Education, Education, Education.

Fighting Racism

Kirklees Unison sponsoring Underbank Rangers Rugby League Football Club, using the Rubgy League's anti-racism campaign "Racism - Tackle it". (Paul Holmes is the one not wearing a rugby shirt - just in case you thought he was one of the players!)

Top meeting

Class History

I went to Topuddle on 15th July 2012. We must never forget our history - we hear enough of theirs.

The six Tolpuddle Martyrs returned from hard labour in Australia in the 1830's. Eventually five of them emigrated to Canada and one, James Hammett, stayed in Tolpuddle. He died in the workhouse there in 1891. When they buried him in Tolpuddle church yard, the squire stood by the grave to make sure that no one spoke for, or on behalf of, trade unionism. The bosses' vindictiveness knows no bounds.

In 1844 the miners of Northumberland and Durham struck. As the majority of them lived in tied housing, the coal owners evicted whole villages in their efforts to break the union.

'Pregnant women, bed-ridden men, children in the cradle, remorselessly turned out ..... the breaking of their furniture to pieces and the throwing of their household goods, with their food, into the road ..... aged, sick and feeble women forced from the homes of their childhood .... the cruel eviction of men who had met with accidents in the pit before the strike commenced. When starving and homeless the workhouses were closed to them and the Marquis issued a notice forbidding the local tradesmen to give credit or supplies to the miners and their families" - Richard Fynes.

These are the people that built the trade unions. They built them with courage, fortitude and vision.

Here is the banner of Follonsby Lodge (Wardley), Durham. The men who appeared on the banner were voted there by the members in a ballot. James Connolly, Keir Hardie, Lenin, AJ Cook and George Harvey (local Miners' Assocation official, known popularly as Wardley's Lenin). Stanley Baldwin, Tory Prime Minister in the 1920s, when working people on strike were accused of fighting a class war, replied that he couldn't say anything because "we started the class war 100 years ago". 



 When George Loveless, Tolpuddle Martyr, was being escorted to prison by guards, he threw a scrap of paper to the crowd with a poem written on it. The last two lines of the poem read:

"The cry goes out for liberty,

 We will, we will, we will be free."

On the shoulders of such giants do we stand.

To the Men of England

Men of England, wherefore plough
For the lords who lay ye low?
Wherefore weave with toil and care
The rich robes your tyrants wear?

Wherefore feed and clothe and save,
From the cradle to the grave,
Those ungrateful drones who would
Drain your sweat -- nay, drink your blood?

Wherefore, Bees of England, forge
Many a weapon, chain, and scourge,
That these stingless drones may spoil
The forced produce of your toil?

Have ye leisure, comfort, calm,
Shelter, food, love's gentle balm?
Or what is it ye buy so dear
With your pain and with your fear?

The seed ye sow another reaps;
The wealth ye find another keeps;
The robes ye weave another wears;
The arms ye forge another bears.

Sow seed, -- but let no tyrant reap;
Find wealth, -- let no imposter heap;
Weave robes, -- let not the idle wear;
Forge arms, in your defence to bear.

Shrink to your cellars, holes, and cells;
In halls ye deck another dwells.
Why shake the chains ye wrought? Ye see
The steel ye tempered glance on ye.

With plough and spade and hoe and loom,
Trace your grave, and build your tomb,
And weave your winding-sheet, till fair
England be your sepulchre!

 

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Solidarity

Illiteracy

Greatrex of Nottingham - robbing from the poor to give to the rich!

Enzo

‎34 years ago Peacock F.C. won the Wakefield Tetley League 2nd Division and the cup double (see photo). Player-manager was Paul Holmes (third from left, back row). Despite entering over 100 league and cup competitions Peacock won nothing else for the next 34 years! (Including the 5th Division league cup final only a fortnight ago). Paul Holmes was player-manager for over 20 years but couldn't repeat the 1978 double feat. Known to his players only as Enzo (after the legendary Italian manager), Paul's tactics were obviously years ahead of their time. No carpet bowls and bingo for Peacock F.C. (no training either!). They were pre-occupied with the Jam, Tetleys, the 1984-5 miners' strike and curry trips to Bradford. Operating from the legendary Peacock hostelry (which most away teams wouldn't visit, despite the free stew) Peacock F.C became as well known for their trips to Bradford and Ireland as they were for their inability to win trophies.


'The socialism I believe in is everyone working for each other and having a share of the rewards. It's the way I see football, the way I see life' - Bill Shankly

Always follow the money

The more things change, the more they stay the same!

Icing on the cake?

Television Chef, Antony Worral Thompson, has found a new recipe (sic!) for facing two ways at the same time. In January 2012 he was given a 'caution' by police for being found shoplifting from Tesco's five times.

In August 2011, Conservative Party supporter and donor, Mr Thompson, had givn his full backing to the Daily Express' campaign to jail looters/ rioters in Britain when he said "I am fully in favour of this campaign. Getting behind this will show these thugs that they have made a big mistake." All the ingredients for a layer of hypocrisy on a right-wing base.