Industrial action veterans Dean Smith and John Maguire relate their experience of Unite leadership candidate in the fight for workers’ rights and pay – “he’s unbelievable, he really is”
Want to watch the full interview with Dean, John and Mark Thirgood as they talk industrial fights and victories in Belfast, Birmingham and Scotland against employers as diverse as Ford, ‘Labour’-run Birmingham City Council and Tesco? You can do so below:
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Sharon Graham is the first to have secured a place on the ballot in the race to succeed Len McCluskey ………. after receiving nominations from 176 local branches.
https://labourlist.org/2021/05/sharon-graham-secures-place-on-ballot-in-unite-general-secretary-race/
Beckett’s on the ballot! As of today.
elspethparris- Yes I’ve seen the reports that Howard is now the second candidate to succeed in getting onto the ballot paper. I wonder how the other two candidates are getting on with collecting their nominations, will we end up with a three way split of the left’s vote.
Great! Both the so called “Left” Candidates are on! I wonder when the Two Neolabour Party “Right”, (oh and of course the ‘Rich Kids “Fundamentalist Communist” Rags’, for Turner), will follow suit!?
Just a quick scan on Beckett’s Twitter timeline it looks like the Establishment chosen battle is going to be Beckett vs Graham, interesting to see that some of the Anti-Beckett accounts I recognise from the 2015 to 2020 Anti-Corbyn Onslaught, have a look at who is Pro-Graham or Pro-Turner (is Coyne actually in the equation!?), many are the same Kettle of Fish as our Old Nemesis AntiCorbynists. That says quite some!
https://twitter.com/NAJ562/status/1396099454156091402?s=19
and anyone who said “I don’t think Starmer is a right winger” – as Steve Turner did – would certainly not get my vote for GS.
lundiel – “✔️ Is political ✔️ Isn’t afraid to take on the establishment ✔️ Fights for our rights 🥊🥊🥊#FeckItVoteBeckett ✊”
Get up‼️
Stand up‼️‼️
Stand up for our rights‼️‼️‼️
An interesting aside:
Britain Elects survey of voters asked whether they had heard of a range of politicians.
Here’s a selection of the “never heard of them” ones.
Yvette Cooper 48%
Angela Rayner 50%
David Lammy 56%
Lisa Nandy 60%
Rachel Reeves 67%
Wouldn’t it be nice to be one of those voters?
Putting aside your very amusing spin on this for a moment the general level of apathy and the lack of political awareness is scary. Although it does go some way to explaining why so many voted for Johnson
Agreed and it’s all Starmer’s only hope.
goldbach – “Wouldn’t it be nice to be one of those voters?”
Yes and no. Not knowing disgusting things may save us the disgust of knowing them. However, being aware of their parasitic presence is VITAL to wipe them off, wash them off, flush them off and out. Do a thorough disinfection. BLOCK their Re-entry and ALL other careerist, self-serving Tory pestilent parasites. They are filth.
Ignorance is bliss, but not in politics.
In politics to end the status quo, ignorance causes deadly drowsiness.
BUT equally dangerous, ie maintains the status quo are a cosy detached lack of urgency. EVEN MORE deadly, is the cliquey detached obsession with theory at the expense of dynamic action.
Another interesting aside:
This statement appears on an article on the Novara Media website. The article is about how the LP and Starmer are doing and how they are perceived.
“One respondent, a 54-year old Conservative voter from Yorkshire, said:
“Don’t think Kia Starmer is proving to be a good leader and never seems offer any alternative policies to Boris Johnson even though he always critical of everything he does”
N.B. Isn’t a Kia a parrot that is close to extinction?
Hmmmmm?
And a boring South Korean car.
Kia is very popular in the US and my son in law has a kia SUV ,but then again they did vote for Biden….Good morning Lundiel..!
A very happy 73rd birthday to Jeremy Corbyn tomorrow.
….and many happy returns
72nd, just for the record…..
(He was born in ’49)
Stoke and North Staffs Unite branch have tonight unanimously voted for Howard Beckett for GS.
I see that after a brief outing on this page and despite it being a good news story about Howard Beckett’s success at getting onto the ballot paper that Howard is now back in protective custody.
There’s so much I like in Howard Beckett’s Manifesto, particularly his commitment to Education and UniteTV. Beckett’s is the attitude that a hundred and twenty years ago was determined to ‘make socialists’, inform communities about the need for working people to organise and create their own Independent Labour party and, invigorated by community and democratic action, fight for Peace, Prosperity, Love and Socialism.
#FECKITVOTEBECKETT – we need a bit of that again today!
Think Steve is a decent socialist but a bit of a political lightweight “Starmer is not Right Wing” Graham is perhaps the bourgeois socialist, focussing on the workplace only so when workers clock off they may go back to poor housing, may be part-time on UC, may be on an NHS waiting list, may be in or have kids in education, will be effected by climate change etc etc but Sharon says – you are on your own BUT NO WORKPLACE IS AN ISLAND . I was proud to nominate Holistic Howard, the political heavyweight.
I think we will stick with Steve Turner a tried and tested trade union negotiator with donkeys years of experience in the true left wing..We are entering unknown waters with a semi permanent Tory regime.Steady hands and a sharp negotiator is whats needed and Steve Turner has all of that and knows when to keep his mouth shut.Bus man to union leader and shopfloor experience.what more can you ask for ,steve has earned the right to represent the union at the highest level.
“We are entering unknown waters with a semi permanent Tory regime…..”
I’d argue:
1 – Semi-permanent (near-continuous) Conservative governments happen because Labour is ‘third-way’, ‘trilateral’, neoliberal/ NOT democratic socialist.
2. – If ‘true left wing’ accepts pro-capitalist neoliberal control of Labour party, then Capitalism will always supersede and transcend any socialist opposition to it.
3 – Socialism must be an antagonism to capitalism and its failure to preserve this is why democratic socialists all over the world are in various stages of pasokification (cause/effect).
THEREFORE Beckett’s opposition to Starmer and his third-way existential threat to democratic socialism is actually, his most critical policy – and anyone else’s absence of it leads to same-old same-old ongoing pasokification.
HUH????
>> If ‘true left wing’ accepts pro-capitalist neoliberal control of Labour party,
Excuse me since when have we accepted it? Remind me anyone show me where the members voted at the conference for this BS cult ideology??? The problem is we have bugger all, none, ziparonie power or ability to do bugger all getting rid of this right-wing cult. Please don’t wheel out that mealy-mouthed excuse of well vote them out I call BS on that!
There is no sodding way of voting them out! We have no right to kick out crap cult MP’s we have even fewer rights to kick out the cancer of this cult of new Labour 2.0 right-wing backroom staff and wonks.
So please explain how the living hell we can vote them out???
Oh, Let me guess by not voting for them? Only voting for socialists like that fantasy will ever happen or we will be allowed to vote for left-wing socialist candidates.
So no I don’t accept bugger all thanks.
qwertboi spouting complete bollox again I see!
And got up to do so first thing this morning! What a joke!!
And what *if* true left wing DON’T accept pro-capitalist control of Labour Party, does THAT mean Capitalism will NEVER supersede and transcend any socialist support for it?!!
Talk about gobbledygook!!!
Just picking 3 of Howard’s ideas. Firstly have organisers to work with precarious workers – counters the Tory Neo-Liberal drive for cheap Labour. A Unite TV – gives diverse working people a voice and counters the right wing monopoly of the media, is innovative. Thirdly – build a strike fund of £50m and strike pay of £70 a day (£350 a week) which perhaps levels up the playing field between capital and Labour – gives diverse working people more industrial power. So I will vote for Howard but at a hustings he said “Do you remember the dream we had with Jeremy Corbyn (which was taken away) I will keep it alive.
Off – topic…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-57172900
The judge said this was not a statutory inquiry and therefore not considered “a court of law”, so it was not a “course of public justice” which could be perverted.
Un-kin-believable.
But par for the course. Just HTAF did nobody notice that before it went to trial? Anyone know if Grenfell is one of the statutory inquiries? Not that it matters anyway, because no bastard’s gonna be prosecuted for the *ahem* ‘evidence’ THEY give in that one, neither.
Anyone who says British justice is the pinnacle needs a f***Ing good hiding. 🤬🤜💥
Toffee – Not that dissimilar from the Brexit Referendum then.
Toffee I would think that after the professional people,experts etc have decided that it was all the fault of the sub contracters .The Architects will of course be shocked,and the manufacturer of the insulation will be condemning of the fixing of the cladding and in retrospect will agree that a air gap between the cladding and the wall caused a chimney effect.Now all of this will be blamed on the Sub contracters and the local council architects,engineers and technicians will be exonerated.Simple really and everything hokey dokey
I hope Beckett, if voted in, doesn’t stay too long leading Unite. We need him leading the Labour party!
timfrom I totally agree Beckett belongs in Westminster and would thrive there.The unite job is not the place for him.
Its great to some many diverse collegues agreeing for the same person