Edward (Ted) Nolan - socialist, soldier, trade unionist and tenant activist. RIP comrade

 

I was saddened to hear of the death of Ted. He was a good age (87) and had battled ill heath for decades but I have lost a good comrade. Ted was "old school" East End. He lived in West Ham ward but if you asked him if he was local, he would be taken aback and say no, he was from Canning Town! (the next ward to West Ham)

At 18 he was conscripted into the Army and served as a Rifleman overseas during the Malayan Emergency. In the Army he learnt how to drive a Heavy Good Vehicle and when he was discharged began a career as a lorry driver, much of the time transporting dangerous industrial chemicals up and down the land. 

Being a lorry driver he became a member of the T&GWU union and became embroiled in a number of tough disputes with management to protect workers rights. There was no "ACAS conciliation procedure" in those days. 

He would tell me all about these disputes when he was acting as my "bodyguard" during my Councillor surgeries in the TRA room (following the stabbing of East Ham MP, Stephen Timms, all Newham Councillor surgeries are supposed to have someone nearby in case of  problems). 

As well as a trade unionist he was also an active tenants rep. Ted remained a Council tenant all his life and refused to exercise his "right to buy" his home. 

The top picture is my very favourite of Ted, making his point, at a coffee morning surgery with our West Ham MP, Lyn Brown in 2007 (and local Councillor at the time, Judith Garfield). 

Below is the award by Ed Balls MP in 2013 to Ted of a Labour Party "Certificate of Merit" marking his 40 years of service to the Party. Ted only turned up since we pretended that a friend of his would get be getting the award. He never, ever, wanted any "fuss or bother" for himself. 

Ted is being buried this Thursday and in accordance with his wishes, his family want a private funeral. I will be attending to say goodbye to Ted and the ward will be sending a wreath on behalf of all of us. 

Labour v Tories 2015: It's ideological

Last week I watched Ed Balls give a typically combative speech at the RSA about Tory spending and taxation plans if they won the next election.

On Sunday morning I again saw Ed interviewed on the BBC Andrew Marr programme who then went on to interview Tory Chancellor, George Osborne.

Ed's message on both occasions was not just an anti-Tory rant. I thought that he made an convincing case that in this election there was a clear economic ideological battle going on between Labour and the Conservatives.

Labour are planning to eliminate the deficit by making cuts but also by increasing wages and making sure that the rich pay their fair share in taxes.

The Tories are not only planning to make massive cuts to public spending to clear the deficit, they have announced plans to go even further and reduce government spending to the same share of national wealth as in the 1930s (35% of GDP). When interviewed by Andrew Marr, Osborne did not deny these plans. The Tories are cutting not because they need to but because they want to.

This is an resumption of an age old fundamental ideological battle between the left and the right in British Politics. Ed argues persuasively that the only way that a future Tory Government would be able to reduce public spending to the level of the 1930s, is not only to further slash and burn public services but they will have to something even more damaging, such as introducing charges for the NHS. No other country only spends 35% of GDP on public services without charging for health services.

On this point Labour financial plans are more credible than the Tories. There is clear red water between Labour and the Tories. A battle of ideas between those of us who believe in fairness and equality and that the role of the state is to enable such change and those who think the state has little or no such role and that such things are better left to the "market".

So the choice is clear. People must decide what sort of society they want to live in and they must vote or note vote accordingly and then live with the consequences.

West Ham GC Open Meeting - Professor Ken Spours Institute of Education.

On Thursday we had Professor Ken Spours as our guest speaker for our West Ham CLP General Committee meeting which was open to all members.

After his presentation we had a community Iftar (breaking of the fast during Ramadan) event which I will post upon next.


Due to a work commitment I came in a little late but as I came in I heard Ken extolling the education system found in the "Nordic arc of prosperity" as well as parts of Canada. He wants to reverse some of the extreme Anglo Saxon education models such as the "Grove Revolution" in the UK.  Michael Gove's privatisation has led to one of the most centralised and politicised education systems in the world.

The emphasis on early assessment leads to young people being labelled and not assessed. Ken gave an example of a bright 6 year son of one of his neighbours whose assessment report was next to useless but labelled him as below average with no real evidence.

Ken admitted that he use to be a member of the Communist Party for many years, mind you, he was  "a Euro-communist not a Stalinist".

 Ken believes that you must always accentuate the positive. We need a climbing frame concept of eduction. Educators should not lead from the front or be behind but by their students side. Help people to discover their own talents. This "helping hand" approach he first found in Tanzania.

Unemployment may be going down from a very high level but the young are losing out and are now the new poor. We need inter-generational justice. The Tories prefer inter-generational war. He would prefer class war. But not a Marxist class war (despite still being a Marxist).

As well as a New Education system we need a new type of economy and politics. In one way he liked Gove more than Ed Balls. When Balls was the Secretary of State for Education it was the "peace of the grave yard" and there was no debate. The mass raving debates on education under Grove is much better.

Labour did many good things but Labour cannot just tell teachers what to do. Tristram Hunt MP gets this bottom up approach. We need new values.  Education is too important to be left to politicians. We need an independent Council for Education. Other countries plan ahead for 10 years rather than our 3 year political cycles.

Education should not humiliate kids at schools and should stop damaging them. The future is about being creative. Ken sees top Chinese students at his university who fall apart when asked to work by themselves. Values are the glue of system. The more people understand what to do the less we have to tell them.

He once had to sit next at a dinner to Gove and listen to him say that the most important thing a young person should know is facts such as "where is Belgian?". While Ken accepts that young people have to know certain things. You really need to put them in different and difficult circumstances and not just enter them for a 12th GCSE. What is the use? We live in a problem world not a subject world.

We need a baccalaureate system and hopefully we will have one soon . Students will have to undertake a research project as well as voluntary work.

Ken believed that the Tory attitudes over the schools in Birmingham which are claimed to face an Islamic takeover is hypocritical since they had removed the powers of local authorities to properly  supervise schools.

All schools should be in the same "family of schools". Schools should be accountable to each other and parents. A new settlement would give autonomy and collaboration.

Schools are not an island. We need more confident teachers. We now recruit probably the best we ever had. But they tend to be technically good but cultural poor. The current system gives them the incentive to cheat. All teachers should take a Hippocratic oath. To do no harm but fight for better education. Get a discussion of values and why they are here.

Finally, Education must fully integrated communities. It use to be said that school is bad but better than work. We need to have confident workers who have control. A hall mark of a fully comprehensive system is true life long learning. If we get this then we can have our 1948 moment.

In the Q&A there were many questions. In mine I said that I agreed with much of what he said but felt there was a danger of romanticising comprehensive schools. I went to a former secondary modern turned comprehensive in the late 1970s. While there was a handful of excellent and dedicated teachers who helped me, for many working class kids, comprehensive schools failed them. I was lucky and got a decent eduction but most of my contemporaries did not.

Ken agreed that there were some very poor comprehensive schools were some teachers just gave up. But the problem was not that they were comprehensive but that its values were not fully implemented. There was also the economic crisis's of the 1970s and for many the education they got in a comprehensive was still better than they would have got beforehand.

He compared the criticism he use get as a member of the Communist Party because of the actions of the Soviet Union. People would ask him how could be a communist and he would counter by saying that the Soviet Union was never a socialist state. (I take his point but I am not totally convinced)

It was an excellent and well attended debate and when large CLPs moan about the lack of attendance at GC meetings then they should think of similar ways to encourage members to attend.

Hat tip Julianne Marriott for photo.

"Bankers' pay has become bit of a Ponzi scheme" Ed Balls (& Football Shame)

Sense from Ed Balls and Vince Cable except I do not think that any footballer is worth £300k per week, especially since Manchester United like all other clubs treat their low paid staff with contempt and don't pay everyone a living wage. Wayne Rooney should be ashamed of himself for getting so much while so many get so little from the Club.

Hat tip Observer :-

"Shadow chancellor echoes business secretary, saying most top executives and bankers would do the work for half the money

Pay for bankers and top executives has become "a bit of a Ponzi scheme" and most of them would do the work for half the money, Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, has said.

But the Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney was worth his reported £300,000 a week because of his exceptional talent, Balls said in an interview on BBC Radio 5 Live's Pienaar's Politics on Sunday.

Balls was responding to a comment from Vince Cable, the business secretary, who said he could not understand why bankers needed to earn £1m a year.

Rooney's pay was understandable, Balls said. "There's only one Wayne Rooney and he plays for Manchester United, he could go anywhere in the world."

Very-high salaries for exceptional entrepreneurs like the late Steve Jobs, whose iPhones are sold around the world, were also acceptable, he suggested. But Balls said he agreed with Cable about some bankers' salaries being impossible to defend.

"In some parts of our economy – when it's not a great idea or when it's not the talent of Wayne Rooney – then you do think to yourself these massive multimillion-pound salaries, it feels like a bit of a Ponzi scheme," Balls said.

It was time to "get back to a bit of rationality", he continued. "If somebody actually was to say stop a minute, let's stand back and say is this really sensible and rational, most of those people would do those jobs for half the money."

Cable told the Observer: "I don't understand why people need a million quid a year. I've asked one or two of the more sympathetic bankers to explain it to me. The response has been: 'It's not that I need the money, it is because others get it so I should too.' That is a ludicrous mindset. What on earth do these people think they are doing?"

Future News (Robin Hood Tax)

Check out this great video "The Robin Hood Tax campaign takes a cheeky look at what the world might be like in 2024, with a tax which tackles extreme poverty, climate change and cuts to public services. Starring Andrew Lincoln (The Walking Dead), Bill Nighy (Love Actually), Clémence Poésy (Harry Potter), Heike Makatsch (The Book Thief) and Javier Cámara (Bad Education)"

Below is part of a speech I made recently in support of a "Robin Hood (or Tobin) Tax".

"The basic idea behind the Robin Hood tax is very, very simple. It is proposed that an extremely small tax or levy is placed on each share bought or sold of 0.1% - or for a derivative transaction 0.01% of its value.

In a similar way that stamp duty is already put on buying shares in the UK. The primary reason that many people support such a Robin Hood tax is that it could raise billions of pounds from the banks and financial services industry, to help repair the damage caused by them in 2007.

A form of poetic justice on those who at best were reckless - and at worse - fraudulent – and who very nearly destroyed our economy.

This is why it is called the Robin Hood Tax "To take from the rich to give to the poor".

There is one other important reason. To add to the confusion over names, this idea of a very small levy on such transactions was actually originally proposed before the financial crisis - not as a way to provide much needed revenue but as a means to discourage unstable speculative high volume trading on the financial markets by the Nobel prize winner for Economics, James Tobin. 

A tax no matter how small would have damped down such damaging trading. Ironically if we had a Tobin tax before the crash in 2007 it may well have prevented it happening in the first place or at least had made it much less worse.

Don't believe for a nano second the propaganda being put out that this will in some way weaken our financial services and will make them want to leave London for some unstable and corrupt dictatorship abroad.

I was pleased that Ed Balls, our shadow chancellor, announced at Labour Party Conference his support and that of the Party.

So please support the Robin Hood tax  and send a message to the financial markets that not only should they help clear up the message they created in the first place but also what our pension funds, our life insurance and our saving plans want is their money to be invested in long term sustainable growth, not short term risky speculation by spivs and charlatans".

#Lab13 - Ed's Conference Art

I can't resist posting this picture.  I haven't a clue what point (if any) they were making but they made people smile.

Happy 65th Birthday NHS! We will defend you!

On Wednesday evening during the West Ham CLP fund raising event local Newham MPs Lyn Brown, Stephen Timms and Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls helped us celebrate the 65th anniversary of the birth of the National Health Service (today 5 July).

Sitting are former UNISON presidents Dave Anderson (now MP) and Norma Stephenson (Labour Cllr and member of Labour Party NEC). While UNISON candidate for London MEP Sanchia Alaisa is 2nd from left.           

Edward Nolan - Certificate of Merit for 40 Years Labour Party Membership

Picture of Edward (Ted) Nolan receiving his Certificate of Merit from the Labour Party at last nights West Ham CLP fund raising dinner.

The award was presented to Ted and his wife by Ed Balls MP and our local MP Lyn Brown. It was signed by Party leader Ed Miliband and General Secretary Iain McNicol.

Ted has been a member of the Party for over 40 years. A former HGV driver and Transport & General Workers Union activist.

He has lived in Newham all his life apart from 2 years he spent as a Rifleman while on national service during the Malayan Emergency. As well as a tireless organiser for the Labour Party Ted has also spent much of his life as a respected champion of tenant's rights.

A true Labour Movement Hero.