The launch of the first Scots branch of the party for the moment referred to as 'Your Party,' will it appears be held in Glasgow next month. In some ways this is understandable, Glasgow was once the centre of 'Red Clydeside,' a place where many far left socialist men operated among the workers in the heavy industry that flourished there. Ship building on the Clyde, steam trains in the east, mines close by, and a variety of works coming from these major centres. The pay was poor, the conditions intolerable. Imagine a tenement block holding 82 people with one outside toilet on a Saturday night! Appalling conditions, appalling management, and it is no wonder people went on strike! Add to this the moments during the war when rent were increased, though most men were away at the war. The women refused to pay and were threatened with eviction! Such causes increase the desire for change, and socialist change at that. Change did come, but not in the early days of the 20th century, change came only after yet another war leaving 50 million dead and a Labour Party that put the needs of the people before the needs of the shareholders. Clem Attlee's 1945 government created a new world off fairness and opportunity which has gradually been taken from us by a right wing coup.
Will Corbyn and Sultana's party save the people? Probably not. If they seek to create a fairer society many will join and other will vote for them. However, Corbyn and many of his friends soon go off into adventurous places far from what the voter wants. If they follow policies that do not ring true with the locals then they will disappear like so many other 'socialist' parties disappear. The man in the street does not want extremes, he wants fairness for all, forget that and Corbyn and Sultana will fail also.
The Met Police have, very sensibly in my view, taken action before the Notting Hill Carnival, to prevent organised gangs turning the weekend into a small bloodbath. Can you have a 'small bloodbath? Discuss. We know the gangs that like to gather at the carnival are often organised, as opposed to groups of young black men who come and get into bother like a crowd of football fans. Drugs of course is one thing, crime also, but the vast majority come to enjoy the aura of the weekend. It is unfortunate that several die during the carnival.
I first attended one of these in 1973, before you were born. That was a relatively quite affair, the weather dreary, the clanging of empty 'Double Diamond' cans common amongst most. No trouble and lots of oil drums providing background sound.
Later, I lived in the middle of it for near 20 years and my opinion changed with the times. Far too big, far too much trouble, and as I aged, far too noisy. Most locals of course leave London for the weekend, others drift to outer London and return when they hope it is all over. I certainly do not miss it now, and the misuse of the carnival by many encourages calls for it to end, or be moved, or cut down in size. Quite how any of these ideas could operate is not made available by those who suggest this.
One fact we know is involved in the troubles. West Indians, or their descendants as few actual West Indians from the 'Windrush' days are around any more, have one major flaw, too many dads do not look after their kids. They say that 60% of young black kids have no idea who their father is. If they do he has no influence, or appears to desire any. That is with these 'West Indian' fathers. Nigerians on the other hand have strong family ties and tend to be among the best educated and brightest in the UK, should we note such differences? The 40% who have better families and kids who make it need support, and probably enjoy the carnival as much as any. Why does no one speak out in support of ending the fathers refusal to look after their kids? Are they afraid to be called racist? Or are they afraid to admit a child needs two parent, on father and one mother, not two of one kind. That truth upsets too many. That truth exposes their failures as fathers and mothers, and exposes their loose sex lives as damaging for their kids and themselves.
However, you will never hear the press discussing this. How can they? The media is the most immoral organisation known to man, bar politicians obviously.
