Left parties membership - up, down or sideways? / Cop Creep / Mugshots / Thatcher countdown / Prize Draw & Site Survey - Win £20 Voucher!

Left parties membership - up, down or sideways?

I’ve been researching the membership of UK Left parties. This included directly contacting all the national offices and requesting their figures.

Well, it was a very dull and wet Tuesday. I even got a few replies.

I’ve made some progress with this research but I’d still be interested in receiving details about the membership figures of your Left party, or for other organisations where you know the numbers.

I’m pleased that I have already been sent some info following my appeal on Dave’s Part. I’m very grateful to those who sent me this. Their identity will always remain confidential.

I’ve also been seeking to obtain this data for different years. Does anyone know if the left is bigger or smaller than it was 5 or 10 years ago? Does MI5 know? Don’t you think it would be useful if we did know?

Central Committees will only know the size of their own party. They may not even know their own figures over time. So no-one can tell whether a growing or a shrinking party is a bigger or a smaller percentage of a growing or a shrinking Left pool.

That’s doing us all harm. We all suffer from this unnecessary secrecy.

Appeal for information

I do ask you to consider sending me your membership figures, but why not also get your own party to publish them.

Some do. I have seen a claim by the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist Leninist) that they have two members. Good for them, and their honesty, if those figures are correct - which I doubt.

I’ll be writing a completely straight article about membership. I'll just report on what I’ve been told. I’ve no interest at all in crowing about the small size of this or that party. I'll leave the reader to do the analysis.

But I’ll be merciless in my criticism of any who either hide or even lie about their membership figures. “Never lie to the class” - Tony Cliff (SWP).

I think it’s vital that we know where we are now, as the Left (rather than as a single party) and whether we have moved backwards, forwards or indeed sideways over the last five, ten and twenty years.

Please email me (via Profile) with the details. I expect to run the article in about two weeks.

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Cop creep

There’s a thing I call ‘cop creep’.

It’s an ever-present desire by the pigs to expand their role in life.

There was a news report recently about a council in the North East who were taking an interest in an extremely overweight young boy. The kid was reported not to have any medical problems but just to be eating way too much.

It was said that a case conference was going to be held by the council about the lad (isn’t this all supposed to be confidential?)

The attendees at the forthcoming case conference were listed. A social worker, a doctor, a teacher from the boy’s school, etc., etc - and a cop.

That’s a great way to make a young boy feel better about himself and encourage him to radically change his diet.

Make it known that the cops may be coming for his mother.

JobCentre

A while ago I was sat talking to a worker in a JobCentre. A cop in uniform came up to the woman I was speaking to and interrupted. The pig said that he was in a hurry - he just wanted this and that statistics return. The JobCentre worker politely told him to push off and speak to her supervisor.

I was intrigued and tried asking her about what the cop was after. The woman was guarded but did say that the information related to the number of job vacancies. She also said that the cops were often in to ask for this information.

What do they do with these figures?

Time Inside?

I was recently handed a ‘community news leaflet’ by a guy outside a tube station. At first glance, it looked like a list of local events - but maybe that was just to make you take it out of his hand.

(I always do - long hours stood outside tube stations proffering tracts means that I always have empathy with the unrequited passion of the leaflet giver.)

Upon closer inspection, I saw that the publication was a Police leaflet. I wondered if they had made yet another entrepreneurial leap and were now were competing with ‘Time Out’. Perhaps ‘Time Inside’?

But it was just a cover. Inside the leaflet was an announcement about the merging of several Police ‘Dispersal Order’ areas into an even bigger Free Fire Zone. There was also something about continuing these Orders at least until the clocks are striking thirteen.

The handout included details of yet more local drinkers who had been ABSOed. One poor guy had been banned from drinking alcohol, in any public place or in any pub, in the whole of that borough.

But the mastermind cops appear not to have noticed that the thirstiest man around for miles lives right next to the council boundary. I trust he has the wherewithal to make it across the borough boundary for a bevy - but maybe not, looking at the mugshot of him that the pigs printed.

(Related thought - do pub companies bribe council officers and local cops to get them to declare ‘No street drinking Zones’ in town centres so as to destroy the competition?

I rarely drink, but I always make sure I sit on a bench and consume a can of Strongbow when I‘m in that picturesque town square - albeit plastered with unsightly ‘You drink, we fine you’ signs - in the centre of Norwich.)

I presume, at some point, all the Chief Constables will merge all their Dispersal Order areas into each other and into those of the neighbouring forces. Then all of the UK will be that little bit closer to life with the Securitate in Ceauşescu’s Romania.

But until then, there must be some (ever decreasing) gaps between these areas. Maybe they will arise a few places like the ancient ‘Liberties’ or similar to the medieval markets where you could sell, without legal reproach, stolen geese between Lady Day and Whitsuntide, etc.

These olden sanctuaries were very few and far between. And likewise, shortly I fear, so will be these spaces outside Dispersal Order areas.

So the next time I’m moved on in Ealing, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that the closet place I can ‘land’ will be Edinburgh.

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Mugshots

You want more cops? You got more cops.

I’ve come across an interesting site run by a body called ‘Editorial Photographers UK & Ireland - EPUK. It’s written by a group of news photographers.

The site recently reported on the first National Union of Journalists (NUJ) Photographers’ Conference.

At this NUJ event, a leading solicitor for protesters claimed that the ‘police were ‘circumventing the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) Special Procedure Material safeguards, designed to protect journalistic material such as photographs and notebooks.’

He said that the cops were ‘arresting journalists, seizing their equipment, treating them as suspects, looking at their photographs, taking copies, perhaps returning them to them, taking no further action often (but not always).’

The solicitor went on to say ‘what often happens is journalists are arrested, their material is taken from them, prosecution is not pursued, but then that material is used as part of the prosecution of non-journalists.’

And in a revealing response to these claims, the top London cop dealing with ‘Public Order’ matters is reported to have said that ‘Protesters …bring their own photographers…Our guys and girls cannot differentiate between those people who are out to make mischief, and those who are genuinely there to take pictures.’

(Note the ‘guys and girls’. Now then. Now then. Long ago, did Jim fix it for that cop, after he had received no votes whatsoever in the school elections, to become a school prefect with special responsibility for squashing the nefarious blackmarket trading of Trump Cards?)

So, I think, in other words, the cop could be saying - if you’re just taking photos on behalf of a campaigning body, you could be ‘out to make mischief’. If you’re photographing for the Daily Mail, or for the cops, you are ‘genuinely there to take pictures.’

And there’s yet more ‘cop creep’.

Just how did the pigs get themselves in a position to licence which journalists are deserving of a ‘Press Card’?

The Metropolitan Police launched the 'Press Card' scheme in 1992. It’s formally recognised by all police forces in the UK.

And this ‘official’ Press Card is the only one recognised by the filth. I was summarily removed from an ‘official’ photographers spot, when trying to take some photos of a politician as an ‘independent journalist’ for not having one.

The ‘Press Card’ is just for the ‘pros’, so blogging journalists and the like need not apply. That was another one up for the cops.

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Thatcher countdown

I posted not so long ago about a great day that’s looming - the day of Thatcher’s demise.

I suggested we all made a pledge to celebrate the moment we hear this great news - wherever we may be and whatever we may be doing.

So if this event should be reported in the near future when I’m at work, I may just get to dance a celebratory jig in front of some Tory councillors. And I will.

I’ve subsequently discovered that Class War have been thinking along similar lines. They’ve called for a celebration to take place in Trafalgar Square on the Saturday after she’s cold.

And, like me, they also think we’ll need to mount a counter offensive against the nauseous and vile offensive rubbish that the state broadcaster - the BBC - and the rest will spew out when Thatcher does join the undead.

I can’t put it better than they write on myspace.com

'When her death is announced, it is extremely likely that the UK media, always sanctimonious about death, will be particularly grovelling in this instance… Given this we urge as many people as possible to be ready to get stuck in on radio phone in's, newspaper letter columns and internet chat rooms etc giving the alternative view. If there are any books of condolence available for signing we know we can rely on you to leave appropriate messages!'

(And also scroll down, on that page, for an inspired photomontage of Thatcher and Pinochet).

I know their comments about the media are prescient. I can just picture Fiona Bruce telling us how the whole country is in mourning when, in fact, hundreds of thousands (or millions), will be drinking to the demise of Maggie.

I’ve often felt closer to some anarchists than to many Trots. I did read nearly all of the available literature on Kronstadt once long ago - but I’m damned if I can now remember what my final view on the matter was.

I’ll have to see if I can get a dreadlock wig and some all black clobber, so that I can go along to the celebration.

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Prize Draw - Win £20 Voucher! - and Survey of website

What do you mean, you have just skimmed down straight down to here?

Go back to the top of this week’s post and read it all - there will be questions further down.

I’m keen to find out more about visitors to this site. I do get a little bit of feedback in ‘comments’ on the site (more would be welcome), through a few emails sent to me and from a few bloggers who make reference to my site elsewhere.

But I want to know more about the very large majority of you who read these articles but interact no further.

I’d like to make the site even more interesting for you. I’m keen to find out more about what you’d like to see here and what you wouldn’t. I’m also very interested to learn about your impressions of what you read on SouthpawPunch.

So I’ve set up a survey to help improve the site.

I’d be very grateful if you would consider completing a questionnaire for me.

It’s completely painless (promise) and if you do complete the survey you can enter the Prize Draw!

The Prize Draw winner will be drawn publically and will be sent an Amazon £20 E-mail Gift Certificate (or your local currency equivalent, or a prize of equal value if there isn’t Amazon in your country).

The survey is short (about five minutes) and all questions are voluntary.

There aren’t any ads or pop ups, etc.

All your replies are completely confidential.

No personal data is required from anybody except simply an email address from those wishing to enter the Prize Draw.

Any such email address will only be used to confirm entry, alert you a little before the public draw is held (so you can watch) and to contact you if you win. All emails will be deleted when the Prize Draw is made.

Your chances of being picked in the Prize Draw must be many hundreds of thousands of times better than your chance of winning the Lottery.

To see more, and to enter - click here.

Full instructions about the survey, and the Prize Draw rules, are also available via that link.

Thanks.

Update – 16:50 19 March

I’m very pleased with the response to this survey. Thanks.

A few points of clarification - in response to queries. These points will be also be added to the pages about the Prize Draw/Survey but not into the Survey itself - I can’t alter those pages.

Emails and Privacy

If you enter the Prize Draw, you need to give an email address (no name is necessary to enter but I will request a first name from the winner). Only one entry per person.

Note that I am unable to respond directly to any queries or suggestions about the site that you make in the survey (your entry email will only be used to enter you into the competition).

But I’m always happy to respond to anyone with any queries about the site. Just email via Profile.

Of course I will be responding generally to points made in the Survey through making changes to this site that incorporate some of your ideas and views.

The Prize Draw

You pick a code when you enter the Prize Draw. A list of all these codes will be published, before the draw, in a particular order with a number assigned to each.

On the designated day, a number will be used from a previously announced source – possibly the end digits of the closing price of the New York Stock Exchange on the day of the draw.

(This would be like the Numbers Game - see The Autobiography of Malcolm X for more - and a move against the ludicrous Britcentric commentators who actually think that the London financial markets have overtaken New York’s.)