Blogs on Sunday 30/09/07

This week a look around some of the "Top 101" left blogs from these islands recently listed by Andy on the Socialist Unity Blog.

Before we start, a plug for the Socialist Unity blog's own piece yesterday which reprinted and commented on the possibly highly significant Morning Star article by Campaign Group Labour Leftist John McDonnell. These are interesting times indeed for the left in Britain, with the coded comments coming from McDonnell in Labour, Griffiths of the CPB and elements still within Respect. With the debate around the structure, orientation and direction of the Green Party, the fluid situation in Scotland and the changed situation in Wales with the Labour-Plaid accommodation this adds up to a picture where great changes could be imminent. The sparks may be the Brown ascendancy in Labour and his final closing down of conference democracy, the rise in class struggle in the public sector in particular and the rising urgency and mobilisation around climate change issues - what will emerge from all this remains to be seen.

Returning to the 101 blogs, the top two places are occupied by excellent Irish blogs. The blogger 'World By Storm' comments on the Cedar Lounge Revolution blog about it being at number one.
The rather beautifully laid out "Splintered Sunrise" blog is at number two and has recently featured a post on the Jeremy Kyle Show court case that has been titillating the tabloids.

Further down the listing at 5, Liam Mac Uaid is a good source internal on Respect and ISG developments - here is his latest blog entry on Respect.

At 6, Rebellion Sucks by blogger "Charlie Marks" is a new one on me - but looks interesting and has loads of attractive links.

At 10, on his Random Pottins blog, Charlie Pottins has recently posted on the developments in Egypt which should have had more coverage.

I will definitely take another look at some of the blogs that are new to me - some might even get added to my blog roll. Thanks again to Andy for providing the list.

Farewell To Gorz

Andre Gorz, a writer who (for good and ill) had some influence on the growth of the modern Green movement (but whose "post industrial" and "post working class" ideas also may have informed some Eurocommunist and Blairite/Giddensite "third way" politics) has committed suicide along with his British-born wife Dorine last weekend.

Yahoo News Story

Gorz, originally Gerhard Hirsch, (and sometimes writing under the pen name Michel Bosquet) was author of the 1980 book "Farewell To The Working Class". He played a role in popularising the work of Ivan Illich and the Club of Rome and based much of his important work around a humanist, eco-socialist perspective opposed to both productivist/authoritarian versions of Marxism and what he saw as anti-humanist Deep Ecology.

He was an important New Left thinker, but gradually moved to some more controversial and right-wing positions on issues like US missile deployments.

Some wags have commented, perhaps in poor taste, that the Working Class has said farewell to Andre Gorz.....

Here is the English language Wikipedia entry on Gorz - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_Gorz

Last year Gorz wrote of his wife: "You have just turned 82. You are still beautiful, gracious and desirable. We have been living together for 58 years and I love you more than ever."

Derek Wall carries the story on his Another Green World blog.

Organ in Top 20!

Well, it may only be Andy's top 101 left blogs from these islands on the excellent Socialist Unity Blog, but I am flattered and pleased to see Greenman's Occasional Organ listed at number 13 (I'm not superstitious!)
I'll try not to let it go to my head!

Emergency Solidarity Demonstration Friday 28th September

The TUC have organised an emergency solidarity demonstration for the Burmese people outside the Embassy in London -

http://www.tuc.org.uk/international/tuc-13761-f0.cfm
from the TUC:
As the military start to move in on the pro-democracy demonstrators in Burma, there has been an unprecedented response across the globe. Our colleagues in the Federation of Trade Unions of Burma and the movement for freedom and democracy need the support of British trade unionists. Demonstrations are taking place every lunchtime outside the Burmese Embassy and the TUC is asking affiliated unions to join the demonstration on Friday from 12-1pm, and to call on the military government to restore democracy and refrain from violence.

Embassy of the Union of Myanmar
19 A CHARLES STREET
LONDON W1J 5DX

Remploy - A Victory For The Workers?

I am always hesitant to claim a victory when we are called upon to trust the word of a New Labour Minister, but it does seem like the united action of the Remploy workers and their supporters have forced the government to pull the plug on the Remploy management and grant the union demands that will hopefully secure the workers' jobs for the time being. If it turns out that this is not all another New Labour con-trick and Hain's pledges are carried through, then it is a real victory for the workers at Remploy who have fought a good tactical battle designed to cause maximum discomfort to Brown and New Labour at the new leader's honeymoon conference.
However, the workers will have to maintain utmost vigilance and be ready for any signs of revenge actions, or renewed attacks by either the humiliated Labour hierarchy or the Remploy management.
Likewise, the union rank and file and organisers at Remploy should not put too much faith in the leaderships of the big Labour affiliated unions, having just witnessed them surrender one of their last internal opportunities to (albeit ineffectually) challenge the worst examples of New Labour neo-liberalism.

Early Details on 03/11/07 NHS March

The following is from the latest Keep Our NHS Public mailing :

National demonstration, central London
Saturday 3 November.
11am: Assemble at Temple Place, Victoria Embankment, London
Noon: March through Westminster (will take approx one hour)
1pm: Rally in Trafalgar Square
1.30-4.30pm: Speakers and entertainment in the Square
Building on the successes of the Keep the NHS Working and NHS Together campaigns, the demonstration will be the focus of a public display of celebration and solidarity for an NHS that after almost 60 years, is still largely owned and run by the public sector. Widespread support for the event will send a strong message to the government that we want to keep it that way. The NHS Together alliance of unions, supporters from a broad coalition of user, patient and community groups and members of the public, are being urged to join together to make the demonstration a massive success.

Weekly Links - 23/09/07

First up this week I would like to plug the latest edition of the Socialist Register - Socialist Register 2007.

The Socialist Register, the intellectual lodestone of the international left since 1964, was founded by Ralph Miliband and John Saville in London as an annual survey of movements and ideas in the particular historical context of the British New Left. Currently edited by Leo Panitch and Colin Leys, with each annual volume constructed around a particular topical theme, it has consistently been committed to developing an independent relation to Marxism, free from sectarian and dogmatic positions.

The current volume is entitled "Coming To Terms With Nature" and contains a range of articles linked to environmental and Climate Change related issues. Among the contributors are Ecosocialist Manifesto co-author Michael Lowy and left German Green critic Frieder Otto Wolf.
In the preface, editors Colin Leys and Leo Panitch lay out their reasoning:

We see this volume as contributing to the development of a better eco-socialist understanding of contemporary capitalism, and the kind of politics that could lead to an ecologically sustainable as well as a democratic socialism.

Out amongst the bloggers this week Derek Wall has been talking about the 1953 Sci-fi novel, The Space Merchants. This put me in mind of Tim Barton's appraisal of the great science fiction writer Philip K Dick which he posted back in May.

It is the Party conference of the ruling party this week, and Dave Osler posted his pre-conference thoughts over at Dave's Part. Dave is predicting that New Labour will "merge with the Lib Dems" within five years, and reports on the deselection of Labour leftwinger (and Charlie Drake lookalike, judging from the picture Dave found!) Bob Wareing.

Meanwhile, the latest wrangling and upheaval in Respect continues to be covered critically at the Socialist Unity blog with posts on the 23rd here, the 22nd here and the 21st here.

Further Postal Strike Action Announced

The Communication Workers Union have announced that there will be further strike action in response to Royal Mail's draconian and destructive proposals on pay and business changes. There remains no agreed pay deal, which was due on 1st April 2007, and the pay offer is linked to
unacceptable propositions on flexibility and decreased pensions benefits.
Royal Mail has announced the implementation of unagreed operational changes.

The CWU's Postal Executive have agreed the following strike dates:

A 48 hour strike on the 5th & 6th October.

A 48 hour strike on the 8th & 9th October.

Week commencing 15th October a rolling programme of functional strikes to continue weekly until the resolution of the dispute.

Dave Ward, Deputy General Secretary, said: "Despite five weeks of
negotiations Royal Mail have failed to take on board the union's message
that in order for the business to succeed Royal Mail need to invest in their workforce.

"Strikes are a proportionate response to an employer that is completely out of control. Rather than running the business, Royal Mail's actions
demonstrate they are intent on destroying it.

"The workforce has had enough of Royal Mail messing them around. We're not going to tolerate an employer that ignores its workforce, ignores the union and ignores its customers."

In the last week the company has announced the following:

Executive action on their pension proposals - Royal Mail will be
communicating this to staff next week.

Executive action through the imposition of later starts on the 8th October.

Executive action through the imposition of network changes on the 23rd October.

Executive action through the cessation of Sunday Collections on the 28th October.

Executive action through the cessation of Employee Share of Savings scheme (ESOS) on the 10th October.

Victory to the Postal Workers!

More union and workplace news from around the world on the excellent Labourstart website.

German Green Grassroots Defeat Hierarchy

In a historic move at the weekend the grassroots activists of the German Green Party defeated the majority of the party leadership over the question of continued German involvement in Afghanistan.

There was an interesting article by Victor Grossman on this today in the Morning Star newspaper in Britain.

Grossman set the scene by referring to current Afghan deployments (that were supported by the German Green Party, causing debate and dissension in the German Party and more widely):

"So far, this has been limited to alleged reconstruction efforts by German soldiers in more pacified areas in the North of the country."

However, the Christian Democrat/SPD coalition Government is now "pushing the envelope" in favour of a more explicitly military occupational role:

"When the German government decided to send Tornado fighter planes to Afghanistan for 'reconnaissance purposes' which would involve targetting Taliban forces - and nearby civilians - it set the scene for a political battle in the Bundestag"

The Left Party opposed the plan but the other parties backed the government, with the exception of some independent minded Green and SPD members. The military intervention is now due for another vote, but Grossman says that the government, mindful of growing public opposition to the deployment thought up a great trick - they tied the decision to send troops for reconnaissance purposes with the decision to send Tornado fighter planes. The Greens now were left unable to support just the "humanitarian" side of the deployment and must vote for, against or abstain to the whole thing.

A special congress was forced and the leaders were prepared to compromise by letting those deputies who wished to abstain to do so, but then what Grossman calls a "virtually unknown" Party member called Robert Zion got a motion through saying that Green deputies should oppose any motion agreeing to Tornados being sent - with abstention allowed. This won a solid majority and incensed the Green Right who have continually worked to drag the Greens into soggy centrist redundancy. The rightist media and other parties have now launched attacks on the Greens - clearly worried that this show of defiance will spread to dissident members of the ruling parties, and that it legitimises the "ostracised" Left Party.

The government still looks likely to pass its' vote, but the Green shift is one of the best signs in a long time that the grassroots and left of the Green movement will not lie down forever to be walked on and used by careerists and crypto-neo liberals.

It remains to be seen if the left of the Greens in Germany are recovered enough to take on the economic drift to the right of their party, cheered as it is by everyone from the US New Republic to the British New Labourites whom the German "New Greens" seek to emulate.


Here is the report in Deutsche Welle

Here is a report more widely circulated, in its' Lycos News appearance.

A Brief Conference Report Back

An interesting contrast to the Green Party Conference in Liverpool that ended on Sunday is being provided by the Lib Dem Conference. While the Green conference had a set-piece debate on whether or not the Party should have a single or co-leader (with the Yes side arguing that it would give us better media profile and Green Empowerment arguing that it wouldn't necessarily and would bring other dangers)the Lib Dem conference seems to have sparked a media frenzy of attacks on the Lib Dem's leader, Ming Campbell. Whilst the mainstream media payed little attention to the Green Conference's excellent motions and did not even pay much attention to the leader debate, with the Lib Dems they have (at least the BBC and broadsheets) uncritically reported the Lib Dems latest tranche of environmental policies but overshadowed this with constant referrals to their leadership issues.

I thought that the Green Conference in Liverpool was quite well attended (the leadership debate brought quite a few people) and there were a range of very good, well attended fringes and workshops. There was a moving speech from a Kurdish representative and the two principal speaker speeches were solid. The venue, The Cornerstone at Liverpool Hope University, was impressive (though one wonders about the carbon footprint of all those high ceilinged rooms in winter!)

Green Left, the Green Party Trade Union Group and Green Empowerment fringes were all well attended and interesting, with contributions from a Romanian Green, Paul Cooney of Unison in Huddersfield and a former leading Lib Dem activist respectively. Green Empowerment's "Party Leader - No Thanks" stickers went down very well.

The Revue had some hilarious sketches including a reworking of Monty Python's Three Yorkshiremen Sketch into a "Greener than thou" competition (laughing at ourselves is a useful corrective to taking ourselves too seriously)and a sharp satire on the "George Monbiot quote affair" from Shahrar Ali.

The tasks for the coming period are now quite clearly set out -
* from a Green Empowerment POV to get through the leader referendum with maximum unity (whilst hoping, and working hard, for a rejection of the proposal) and try to work to develop further the membership empowerment and mobilisation that is required.
* from a GPTU group point of view to build around the NHS campaign and seek a big mobilisation for the 3rd November demo, support the Remploy campaign and also work for maximised support for the February TU conference on climate change.
* from a Green Left POV to have a successful presence at the forthcoming International Ecosocialist Conference in Paris and continue to build the links and profile of the current - also to maintain Green Party presence and involvement in the anti-war movement.
* for the Party as a whole we must be as ready as we can for Brown calling an election, but also work towards maximising success in the coming London and European elections. The current high profile of Climate Change related issues, financial instability and international affairs gives us the best chance to get our ideas across for a long time.

Here is the GPTU group report on the conference and the text of some of the motions we put forward.

Green Party Autumn Conference

I will post my own views on the Green Party Conference in a while, but first here are some of the official reports from the Party - on the keynote speeches by Derek Wall and Sian Berry.
Here are details of some of the emergency motions that were passed.
Well done to all those involved in putting the conference together, and thanks very much for the kind hospitality of Liverpool Greens.

Conference Break

The Green Party of England and Wales Autumn Conference began today in Liverpool. I will be there over the next few days, so I will be offline until next week.
I will hopefully be able to post a summary of the conference and my impressions when I get back.

Remploy Campaign in London

Labour Government Minister Peter Hain reportedly got a rough ride at the TUC over the Remploy issue.

The following are details of events planned for London from 18-21st September as part of the ongoing Remploy Campaign:

18/09/2007 – Remploy Leatherhead – 10.30 am to 11.30 am – Ermyn Way, Leatherhead, Surrey, KT22 8TR

19/09/2007 – Remploy Woolwich – 8.30 am to 9.30 am – 67-69 Nathan Way, London, SE28 0BD

21/09/2007 – Remploy Brixton – 8.30 to 9.30 am – 63a Effra Road, London, SW2 1BZ

Lambeth Trades Union Council
for Peace & Progress


Lamebth TUC and UNITE - T&G’s Remploy 1/1971 Branch
-
welcomes the REMPLOY National Crusade to London

-

Brixton REMPLOY Factory, Effra Rd SW2
21 September 2007
8:30 am

- speakers -

Kate Hoey MP

Megan Dobney
S&ERTUC Regional Secretary

Roger Sutton
Greater London Association of Trade Union Councils

Jennie Formby
UNITE

Phil Davies
GMB

support the REMPLOY workers!
no closures!
join the welcome!

21/09/2007 – Cavalcade to Whitehall, DWP, to hand in cards collected on the way to Peter Hain’s department – arrive at 11 am

BATTERSEA AND WANDSWORTH TUC & LAMBETH TUC present::

REMPLOY NATIONAL CRUSADE - LONDON SOCIAL
No Closures! - Find Work for Remploy Factories!


Friday 21st September 2007 - 8pm to Midnight

Brixton JAMM - 281 Brixton Road, Brixton.

With Special Guest - MARK THOMAS

and DJ Springfield (Movimientos)

plus live music and surprise guests including the finest young talent from Croydon's BRIT School


Free Admission with compulsory raffle - pay what you can afford - proceeds to Remploy Fighting Fund

Reserve your places now - call BWTUC on 020 8877 7300 or e-mail julia@bwtuc.org.uk

GMB - UNITE - COMMUNITY

A MILITANT ENTERTAINMENT Production

Links on Sunday - 09/09/07

The TUC are in conference at Brighton this week. On the subject of unions, I blogged recently about the Fremantle dispute. It seems that the company bosses involved have been annoyed at the level of support given to the workers due to the work of Labourstart and have started to cut up nasty with the union and the website. More from Marsha Jane Thompson's Union Futures Blog here.


Louise is back blogging at Stroppyblog and gives a well deserved blast at the latest pseudo-Fabian neo-liberal apologist bollocks from the keyboard of Will Hutton on the subject of the RMT strike and unions. Well done Louise!

The appropriate response to Hutton and his ilk brought to mind the words of James Connolly, recently posted on Noel's The Green Room blog - We Only Want The Earth!

Later this week the Green Party Autumn Conference takes place in Liverpool. I shall be there over the weekend and hope to report back next week. The Final Agenda has been published and there are a number of important motions to discuss including several on Climate Change related issues. The voting papers - (reviews of whole sections of Party policy) are this year the sections of the Manifesto For A Sustainable Society on Media & Sport and Public Administration & Government.

As well as the conferences on this week there is also the meeting of arms dealers in London - the planned actions against this are detailed on Indymedia here. Indymedia also reports that the excellent Sumac Centre in Nottingham is hosting a speaker from the rebel area of Oaxaca in Mexico on Friday 14th September.

Derek Wall, on his Another Green World Blog reports on his Sunday meeting with Cynthia McKinney at the Urban Green Fair that I mentioned on Friday. Earlier this week Jim at Daily (Maybe) commented on Dave Cameron's latest National Service wheeze.

Finally this week, a link to Sydney Indymedia who have been reporting the demonstrations around the APEC summit and associated repression from the increasingly authoritarian Australian State under Howard.

Interesting speakers at Urban Green Fair this Sunday, Brixton

NEWS: Green Party in England & Wales



URBAN GREEN FAIR: DEREK WALL TO INTRODUCE CYNTHIA MCKINNEY FROM THE UNITED STATES GREEN PARTY



SUNDAY 9TH SEPTEMBER, BROCKWELL PARK, BRIXTON, 11am - 7pm



Green Party Principal Speaker Derek Wall will this Sunday introduce Cynthia Mckinney - ex US Democratic Congresswoman currently standing for the Green Party Presidential nomination - at the first ever Urban Green Fair to take place in Brockwell Park, Brixton.



Dr. Derek Wall said: "Cynthia Mckinney could be the first African-American president, the first women president and the first Green Party president.



"As Green candidate, she could well capture the votes of the many Americans who simply don't vote because they don't have a candidate to represent them.



"Her great and brave record as an opponent of the disasterous war for oil in Iraq, which of course has led to the deaths of 100,000s Iraqis and servicemen and women who are most likely to be drawn from African-American and working class communities speaks for itself.



"I am very pleased to have the opportunity to meet such an inspiring figure.



"Her untiring work to free wrongly convicted death row prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, a prophetic writer on social justice is yet another reason to commend her candidacy."





The Urban Green Fair aims to highlight the imminent arrival of peak oil and the opinion of many climatologists that we have 8-10 years to drop our CO2 emissions by 60% or go over the 2 degrees celsius tipping point, which in turn will lead to runaway temperature increases of 3,4,5oC and risk the collapse of our the neo-liberal economic model.



There will be many well known speakers such as Mark Thomas, Peter Tatchell tbc, Cynthia McKinney - ex US Democratic Congresswoman and standing for the Green Party Presidential nomination,

Doug Jewel; ex Liberty Campaigns co-ordinator, Derek Wall; Green Party Principal Speaker plus a host of poets and comedians. In the transport zone there will be scores of unusual bicycles for people to try out, a large kids zone with rides and workshops, examples of solar panels, windmills and ways to save energy. The Solar Cinema will be showing the film 'Taking Liberties' and a Q & A with Nicky Ross the producer of the film. There will be a Speakers Corner for anyone to get something off their chest. Check the website for the full programme. The Urban Green Fair will be
powered by the wind and the sun and will use no fossil fuel.

Retreating Arctic Sea Ice Signals Increased Warming

The retreat of Arctic Sea Ice continues to be confirmed and tracked by various independent sources and methods

This was reported last month in the Independent newspaper.

This year has seen one of the most rapid rates of sea ice melting, which began in spring after one of the most disappointing winters for ice formation. "Unless something unusual happens we're definitely on track for a record loss of sea ice. We're on track to shatter all records," said Mark Serreze, an Arctic specialist at the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre at Colorado University in Denver. "The rates of sea ice loss this year are really rather remarkable. Some of the daily rates of loss are the biggest we've ever seen. Things are happening really fast," Dr Serreze said.

Last month the evidence came from US satellites that have been tracking the seasonal ebb and flow of sea ice since 1979. The evidence showed the overall area of sea ice graually shrinking. Yesterday the scientists involved made a further statement, which according to the Guardian was to the effect that the records were indeed dramatically broken as Mark Serreze suggested they would be in August:

The Arctic ice cap has collapsed at an unprecedented rate this summer and levels of sea ice in the region now stand at a record low, scientists said last night. Experts said they were "stunned" by the loss of ice, with an area almost twice as big as Britain disappearing in the last week alone. So much ice has melted this summer that the north-west passage across the top of Canada is fully navigable, and observers say the north-east passage along Russia's Arctic coast could open later this month. If the increased rate of melting continues, the summertime Arctic could be totally free of ice by 2030

The loss of sea ice is a disaster for arctic wildlife like Polar Bears, and the risk is that the effect will be to further speed up warming as open sea is less reflective than ice and snow. The danger then is that land based ice sheets such as in Greenland will melt leading to catastrophic rises in sea levels.

All good reasons to start preparing now for the next actions in the campaign against climate change such as the Global Day of Action on December 8th and the London demonstration then. The Campaign Against Climate Change holds its' AGM and a planning day for the December events on October 6th in Oxford with Mark Lynas and George Marshall speaking.

As ever, a good source for stories and discussion on the hard science of climate change is the Real Climate site. Here is their "Arctic sea ice watch" page, which has links to various other useful resources on this topic.

Two more CIF articles

After yesterday's post linking to various Guardian Comment is Free articles, I have now read two more that are stimulating and well worth a look :

First up is writer Jeremy Seabrook reflecting that it is a Rich Man's World.

Then Green Party of England and Wales member Paul Ingram offers a view of the Green leadership debate from the Green Empowerment side (views that I largely share).

Weekly Links - 02/09/2007

First up this week I would like to link to the RMT website as workers in the RMT union are currently engaged in struggle and campaigning on the London Underground. The first of two 72 hour strikes at failed tube privateer Metronet has been planned for Monday this week, furthermore they are calling for solidarity and support at a lobby and demonstration at the Department of Transport, planned for 11.30am-1.00pm on Tuesday.

Various interesting articles on the Guardian Comment is Free site this week (albeit accompanied by the now customary acres and acres of bile, invective and abuse from the right-wing vermin that infest the comment element of the site.) Last Sunday Mark Braund interestingly commented on the current dominant position of finance capital and the effect his has, but then ends on a typically Guardian-liberal exhortation for the capitalist to just 'be nicer'. On Tuesday Braund went on to comment on the huge and growing levels of personal debt in the UK.

Also on Tuesday, Derek Wall commented on the carbon footprints of the rich and famous in relation to David Beckham's itinerary. Turncoat former German Green Party Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer again demonstrated just how far to the right he is swinging with another article that looked like an apology for both US imperialism and the European centralisation and imperialism that he sees as a necessary "restraining influence".

Meanwhile George Monbiot had a cracking article on the Mont Pelerin group and the way they constructed intellectual arguments that covered the massive power and wealth-grab that has been neo-liberalism. As always the crypto-fascist rats and swivel-eyed right-"libertarians" immediately swooped to defend Hayek, Friedman et al and denounce Monbiot as a conspiracy theorist, ignoring the fact that what Monbiot was saying was not that the elitists and intellectuals conspired, but that their ideology perfectly fitted the economic needs/desires of the finance capitalist class and so was well funded and supported out of self interest rather than some dream of 'world domination'. Monbiot is clearly an anti-conspiracist writer (hence he enrages 9-11 cultists) who seeks to analyse how the base and superstructure of capitalism interact.


On Wednesday, Green Party Green Left supporter and parliamentary candidate Peter Tatchell had a piece on Nigeria's anti-gay witch hunt.

The vicious personal and political attacks by the political right in the comment sections of the Comment is Free pages demonstrate how threatened the right feel at this time of financial instability and imperial over-extension, and also the nasty and aggressive nature of right-wing ideologists that makes them feel the need to obsessively troll sites that they see as in any way (economic) left-leaning or (social) liberal. I have never felt it necessary to venture onto right-wing boards to pick pointless squabbles, disrupt discussion and hurl abuse - for many of the right and far-right doing just these things on left leaning boards and sites appears to be an itch that they cannot resist scratching, and then they accuse the left of intolerance!

Elsewhere on the net this week, various Brit left bloggers have been preoccupied by the significance of the George Galloway letter which appears to contain not-too-veiled attacks on the SWP element of his Respect coalition. Socialist Unity Blog covered the controversy over several posts including this one.

Meanwhile Ed at International Rooksbyism has been impressed by the ecosocialist material appearing in the UK left paper Socialist Resistance.

Over the water, Renegade Eye addresses the current vexed issue of boycotts and Israel.