When your toxic boss hears you're forming a union.

Hat tip TUC
 

LAPFF webinar highlights video 2020 Dec 2-4

Check out highlights of the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum virtual conference for 2020 (only 1 minute 40 secs). Despite the challenges of online webinars there was a number of excellent speakers and lively panel debates. 

Check out some provocative statements from different speakers on varied subjects such as "the only bank willing to do business with Donald Trump...ending up with heroin in a vending machine...everyone wants to talk about achieving Net Zero but not about the social consequences...Covid is a signal that we are not managing the planet...companies are not publishing the Covid deaths of their workers since it is "not a very nice statistic"...Covid has made us realise how reliant we are on workers who are not well paid"

Lets look forward to the possibility of attending a physical conference next year in lovely Bournemouth. 

I will post a LAPFF report on the conference later including the session I moderated on Workforce engagement with representatives from the TUC, FRC and an actual real life worker director on a company board. . 

Trump is Going! Best Birthday Present Ever!

 I would like to thank the people of America for giving me today the best birthday pressie ever!  

Hey guys!!! it's Dettol o'clock!!!

The latest idiocy from the "leader" of the free world. The BBC reports that disinfectant firms have had to issue public warnings that people should not inject or drink their products to treat Covid-19.

Hat tip my UNISON comrade, Eddie Brand, who as the branch secretary of our London Ambulance Service has a professional interest in pouring scorn on such moronic comments. 

Shadow Commander: Iran’s Military Mastermind

Check out this BBC documentary from February last year (on BBC iPlayer for 26 days). I suggest you watch if interested in the current crisis (and history of region) following the killing of General Qassem Suleimani by the Americans last week.

If the programme is accurate (and I think it is broadly so) he was responsible for the deaths of many British soldiers in Iraq but he also assisted in the Bush/Blair invasion of Afghanistan, Iraq and the recent destruction of ISIS in Syria and Iraq which probably saved British lives.

I won't shed any tears over him but have no doubt that Trump has done this to improve his election chances and not for a better world.

D-Day 75th Anniversary - Democratic Band of Brothers V Fascists

I posted this on the 65th anniversary on 6 June 2009. The current President of the United States is of course a rich draft dodger which in no way diminished the courage of the young Americans who died far from home on this day.

"I have been watching the moving TV coverage of the D-Day remembrance ceremonies taking place today in Normandy. While on holiday recently I read the book “Band of Brothers” by Stephen Ambrose.

I had never watched the original series on TV but my 16 year old nephew encouraged me to buy the DVDs when his father and I took him to the Normandy beaches for the weekend on his birthday a few years ago.

The book was even better than the Tom Hanks and Spielberg TV series in one way since it also told the story of the individual soldiers before (and after) the War.

The vast majority were very ordinary working class Americans, many of whom had known hard times during the “Great Depression”. The book is also a more honest account of the very human failings of individual officers and soldiers, who with incredible bravery parachuted into Normandy alongside their British, Canadian and French allies 65 years ago last night.

In these somewhat difficult economic and political times it is perhaps important to remember Ambrose’s conclusion that the proficient, well equipped and professional war-hardened German Army was defeated essentially because a democracy produced better soldiers and armies than dictatorships. The Americans were no more patriotic or braver than the Germans but freethinking liberal democracies produce soldiers with more élan, flexibility and imagination.

One example of this would be if they received orders that they thought were stupid, most of the officers, NCOs and soldiers would ignore them if they could. So despite practically none of the very young American airborne conscripts initially having any combat experience they defeated time and time again superior numbers of German troops.

Recently we have been quite rightly wallowing in our own political and economic class failings that we sometimes forget that democracy is of course the worse form of government - save all the rest.

(main picture is from the Bayeux British War grave)"

A historical perspective on Trump, Lies and Truth

Love it

F**K Trump and join the United Nations Associations UK

In a very clever and timely email this evening the United Nations Association UK send me the following unsolicited email.

"Dear John,

I would like to invite you to become a member of the United Nations Association - UK, a movement of over 20,000 people who believe that global issues demand a global response.

During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump said "the United Nations is not a friend of democracy, it is not a friend of freedom".

We don’t really know the details of know how US foreign policy will change following his inauguration as President today. But we hope that it will remain engaged with the UN and take seriously its international responsibilities.

If you agree that the world works best when countries work together, please join us as a member.

From just £15 a year you will receive our incisive magazine delivered directly to your door and priority alerts to our events, giving you the opportunity to meet like-minded people.

But much more than that, you will be contributing to our work as we equip teachers, inspire schoolchildren, brief journalists, lobby our government and mobilise groups in local communities across the country.

It’s so important to make sure your voice is heard during this time of uncertainty. I do hope you will join us.

Best wishes,

Richard Nelmes
Deputy Director (Outreach)
United Nations Association – UK

The United Nations Association – UK (UNA-UK) is a charitable company limited by guarantee (no. 1146016)"

I have only vaguely heard of the UNA and have become a "supporter" and if it is as good as it seems I will join. Share this if you agree with the above sentiments. 

Trump and the Clinton Campaign (24 November): NHS Campaign Day (26 November): West Ham Xmas Quiz (9 December)

Dear West Ham Labour Member

NHS Campaign day - this Saturday
Labour is holding a National NHS Campaign Day this Saturday (26th). Here in West Ham we'll be talking to voters at a steet staill and by knocking on doors in Stratford. We hope you'll join us.

When: 11.30am to 1pm
Where: near McDonalds/Starbucks entrance to Stratford shopping centre

General Council - this Thursday (24th)
(all members welcome from 7.45pm, Harold Rd Centre, 170 Harold Road, E13 0SE)

We've got a busy agenda with two guest speakers coming straight from the Clinton campaign.

Christmas Quiz 9 December - it's a festive fixture in West Ham! Fab food (brought and shared by members), great company (Labour members!) and a fun quiz (with an infamous guess the crisp round). 7.30pm, Vicarage Lane Community Centre, Govier Close, E15 4HW. RSVP here.

Affirmative nomination/trigger ballot
Dates remaining for trigger ballot meetings to decide whether to re-select the sitting Mayor are here.

Phone canvassing
For those of you who don't like the cold we'll also be doing some telephone canvassing - let us know if you're interested.

Hope to see you Saturday or Thursday or at the Xmas Quiz or ...

Julianne

Julianne Marriott
Vice Chair (Campaigns and Comms) West Ham CLP

e: westhamlabour@gmail.com
t: @westhamlabour
w: westhamlabour.org

Rising inequality helps explain Trump and Brexit

While I hope that the United States will not elect Trump to be their President tomorrow, I was
fascinated to read the statement below at a recent Newham Council Investment and Accounts committee.

"Even if Trump loses, the anti-Establishment, anti-trade and anti-immigration sentiment will not go away until rising inequality with rich countries is addressed and reversed". 

This was in a report by our economic advisers to our billion pound staff pension fund, Fatham Consulting. Who are not known to be any sort of lefty think tank.

At the end of the meeting I asked their consultant if I could quote them (he agreed) and also what other Marxist analysis did the firm believe in? (to which he just grinned).

I think they are 100% right and that people need to understand that the rise of Trump and the vote for Brexit was driven by a backlash against rising income inequality.

Not every supporter of Trump is motivated by this and there was plenty of principled support for Brexit but if you have a rubbish, poorly paid insecure job with no future, no access to decent housing or public services then you are going to be angry and want to protest and thump the establishment.

Ordinary working people either side of the pond feel betrayed by years of declining wages while the very rich just get more and more wealthy.

I heard a Tory minister yesterday on the BBC describe Brexit as a "punch" to the establishment similar to the 1945 General election result. I think he is right about this but I think that the Tories are simply incapable of any meaningful reform.  We need to deliver another "punch" to the system as we did in 1945 at the next General election and elect a radical alternative government which will genuinely tackle and reverse inequality.