The end of the road for Respect

The end of the road for Respect.

Today i received this E-Mail from Tower Hamlets Respect:

“Dear Esteemed Members,

Tower Hamlets shall be hosting a Members & Activists meeting this Tuesday at 7pm to discuss how we can actively help elect Lutfur
Rahman as the first Executive Mayor of Tower Hamlets.

Please arrive by 6.50pm for a 7pm prompt start.

Location: ………… (I have left blank for security reasons)
View on Map: Click Here
Nearest Tube: …….. DLR or Overground [can use Oyster]

Another meeting is scheduled to take place in the building from 8pm, so please arrive promptly for 7pm.

Best wishes,

Abul Hussain
Secretary, Tower Hamlets Respect

And my reply to the crazy idea of Respect actively supporting Lutfur Rahman:

“My wife and i have now resigned from Respect after six active years years membership as a result of this appalling decision to support Lutfer Rahman. I shall not of course be attending this meeting. Respect should have stood a candidate (I don’t agree with elected Mayors but that is a different argument) and at the very worse Respect shouldn't’t have taken sides between one faction in the Labour Party and another, a party who we have fought against for some years now both in Tower Hamlets and many places outside. It is certainly not the role of Respect to be power brokers in a Labour Party split and all the “wheeling and dealing” that this involves.
I leave you with the words of Lutfur Rahman that are in his own blog this very week. How on earth did we get into a position where we support a person like this?

“My Politics
Under my leadership, Labour returned 41Councillors and two MPs - the best result for us since 1998 - and obliterated Respect as a political force in the process.”
Lutfur Rahman on his blog this week.

http://www.lutfurrahman.com/politcs.php

And this is the man you want to “actively help” as an Independent - accountable to whom i may ask??

Neil Williams
Ex Respect
Milton Keynes”

I hope some Respect members will also speak out while there are some members to still speak out that is!

Link: More debate on this issue aon the Socialist Unity blog.

Libs - Dems - Wallowing in power

Wallowing in power - Morning Star Comment.

You have to say that the Lib-Dems are full value in the entertainment stakes at their peculiarly ambivalent conference.

Not sure whether they are in government or in opposition, not sure whether they are progressive or reactionary, not even sure if they havehit the jackpot or been suckered into being the biggest fall guys in political history, their conference has so far been more tragedy than farce, although both options seem still to be open.

They are, in short, the most pathetic spectacle that British politics has seen in a very long time.

The overwhelming conclusion that speaker after speaker has produced at their conference seems to be: "Well I didn't want it, but we're stuck with it, so now let's revel in it." What a commentary on Lib-Dem values that is.

But don't those in the upper echelons of the Lib Dems just love their little sniff of illusory power, no matter what contradictions it develops? They are absolutely revelling in turning their coats and seem to have no conception of just how ludicrous their position has become.

Let's look at the absurd position of Chief Treasury Secretary Danny Alexander. Likening tax evaders to benefit cheats, he told the party's conference that "ruthless" measures to hit evasion could raise £7 billion a year by 2015, helping to cut the deficit.

Bloody hell, Mr Alexander, that's a bit radical. But, on second thoughts, no it isn't.

According to War on Want, Britain's economy is losing £100 billion a year through tax-dodging in the form of uncollected tax, illegal tax evasion and the abuse of tax loopholes - which is almost solely the preserve of corporations and the very wealthy.

So what the soppy Mr Alexander is really talking about is a 7 per cent collection rate - not exactly very effective and a level which the public servants that Mr Alexander's coalition is trying to make redundant in her Majesty's Revenue would be ashamed of as a professional target.

But let's keep bashing the poor, Mr Alexander, it's a talent that you've just discovered and you seem to be better at that than you clearly are at squeezing the rich - you know them, they are the people you are working with in government.

He's a good example, is Mr Alexander, so let's follow his rubbish just a bit further.

He says, and it's worth quoting him directly, "I would like to say one thing to nurses, teachers, police officers and civil servants. Thank you."

"Your ideas, your effort and your commitment are essential in helping people get the best from the services you provide."

It's a bit unclear, however, how the 40,000 or so police officers that his coalition is going to make redundant are going to display that commitment from the dole queues, but we're sure he means well.

And it's not clear either how over 100,000 civil servants are going to provide services after they've been similarly disposed of.

"We do not want to take you on. We want to take you with us," says Mr Alexander to public servants. But where is he supposed to be taking them?

He and his allies have made it clear that vast numbers of civil servants are headed only for unemployment and, however much we might wish it, it's doubtful that he is offering to join the dole queues with them.

His leader Nick Clegg kicked off the conference by saying that "I want everyone in this room to just stop and enjoy it for a second. I hope each and every one of you is as proud as I am of what we have already achieved."

If they are, Mr Clegg, they are as stupid, vicious, power-hungry and unprincipled as you yourself have proven to be. We might have hoped for better.

And, in the next period, we will fight you to a standstill in order to achieve better.

Link: Morning Star