Friday Video Corner

I saw this, and thought of this:

Happy Burns Night!

Fareweel to a' our Scottish fame,
Fareweel our ancient glory;
Fareweel ev'n to the Scottish name,
Sae fam'd in martial story.
Now Sark rins over Solway sands,
An' Tweed rins to the ocean,
To mark where England's province stands-
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!

What force or guile could not subdue,
Thro' many warlike ages,
Is wrought now by a coward few,
For hireling traitor's wages.
The English stell we could disdain,
Secure in valour's station;
But English gold has been our bane-
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!

O would, or I had seen the day
That Treason thus could sell us,
My auld grey head had lien in clay,
Wi' Bruce and loyal Wallace!
But pith and power, till my last hour,
I'll mak this declaration;
We're bought and sold for English gold-
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!

Labour for Independence, here

Friday Video Corner

Oppose Vona, don't ban him

London is facing a visit from Gabor Vona, the leader of Hungarian fascist party Jobbik. See more from Owen Jones here.

He should arrive to find opposition, protests and information campaigns about the nature of his party. But it is a mistake to follow the lead of some London Labour MPs and AMs and appeal to the Home Secretary to prevent Vona entering the UK.

Never mind the irony of using border controls against a man who is all too much in favour of border controls, State bans of any sort cannot defeat fascism. They allow the far right to pose as victims, a favourite tactic, and set a dangerous precedent. Once it becomes established practice to exclude political speakers from a country because their words might foster extremism or stir up discontent, we move into very dangerous territory. Do you trust Theresa May to exercise this power responsibly? Even talk of 'inciting hatred' doesn't capture all and only fascists. Everyone from anti-austerity campaigners to fracking activists has been accused of it in the recent past.

No Platform is a reasonable policy. There is no reason the labour movement should provide fascists with meeting spaces or opponents in debates. State bans are something very different, and not the way forward.

Better Together? A note on Scottish Independence and British Labour

The last UK general election won by Labour was, you will recall, that in 2005. Here's an electoral map of the result:

Quite a lot of red in Scotland, right? And thus an argument I've frequently heard within the Labour Party against supporting Scottish independence - "if Scotland gets independence, the rest of the UK will be doomed to perpetual Tory government".

So, let's break down the figures behind the map. UK-wide, we have:

Labour (inc. SDLP): 359
Conservative: 198
Lib-Dem: 62
Others: 28

Now let's look at Scotland's contribution. This is:

Labour: 41
Lib Dems: 11
SNP: 6
Conservative: 1

OK, so let's subtract the Scottish figures from the general UK ones. This gives us:

Labour (inc. SDLP): 318
Conservatives: 197
Lib-Dem: 51
Others: 22

This gives Labour whippable MPs 318 seats out of 588, an absolute majority of 24 (21 if we discount the SDLP). This is an election in which Labour didn't do particularly well compared to its recent form.

This argument is dead, it has ceased to be.

What is interesting to note, however, is that a Labour government for England, Wales, and the north of Ireland, whose majority was not supported by Scottish MPs, could depend of the support of a lower proportion of parliamentary leadership loyalists. With the honourable exception of Katy Clark, the Scots MPs are a supine bunch.

Nano-strikes redux

Further to my post on this, Primyamvada Gopal is well worth reading on the de-escalation of UCU action here.

Meanwhile UCU Left have put out an emergency bulletin about the situation here.

Also, there's a paper petition doing the rounds condemning the leadership's present strategy. Do sign it if it comes your way.

'Friday' Video Corner

Pre-emptive, since I'm out of action tomorrow.

R.I.P. Roger Lloyd-Pack, actor and socialist. Oh for the days when working class people were portrayed sympathetically in TV comedy.