union. Instead of broadening our trade with People’s China, Johnson slavishly followed Trump in restricting Chinese investment in the UK. The ‘golden age’ of trade with China is over and it may not come again.
    ‘Britain’s Trump’ imagined that he was the second Churchill, posing with Zelensky and other third-rate Eastern European politicians, and making empty threats to Putin from the safety of his armchair in Downing Street.
    The reality was that Putin never took any notice of anything Johnson said. Nor, more importantly for British imperialism, did the leaders of Franco-German imperialism let alone Joe Biden in Washington.
    Whoever takes over from Johnson will have to immediately try to restore the bridge with Europe and the ‘special relationship’ with the USA. Upholding the Northern Ireland Protocol that Johnson signed up to in the first place would be the best place to start.

Boris tries to dodge the flak

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is taking an unusual interest in foreign affairs at present. This is partly because he needs an excuse to get out of the country as often as possible to avoid awkward questions and attacks from his opponents.
    These opponents are not the ineffective ‘Opposition’ from the spineless Opposition front-bench team headed, rather than lead, by Sir Keir Starmer, but from Johnson’s own parliamentarians.
    The fact that the Tories have lost two recent by-elections will only have strengthened this particular opposition, with even the most loyal Johnson supporters fearful of losing their seats. As both by-elections were caused by sex scandals it was almost inevitable that the Tories would lose these seats, even Tiverton where a 24,000 majority was overturned. But a Liberal revival is, of course one of these traditional signs of the coming of summer that do not herald any great positive change. Losing the much more marginal Wakefield was probably less of a surprise than was the winning of that traditional Labour seat at the last General Election.
    Jonson being replaced by another Tory, who will be a Remainer, or later by a right-wing Labour government led by Starmer, will not be much or even any improvement.
    More positive opposition is to be found in the upsurge of industrial action. One small example of these struggles is that of the striking parking enforcement officers in the south London borough of Wandsworth who are striking to not just to secure pay parity with those in other councils but for their jobs to be brought back in house, which would ensure that parking fines are reinvested locally rather than used to pay dividends. If successful, this action will benefit all local people and not just the enforcement officers.
    Train strikes have dominated recent headlines. It is noteworthy that despite the disruption they cause and repeated attacks by the right-wing media against RMT, public opinion, admitted by the same right-wing media, is on the side of the striking railway workers.
    As a small stop press: it is pleasing to note that David Lammy, who was criticised in our trade union news for refusing to support the Heathrow Airport British Airways strikers, has backtracked. He claims that he was misled into thinking the workers were fighting for a pay rise rather than the reversal of a previous reduction – but this change of heart might be due to his local party rebelling and him being forced to think again. It is perhaps telling that Starmer has taken no action against those MPs, including a few front-benchers, who defied his instructions not to visit RMT picket lines.
    Industrial militancy is stepping up in the most unexpected places. The British Medical Association, which is the main trade union for medical doctors, has launched a campaign to secure a 30 per cent pay rise.
    This figure is not absurd. Dr Emma Runswick, in her speech urging support for the figure, mentioned a long list of recent inflation busting rises: “All around us workers are coming together in trade unions and winning big, last month bin men in Manchester 22 per cent; Gatwick airport workers won a 21 per cent pay increase two weeks ago; and in March cleaners and porters at Croydon hospital won a 24 per cent pay rise.”
    It is not just those in the medical profession who should carefully heed her closing words: “Those workers got together and used a key tool that trade unions have – the ability to collectively organise, collectively negotiate and collectively withdraw our labour… vote for this motion and I’ll see you on the picket lines.”

Support the Rail Workers

Tens of thousands of rail and tube workers will be striking over pay, jobs and pensions this week. Thousands of jobs are threatened by Management’s proposals. Proposed cuts put passenger safety at risk.
    These disputes are all down to the decision by the Tory Government to cut four billion pounds worth of funding from our transport systems – two billion from national rail and two billion from Transport for London.
    A victory for the RMT will be a victory for all workers and for all trade unions. It will help us all in the fight to stop the Government-driven race to the bottom on pay and working conditions. We’ve lived under the austerity regime for far too long. Working people should not pay the economic price for the capitalist crisis while corporations make record profits and billionaires grow richer every year.
    Stand with rail workers; stand with the RMT. Show your support and get down to a picket line near you!

Hobson’s choice

Covid, golden wall-paper, partygate – the writing’s certainly on the wall for Boris Johnson. And, so it seems, for the useless leader of the Labour Party. While Johnson’s rivals plot his downfall in the shadows of the corridors of power similar scenes are taking place in Labour’s committee rooms amid talk that Starmer is finally going to throw in the towel – possibly even before Labour’s annual conference in September.
    Though former Labour premier Gordon Brown is backing him, saying Mr Starmer should "ignore" criticism "because what's exciting about the possibility of Keir Starmer's leadership is he will have a plan for Britain" Brown’s support is usually the kiss of death for any ambitious Labour politician these days.
    Starmer’s vendetta against the Corbynistas has driven hundreds of thousands of members out of the party. His poor personal ratings in the opinion polls and his dismal performance on the street show how hopeless he is at campaigning.
    It’s said that Sir Keir Starmer has already told his followers to prepare the succession if he is forced to resign over claims that he, and deputy leader Angela Rayner, broke the Covid lock-down rules last year.
    An alleged friend of Starmer's told the media that the Labour leader reportedly told colleagues: “I will not let this party become a basket case again. I will not let our hard-won gains be squandered so we will need to be ready in the unlikely event that the worst comes to the worst”.
    Starmer’s apparently told the Blairites to get ready for a new leadership contest to stop even the hint of a Corbynista comeback and he’s apparently given his blessing to Lisa Nandy and Wes Streeting who, according to the Sunday Times, have been told to prepare bids for the top job. Both have dismissed these reports as nonsense – a wise move given that premature lobbying often proves fatal in the leadership stakes.
    There are, of course, others who covet the Labour crown. Angela Rayner may step down over “beergate” but that doesn’t stop her for running for the leadership. Andy Burnham is equally ambitious though he will need to get back into Parliament to enter the race. But clearly the worst is still to come if Remainers like Streeting or Lisa Nandy get to lead Labour.

How the East wasn’t won

by Ben Soton

Russia – A Thousand Year History of the Wild East by Martin Sixsmith Hardback: Harry N Abrams (reissue edition 2012); 611pp; Softback:‎ BBC Books (reprint edition 2012);‎ 624pp; RRP £12.99.

In August 1991 I was unemployed, little more than a teenager and living in a flat above a newsagent. One morning I woke to the news that a coup was taking place against the traitorous Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachov. On realising what was going on I was ecstatic with joy. Meanwhile in Moscow someone from a more privileged background was covering the same events. That person was Martin Sixsmith, the BBC’s Moscow Correspondent.
    In this book first published in 2011 he regurgitates numerous reactionary misconceptions about that country and its people. According to Sixsmith Russians are not proper Europeans; pointing out that for around two hundred years (1237 - 1480) Russia lived under the Mongols as part of what came to be known as the Khanate of the Golden Horde. He makes childish references to Lenin having slanted shaped eyes as evidence of some possible Mongolian heritage. Imagine the (totally justified) outcry if a writer was to make reference to another ethnic group having hooked shaped noses.
    The section on Ivan the Terrible (1533-85) shows how similar Russia is to western Europe. Ivan was a tyrannical absolute monarch; however, the sixteenth century also saw the growth of absolute monarchy across Europe. The period saw the rise of the Tudor dynasty in England; with Henry VIII executing two of his wives and two chief ministers, not to mention numerous lesser people. Absolute monarchies were also established in Spain and France.
    On reading about various false claimants to the Russian throne, the so-called ‘False Dimitris’ in the early seventeenth century I was reminded of the false claimants to Henry VII’s throne namely Perkin Warbeck and Lambert Simnel. The only difference with Russia was that absolute monarchy lasted longer than in most of western Europe.
    Sixsmith shows his real ignorance when it comes to the Soviet era. He makes the nonsensical claim that during the Stalin era as many as sixty million people lost their lives as a result of the Soviet government’s policies. But he can’t explain how the population of the Soviet Union managed to increase by around fifty million in that period. A death toll of this magnitude would not only have led to a population decrease but would have also caused a massive birth deficit resulting a population decline. Whatever the rights and wrongs of Joseph Stalin; when he took the helm of the Soviet Union after the civil war it was in ruins. He left a superpower on the verge of space exploration.
    Meanwhile Sixsmith praises Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan as champions of human rights. No concern for the victims of Latin American death squads and striking British miners. When I thought he couldn’t stoop any lower, Sixsmith praises the Soviet traitor Andrey Vlasov, who fought for Hitler in World War II. Maybe his next book will be an attempt to rehabilitate William Joyce, the British fascist dubbed “Lord Haw Haw” who went to Germany to broadcast Nazi propaganda during the war who was hanged in 1946 for treason.
    The later chapters cover the period from the rise of Gorbachev to the present day. Sixsmith says he was excited in the early days of Perestroika when entrepreneurs were setting up small taxi firms, restaurants and bakeries. However, he is now disappointed that the Russian economy is dominated by oligarchs. It was at this point when I stopped being angry and started laughing. Capitalism is not about individuals setting up restaurants and taxi firms; it is about a drive toward monopoly which inevitably results in an economy dominated by yes, oligarchs, who are not unique to Russia. You only have to watch the TV series The Apprentice, where the highlight of the show is an oligarch telling twenty somethings that they are fired.
    I do not approve of book burning and nor do I believe does this newspaper; however, with rising energy costs and the need to make ends meet…needs must.

Anything goes with Boris

Back in the good old days the sun never set on the British Empire that brought trade and justice to the four corners of the world. Though this was all nonsense the ruling class always paid lip-service to the bogus bourgeois morality that they invented to keep workers in their place and repeatedly broke behind closed doors and away from the prurient eyes of the popular press.
    At school we were taught that Britons were universally respected because an Englishman’s word was his bond – and this, amongst other things, is why we went to war with Germany to defend “plucky little Belgium” in 1914. If you were caught out you did the “decent thing” and resigned to avoid a scandal. If you lied in Parliament you walked.
    These days it seems that anything goes with the Johnson government unilaterally tearing up the EU Withdrawal Agreement to appease the bigots in Northern Ireland and the hard-line Brexiteers on the Tory back-benches while ready to send Third World asylum seekers to camps in central Africa – a move which many believe is in breach of the UK’s international obligations to refugees.
    The deportations to Rwanda, branded by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) as unlawful, have been put on hold following an intervention by the European Court of Human Rights. This was supported by the Stand Up To Racism movement that said, “It’s hugely welcome that nobody has been deported to Rwanda tonight. Solidarity with all those who protested. But we know this is not the end and the struggle goes on against all racist deportations and state racism.”
    The Government claim their plan is aimed at deterring the cross-Channel trafficking gangs that exploit the plight of desperate asylum seekers. But it’s clearly one law for people from the Third World and another for the Ukrainians now being welcomed with open arms by the Government that stoked up the flames of war that forced them to flee in the first place.
    Rwanda already houses some 130,000 refugees mainly from other African countries, They have welcomed the deal which will give them £120 million upfront for housing and integrating the asylum-seekers. More will follow as the numbers rise. They say conditions in the camps in rural areas are good and that the refugees will be well-treated. That may well be so. But it’s a one-way road for the refugees who would never be able to come back to Britain whatever the outcome of their application for political asylum. If they are successful they would be allowed to live in Rwanda. If not they will be deported to some unknown destination.
    Johnson clearly hopes that this dog-whistle racism will revive his party’s flagging fortunes and help him stave off new challenges to his leadership from Tory dissidents. We must prove him wrong.
    The New Communist Party recognises the need for any sovereign state to set an immigration policy in accordance with its resources. But we firmly oppose any immigration policy that discriminates, either directly or indirectly, on the basis of race, creed, colour or gender.
    We call for the repeal of the Immigration and Asylum Acts of the 1990s, passed by both Tory and Labour governments, which make it very difficult for many genuine asylum seekers to establish their claims.
    Asylum seekers must be treated humanely and their claims dealt with swiftly. While this process takes place they must be given decent accommodation and welfare benefits to survive. No asylum seekers should be locked up unless there is good reason, with evidence, to believe they are criminals and no child asylum seeker should ever be locked up.

Talking about Jerusalem

The sectarian violence in Jerusalem that has enraged the Arab and Muslim world is a warning to the world about the consequences of allowing Israel to maintain its illegal and brutal occupation of the West Bank.
    The Zionist mob that swarmed through the Muslim quarter of Arab East Jerusalem last week chanting “Death to Arabs” was a deliberate incitement to violence. Under the protection of Israeli riot police and security forces they deliberately goaded the Palestinian Arabs as they gloated over their victory in June 1967.
    The Zionist settlers and their political sponsors in Tel Aviv want to drive the Palestinians out of the homes and land they hope to steal – as they did when around a million Palestinians were forced to flee by Zionist gunmen during the first Arab-Israeli war. They talk about the 1967 “Six-Day War” and think they are invincible but some clearly have short memories. They sang a different song when Hezbollah missiles rained down on Haifa and northern Israel in 2006.
    Wherever there is oppression there is always resistance. There can be no peace in the Middle East until the legitimate rights of the Palestinian Arabs are restored.

Poor Old BoJo

It seems that Boris Johnson’s luck has finally run out if this week’s vote of no confidence is anything to go by. Though Johnson won the Tory 1922 Committee ballot it was by such a narrow margin that it is difficult to see how he can long remain leader of the Conservative Party.
    Though always good at advancing himself Johnson’s performance when Mayor of London and Foreign Secretary showed that he was never fit for the highest office in the land. Johnson’s only asset was his ability to get the Tory vote out when needed. He did it to beat Ken Livingstone for the London Mayoralty and he did it again at a national level to “get Brexit done” in 2019. Had he heeded his advisers and curbed his irresponsible personal behaviour he would have been remembered as the politician who tore up the Treaty of Rome. Now he will recalled, if at all, as the man who spent a fortune lavishly redecorating Downing Street and partied during the Covid lockdown – much like Nero, to use one of Boris’ classical examples, who supposedly fiddled while Rome burned.
    Anyone else could have seen this coming and changed course. but not Johnson, which all goes to show that going to Eton and reading Classics at Balliol College, Oxford is not a measure of intelligence at all.

Pay the Tube workers

The RMT transport union showed it meant business when it shut down London’s underground network on Monday following the breakdown of talks with Management on jobs and pensions last week.
    Six hundred workers jobs could go if London Underground gets its way. So far Management has shown no interest in constructive talks to settle the dispute. It’s time for the Mayor of London to intervene. Sadiq Khan has the authority to raise taxes. Just four banks made a profit of £34 billion last year and are set to pay out over £4 billion in bonuses to London traders. A windfall tax on those profits would more than adequately fund London’s transport network. The Mayor should meet and heed the union to keep the Underground network running in the future.

China’s communists through the eyes of others

by Andy Brooks

Last week a video seminar was held as part of the events organised by the Communist Party of China in the run-up to its 20th National Congress this year. NCP leader Andy Brooks joined Rob Griffiths of the CPB, Ella Rule from the CPGB-ML, Keith Bennett from Friends of Socialist China, Carlos Martinez from the No Cold War movement and a representative of the CPB’s YCL to talk on the theme of the Communist Party of China in My Eyes. This is Andy Brooks’ contribution...

First of all I would like to thank our hosts for allowing me to say a few words about my impressions of the Communist Party of China which began when I first set foot in the people’s republic as part of a New Communist Party delegation that went to study economic reforms in the new enterprise zones in China back in April 1993.
    During the course of that visit we met a veteran Chinese communist who had fought the Japanese invaders and the reactionary forces during the civil war that ended in victory in 1949. He shared his memories of Harry Pollitt, who he had met when the British communist leader went to China in 1955, and he told us about the first steps taken by the communists along the road of socialist construction following the establishment of the people’s government in 1949.
    The Chinese comrade also spoke about the great changes in the countryside that had begun in 1979 and the development of the special zones that paved the way for the economic reforms that built the socialist market economy which is now the second largest in the world. He knew that dogmatists in some parts of the international communist movement didn’t understand the reform movement. But he said “what is the purpose of the Communist Party if it can’t raise the living standards of working people”.
    I have never forgotten that point. Sadly many European communists, east and west, did – leading to the fall of the Soviet Union and its allies in 1991 in the east and the collapse of communist and workers’ parties millions strong in western Europe.
    I don’t know whether that old Chinese communist lived to see the immense changes that have transform the towns and cities of China but we certainly have in subsequent visits to China over the past thirty-odd years.
    China has become a major force for peace. It has become a beacon of hope for all oppressed people.
It offers economic assistance to poor countries and has played an important role in helping the international efforts to combat the Covid pandemic.
    Cities have been modernised beyond recognition. Absolute poverty has been abolished Vast investments have created new industries to face the challenge of the 21st century and China is, once again, the work-shop of the world.
    Of course great cities are not unique to China. Monumental designs and towering blocks can be seen throughout the Western world. Modern cities house the banks and investment houses of capitalist speculation. Huge factories build the technology and the weapons needed to maintain the global system of oppression while the power of oil has transformed small fishing ports in the Persian Gulf into millionaires’ playgrounds. But this has not benefited the workers in the heartlands of imperialism while oil riches have not helped free the Palestinians or raised living standards on the Arab street.
    The immense wealth of the Western world remains in the hands of a tiny minority of capitalists and feudal lords.
    In the West millions of people scrabble to earn a living just to keep a roof over their heads, while a tiny elite live lives beyond the reach and often beyond the imagination of most workers.
    In the Third World millions upon millions live in poverty while their resources are plundered by the big Western corporations.
    We, on the other hand, see a different picture in China. Vast cities with modern offices and factories and equally modern housing for the workers who live there.
    Chinese astronauts circle the globe. A high-speed rail network spans the country. Container trains travel to Europe packed with the goods that fill our shops and markets. International airports link China to the four corners of the world. A growing network of domestic airline services and modern ports serve the seaborne trade that fires the global economy. And a state run education system and a dedicated health service that battled to contain the Covid plague is available to all.
    China’s wealth is being used to raise the standard of living of everyone in the people’s republic and help the development of the Third World through genuine fair trade and economic assistance.
    Though the social changes that inevitably followed the establishment of a mixed economy did lead to a rise in street crime it remains remarkably low compared to the norm in Europe and nothing like US or Latin American levels.
    There are no shanty-towns and slums in People’s China and the last vestiges of colonial rule, the shameful hovels in Hong Kong, will soon be swept away by the new government of the special administrative region.
    Big city pollution is being tackled by the people’s government in a meaningful way. The smog and acrid air has gone and blue skies have returned to Beijing following the national “war against pollution”, huge investments into a new regulations and an air pollution action plan that has transformed the capital and many other cities across the country.
    Over the years exchanges of views with the representatives of the Communist Party of China have deepened our understanding of the immense problems in organising the communist movement in such a vast country with such a huge population. We have also seen the immense achievements that China has made under the leadership of the Communist Party of China in overcoming poverty, providing the basic needs of all the people and tackling the population problem to give everyone a better life and a standard of living that is constantly rising.
    This year China’s communists will gather for their national Congress to chart the way forward for the Party and the country in the immediate future. Back in 2014 Communist Party of China (CPC) leader Xi Jinping said: "The very purpose of the CPC's leadership of the people in developing people's democracy is to guarantee and support the people’s position as masters of the country.”
    We are confident that the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of China will set the agenda for the people of China for many years to come. We wish the comrades success in their work and look forward to studying their conclusions in the future.

Measure for Measure

Summer may have begun this week, but it seems that the silly season, which usual starts in August, is already upon us. Boris Johnson tells us he’s going to restore the old Imperial measurements, which were discarded in the 1980s to conform with the norms of the European Union, and that he’s going to build a new European bloc consisting of the Baltic States, Poland and Ukraine to stake out British imperialism’s interest in eastern Europe.
    The return to yards and gallons, in tandem with the current metric system, will certainly be a boon to the older generation who still can’t make head or tail out of metrication, but it will be a matter of indifference to the generations brought up under the new system and it will make no difference to the price of anything sold on the high street.
    On the other hand, Johnson’s proposed British-led bloc – based on Russophobia, neo-liberalism and a loathing of the Brussels’ bureaucracy – offers little or nothing to the proposed members already in the EU and nothing at all to the Ukrainian regime that wants to be a full member of the European club. Nobody takes the idea seriously, least of all the proposed members of this alternative European union. The ‘BoJo bloc’, like the return to feet and miles, has clearly been floated by the Downing Street team to distract the public from the continuing Partygate scandal that threatens to bring down the Johnson premiership.
    The number of Tory backbenchers calling on Johnson to stand down or face a confidence vote is apparently growing, although it still falls short of the 54 needed by the Tory 1922 Committee to trigger a vote on the Prime Minister’s future. A far greater number of Conservative MPs would be needed to dump Johnson. Half of them, in fact, would have to vote to oust him for the motion to pass.
    Whether the rebels can muster the 178 or so members to take that decisive step remains to be seen. Many think that the grandees will stay their hand to see what happens at the two by-elections this month. If the Tories lose both – Labour is expected to win one, the Lib-Dems the other – then Johnson’s in big trouble. If it’s bad news for the Tories, the Remainers may make their move. But then again, maybe not.
    The Remainers, who are the driving force behind the move to topple Johnson, don’t have an agreed candidate to replace him. Jeremy Hunt is a front runner but there are others who also fancy their chances if Boris goes.
    Sadly Labour is saddled with a lame-duck leader whose only achievement has been to kick Jeremy Corbyn out of the Parliamentary Party and drive hundreds of thousands of Corbyn’s supporters out of the party over the last two years.
    While the Tories fight amongst themselves, the time is ripe for the labour movement to seek out another leader to replace Starmer to face whoever takes Johnson’s place at the next general election.
    At the same time, communists must continue to struggle to put the communist answer to the capitalist crisis back on the working-class agenda whilst building solidarity with the people of the Donbas fighting, with their Russian allies, for their freedom, and fighting for peace and socialism all over the world.

Another romp in the jungle

by Ben Soton

The Lost City. Paramount Pictures, 2022; 12A, 112 mins. Director: Aaron Nee, Adam Nee. Stars: Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, Daniel Radcliffe.

The Lost City could best be described as {Jumanji} for the middle-aged with strong similarities to the Romancing the Stone franchise of the 1980s. In both cases the writer becomes the hero; effectively taking part in their own adventure. Parallels also exist when in both cases a romance takes place between the writer/heroine and an action hero.
    Sandra Bullock, whom I have to say looks rather good for 57, plays lonely bestselling novelist Loretta Sage. Meanwhile, Daniel Radcliffe plays Abigail Fairfax – a rather one-dimensional British villain who hopes to use Sage’s linguistic skills to find hidden treasure. The choice of a British villain may be indicative of the way the current Biden administration views Britain under Boris Johnson. They have never forgiven Johnson for his close relationship with Donald Trump and were not that keen on Britain leaving the European Union.
    In The Lost City Sage gets up close and personal with dim-witted cover model Alan Caprison (played by Channing Tatum). As the adventure unravels however, it appears that Caprison is not as dim-witted and shallow as he first appears.
    The film raises the issue of can anyone become an action hero if forced to by necessity, with both lead characters using their initiative to avoid capture. The two lead actors work remarkably well together, with a high-quality dialogue and a number of unexpected scenes keeping the audience focused.
    As with the Jumanji franchise, it views the world through an American prism, seeing the rest of the world as some kind of computer game. The film is set off the coast of Africa with the local population as little more than extras. This is however, where there were missed opportunities for the story to develop. Namely one of Fairfax’s henchmen, who it turns out only works for him due to lack of job prospects, on his being unwilling to do his bidding.
    Although the storyline is not original, re-hashing an old idea that worked in its day does not always make it bad. Let’s face it, Romancing the Stone was a successful film and there was also an enjoyable sequel the Jewel of the Nile that did almost as well at the box office. The acting is convincing, and the story is mostly harmless but with missed opportunities. As a result, {The Lost City} is best seen as an upper-end B-Movie with slightly above average dialogue.

Pittance pay in the heart of Cambridge

by Carole Barclay

Daniel Zeichner, the local Labour MP, joined Cambridge students and supervisors demanding “fair pay”, a contract and paid training for supervisors at a rally in the heart of the university city last week. These were the people who were the “backbone of Cambridge’s education system” a student speaker said, but the way they are treated is “cruel, exploitative and unsustainable”.
    The protest by the Justice4CollegeSupervisors campaign called for an end to the “gig economy” working conditions of the undergraduate supervisors who deliver the University of Cambridge’s tutorials on pittance pay.
    The University & College Union (UCU) says around half of undergraduate supervisions are delivered by staff forced into self-employed status or zero-hours contracts. Around four in 10 do not earn a living wage.
    Zeichner told the crowd: “I’m here to show my support for your cause. It's 2022. This university, these colleges, have a lot to be proud of. Why have we still got the systems from centuries ago?
    “I’ll say to people in the university: institutions survive when they change with the times. If they don’t change, change happens anyway, happens when people apply pressure. Thank you for what you’re doing.”
    Campaigning can bring change Zeichner said, pointing to the Johnson government’s recent U-turn on a windfall tax on oil and gas companies that was first proposed by the Labour Party.
    Although the University of Cambridge has finally agreed to draft guidance asking departments and faculties to pay for all mandatory training that they require supervisors to undertake, the university's own colleges have so far refused to follow suit.
    UCU general secretary Jo Grady said: 'It is a scandal that workers who deliver the University of Cambridge's famed small-group supervisions are often on poverty pay without any job security – conditions akin to the gig economy.
    “After years of campaigning, the university has made a first step towards paid training. Its colleges now need to do so and meet our demands to pay supervisors for the full amount of time they spend preparing for classes and provide them with secure contracts.”

No way to end the crisis

Some Western politicians are now talking about a compromise peace with Russia that recognises some of the Kremlin’s just demands including Crimea’s secession to Russia and self-determination for the Donbas. Most of it is behind the closed doors of the corridors of power in Europe and the USA; but others are going public. A New York Times editorial recently argued that Ukraine would have to make “painful territorial decisions” to achieve peace and Henry Kissinger, the US foreign minister during the Nixon era, told a panel at the World Economic Forum at the Swiss spa of Davos this week that Ukraine should cede territory to Russia to help end the invasion.
    Of course the old war-monger wasn’t suggesting putting much on the table but merely calling for a return to the pre-war status-quo, with Russia holding Crimea and leaving the Donbas people’s republics in an ambiguous limbo as breakaway autonomous regions of Ukraine.
    Offering someone what they’ve already got is not usually the best opening for serious negotiations. But the stand of the bogus left and much of the anti-war movement, which is still calling for an unconditional Russian withdrawal, is even worse. They pose as anti-imperialists, but their demands are essentially the same as the total war call of the US war lobby and their European NATO collaborators, which threatens to plunge the whole continent into a conflict that could easily escalate into nuclear war.
The communist stand must be for a just and lasting peace in Ukraine – for a neutral and de-Nazified Ukraine that recognises the independence of the people’s republics of the Don basin, Crimea’s decision to join the Russian Federation and equal rights for all the people of the regions of the Ukraine.

Stand by the rail workers

Whatever differences the Tories have over the EU, the one thing that always unites them is anti-union legislation. The proposed new anti-union laws floated in the Tory media last week may, of course, only be designed to wrong-foot workers preparing for a national rail strike over pay, jobs and safety next month. But the proposed new laws to ban “any strikes that did not provide a guaranteed ‘minimum service’ to limit disruption to passengers” reflects the loathing of the labour movement that runs deep within the Conservative & Unionist Party.
RMT rail union general secretary Mick Lynch rightly says that: “To make effective strike action illegal on the railways will be met with the fiercest resistance from RMT and the wider trade union movement. The government need to focus all their efforts on finding a just settlement to this rail dispute, not attack the democratic rights of working people.
“Britain already has the worst trade union rights in Western Europe. And we have not fought tooth and nail for railway workers since our forebears set up the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants in 1872, in order to meekly accept a future where our members are prevented from legally withdrawing their labour.”
The entire union movement must close ranks around the RMT if last-minute talks to avert industrial action break down, to speed them on to victory throughout the rail network.

Creating a Perfect Storm

by John Maryon

Capitalism faces an increasing number of economic that which are becoming more regular and more acute. Its irreconcilable contradictions that arise from the conflict between productive forces and production relations, coupled with the chaos of a market-driven economy, are contributing to a collapse. The conditions exist for the terminal decline of an unequal and unjust social system that's well past its sell-by date. Capitalist problems are made worse by the motive of greed, extraordinary incompetence and a total submission to US hegemony.
    When COVID‑19 struck in the winter of 2019/2020 the capitalist world was still trying to recover from the 2008 financial crisis. The pandemic caused serious economic problems as industrial production fell, supply chains were disrupted, and unemployment increased. Countries such as Britain had already imposed harsh austerity measures that included cuts in the value of take-home pay, increasing the retirement age and making drastic cuts in public services. The conditions for a perfect storm have now been created as the impact of severe economic sanctions against Russia start to take effect throughout out the world. Just when an economic tonic is needed, we have stagflation and the makings of major financial chaos.
    The conflict in Ukraine can be said to be Barack Obama's war. He was the imperialist leader when a western-engineered coup overthrew the elected government and installed a regime that included Nazi supporters. Genocide is a much over-used expression for situations of conflict, but it can be applied to events in Russian-speaking Ukraine. The Nazi-dominated military, with the full backing of imperialism, has waged a civil war against the people of the eastern and southern regions for the last eight years. A period marked by suppression of the native Russian language, the murder of civilians in Odessa and continuous shelling of Donbas that has caused over 14,000 deaths. This to my mind is genocide.
    Like turkeys voting for Christmas, almost all the craven political leaders in Europe have rushed to align themselves with their masters in Washington. Gripped with irrational anti-Russian hysteria and blindly ignorant of the inevitable consequences, they have succeeded in crushing any economic recovery. Shortages of food and energy, stagnation and business failures will accelerate the de-industrialisation of Europe. And it will be the ordinary working-class people who will suffer. Not one of the so-called leaders has had the courage to stand up and call for a negotiated peace and de-Nazification of Ukraine. Instead, the call has been for bigger and better weapons with more cash to prolong the conflict. Undoubtedly most of the money will finance a new generation of oligarchs and many of the weapons will enter the black-market.
    Unfortunately there exists a politically semi-conscious population of do-gooders, permanent wingers and others eager to join any trendy cause, who make a lot of noise but achieve nothing. They fail to examine the causes and effects of events such as Ukraine from a clear class perspective. They, like their inept leaders, are either unwilling or unable to make any objective analysis of important issues and end up accepting without question the overwhelming imperialist narrative of important matters. Ironically, it is these very people who will end up carrying the burden of disaster.
    Economic storm clouds are starting to gather over much of the world, but they look particularly black over Europe. Capitalist economies are already facing enormous difficulties and the impact of their sanctions against Russia will make matters worse. Of course the authorities will all blame the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, for everything. So it is up to communists to analyse events, put things into perspective and come up with answers.
    The picture in Britain today is one of continued de-industrialisation with modest expansion of the service sector. The result has been a significant growth of insecure, low-paid jobs with minimal pension provision, and over 900,000 workers are on zero-hour contracts. Unemployment in February 2022 stood at 1.3 million. Poor remuneration, no guarantee of regular income and with prices rising faster than wages, poverty has increased in Britain to levels unseen for many years. The crackdown, in the name of austerity, has resulted in record levels of demand for foodbanks. All this has occurred before the impact of ill-considered sanctions becomes effective.
    The policy of the New Communist Party is to call for banning zero-hour contracts, ending pay restraint, and restoration of full trade union rights. It is vital to increase public investment in both infrastructure and high-technology industries. We call for fire-and-rehire to be made illegal. It is our aim to create well-paid, secure employment that is environmentally friendly.
    Under capitalism the first effects of efforts to increase productivity, considered essential to remain competitive, is a reduction in the number of jobs available. Without their normal income, these unemployed workers are then unable to purchase as many products and a recession may occur in which the bright new high-tech factory may be forced to close. This is one of the basic contradictions of the capitalist system, with skilled workers being chucked on the scrap heap. The NCP calls for a planned economy with increased public ownership and full control and regulation of the financial sector. NCP policy firmly rejects all variants of an Alternative Economic Strategy, as advocated by social democratic bodies and revisionist communist parties, which is a form of reformist strategy. Tinkering with a system based upon greed achieves nothing. There is no substitute for revolutionary struggle.
    Britain needs new policies that will tackle inequality whilst ensuring peace and prosperity for all. The NCP is firmly opposed to the hysterical warmongering of the British mass media that keeps people ill-informed and totally ignorant of the true events taking place in Ukraine, a stance reinforced by the denial of free speech in banning news outlets such as RT.  I found the latter to be more balanced and fairer, a stimulating alternative to the establishment narrative put out by the BBC in its crap coverage of important matters. The NCP fully supports the peoples of the Donbas in their heroic struggle for freedom.

Northern Rocks

 by Ben Soton 

Northerners: A History, from the Ice Age to the Present Day by Brian Groom. HarperCollins 2022. Hardback: 432pp; rrp: £20.

Northern England – the area between the Scottish border and the English Midlands – has been the subject of numerous books, sociological surveys and Government task forces. In the last General Election, which Sir Keir Starmer won for the Tories, much of their success in Labour’s so called Red Wall was down to talk of “Levelling Up the North”, as well as the obvious Brexit betrayal. Meanwhile, in recent years there’s even been talk of a Northern Independence Party. With this in mind, Brian Groom has written a potted history of the region, with reference to the achievements to those folk knows as Northerners.
As a separate entity the North Country has its origins in the Roman province of Britannia Inferior, the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria, and a brief period in the late 9th Century and first half of the 10th Century when what is now Yorkshire was ruled by Viking warlords.
Its climate is colder and its soil quality is poorer than the South. As well as being further from the centre of power in London, the North has never had the same claim to nationhood as Scotland or Wales. For most of England’s history, with the exception of the period between 1750–1900, the North produced a proportionately smaller share of national wealth.
Northern England has, however, many great cities, and beautiful countryside and coastline. It is home of the outstanding Yorkshire and Lancashire cricket clubs, and a number of major Premiership football teams. And if you watch the many adverts promoting northern counties, it also has plenty of shopping centres, restaurants and nightclubs.
The author charts the many famous engineers, artists, poets and writers to have come from the North. Groom views the north as an essentially conservative place and to a certain extent attributes this to the prevalence of non-conformism in the region; an ironic name for a strand of Protestant thinking that ultimately promoted conformism.
Many of the great rebellions before the Industrial Revolution took place in the South; for example, the Peasants Revolt of 1381 and Ketts’ Rebellion in 1549. The south was the also bedrock of Puritanism and Parliamentarian support in the English Civil War.
Much of this is neglected by the author, who makes the ridiculous comparison between the areas that supported the monarchy in the English Civil War and those areas voting for Brexit in 2016. A comparison that the author admits has numerous exceptions.
All English regions, except London, voted to leave the European Union. Meanwhile cities like Hull, a northern bastion of Parliamentarian support during the Civil War, voted Leave; and Southampton, a bastion of Parliamentarian support outside of London, also voted Leave.
Although just a potted history, it does come up with a few interesting facts. For instance, Lisa Nandy, the Shadow Levelling Up Secretary, is the daughter of the Marxist academic Dipak Nandy – another example of a left-wing academic with reactionary offspring like the fate of the more well-known social-democratic guru Ralph Miliband.
Ultimately, the book’s greatest weakness is viewing regionalism as the most important divide in society. In fact regionalism only glosses over the real division in society – that of class.

In the 19th Century, however, the newly industrialised North fired the flames of Chartism and the 1970s saw two miners’ strikes that brought down a Tory Government. Sadly, this was not repeated in the 1980s.

Fooling the Germans

by Ben Soton

Operation Mincemeat (12A). Warner Bros Pictures (2021). Written by Michelle Ashford, based on the book by Ben Macintyre. Director: John Madden. Stars: Matthew Macfadyen, Rufus Wright, Johnny Flynn, Penelope Wilton, Colin Firth, Kelly Macdonald, Mark Gatiss. 128mins.

Operation Mincemeat is an otherwise outstanding Second World War espionage film spoilt by a ridiculous anti-communist sub-plot. It’s actually a remake of the 1956 film The Man Who Never Was and tells the story of the ‘Twenty Committee’, an elite group of counter-intelligence operatives tasked with fooling the Germans that the invasion of Southern Europe will take place in Greece rather than Sicily.
    The film is dedicated to those who work in the shadows and is narrated by Ian Fleming (Johnny Flynn), the war-time intelligence officer and creator of James Bond who helped devise the disinformation concept that Operation Mincemeat was based upon.
    Much of the story is set around the work of Ewan Montague (Colin Firth) and Charles Cholmondeley (Matthew Macfadyen) and their work to deceive the Germans. They find the body of a Welsh vagrant, Glyndwr Michael, dress him up as a Royal Marines' officer and dump his body, containing fake invasion plans, in the Mediterranean. It was hoped that after his body had washed up on the shores of Spain, the fake documents would end up in the hands of German intelligence, thus fooling them about the invasion of Sicily.
    Much of the film is taken up by the tug-of-love story between Montague and Chalmondley over female intelligence operative Jean Leslie (Kelly McDonald). Ironically, the rivalry centres around the would-be suitors spreading misinformation about the other, using their skills as counter-intelligence operatives to confuse a rival.
    The anti-communist sub-plot involves Montague’s brother Ivor (Mark Gatiss). Concerns are expressed about his visits to the Soviet Union and communist sympathies. The obvious stupidity of this being that Britain and the Soviet Union were allies during the Second World War. Hence the Soviet Union would have been keen to see Operation Mincemeat succeed. This rather nasty, as well as ridiculous, sub-plot could well be part of a broader historical revisionist agenda emanating from the European Union.
    Despite rivalry and setbacks, the mission eventually goes to plan. The body is dumped off the coast of Spain and the British agents do all they can to see it ends up in the hands of the Nazis. The film ends with the successful Anglo-American landing in Sicily, where little resistance is met.
    Those who carried out counter-intelligence operations such as this should be applauded for the role they played in the defeat of fascism. The underlying reason for there being so few German troops in Sicily in 1943, however, was because they were pre-occupied fighting the Soviet Union.

Stopping the War in Ukraine

The Pope calls for an end to the fighting and the Stop the War campaign tells us to stop the war. Pope Francis wants take his appeal directly to Vladimir Putin and Patriarch Kirill, the Primate of the Russian Orthodox church. But he may have to wait a long time for a response from the Kremlin to pious appeals for peace that ignore the root causes of the conflict.
    To be fair the Pope did speak of an “anger” in the Kremlin which could have been “facilitated” by “the barking of NATO at Russia’s door”. But the Vatican has not addressed the central issue of the right of the peoples of the Donbas to self-determination.
    The Stop the War movement shamefully takes an even weaker position demanding the “withdrawal of Russian troops, an end to the military escalation by the NATO countries and for all efforts to be focused on finding a negotiated solution to this terrible war” which is more or less what NATO wants as well.
    The conflict in Ukraine has rightly heightened fears of escalation that could take Europe and possibly the world to the brink of nuclear war. But the cause of peace is not helped by those in the anti-war movement who blame the Russians for the crisis, ignore the legitimate demands of the people of the Donbas and fail to recognise that this war began in 2014 when the legitimate Ukrainian government was overthrown by fascist gangs supported by Anglo-American and Franco-German imperialism.
    The hidden hand is always at work amongst the fake left within the labour and anti-war movement who essentially argue that peace is only attainable on imperialist terms. These sinister forces have long acted as cheer-leaders for NATO and neo-colonialism.
    They serve the war party within the United States –the most venal and aggressive sections of the American ruling class that seek to dominate the entire world in the name of “globalisation” and the “new world order”.
    Some Americans call them them “deep state” – the war lobby that cuts across all party, regional or religious divides to serve the interests of the big corporations and finance houses of American imperialism.
    We must be clear on this. The call for an unconditional Russian withdrawal from Ukraine is just the demand of US imperialism and its lackeys. It would not bring peace but simply leave the anti-fascist Ukrainians and the people of the Donbas to the tender mercies of the Azov brigade and the other Nazi militias of the Kiev regime. Needless to say it doesn’t provide a serious basis for any peace talks and it’s not going to happen – full stop.
    Now, more than ever, is the time for a clear call from the anti-war movement for an end to the fighting and a just and lasting peace in eastern Europe. This can only come with a neutral and de-Nazified Ukraine that recognises the independence of the Donbas republics, Crimea’s decision to join the Russian Federation and equal rights for all the people of the regions of the Ukraine.