Left Field - The Movie

Mixing Pop and Politics - Left Field The Movie

Take a stroll around the Glastonbury Festival site and you’ll see many interesting things from great bands through to the weird and wonderful but one thing you won’t see much of is the kind of corporate branding that’s plastered all over the V’s, Reading and any number of wannabe festival contenders.

On the other hand, one thing that you’d find very hard to miss at Glastonbury is the 60 foot revolving Left Field tower with it’s laser-lit star and it’s images from the global struggle for economic social justice. And below that tower – bang-smack on the busiest crossroads on the site – sits the Left Field itself where we cook up our blend of music, campaigning, organising, comedy and film into a unique blend which pulls the punters in by the thousands.

It’s a real testament to the principles of Michael and Emily Eavis that while the big corporates struggle to grab a piece of the action at Glastonbury, the trade union movement has steamed in, shoved them aside and rammed the banner of international solidarity firmly into the Somerset mud.

We started small at the Left Field back in 2002 with little more than a drum riser in the corner of a beer tent but in that seven years we have grown to be one of the biggest covered venues on site with a stellar international line up to match.

None of this would have happened without the leverage of the Battersea and Wandsworth TUC and its trading arm the Workers Beer Company. It was that connection that got us the Glastonbury gig and it’s a testament to the hard graft of the thousands of Workers Beer volunteers who pull the pints at events up and down the country that their efforts have helped make the Left Field happen.

This year we kicked off with a reggae/ska spectacular for our good friends at Anti Slavery International, all topped off by the Levellers who paid there own way to get on site because they wanted to back the Left Field and our campaigns. That’s real commitment.

Come the Friday and the Alabama 3 were in town for Miscarriages of Justice Organisation and anyone who saw Paddy Hill from the Birmingham 6 rapping to Woke Up This Morning would have felt the goose bumps and the raw emotion just like me and the rest of the crew. Lose that feeling, and you’ve lost the lot.

GMB and UNISON brought in some of the biggest contemporary acts from Poland to pump up the profile of their migrant worker campaigning and organising and Mark Serwotka from PCS got to introduce fellow south Wales lads The Automatic while the crew chanted “What’s that coming over the hill? Is it Serwotka? Is it Serwotka” Magic.

The FBU looked after stewarding and the RMT kept everyone supplied with clean T Shirts which was a rare treat for those of us who’d been on site for over a week.

We pulled off a massive media coup with Carl Barat from the Dirty Pretty Things, and formerly the Libertines, doing his first ever solo set anywhere. He was joined for a couple of numbers by our International Cultural Attache Billy Bragg in a night dedicated to prisoner rehabilitation.

And we do all this under the banner of the international trade union movement and what’s taken me aback is just how many artists out there not only support the trade unions and our key campaigns but they want to be SEEN to be supporting us. We’ve just not been very good at asking them.

So at the TUC we will premiere the Left Field 2008 movie – made by London Firefighter and my co-conspirator at Militant Entertainment Alan Miles – with Don Letts on the decks and some very special guests lined up.

We want to move the Left Field idea on as a vehicle for the trade union movement – tour it around the country and we are even looking at taking it to Austin next year for the South By South West festival deep in the heart of redneck Texas.

MERRILL LYNCH RAID ON GP SERVICES.....

FINANCIAL BASKET CASE MERRILL LYNCH TO TAKE OVER UK GP SERVICES


Campaigners today demanded that the Government intervene to stop the asset strippers from the shady world of private equity from taking over a huge chunk of the UK's GP and primary care services.

City analysts have confirmed that some of the biggest beasts in the world of global private equity – including the financial basket case Merrill Lynch - are eyeing up government contracts worth a cool £1.25 billion for the running of over 250 GP and primary health care centres - with each contract underpinned with taxpayers cash.

Geoff Martin, Head of Campaigns at pressure group Health Emergency, said:

"It defies belief that this Labour Government would even consider knocking out your local GP services to the asset-strippers and corporate raiders from the dodgy world of private equity.

If Merrill Lynch are in the frame to take over primary health care services in the UK, what next? XL Airlines running the air ambulance? It’s a sick joke.

The track record of these guys is to hit and run to maximise their returns. Opening the door of the GP surgery to private equity is the ultimate measure of this Government's obsession with big business and just underlines why their core supporters are lining up to give them a kicking at every opportunity."

Back with a Briefing Bonanza....

After a couple of weeks up in the hills south of Alicante I was a bit cut off from the outside world and when I rocked up at home in the rain and flicked on the last knockings of the Olympics I genuinely thought I’d missed some sort of coup and that the Tories were already back in power.

There on the screen at the Olympic handover was Boris Johnson, the slimy grin of Seb Coe and a bloke who looked vaguely familiar who I suddenly realised was former Tory minister Colin Moynihan. OK, there was some miserable fat bloke skulking in the background who looked a bit like Richard Nixon and I think the slightly manic looking woman who occasionally bobbed up into the frame may have been Tessa Jowell but make no bones about this was the Tories gig and they were loving it.

And then it suddenly struck me – get use to it son cos this is what’s coming and as the remnants of New Labour hit the self destruct button and render our Party unelectable we’ll all be pitched back to year zero, well 1987 anyway.

I read somewhere that Charles Clarke is driven by vanity and delusion. Well, if there’s a vainer ugly geezer than this guy I have yet to meet him and I’ve been out on the tiles with Shaun Ryder! I saw Clarke once on a train up to Labour Party conference and I genuinely thought someone was having a laugh with the prize exhibit from the Royal London Hospital museum – but this wasn’t John Hurt after hours of make up, this was the real deal.

Yes, yes I know, I’m not exactly Jude Law but the point I am making is this – just who the fuck does Charles Clarke think he is?

You could not put a fag paper between him and Brown on policy issues and they both – along with the rest of Blair’s cabinets and the current bunch of no-hopers – share a huge responsibility for the effluent that is currently slopping around our feet.

We can all pick out the abject failures to deliver over the last eleven years that have disengaged Labour’s core support as the leadership have fallen over themselves to suck up to the powerful and the wealthy at the expense of the very people who put their well-paid arses on the green benches and who needed them to deliver so badly.

Health. That’s my benchmark. You may have seen reported a couple of weeks back that the Government have admitted that they will fail miserably to hit their target to close the health gap between rich and poor. Not only that, but on the key indicators of infant mortality and life expectancy the chasm between the haves and have nots is actually widening.

Another recent study has shown that the outcomes for cancer patients in the wealthy areas of the UK far outstrip the survival rates in working class communities.

That’s the indictment at the top of the charge sheet that I would lay before Brown, Johnson and the rest of the cabinet – if a Labour government can’t even make the slightest progress on closing the health gap, and in fact presides over its widening, then they deserve the kicking that the electorate are gearing up to mete out.

And yes, I know that things will be even worse under the Tories but that argument carries not the slightest bit of weight compared to the disgust and anger that huge numbers of core Labour supporters feel about their betrayal by this shower of lightweights, chancers and opportunists.

An East London GP told me many years ago that the best advice he could give his patients was: if you want to be healthy, don’t be poor. That advice could be plastered across the backdrop at Labour’s conference this year rather than the usual bland slogan drawn up by some ad agency.

Willie Williams once sang in Armagideon Time – a tune later covered by the Clash – that;

A lot of people won’t get no justice tonight
A lot of people won’t get no supper tonight

He knew a thing or two about the credit crunch and he also advised us that;

A lot of people gonna have to stand up and fight

That’ll do for me.

LEFT FIELD OPENS EARLY FOR ANTI-SLAVERY INTERNATIONAL

LEVELLERS HEADLINE GLASTONBURY THURSDAY NIGHT FOR ANTI-SLAVERY INTERNATIONAL

Glastonbury’s union-organised Left Field stage will be opening up a day early this year on Thursday with festival favourites the Levellers headlining a very special night in support of the work of Anti-Slavery International.

Fitting perfectly with the traditional, campaigning spirit of Glastonbury, Anti-Slavery International will be signing up festival-goers to their vital work in combating the modern slave trade.

Mark Chadwick from the Levellers said:

"We are delighted to donate our time to play on the Left Field Stage to
support Anti-Slavery International and the millions of people in slavery
worldwide who are denied their voice."

Gemma Wolfs from Anti Slavery International added:

"Anti-Slavery International is particularly grateful to the Levellers
for lending their voice in protest against slavery worldwide by
headlining Glastonbury Left Field's Anti Slavery night.”

NOTE TO EDITORS

Even in the 21st century at least 12 million people around the world are
trapped in forms of slavery which prevent them from making the choices
about their lives that most of us take for granted. From children
illegally recruited into armies as child soldiers to women trafficked
thousands of miles into domestic work, modern slavery takes many forms.
Anti-Slavery International, founded in 1839, is the world's oldest
international human rights organisation and the only UK charity
committed to eliminating all forms of slavery around the world. Slavery
is an inhuman and degrading practice which must not be allowed to
persist in the 21st century. You can take a stand against it and join
the campaign at www.antislavery.org

BENN BACK AT GLASTO

TONY BENN BACK AT GLASTONBURY FOR LEFT FIELD RALLY

Veteran socialist and campaigner Tony Benn will be back at Glastonbury Festival’s Left Field this year to rally the Sunday afternoon crowds on the theme “Another World is Possible”.

Benn, possibly the oldest performer at this years Glastonbury, has been treading the boards at the union-organised Left Field since it kicked off in 2002. This year he will be sharing the Left Field stage with the likes of the Levellers, Alabama 3, The Rascals, British Sea Power and Billy Bragg.

Tony Benn will on the Left Field at one o’clock on the Sunday afternoon for what has now become a fixture in the Glastonbury programme which sees five thousand people jammed into the Left Field to soak up the message of peace, love and understanding.

Tony Benn said:

“When people ask me if another world is possible, I say “of course it is”, and if you don’t believe me come and join with the 5000 people at Glastonbury’s Left Field on the Sunday lunchtime who are crying out for peace, freedom and social justice.”

Geoff Martin, Left Field Director, said:

“Tony Benn has a connection with the Glastonbury crowd that is based on a mutual respect that the vast majority of politicians would give their right arm for. We are delighted he’s coming back to give it another blast and we know that we’ll be jammed full with people who do care about the future of our planet.”

HERE COME THE SICKO'S.....

"SICKO" COMPANIES LINE UP TO TAKE OVER NHS POLYCLINICS

Campaigners warned today that the Amercican private healthcare companies exposed in the Michael Moore movie "Sicko" are being lined up to take over the first wave of health service Polyclinicis due to be unveiled shortly.

Pressure group Health Emergency are turning the spotlight on the United Healthcare - the biggest of the profit-making US health corporations whose Euopean chief is Simon Stevens who used to advise Tony Blair on health policy and who was head-hunted by United to drive their business into the UK NHS.

United Healthcare are already muscling in on UK GP services including the takeover of three GP surgeries in Camden where their involvement is being strongly resisted by a high-profile local campaign.

The Polyclinics plan for large, centralised GP super-centres is the cornerstone of health minister Lord Darzis review of the NHS. There is growing evidence that the Polyclinics will be run by profit-making private sector companies with United Healthcare at the front of the queue.

Geoff Martin, Health Emergency Head of Campaigns who is meeting with Lord Darzi tomorrow, said:

" I will be demanding answers from Lord Darzi on the scale of private sector involvement in his proposed Polyclinics and will be warning him that there will be massive public opposition to the idea of companies like United Healthcare profiteering from the privatisation of local GP services.

Politically it is suicide for the Labour Government to open the doors of our GP surgeries to the Sicko companies with their appalling track record in the States."

NEW LABOUR BACK ON PRIVATISATION TRACK

CAMPAIGNERS SLAM NHS PRIVATISATION PLAN


Health campaigners tonight slammed plans due to be unveiled by the Government tomorrow which will see private companies like BUPA and American giants United Heathcare take over the running of entire NHS hospitals.

This evening, Health Minister Ben Bradshaw admitted that the Government was looking to sell "franchises" in NHS hospitals similar to the selling of franchises for Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Campaigners have set out to nail the lie that private companies have been a success in the NHS, pointing out that:

* Privatisation destroyed cleaning standards in the NHS paving the way for MRSA and C Diff to get a deadly grip on the wards.

* Private companies involved in NHS PFI schemes have ripped off the taxpayer to the tune of billions

* Privately run Independent Sector Treatment Centres have been a disaster with the taxpayer paying for operations never carried out.

Geoff Martin, Health Emergency Head of Campaigns, said:

"The Government's suicide mission to alienate core supporters takes another leap with this effort to privatise the NHS on a scale that even Maggie Thatcher would have balked at.

The big American health corporations will be scenting blood and the opportunity to make a killing on the UK's NHS hospital wards.

There will one almighty row about this, that's for sure."

BRIEFING LATEST.....

So I’ve just seen Alistair Darling announcing his emergency budget as the shattered remnants of the New Labour project pull on every last lever in their desperate efforts to cling to power.

I can understand why. There’s a whole generation of New Labour politicians, advisers and hangers on who have never had a proper job, have lived a life of unrelenting privilege for the past decade and are suddenly confronted with the harsh realities of having to work for a living.

That’s why I find the attacks on the Tories for being a bunch of Toffs laughable. Yes, I hate the upper class and the elitists with a passion – I’ll be the first one to “sup up my beer and collect my fags” if the legendary Right to Work march “row going on, down near Slough” referenced in the Jam’s Eton Rifles ever kicked off again.

By the way, I was delighted to see that Paul Weller turned down a CBE and a picture opportunity with Blair because he didn’t want to be photographed with a “fucking war criminal.” Get in my son!

Anyway, back to the point. Yes, Boris, Cameron and Osbourne are a bunch of silver spoon fed scum but would you seriously expect to bump into Harriet Harman or one of the Milibands in the check out queue at Tescos? No, not unless they were there for a photo op – mixing with the proles in their stab vests with a police minder close at hand.

And that’s how you end up as out of touch with reality as New Labour has right now. Once you become a laughing stock in politics you are well and truly done for and I don’t see any way back. Changing policies – even the big jobbies like hitting the low paid with a crazed tax policy – just won’t cut it. The sense that real people, not just the commentators, have had a gutful is palpable.

My union, the NUJ, isn’t affiliated to the Labour Party but if it were I’d be asking questions about the wisdom of handing over anything other than a basic affiliation fee. It’s like giving money to a crack addict, you know that whatever they promise you they will only waste it on more of the same, and that they’ll look like shit next
time you see them. Check out Gordon on the breakfast TV sofas and you’ll see what I mean.

I live with a highly trained clinician with two decades experience in critical care and she’ll tell you that there is proven medical evidence that you can’t resuscitate a corpse. So why prop up the cadaver of New Labour like Breshnev at a May Day parade and try tell us that all is well?

It’s all a load of bollocks and the only solution as far as I can see it is for the unions and the Labour Left to work up a set of demands based on a real understanding of what’s going on out there and if those demands aren’t met we pull the plug and allow The Project to stew in it’s own juice.

Here’s Geoff’s policy “hit parade” which might just save this Government’s skin:
· A windfall tax on the oil company and bank profits and that money invested straight back in to tax breaks for the low paid, a fair deal for carers and a decent increase in state pensions.

· Raise the minimum wage to £6.50 an hour with rigorous policing as a kick up the arse to the gangmasters and a serious effort to tackle the abuse of migrant workers and to show that everyone on low pay has an interest in sticking together.

· Scrap the whole privatisation, PFI , outsourcing, marketisation agenda and send out a signal that the bad old days of private companies exploiting public services in their own money-grabbing interests are over.

· Stop punishing public sector workers – Labour’s natural supporters for Christ sake – with below inflation pay increases while boardroom pay, the Non Doms and the city bonus boys are all having a laugh at our expense.

· Bring the troops back from Iraq and Afganistan – not at some unspecified point in the future but right now and show everyone that we’ve finally stopped playing poodle to Bush and the CIA.

· Open up youth clubs, sports facilities, rehearsal spaces, radio stations and whatever else it takes to give kids some sense of value and purpose other than just a relentless barrage of exams and educational targets.

· Spend our way out of the looming recession. If private sector housebuilding is collapsing what better time to build council houses, schools and hospitals and youth centres with all that surplus labour?

That’s just for starters and in the Spirit of 68, when these demands are met, a fresh list will be duly submitted….

REPORT FROM BRIXTON ACADEMY

Hope lives on and on
(Friday 02 May 2008)
LIVE: Rock Against Racism/Hope Not Hate 2008
Brixton Academy, London

JAMES TWEEDIE gets into the spirit of things at Hope Not Hate's anti-fascist barnstormer.

Rock Against Racism organiser Geoff Martin reckons that he's "one lucky bastard" to have worked in politics and the music biz, although it hasn't done his hairline any good.

He certainly knows how to combine music and politics, as tonight's anti-fascist barnstormer amply attests.

There's a fantastic atmosphere, like a pub gig attended by all your mates. The crowd is just as diverse as Sunday's Love Music Hate Racism festival in Victoria Park. Young and old, boys and girls, black and white trade unionists, Trots and tankies are all united in the common purpose of having fun and smashing the BNP tonight.

Teenage reggae-punks The Thirst kick off to an almost empty house at the cavernous Brixton Academy, which is a shame as they're very good.

"Brixton's finest," as co-compere and Rock Against Racism veteran Tom Robinson calls them, aren't at all bothered by their sound echoing round the hall or the handful of half-hearted dancers down the front. Watch out for this lot in the sweatboxes, where they promise to be lethal.

Hairy old punk folkers The Levellers follow, drum tight and full of energy. They slow it down and acoustic it up on The Boatman, assisted by didgeridoo player Stephen Boakes. who wears a kilt, clown make-up and feather boa.

The crazed didger sticks around for One Way, appropriately running about the stage like AC/DC guitarist Angus Young.

Maybe the swelling crowd is getting better lubricated, but Carry Me sees the craic in the pit in canny fettle at last. As singer Mark Chadwick asks, "Who says political music is dead?"

The place is packed to the rafters by the time Misty In Roots take the stage. Veterans of the 1979 anti-National Front protests in their home town of Southall, Misty play old-school reggae with no bullshit.

Their classic sound fills the huge theatre with ease, washing over the masses like a warm wave, their Morricone-esque brass trio wailing and lamenting atop the pumping rhythm section.

They sing of African liberation and institutional racism, with vocalist Walford Townsend (below left) saying: "They had to wait until a black youth was killed before they found that racism was an institution."

Electro-country bluesters Alabama 3 hit the stage in a burst of strobes and glares of pure white back-light. Their ambient psycho-billy gets the crowd moving right away.

Co-singer Devlin Love is in fine voice tonight, like a post-pop Edith Piaf.

The band hit the audience's wavelength on singalong number U Don't Danse 2 Tekno Anymore, after which it's a long rollercoaster ride home for these natural successors to Primal Scream, that band of my distant youth.

Alabama 3's super-duper light show and lack of audience banter make it all a bit more impersonal than it should be on a night like this, but a good time is still had by all.

The stage starts to resemble Parliament - of the funkadelic variety - as the world and his mum join in on closer Shoot Me Up.

Robinson lets us go with the order to "kick the BNP's backside." Hope Not Hate in 2008 - right on!

30 years on from vicky park

RAR


When I was in my early teens the height of our aspiration was to be a “face” on the shed end at Stamford Bridge – to be cool and hard as best you could in a stripy tank top and a pair of high-waste Oxford bags.

A few months before I picked up a copy of the first Clash single I’d been thrown out of the away end at Fulham for being an obnoxious little git. I was fourteen and I thought I was Jack the Lad.

So why this trip down the memory lane of my adolescence? Simple. An event thirty years ago, not that long after I’d picked up, and learnt off by heart, The Clash by the Clash, turned my life around and changed me into the political activist that I still am.

Rock Against Racism. The Anti-Nazi League and the march from Trafalgar Square to Victoria Park on the 30th April 1978.

I have hazy memories of the day itself but the sense of collective spirit and energy still flows through me – that and the realisation that you could do something political and have fun doing it with people of your same age group. The mind blowing days in dusty Labour Halls wading line by line through minutes and apologies for absence were yet to come.

I’d gone to Vicky Park first off to see the Clash but I was well aware of the politics of the event. If you were a young punk, bunking the tube and train into town to gigs in 77 and 78 , you knew all about the NF and the British Movement.

One night I narrowly escaped getting beaten to a pulp by the BM leader guard on the platform of Chalk Farm tube after a Generation X gig at the Roundhouse. I was also there the infamous night the fascists took over a Clash gig at Crawley leisure centre where random violence stalked the hall and even the support band – the aptly-named Suicide – got a serious kicking.

I work with a lot of young bands now and when I explain to them what it was like going to a punk gig in the late 70’s, early 80’s, when it was pound to a penny that there’d be a serious ruck, they look at me in disbelief.

So I had the ultimate respect for the girls and geezers who’d launched RAR just when we needed it most and I still think that their biggest achievement was Vicky Park and I can only tip my hat to the sheer bottle they had in pulling off such and extraordinary event.

You see, most of the people there were young – or very young. I’d never been on a march before. Mark Steel tells the story of how he pitched up thinking that you literally had to march in military formation.

And it was a seriously long march right through the East End which thirty years ago was a fascist strong hold at least on the streets and in some of main boozers. We followed a flat bed truck where one of my favourite bands, the Members, must have played the same set half a dozen times – only stopping for a beer and a fag and to top up the generator with diesel.

When we finally reached the park we caught the end of X Ray Spex. We saw Steel Pulse, and if I owe no other debt to the Clash and RAR it was turning me on to reggae.

Then the Clash came on – you could hardly hear a thing as the massed crowd surged backwards and forwards. Tom Robinson rightfully closed the show – the bloke who had not only led from the front against the racists but who forced many of us to rethink our own ingrained homophobia.

If I had such a thing as a moral compass I would like to think that due North would be RAR in Vicky Park in 78. I went to loads of other Rock Against Racism and political gigs but that one event was special, not only to me but to loads of other people I meet in politics, trade unionism, the music industry and the media.

I’m one lucky bastard because I now work in all those fields – something that I wouldn’t have believed possible when I was sitting in the careers office in the summer of 78.

But before I get all misty eyed we have to remind ourselves that the threat of the far right getting serious political representation right here and now is more real than it was when the NF were strutting the streets. The fateful timing of the Vicky Park anniversary, the eve of the London elections, is a warning shot from somewhere.

So yes we need to celebrate our political and cultural heritage but not before we’ve done the hard work first.

HOPE NOT HATE/RAR LATEST....

THE LEVELLERS JOIN LINE UP FOR ROCK AGAINST RACISM ANNIVERSARY SHOW
Fresh from their packed out show at the Brixton Academy this weekend, The Levellers have confirmed today that they will be returning to the venue on Wednesday the 30th April for the Rock Against Racism Victoria Park Anniversary show.

The Levellers will join long-time anti-racist campaigners the Alabama 3 and reggae legends and RAR stalwarts Misty in Roots along with The Thirst and Tom Robinson whose band headlined at Vicky Park. Veteran socialist and Glastonbury Left Field favourite Tony Benn , who spoke at the RAR Carnival 30 years ago, will also be hitting the stage.

The 30th of April is also the eve of the crucial London elections which are being heavily targeted by the BNP and the Brixton Academy show will be the culmination of a national Hope Not Hate campaign supported by the UK’s major trade unions, anti-racist campaigns and the Daily Mirror.

Tony Benn, who will be rallying the crowd at Brixton in a final push against the far-right in London, said:

“Popular culture is a very important part of the fight against fascism and we need the broadest based campaign possible. That’s why I’ll be at Brixton Academy on the 30th April.

We must never let the racists win by default and making anti-fascism something that people can actually enjoy helps enormously. You realise that you’re not on your own and that gives us the confidence to challenge the BNP.

When you get to my age you realise that every generation has to fight the same battles and I am pleased to be able to help in any way I can.”

BRIEFING LATEST - MIND YER FINGERS!

So where do you start on the non-doms business?

I had the dubious pleasure of debating this issue with some knob from the accountancy firm Grant Thornton on the Jeremy Vine Show. The gist of his argument was that if the Government didn’t allow billionaire gangsters to continue to take the piss out of British taxpayers then they would decamp to Monaco or the Virgin Islands. Not only that, but they would pull all their UK investments and blow a dirty great hole straight through the middle of our economy.

And so with their fifth columnist Digby Brown operating behind government lines to destabilise what was in the first place a pathetically weedy approach to extracting anything out of the non-doms, Alistaire Darling ran for the hills in terror.

Let’s be clear, the whinging from the super-rich in defence of the culture of corporate welfare is the ultimate insult to pensioners, the low paid and everyone in the public services who has been told that they must accept a below inflation pay increase to help bail out the government and to keep the vintage Krug flowing in the boardrooms and in the private suites of the Park Lane Hilton.

It was Mandleson who said that New Labour was relaxed about people getting “filthy rich” – so relaxed that they are happy to exempt them from the basic tax requirements that apply to everyone else.

If Greek shipping magnates can get an immediate result by holding a gun to the head of the Government aren’t we getting a message here? Staff on the hospital wards, in the town halls and in the dole offices can’t upsticks and head off to Bermuda but collectively they can make the government feel a damn site more uncomfortable than the perma-tanned gangsters of the non-dom scroungers club.


And here’s a lesson in the perils of PFI. Take a trip to the edges of south east London to the Princess Royal University Hospital in Bromley – but take care if you do.

The Bromley Hospitals NHS Trust has the biggest debts of any health body in the country at just a shade under £100 million – small change to a non-dom but enough to leave hospital services across outer South East London effectively bankrupt.

And why are they in this mess? Simple, debt charges at the PRU associated with carrying the costs of the private companies who built it. This is a brand new hospital but a recent Health Commission flying visit literally found blood up the walls.

London Health Emergency have called for a public inquiry into the financial mess at the Princess Royal and a full investigation into whether or not the desperate efforts to pay off the private sector investors have compromised patient care. We refuse to believe that the two are unrelated.

We always warned that it would take a while for the real impact on health budgets of the flawed PFI hospital building schemes to unravel – there is growing evidence that the chickens are now coming home to roost and they’re bringing the turkeys the geese and the ducks with them. Don’t be under any illusions of the long-term consequences of the dash to PFI public sector capital projects – there’s a long way to go yet.


Many thanks to everyone whose bought tickets for the Hope Not Hate/ Rock Against Racism event at the Brixton Academy on Wednesday the 30th April – the exact 30th Anniversary of the Victoria Park Anti-Nazi League carnival and the eve of the crucial London elections.

Where else would you get to see Alabama 3, the legendary Misty in Roots, Tom Robinson and Tony Benn on the same bill? We can also promise you some very special guests. Get your tickets now for a one-off event which will be the culmination of the London campaign this spring.

RAR CLUB NIGHT ROCKS BRIXTON

The launch of the RAR/HOPE NOT HATE club night at Brixton Jamm on friday 8th Feb was a stunning success.

The club was packed out with music fans and press fired up for the usual RAR mix of pop and politics and for some of us old-timers it was a lovely trip down memory lane so it was a pleasure to have Jerry Dammers from the Specials and Skegsy from the Ruts on hand to reminise about the good old days and to compare the visible signs of middle age.

Essex lads the Marlers got us underway followed by the Mentalists who proved once again that the judges on Channel Fours Mobile Act Unsigned know nothing.

Then the Krak did their stuff and proved what a wise move it was for the Militant Entertainment lable to sign them up - they will be massive and between successive toe-tappers of the highest order they sent out an anti-bnp message to the growing crowd.

Local heros the Thirst showed why they are tipped by the NME to be massive this year - Pete Doherty made it down but due to a hold up at the studio in Wandsworth wasn't able to do a tune but we all appreciated his support for this important night.

And so we headed into the small hours with the Others. The lost bass player was eventually located and the place went nuts with beer sloshed about, a stage invasion and general mayhem. Dominic Masters did the honours with an expletive laced tirade against the fascists. Top work Dom

Dammers DJ'd the main bar and I stumbled off out into the south london night with me voice hoarse, me knees aching and a little bit Guinnessed up but happy that we'd done Red Saunders and the RAR legacy proud.

RAR BRIXTON SHOW

briefing column - don't touch that dial!

When I was a councillor in Merton back in the eighties, a young Tory member accused me of having been a leading light in the Winter of Discontent locally. Her name was Teresa May and she was totally wrong.Far from organising picket rotas, during the winter of 78/79 I was hanging around the gates of the girls school on my Fizzy, thrashing a punk rock electric guitar down the youth club and trying to convince my parents that I was actually working really hard on my O levels.

It wasn’t until a year or two later that I took my first steps on the road of industrial militancy in the pay disputes in the NHS that swiftly followed the election of the Thatcher government. That’s where and when I learnt the truths and the myths of the Winter of Discontent.

An old communist porter, Jack Hensman, now sadly no longer with us, instilled in met that the victory of Thatcher was nothing to do with the uprising of low paid public service workers and was everything to do with a Labour government which chose to make the people doing the dirtiest jobs pay for an economic crisis not of their making. We had nothing to be ashamed of.

Thatcher recognised the power of organised blue collar workers and bust us apart with her privatisation policy but that’s another story.

They say that those who fail to learn the lessons of the past are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past and that’s the path that Brown and his cabinet have embarked on with their aim of screwing down public sector pay for the foreseeable future in the face of the economic turbulence about to engulf them.

This is suicidal stuff. A government that can’t piece together the hard facts of life of escalating fuel bills, transport costs and the basic essentials of keeping a roof over your head and food on the table is on a one way ticket to Palookaville. When Cabinet ministers can’t remember whether or not a hundred grand passed in and out of their trousers the contempt and derision in the dole offices, the town halls and on the wards is surely going to turn round and bite you on the arse at the ballot box.

Few things underscore the disconnected nature of the Brown regime than the sight of David Beckham at Downing Street being unveiled as a special envoy. A talentless, one trick pony scooping tens of millions from stupid Americans on a scale that even puts

· Meanwhile, back in the real world….

The nonsense of the government’s NHS funding regime has been exposed at the Henderson Hospital just up the road from me and a unit that I used to represent as a NUPE official.

The Henderson is a specialist national unit providing ground-breaking services for people with complex mental health problems and has a worldwide reputation for innovation. Exactly the sort of service that the NHS ought to be proud of.

If the South West London and St Georges mental health trust and NHS London get their way the Henderson will be closed at the end of March, a victim of an NHS funding system which takes no recognition of the importance of nationally funded specialist services.

This is a flaw in the system and one that the Government has to step in and sort out before 60 years of pioneering work at the Henderson is sacrificed to keep the accountants and the bureaucrats happy.

A judicial review on behalf of the patients at the Henderson is being put together and you can help the campaign, To sign the petition go to http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/SaveHenderson/

Please help this important campaign.

· And on the road to rock and roll….

The events to mark the 30th anniversary of the Rock Against Racism Vicky Park Carnival this April are well under way as you can see from the ad below – get your tickets now.

And Jail Guitar Doors is ripping along with the support of a whole stack of artists, the POA and others and a great new Strummer shirt is available from www.philosophyfootball.com with the proceeds to Jail Guitar Doors.