Don't Hate Donate - Be the Society that Thatcher said did not exist

This is the best response I think to the death and funeral of former Tory Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher.  Hat tip Don't Hate Donate

"What are we doing?

Margaret Thatcher has died. We want to take the moment when our country is remembering her legacy, to remember the people her government hurt - people who don’t get pull-out supplements in national newspapers. People who don’t get ceremonial funerals in St Paul's Cathedral. The people her apologists forget, or want to forget.

Margaret Thatcher's last years were spent coping with dementia, a terrible illness. If, like us, you were disgusted by how she treated the least well off in Britain and around the world, the old line about not wishing something on your worst enemies still applies. We can’t help but think it’s pretty lousy to celebrate or gloat over anyone’s suffering and death and we don’t want anyone else to do it either.

We just want to place front and centre people who had no place in the Thatcherite worldview. And we want to do that in a way that can actually do some good. You can help us by donating to the excellent charities we have chosen to represent a fraction of them – the homeless, miners’ families, gay teenagers, Hillsborough survivors and South African victims of the Apartheid regime.
Nothing is stopping you doing more or taking the spirit of the Don’t Hate, Donate campaign in your own direction. Thank you so much for your support!

The Charities

• 

  Hillsborough Justice campaign

  Supporting the fight for justice for the 96 victims of the disaster.
  Find out more and donate here

• Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign

  The Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign - seeking truth and justice for all miners victimised by the police at the Orgreave Coking Plant, South Yorkshire, on June 18th 1984.
  Sign the petition here
• 

  Child Poverty Action Group

  We want a society where all children can enjoy their childhoods and have fair chances in life to reach their full potential. We campaign and lobby to make this a reality, and maximise family incomes through our welfare rights work, publications and training.
  Find out more and donate here
• 

  Stonewall

  Stonewall was founded in 1989 by a small group of women and men who had been active in the struggle against Section 28 of the Local Government Act.
  Section 28 was an offensive piece of legislation designed to prevent the so-called 'promotion' of homosexuality in schools; as well as stigmatising gay people it also galvanised the gay community.
  Find out more and donate here
• 

  Coal Industry Social Welfare Organisation

  CISWO is a National Charity which has a focus on the key role of delivering community and personal welfare services within mining and former mining communities.
  Find out more and donate here
• 

  The International Center for Transitional Justice

  South Africa’s experience confronting the legacies of apartheid has played a significant role in the development of the transitional justice field. However, accountability for many issues has yet to be achieved. ICTJ works there to support victims’ rights and challenge impunity for perpetrators.
  Find out more and donate here
• 

  Tutu Foundation UK

  The Tutu Foundation UK builds peace in fractured communities in the UK using a model inspired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s peace and reconciliation work all over the world. To successfully tackle the anti-social behaviour and violence in our communities, underlying attitudes and behaviours must first be addressed in order to build a lasting peace.
  Find out more and donate here
• 

  Shelter

  Shelter believes everyone should have a home. Our work won’t stop until there’s a home for everyone.
  Find out more and donate here

What twitter will look like on the day that Margaret Thatcher dies....

I've just learnt the news about the death of Margaret Thatcher. I will post on her another time. In the meantime hat tip Clifford Singer for "chart" and looking at all the silliness on social media this is so, so true.

Poll Tax 1990: Bedroom Tax 2013

I remember it well. Will history repeat itself? Hat tip Ferric Streets

The Iron Lady

I watched tonight for the first time the film "The Iron Lady" which is about the life of former Tory Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher.

It was an historical drama and not a documentary. While I would certainly not agree with all the political interpretations it made, I enjoyed watching it.

Thatcher today is very much still a divisive  figure: a hero to some and a hate figure to others.

Under Margaret Thatcher, male unemployment in my part of North East Wales, following closures in the local Steel works and textile factories reached 33%. It was an horrendous time and she seemed to give the impression as PM that she didn't care and just a price worth paying!

So I should really hate her, but I have always preferred to dislike rather than hate. The key thing in politics is to attack what politicians do and say rather than their personalities.

Forgetting the politics (if you can) I was pretty uncomfortable with the scenes in the film around her current  supposed mental health and the involvement of her children, grown up or otherwise. It was more than a bit off I thought and it was simply wrong in my view of the film to bring this up.

The actual acting by Meryl Streep was simply superb and incredible. She was Margaret Thatcher.

As regards to any lessons we can learn from this film for the "left"? Well, yes there is. We all know that there are many working class Tories such as Thatcher and we cannot just ignore them and pretend they do not exist.  It is no use just knocking people who share these beliefs we have to find ways to win them over.

The real lesson from the film is that the "left" needs to learn from Thatcher (of all people) that if you have real self-belief and self-confidence in your arguments it is possible to succeed and bring about fundamental change.  

TUC 2012: the long march towards the workers idyll?

A week ago the 2012 Trade Union Congress opened in Brighton. I was there as a UNISON delegate although I missed the final day (Wednesday). Here are some random and personal thoughts on this year's Congress.

I suppose the yardstick for deciding if it was successful or not is whether the movement is in better shape after Congress now than before?

Did "ding dong Thatcher gone", heckling Ed Balls and calls for a national strike wreck our image and credibility? or did the election of Frances O'Grady, the consensual chairing of El Presidente Kenny and the lack of blood on the carpet mean that a workers idyll is just around the corner?

Neither is true. While I have my doubts that it is indeed possible or desirable to call a national strike, the threat of it drew more media attention to Congress than even Liz Cameron's savaging of Ed Balls.

The media are even more obsessed with strikes than the most enthusiastic of ultra left newspaper sellers. The ding dong row was of course a complete and utter ring wing media invention that had nothing to do with the TUC itself.

I do think that Frances O'Grady as General Secretary is a huge advance for the movement. Apart from her many personal qualities and with all due respect to all the good work carried out by Brendan Barber and his predecessors, we finally have a GS that looks and speaks like one of our members and not just one of our activists.

It also seemed to me that the speeches and fringes at Congress this year were more hard headed and realistic than in previous years. There was less grandstanding and pontificating. We still talked to the converted too much and there was some completely off the wall wishful thinking but the starkness and enormity of the threat that faces us concentrated many minds.

 

We are against the wall. We have less than 6 million members out of a total workforce of over 30 million. While austerity, redundancies, pay freezes and attacks on employment legislations mean we either get our act together and organise effectively or we turn into just another protest movement. This makes me think that Congress was a "success" in these terms although it is only the start of a long, long road. During which we need to consider what works and what doesn't?

 

Is the traditional Anglo-American trade union "model" (aka the bosses are all bastards)"fit for purpose"? Do we continue to not want to dirty our hands by providing welfare or financial services pensions to the general public like they do in countries with much greater union density (and income equality)?  

Hat-tip caption Hope Not Hate

Greedy Tosser ft MC Cameron

Not directed at my generation. Did ABBA ever do anything similar in the 1980's about Thatcher? Hat tip Gaza 

She will be back - if you don't Vote Labour

You have been warned! 

Hat-tip thingy "No-one likes a Tory".

Hugh and Fry on Thatcher

“UNISON, the big public service union that doesn’t have many strikes but knows how to win them”

Some recent posts on Labour movement issues that I have found interesting. The headline is from the “Despot David Cameron a stranger to the dignity of Labour” article found here by Daily Mirror reporter Paul Routeledge.

“David Cameron has never had a proper job in his life, and it shows. The son of a City stockbroker, he glided effortlessly through Eton, Oxford and Conservative Central Office to become a spin doctor for a TV company”.... I reckon Cameron has in his sights Unison, the big public service union that doesn’t have many strikes but knows how to win them – like the binmen’s dispute in Leeds – and gives strong support to Labour...

Hat-tip thingy to UNISONactive for this story and for their coverage of another UNISON smart victory over the international services company Sodexo who tried to cheat hospital workers in Devon out of back pay and other contractual benefits.

I like also the post here on Socialist DisUnity (whose RSS feed is my very guilty secret – please don’t tell anyone) by Labour Party MP, Colin Burgon, who I met this year at the UNISON international conference. I have copied the information on “Cuts are not the Answer” for future use and would suggest that grown up progressives of all shapes and sizes do so as well.

Labour affiliates “Unions Together” sent me yesterday an email pointing out that “There's nothing that would make David Cameron happier than destroying your rights at work.

Just a few days ago, Cameron praised Margaret Thatcher's anti-union laws and said he would be "very happy" to go even further to stop unions protecting their members' rights. For once, I believe he's telling the truth.

If the Tories want to get elected so they can roll back our
 hard-won rights, we need to let our friends and colleagues know just what the Tories stand for. Co-sign our letter to David Cameron, 
demanding he tell us why he thinks we don't deserve the same rights at work as everyone else in Europe.

http://www.unionstogether.org.uk/lettertoCameron

While Col Roi helpfully reports that the Torygraph had an interesting article today on “If Cameron was a supermarket he would be a Somerfield”. The author thinks Cameron should be more like “Waitrose” - that well known workers co-operative? Hmmm... can't wait for this stuff to be in Tory manifesto.