Timeline on Russian Revolution

Oxford Budget Day Protest on YouTube

Tax baby Tax!

Why should a single low paid local government worker have their wages or pensions cut whilst single banker or speculator still has their fat 2010 bonus? Who buys all this rubbish that the 70 odd % of low paid women in the Local Government Pension Scheme have ‘gold plated’ pensions? Worth maybe £4,000 per year?

By all accounts things are back to normal in the board room with 7% pay rises for execs and huge bonuses on display. Why then should we accept the cuts of Tory and Orange book millionaires for a single second? These people have no mandate and no moral or political legitimacy. How dare Tory Oxbridge spods who cheerleaded the £20bn disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan lecture us about belt tightening?

People ask what is the rational alternative? Easy 1% on the higher rate on income tax, 1.5% on corporation tax, windfall tax on shareholders, cut pointless military spending, close tax havens, the list of better options is indeed long.

So tax baby tax!

Tax is the sound of human society functioning, of people looking after each other, of the most evil and money grubbing being reigned in. Tax is civilization. Forget the Chinese Emperors and William Pit the whatever, tax has transcended its origins. Progressive taxion is our last best hope for social peace.

Aylesbury says no to EDL

The EDL’s racist, swaggering, Islamophobic supporters hoped they could take over the town of Aylesbury last Saturday and intimidate Muslims and ordinary people. They failed.

They hoped Asians and black people and trade unionists would be too scared to demonstrate against them. They failed.

Around 200 anti-EDL demonstrators, gathered in the town’s Vale Park in a show of anti-racism and support for multiculturalism.

While the anti-racist protest took place, the EDL were contained in a pen by the police. The local press put their number at 800, although other reports said it was fewer. They had come from all over Britain, with only a handful of local people their ranks.

Some made an attempt to break out towards the town mosque, but they were beaten back.

Police arrested 12 EDL supporters, eight on suspicion of possessing offensive weapons, three for public order offences and one for being drunk and disorderly.

Andrew Grant, the chief executive of Aylesbury Vale District Council said afterwards that “a range of entertainment has been organised for Monday by the Town Centre Partnership to help welcome people back to the town". Indeed – the vast majority of local people will be glad the EDL have gone.

Congratulations to all those anti-racists who came out to protest on Saturday. The ground has been laid for a vibrant local anti racist campaign. 

I have just recieved the following upgrades from God

Ten v.2.0

Never cross a picket line.

Don’t kill anybody unless there is an overwhelming social benefit.

Don’t steal anything unless 1) you really really need it and the owner doesn’t really really need it or 2) the value of it is too small to be bothered about.

Be nice to people where possible.

Infidelity should be avoided if possible where relationships are still broadly mutually satisfactory or better.

Try and reduce your carbon footprint in ways you can manage but don’t get all moralistic about it.

Don’t over eat, drink or sleep except at Christmas.

Don’t swear in unamusing ways.

Aspire to leaving the world a better place than you found it.

Don’t covert your neighbours ox (I think this one still stands).

Climate Gate...NOT!

Climate change sceptics are having a dizzy five minutes on account of some hacked e-mails from the University of East Anglia being made public. Excerpts from these emails have been released and are being circulated out of context to imply dirty deeds by mainstream climate scientists. 

The most popular extract is scientist Phil Jones  discussing the presentation of temperature reconstructions. He states that:

 “I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.” 

This statement is being pinged all over the internet by climate denial trolls exercised by the threat of  'One World Government'.

So to take this one comment and deconstruct it for the sake of the would be deluded:

The paper in question is the Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1998) Nature paper on the original multiproxy temperature reconstruction, and the ‘trick’ is just to plot the instrumental records along with reconstruction so that the context of the recent warming is clear. Scientists often use the term “trick” to refer to a “a good way to deal with a problem”, rather than something that is “secret”, and so there is nothing problematic in this at all. As for the ‘decline’, it is well known that Keith Briffa’s maximum latewood tree ring density proxy diverges from the temperature records after 1960 (this is more commonly known as the “divergence problem”–see e.g. the recent discussion in this paper) and has been discussed in the literature since Briffa et al in Nature in 1998 (Nature, 391, 678-682). Those authors have always recommend not using the post 1960 part of their reconstruction, and so while ‘hiding’ is probably a poor choice of words (since it is ‘hidden’ in plain sight), not using the data in the plot is completely appropriate, as is further research to understand why this happens. 

For more check out George Marshall's blog: http://climatedenial.org/

Chris Harman 1942-2009

The death of socialist activist and author Chris Harman is a sad loss to the international socialist movement. Chris died yesterday in Cairo having suffered a cardiac arrest. He was a tireless activist, writer and creative thinker. His books introduced thousands to Marxist economics and history with their clear and accessible style. He will be sorely missed, my condolences to his family and friends.

Chris wrote many fine books, my favourite is A People’s History of the World. Selected by the Independent on Sunday as one of the Top Ten History Books. If you have never read any of Chris Harman’s work then check out Bookmarks The Socialist Bookshop or the Marxist Internet Archive.

The best way to celebrate Chris’s contribution to socialist activism is to redouble our efforts to build socialist and trade union organisation around the world.