editorial staff on the Sun were a bunch of w**kers! How dare they?
READING A COPY of the Sun I found on a station buffet table the other day, I came across another article in the series slag
Aging off the antics of the ousted Labour council in Ealing. Marvelling at the variety of terms the writer had found as synonyms for "barmy" to describe what was no more than a right wing council in sheep's clothing, I was more amazed still to see how lamentably the article had failed to come up with anything really wasteful and stupid.
Indeed several of the items of expenditure seemed not only extremely modest, but perhaps insufficient to meet a real need.
How many Sun readers would really wax indignant for example at the fact the council spent just £41,000 on providing courses in typing and self defence for women living on its housing estates?
We know the stereotype Sun reader is a lumpen thug who believes all women belong in bed or behind the sink: but how many would really take offence at the idea of women learning a useful skill, and being able to defend themselves against violent attack - paid for "on the rates"? Left on the table? *IT SLIPPED THROUGH on the nod: the right wing press will go wild when they see what it says!" exclaimed a jubilant Socialist Organiser supporter, after their Workers Rights Charter slipped through the NALGO conference.
I hope he didn't hold his breath waiting for the furore. The Charter's generalised formulations against sin and for democratic rights (including unionisation of police and armed forces) have not been the cause of much concer among the ruling class or the labour movement bureaucracy.
It was not so much that it went through on the nod: it just had everyone nodding off! A plonker on the loose IT WAS A STRANGE sensation, being greeted by NUPE's general secretary Rodney Bickerstaffe at a social during the COHSE conference as if l was a long-lost acquaintance.
It was so unlike the last time I had spoken to him, when he berated me for an article critical of NUPE's line on the NHS pay dispute in 1982. Was this a new shift towards the hard left?
Then I realised everyone else was getting the same treatment, and that for once Rodders had been allowed to wander freely without minder' Tom Sawyer standing over his shoulder. He was desperate to seem friendly.
For Bickerstaffe the summer conference season must simply fly by: only then does he have the chance to come out and meet the world. The rest of the time he is put back in the broom cupboard at NUPE's head office, while Sawyer gets on and runs the union.
By Harry Sloan
A New Fund for Revolutionaries
Socialist Outlook has recently established a fund for the groups of revolutionaries that have been established in Poland, Czechoslovakia and the GDR. This is a very important initiative - building a revolutionary alternative in E. Europe is a vital counterweight to the current right wing.
pro-market offensive; and is obviously key to the future of the revolutionary socialism.
Comrades should attempt to raise funds for this appeal as widely as possible. All of the money raised will go directly to the comrades in the East. Even small sums go a long way in the East -
Our first target is to raise funds for 2 groups of comrades in Poland - in Warsaw and Wroclaw. In a very adverse political atmosphere, they are putting forward a socialist alternative - participating in the recent railworkers strikes and standing candidates in the local elections, for example.
However, they are hampered by a complete lack of elementary equipment to produce propaganda, communicate with socialists in other countries, and so on.
Cheques can be made out to "Outlook International", or comrades can make a regular donation by using the standing order form below. We will give a regular update on funds raised and what
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40-07-30) for the account of Outlook International (account number 21168819) the sum of
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