“John, I am a long suffering Lambeth UNISON member. I am fed up with these public school middle class Oxbridge toy town revolutionaries taking our jobs and wasting our union dues.Please can they go and play politics elsewhere. All this information is available on the internet. (Check the original "Pass the Sick Bag")
So Lambeth Militia aka Militant, aka Tendency aka Activists aka Permanent Revolution (please don’t make me laugh). They appear to be a bunch of immature young guns for hire ( if they only knew which end the bullets went in).
This is a small ‘Gang of 5’ (dominated of course, as is usual with the loonies, by white male local government workers) or cell that has deliberately "infiltrated" Lambeth.
They don’t even now work directly for the council. They all work for Lambeth Living, an ALMO (Arms Length Management Organisation) in Lambeth Borough. They have no influence with Council staff as they do not have facility time, I am told, to spread the revolution or engage in the merits of a ‘workers government’ answerable to the trade union movement.
In fact their only claim to fame was last summer when (at that time they were led by their now unemployed comrade and ex- public schoolboy, Rajani – see below) they failed miserably to mobilise the working classes to stop the ALMO being set up (as the South London press reported), despite spending lots of UNISON members money in the process.
At the same time the Militia could only muster a grand total of 22 of the 500 odd Lambeth Living ALMO work force to strike during the UNISON 2 days pay strike. And this shower wants a general strike?
The ALMO Militia Blog was only set up because Rogers and co. were sick to death of the Militia posting libellous and quite outlandish statements on the Branch Blog so the Lambeth branch shut down their own Blog as the Branch was near to being sued.
They crow about their 'successes at the Lambeth AGM ' ! Is this the same AGM where the membership, after the branch elections, and despite the alleged charm of the ALMO Militia, left in their hordes ,making the AGM in-quorate with 14 motions (including some sponsored by the Militia) not being debated.
Yep the Militia are certainly raising the political consciousness and awareness in Lambeth! In fact this scenario showed that they are ineffective and sterile. Ted Knight would be turning in his grave (if he was dead that is).
Although James Caspell appears to front the ALMO Militia Blog his ‘team’ , apart from Rajani ,include Sacha Ismail and Ruth Cashman who are both AWL stalwarts - See below.
Caspell (27) and he of 6 Blogs at the last count started his activist life, in his first steps of the Class War, as a failed Green Party candidate in Havering, East London in the May local Council elections of 2006. He was the only Green candidate in an election for three ward seats in a contest involving 13 candidates. He came bottom of the pile with 301 votes, well behind the local ‘Resident Association’ candidates, and the other 3 parties.
Not to be deterred, Caspell then stood and was elected, in Nov 2006, as the Young Greens candidate for the post of Postgraduate Student Officer at the LSE students union. He had just finished his 3 year degree course at the LSE, that bastion of working class consciousness and then decided to work up a sweat by doing an MA in Political Sociology ( probably specialised in ' how to set up Militia groups ! ). He told the Independent at the time "I am also aware the LSE looks good on a CV ". Solid revolutionary motives no doubt !
He joined UNISON sometime 2007 when he got his first real full time "real" job. He then politically ‘matured’ by leaving the Green party and threw his all into shaking up the Green Left before joining the ALMO Militia.
In the meantime his comrade in arms, Heenal Rajani (AWL) was already feeling the revolutionary blast when he faced the threat of disciplinary action in 2008 for publishing the scurrilous (and possibly Libellous) news-sheets via the Lambeth Branch Blog and the Lambeth e-mail system. So it came to pass when Rajani slinked off into the sunset in December 2008 with a nice pay –off from Lambeth Living by way of severance / redundancy.
Of course the Lambeth ALMO Militia did not feel that their recently published manifesto applied to them or even their ‘fallen comrade’. The 2nd demand in their manifesto committed them to “fight against all redundancies and job losses –including ‘voluntary ‘redundancies ' , not when it affects them of course!
Given the fact that I am told that Rajani still hangs about like a bad smell in the Lambeth Branch office he seems to be continuing his fruitful career as the unemployed full time organiser for the Militia. Contacts tell me that the Regional powers that be are also conducting a disciplinary investigation into his antics.
It’s not always been downhill for Rajani. In December 2000 the Oxford University Gazette records that ,"Heenal Mukesh Rajani of Merton College” received an exhibition (award). The same Gazette confirms that Rajani‘s pre – Oxford days were spent at an exclusive toffs school in Hertfordshire. Bishops Stortford College was ‘home ‘ to this AWL revolutionary and with boarding fees of £6281 per term or £4517 (in 2008) for day students it was clearly a good grounding to develop his working class consciousness.
In having a quick look at this toff’s school website, the 2008 Summer News records that a “sibling” (methinks) has ‘won’ a place at Trinity & Kings College Cambridge?
Whilst studying PPE at Oxford Rajani was active in student political life and he shared many a political and academic meeting with a fellow PPE student whose home was Somerville College in Oxford. He also shared the odd football game with the same up and coming revolutionary stalwart and current student /youth organiser for the AWL, none other than Sacha Ismail, being the same Sacha who is a team member of the Militia Blog. Albeit a thoroughly nice chap and permanent student like comrades Caspell and Rajani, contacts confirm that Sacha has led a far more colourful life revolutionary life to date.
On his travels in the Ivory Towers this nice but dim chappie thought it would bring him more revolutionary cred by changing his name from Alexander Salim Ismail to Sacha Ismail ! The student electronic message board of the day was adamant that he changed his name to make himself ‘more Russian’ (and revolutionary?) Sacha of course denied this wicked slur, but kept his new name anyway. Both Ismail and Rajani were active members of the Oxford students union as old copies of the student newspaper confirm.
Sacha had his first taste of ‘Uncle Joe’ when he came 8th in the student elections with the Young Communist League candidates trouncing the baby trots. You would have thought he learned something from this but it was not to be.
His next ‘foray’ involved, as co-chair of the student union Anti-Racism committee, being party to inviting to the Oxford Union ,none other than John Tyndall then leader of the BNP. The student newspaper at the time (May 2000) has Sacha as saying that inviting Tydall was “entirely a bad thing to do”. Needless to say the ‘No platform ‘policy at Oxford came from such gross stupidity.
Students eh! Bless ‘em poor sods, so young and confused! Needless to say this put paid to his later attempts to be elected as Oxford Student President, thank goodness. From there on Sacha drifted into the political wilderness until he found his ideal full time posting with the AWL.
Lo and behold he turns up as an ALMO Militia member to join with his old mate Rajani to fight the revolution in Lambeth Town, which by the way boasts a good number of CP activists.
Watch your back Sacha!
The ALMO Militia also recruited another AWL permanent student to their ranks when they were joined on their Blog by Ruth Cashman. She signed the statement in support of Robin Sivapalan in 2006 as Ruth Cashman Newcastle Workers Liberty.
On a final swansong Sasha’s 'friends' on face book include, Caspell, Jeffries (Dan) and Rajani, i.e.; the so called ‘Central Committee ‘of the ALMO Militia.
John - We have posh middle class people who have been highly educated at great expense taking working class Lambeth jobs in order to further the "revolution". What can we do about this lot?"
UPDATE: Apologies if I did not make this clear but this is a guest post by a Lambeth Member(s). I put in some links and actually edited some stuff out which I thought was a bit too “controversial”. I might I suppose post this in a “Pass the Sickbag” (3)?
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