Strike Season

 

The news has started calling 2022 the year of the strike, which is a good indicator of the decline of industrial action in a country that used to be famous for it. I honestly could not keep up with the number of strike ballots that have passed. The transport unions on the bus and railways across the country have been picketing since the summer, the Royal Mail have started a series of strike days, and the dockers at one of my former workplaces also came out on strike after years of building grievances. 

Now nurses are striking and ambulance drivers are preparing to take action as well. The union branches in my area didn't vote to strike, well they didn't vote at a high enough margin stipulated by the industrial relations legislation, but it is a national health service so it is still having an effect. 

Overall its quite a turn around from the slow decline of industrial action and unionisation that's dominated the UK economy. I'm not surprised we've reached boiling point, I broke my ankle in a road accident in late June. I don't have a bad word to say about the treatment I recieved both the ambulance crew who got me within minutes of being called and the trauma team and the nurse who oversaw my discharge were professional and quick and kind. They were also extremely hardworking, I spent roughly 8-9 hours in A&E before being discharged and hobbling out of there on a pair of cructches a walking boot and a syringe of morphine. During those hours everyone who was present when I went in was still working when I left and they were working. After checking me they went straight to another patient and then another and another before back to me. Once it became clear from my CT scan that there was no neck or back injury they wheeled my bed into different arrangments to make room for others. It never stopped, for everyone patient discharged three or four took their place.

The CT scan was a bit like the lines at the factory I was working at, as soon as one scan was done out you go and in goes the next person, the demand was incredible high, I was extremely lucky that I was second in the queue. My parents were waiting for me in the discharge room, the line was outside the hospital, and they were doing triage in the line to find the most serious cases. When I left at 9pm the line was still stretching outside. The official capacity for the Accident & Emergency ward at my local hospital was 30, on that day they had managed to squeeze in over 60 at its busiest, and that left a lot of people outside or stuck on a chair for hours. 

And this may be a minor point but I include it anyway for completeness sake, I spent 8 hours staring at the ceiling that day. I wasn't allowed to move until the all clear from the scan. Every single ceiling I saw in that building had large holes in it, and when I went back for physiotherapy I noticed that all the floors at bits that had given way and had been patched up, you feel it when your still trying to bend your leg and lift your foot properly.

Both myself and my parents left feeling relieved the injury wasn't worse but extremely dismayed and angry at what we saw. My sympathies are always with fellow working people when struggling against exploitation and the powerful, but I especially support all the health care workers including the social care workers in these struggles. These people are dedicated and are worked relentlessly, meanwhile their service has been strangled and allowed to degrade and stagnate into this present crisis. And they've been doing this for decades. For years Health Ministers have claimed to have increased spending and ring fenced health care and so on. And yet during that time the service has declined, and Doctors, nurses have been vocal about how the government has kept staffing levels and new applications at the same level year after year, and hasn't approved infrastructure expansion or equipment modernisations so procedures take longer and some of the latest treatments simply aren't available. And the influx of private companies and service providers have meant even more bureacracy, and a further decline in the services as cost cuts and profit incentives are introduced. The fees for using the hospital car park are very high, the revenue goes to a private company and not the hospital. When my mother was in hospital for an operation all the beds in the ward had an overhead monitor with a TV built in. No-one was watching them because they charge for them now, they were free when they were introduced. And insult to injury the monitors are owned by another private firm who collects the money. As bad as parking and tv rental fees are that they don't even raise revenue for the improvement of the health service is just spit in the eye.

The government wish to frame the conflict as just another pay dispute with the unions being greedy with the typical argumentative soundbites "not an unlimited pot of money" and "they're already paid more than x" but if they lose this fight the health system will collapse and the public will be in a crisis. My injury wasn't life threatening but it very easily could've been, it could've been a veterbrae that snapped instead of an ankle joint, and even with an ankle fractue without prompt attention and ongoing support I could've damaged the leg permantly and lost the ability to walk. 

I still have to do regular exercise and walk with a cane for support half a year later. There's no way I could afford this under the private model pushed by the government. So I wish to support them and all other striking workers as much as I can. I decided to share some details to show my appreciation. 

Thatcher’s Tech Base | Red & Black Gamers

 This is a copy of my review for Organise! Magazine's Red & Black Gamers section.

 

Thatcher’s Tech Base (TTB) is a Doom II modification that was released on Friday the 24^th of September, with the help of the websites how to install guide after ten minutes of downloading and extracting I managed to get the game working. Six hours later I had made it to the end screen and a sequel hook. My final runtime was just over an hour, the other five hours were me reloading after dying. I’ve enjoyed Doom, Doom II and Wolfenstein 3D for years, ever since I found them installed on a computer in my town’s internet cafe. Though sadly I was never very good at them, so if you were an old school Doom pro you’ll probably beat my time, and if you’re not a pro then copy my strategy of saving in rare moments of peace from slaughtering everything in a room.

TTB feels like Doom II, its pacing, its maze and gauntlet mix for level design, the soundtrack is original but aside from a few tunes inspired by old British patriotic jingles like Land of Hope and Glory are just like the soundtrack to the original Doom II. The webpage has a bandcamp that plays some of the tracks and I’ve been listening to them while writing this. The levels are covered and I do mean covered in detailed sprite work that’s gory and gross, and full of highly detailed 1980s propaganda posters and graffiti. The only parts of the game that show that it's a 2020's modification and not from the 1990s (when shareware mods were common) are the things it does that were simply impossible back then. Other than a short opening section in a demon prison where Thatcher and her acolytes have escaped, the entirety of the game including boss battles and secrets is in one level. That’s over an hours worth of gameplay with dozens of unique assets with no loading in between. The sprite work that covers the walls of this world is just too crisp and clear for an older machine to have run, you can read most of the gravity and text on the vote Tory posters.

The plot is very simple, Thatcher has gained control of a part of hell and is attempting to return and bring an army of demons and party activists with her. Its the players task to go to the tenth circle of hell ie. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to stop her. The demonic horde is quite diverse, most of the roster of enemies from Doom II are here but have been given a light blue makeover. Jokes aside the world of TTB does look like a hell version of the late 1980s/1990s UK. Apart from some very brief text boxes the old Doom games told their stories through environmental design and TTB maintains that tradition. You can tell Thatcher has escaped because the prison at the beginning has a lot of corpses of guards and busted open cells and damaged machinery. You can tell you’re getting closer to the final confrontation the more closely the scenery resembles a Tory party HQ and the British government. The final showdown with a Cyber Thatcher (see the box art) is in the House of Commons complete with both aisles full of sycophants willing to fight to the death to protect her.

Though this does mean that the game has a target audience of people who are already intimately familiar with the legacy of the Thatcher’s government and her successors, something the game acknowledges by being dedicated to them, and since this is a modification of a licensed property, instead of payment which is illegal due to copyright law, the game devs at Doom Daddy Digital recommend that you donate to one of several charities on their webpage. The charities are ISWO support for Mining families, Stonewall, The Hillsborough Justice Campaign, ICTJ The International Center for Transitional Justice, Living Rent, and the Scottish Refugee Council. This might at first glance seem a bit of random list but they all represent some of the victims of the Thatcher government, Mining communities were ripped apart and occupied for over a year, queer Britons were left to die through AIDs with the UK government only taking action once it had definitely started affecting heterosexuals, but even after that gay people were still criminalised and scapegoated (Ed. Google Section 28), Hillsborough was of course where the police managed to kill 97 Liverpool FC fans, which was covered up by the government in 1989 and to this day the families of the deceased are still battling government indifference and inertia, the ICTJ campaigns to expose systematic human rights abuses and given that Thatcher’s administration escalated the conflict in Northern Ireland and turned parts of Britain into militarised states. Living Rent is one of the many groups dealing with the ugly aftermath of one of the Conservative government’s flagship policies, mass selling off of council housing and deregulation of the housing market, and the Scottish Refugee Council, well in addition to using Scotland as a test bed for most of their reactionary policies before rolling them out to the rest of the UK, the Tory party of the 1980s was also openly hostile to refugees, which to be fair is an example of the continuity of British government rather than a break with tradition.

I’m old enough to remember the lingering effects of the Conservative governments of the 1980s and 1990s partly because the Labour governments that followed did very little to change or counter act that legacy. So I ate everything TTB was serving me. I understood that the NUM stickers on the walls were about the 1984-85 Miners strike, I understood the graffiti that were references to the IRA and the fighting in Northern Ireland, I understood why the 1% health pick ups are milk cartoons and why the words “you’ve snatched some milk” flash on the screen when you pick them up. I also chuckled a little when I noticed that the evil base full of dripping acid and exploding barrels has health and safety at work signs. And I understood what the red baiting vote Tory posters were getting at. But I don’t think that’ll be easily understood by someone playing this without that prior knowledge.

 

To take just one example, there’s a really clever part of the level that’s a BBC communications room, in it there are two banks of monitors with images of the UK and groups of blue uniformed soldiers at the desks. I enjoyed seeing this, but if you didn’t know just how overtly pro government the BBC was during this period and how the Conservative party used it to manipulate the population I think a lot of the messaging is lost. I do wonder what a Doom completionist who plays TTB with no real knowledge of Thatcher but loves the game and its modding scene would think. Hopefully the strengths of the game and the sheer never ending examples of just how hated Thatcher and the Tory party were will pique their curiosity and they’ll learn more about it when they’ve made it to the end screen or gotten a 100% of the secrets. On my first full playthrough I only managed 11% of secrets, and there’s an entire path of the level locked behind a series of doors that needed a red key card to access which I never even saw, so after finishing I dived back in, though I will probably have to wait for someone else to write up a walkthrough.

In summary, if you like the old Doom games you should play this game its in the top tier of mods and games inspired by them. If you remember the Thatcher administration and its austerity and police state actions, you should play this game even if you don’t like Doom games. It’ll take a few minutes for you to adjust but once you’ve got the hang of using a Winchester rifle and grabbed the Trident missile launcher you will find some catharsis. If neither applies to you, I would still say give the game a go, even if the game play doesn’t click and you don’t come away with an in-depth understanding of the damage the combination neoliberal economics and patriotic traditionalism and respect for authority can do to a people, you will at least get a taste of how varied and visceral the resistance to it was.

 

Reddebrek
www.reddebreksbowl.blogspot.com

You can learn more about Thatcher's Tech Base and play it yourself via their Github.
https://thatchers-techbase.github.io/

 

 

Bonus Screenshot gallery 

 

 

1972: Dockworkers Strike

1972 was a big year for strikes and labour unrest in the UK. Famously the Miners strike of 1972, seen as a opening fight in the big conflict between the Miners and the government in 1974, which lead to the defeat of Ted Heath. But there was also a serious builders strike which involved a young Ricky Tomlinson who was one of the Shrewsbury 2, arrested for picketing. Residents of Kirkby held a massive rent strike in the same year.

And there was a nation wide strike of dockers. The strike was motivated by growing government interference in labour disputes with its new legislation on union activities, planned redundancies after the container revolution and other technological improvements meant employers felt confident they could pay fewer people to do more work, and the growing monopolisation of the shipping industry.

Cinema Action made a short documentary on the picket lines of the strike and its very interesting. Trade Unions in Britain have a reputation of being extremely conservative and sluggish, so it was surprising to see a strike organised mostly by the shop stewards that pushed the bureaucracy much further than they wanted to go. And we hear many striking dockers denounce capitalism, how capitalism uses technological progress purely to increase profits instead of as means to improve conditions and lives of everyone.

And several dockers outline how the attitudes of both Labour and Conservative governments to the industry and the dock workers isn't particularly different. Labour governments have also a pretty dark track record of handling disputes in that industry.

"We've got this tremendous struggle by the employing class, for the survival of their profits. And that means they're going to intensify the struggle against the working class in order to maintain their profits. Anybody that advocates going along with the law as a kind of a tactic and wait for a general election so that the next government can repeal it, is just ignoring history.

Because the law we've got today is just a reflection of all the governments we've ever had in the past, every government that we've ever had in Britain has been a government that has tried to anchor off the working class in one way or the other. It happens to be a Tory government this time, the last one was a Labour government who laid the blue print for it.

And unless we can return to the masses, to the workshop floor, that the workers themselves who are working there every day of the week, clocking on, clocking off. Getting a pittance for the work that they do for the employers. Unless we can get that in our own head, that we can fight this battle and win. Then we'll lose."




Link https://youtu.be/qQGnKf58fkg

Turns out it Wasn't Jezza's Fault After All

 

Yes it seems that Brexit wasn't the fault of Jeremy Corbyn or decades of scaremongering about immigrant hordes. No the real culprit here was..... Gay Marriage!

Well according to the Daily Mail anyway,

The proposal, which had not been in the Tories’ 2010 election manifesto, was vehemently opposed by about half of his parliamentary party — who happened also to be the most Eurosceptic — and appalled countless members of local Conservative associations.

This was seized on by Nigel Farage. I had lunch with Ukip’s leader at that time and I recall two things above all from it.

First, how disgusted he was that I did not want to have a drink before sitting down; and second, how gleeful he was at the way the gay marriage row was sending shire Tories in droves to switch to Ukip membership. 

Though Farage himself is a libertarian, and definitely no moralist, he exploited this to the full.

This and the full part of the article is in a word bollocks. The only part of the narrative being peddled by Charles Moore that's even remotely accurate is that Same sex marriage was divisive within the Tory party. Everything else is simply misrepresented.

For starters David Cameron had already taken steps to appease his Eurosceptic base before Same sex marriage became a talking point in 2013. In 2009 back when Cameron was just a party leader he took the Conservative party out of the European Peoples Party, the EPP is the main coalition of right wing parties in the European Union. Many of whom like Germany's CDU are staunchly pro EU, and the group as a block opposed a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty which the Conservative party were campaigning for. Instead he took the Tory's into a coalition called the European Conservatives and Reformists, working together with parties such as the homophobic Law and Justice Party in Poland, the National expansionist Bulgarian National Movement which is hostile to minorities and dreams of a "Greater Bulgaria" annexation of other territories like Macedonia.

This was clearly a move designed to appease the Eurosceptics as it diminished the Conservative parties influence in the EU and allied them to some very strange and extreme parties. At the same time the Tory party was also building up opposition to the Lisbon treaty, though it was ratified in parliament.

But what about 2016 and Brexit/Bremain? Well its true that the same sex marriage vote split the Conservative party who voted 126 for to 134 against, but that doesn't mean that same sex marriage killed the UK's EU membership. All this shows is that the issue widened a rift within a party, we're currently seeing the same thing happening in the Labour party over Jeremy Corbyn. There were many options open to Cameron, including give a referendum on the EU and fight a winning campaign. What cost Cameron his job and his victory were his own failings.

The victorious leave campaign was based on two platforms, immigration, and austerity, remember the £350 million going to the EU that could go the NHS slogan? The one leavers have already backtracked on, IDS, and Farage. Both problems were the governments making, Cameron's government's spending cuts and refusal to either take steps to lower immigration, or educate the population on the realities of migration other six years gave his opposition free movement to whip up the mood against him. Hell he announced this referendum in 2013, that's three years head start he gave himself, and squandered.

Hell this one combines both slogans

Gay marriage wasn't even a bullet point on the leave list.

So no Gay marriage did not kill Britain's EU membership and Cameron's "legacy", he did with his own poor decisions and inability to fight a winning campaign.

Mandela: What they said

Courtesy of Socialist Meme's

As I'm sure you've all heard Nelson Mandela passed away aged 95 on Thursday (in my time zone). South Africa's first black president is one of the few world leaders to have overwhelming support throughout the world and across the spectrum. As a result every politico worth a soapbox was tripping over themselves to grab some media attention saying how inspiring he was, and great loss to the world etc.

But as the above image courtesy of the Federation of Conservative Students,  shows it wasn't always like this. Before the 1990's Mandela's list of admirers though still lengthy came in two colours, Black and Red. Most right wing groups including the American Republican party and British Conservative party where did all they could to support Apartheid and undermine the ANC however they could. In fact so pronounced was the Tories support for Apartheid South Africa that during the Poll tax riots in London when resentment of Tory rule boiled over a key target for the riotous anger was South Africa House

I say goodbye and walk back to Trafalgar Square. Jesus! The portakabins on Grand Buildings have been set ablaze. Massive fires climb up the side of this office development. I vaguely consider such an action as a bit over the top. Oh shit. I forget that’s what it is all about isn't it. As I feel the heat from the fire, I wonder how more mental it’s gonna go. I still can’t see any of my friends in the area but over on the left I can see that somebody's set alight to the South African Embassy. I love the person who did that!

So instead of adding my own insipid platitudes to the mix I think I'll just dig up the past (I do love history after all) and see what more then a few of the well wishers would like us all to forget.


Tories:

In addition to some snappy posters the Tories were quite outspoken on the subject.

'The ANC is a typical terrorist organisation ...  - Margaret Thatcher, 1987

 In response to the assertion that the ANC would target British companies many of whom her husband was connected to, operating in South Africa.

 Anyone who thinks it is going to run the government in South Africa is living in cloud-cuckoo land' Bernard Ingham 1987

Press spokesmen for Thatcher who ridiculed the idea that the ANC might come to power to justify keeping them out of the negotiations.

'How much longer will the Prime Minister allow herself to be kicked in the face by this black terrorist?' - Terry Dicks MP, mid-1990

 When Mandela refused to meet Margaret Thatcher on his trip to London. Can't imagine why he'd do such a thing.

'Nelson Mandela should be shot' - Teddy Taylor MP, mid-1980s

Don't know the context for this but Taylor admitted he said it and its pretty unambiguous.

 'Because of his age, Mr Cameron is looking at these events as part of history. Others of us who lived through them and had input into the discussions at the time see things very differently. The policy of the Thatcher government was a success.Tebbit 2006

Tebbit wasn't pleased (is he ever?) when David Cameron publicly broke with Thatcher's policies on South Africa.

Republicans:

 

"Our relationship with South Africa ... has always over the years been a friendly one,"

Ronald Reagan in 1985.

 Just as the left in 81 wanted to make El Salvador the big Issue, the College Republicans responded with a Poland campaign- same point made.... Its not all black and white and awful

Grover Norquist speaking to the National Student Federation, a pro Apartheid Student organisation with links to the South African Defence Force in 1985.

 The U.S. should cease advocating the release of Nelson Mandela until he forswears violent change in South Africa.Jeff Gayner July 1986

Article published to argue against sanctions and for reinvestment in South Africa while dropping any support for the ANC.

The Liberal media has for too long suppressed the other side of the story in South Africa. They tend to only go to two or three black ministers with the South African Council of Churches -which by the way, funds the leftist United Democratic Front- and then purport to speak for the whole population of South Africa! Please write to your Congressman and Senators express your views regarding economic sanctions against South Africa. Jerry Falwell 1985

Jerry Falwell Televangelist and close ally to the Reagan Administration was one of South Africa's biggest supporters, going so far as to encourage his viewers to buy Kruggerands.

If you want support from American blacks you have to bash South Africa, I think that's bad. Pat Robertson 1988

 Pat Robertson lamented that his support for South Africa was undermining his Presidential Election bid.

Yasser Arafat, Nelson Mandela, and former dictators from India, Cambodia, the Congo, and elsewhere travel freely around the world. Phylis Schaffly 1998

The arrest of Pinochet provoked a tirade from Phylis during which she lumped Mandela with a number of Dictators claiming the ICC is hypocritical.

The liberal media has for too long suppressed the other side of the story in South Africa - See more at: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/remembering-religious-rights-attacks-nelson-mandela#sthash.svLNe8Qm.dpuf

  the ANC 'at the time was viewed as a terrorist organization and had a number of interests that were fundamentally inimical to the U.S.' Dick Cheney 2000

Explaining his vote opposing the release of Mandela from prison.

In 1985 Congress passed legislation for Sanctioning South Africa, Reagan used his Presidential Veto to derail it. It wasn't until 1986 with Reagan's reluctance to move on the issue increased support for sanctions and a super majority pushed through a Sanctions act.

Even after this legislative defeat right wing Americans continued to maintain links with South African agencies.

A conservative think tank with ties to U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms and other prominent Republicans was actually a front for South Africa's white rulers during the last days of apartheid, New York Newsday reported Sunday.

The Washington-based International Freedom Foundation, founded in 1986, was part of a South African intelligence-gathering operation and was designed to be an instrument for ``political warfare'' against apartheid's foes, according to Newsday.

 Disgusting but all in the past as most politicians have been busy mining wikiqoute for there own eulogies and or book tours. So we've seen the end of this love affair of Apartheid and tut tutting at the uppity oppressed right?

Wrong: here's what our modern day "Patriots" had to say about it just a few days ago.











 







Screens courtesy of EDLNews

You know I don't think the boys and girls of the Fash realise how problematic there little party is nowadays. In the 80's this would be expected (well it still is expected but bear with me) partly because the language of the Far Right was still heavily tied with Nazi talk of the master race, and the superiority of white people. As such the breakdown of Apartheid was more then a source of disappointment it was a major threat to there ideology. If White people really are superior then why can't they keep control of Blacks, Asians and Jews and Communists even with a highly militarized society and the freedom to pass or by pass any law they feel like?

The Apartheid regime had every advantage apart from numbers, a completely controlled and explicitly racist political and legal system. An advanced military machine, an expansive security apparatus with dozens of fronts for intelligence and policing units, the support of powerful governments (though one was Israel) and God, until the Dutch Reform Church removed support in the 80's. And yet they lost and had to put there fates in the ANC's hands and hope for the best.

But nowadays most right wing groups are pushing a "Freedom for Whites" agenda based on the argument that Whites are the ones being threatened and oppressed. In the new Far Right narrative they think of themselves as much closer to Mandela then PW Botha. So there's no real way to explain there joy other then plain and simple racism. Which of course most right wing organisations like the BNP and EDL spend a lot of time trying to deny. So there really just shooting themselves in the foot.

"Our relationship with South Africa ... has always over the years been a friendly one," - See more at: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/07/18/apartheid_amnesia_gop_nelson_mandela?page=full#sthash.O6pLQoxY.KBKM1dXS.dpuf

"Our relationship with South Africa ... has always over the years been a friendly one," - See more at: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/07/18/apartheid_amnesia_gop_nelson_mandela?page=full#sthash.O6pLQoxY.KBKM1dXS.dpuf

March in Manc

On Sunday I went with some friends in UNITE and UNISON to the Tory Conference in Manchester. The weather was very warm and the turnout was around 55,000, apparently that's a record for Manchester. I took my camera along and for the most part the atmosphere was bright, I believe the news described it as jovial and like a carnival.

I took my camera so here's a few of the least blurry snaps. It was mainly the Labour party with a few SWP and SP stalls. Though I was close to a small Communist Party of Britain section, and I did see an Anarchist flag with a small group of UNISON members. There was also quite a few Badger masks and placards protesting the ongoing cull.

Preventing the sale of alcohol, they really are the nasty party

In addition to being a local banner its a good example of the problem being a street level photographer can be

Saw a couple other Wobblies here and there

They did a very good rendition of the Internationale

Spotted Scargill's lot

You'll have seen these chaps on the telly I'm sure

Caught up with Batman, the recession must of hit Waynecorp pretty hard

Overall the march went well, doubt much will have changed, a protest march and sit ins and the like are useful when they're part of a more extensive series of actions like strikes and blockades. Though it looks like the Trots either have no presence in Manchester or have haemorrhaged members, most SWP and SP stalls had two members and the leafleters combined with the AWL (another Trotskyist group) looked to be matched by the Peoples Assembly guys. And as far as I'm aware the only political party other then Labour to have a proper section on the march was the CPB. 

And in addition to the CPB the Morning Star supporters showed up