THE POPULAR FRONT FOR THE LIBERATION OF CPSA
FIGHTING ON IN OUR 45th YEAR BUT A BIT RETIRED NOW
FREEDOM! UNITY! SOCIALISM!
ONE CIVIL SERVICE UNION,
ONE GLORIOUS DESTINY!
REVOLUTION UNTIL VICTORY!
Round & About
By Judas Iscariot - Early December 2003
The nights are drawing in as the season of goodwill approaches. Office parties, turkey, pudding and booze and the usual excesses are now top of the agenda for most of us, though not for STUART CURRIE who has lost 6 stone on the Atkins diet as part of his plan to restore his grip on the MODERATES. Others will be celebrating the birth of Our Lord. But the faction bosses at Falconcrest will be celebrating their good fortune and none more so than MAREK SERWOTKA.
MAREK sees the year out with his prestige higher than ever amongst the rank and file. And he’ll need that to silence the grumbling amongst his hidden enemies in the LUNITY camp. They’re none too happy at his latest wheeze – endorsing the maverick efforts of George Galloway MP to keep his name in the papers now that he’s been expelled from the Labour Party.
MAREK, together with RMT leader BOB CROW, is backing GALLOWAY’S “Unity Coalition” which hopes to challenge Labour at the European and London Assembly elections next year. “Unity” is little more than the Socialist Alliance MkII with a platform of the usual suspects including Ken Loach, George Monbiot and the glitterati of the Socialist Wankers Party but not the former Mendicants of the “Socialist Party” who were frozen out by the SWP last year and who dominate LUNITY today.
It will, however, strengthen SERWOTKA’S support within the SOCIALIST CAUCUS and the SWP when the GODRICH camp or the UNDYMEN start sniping. And UNDY has other problems. His secret allies, the Commissar’s SECRET LEFT, are bitterly divided over GALLOWAY. The Commissar Party’s executive was split down the middle over it when it met in November on an 11 to 11 vote and they’ve called a special national conference on the issue for 17th January next year.
WILSON-UNDY and his PCS Democrats have done little publicly since Conference. But behind the scenes NOSFERUNDY has been plotting to get LUNITY support for LANNING’S bid for the DGS post in return for putting his weight behind LEON BAUGH for the AGS vacancy if HUGO wins.
Well, it looks okay in theory but in practice it’s a bet decidedly loaded for LORD FLICK and his pals. LANNING hasn’t a prayer without the mass support of the LUNITY machine while the UNDERLINGS can deliver few votes on their own. They need LUNITY but the left has little need for them and that at least is what the SOCIALIST CAUCUS is going to say.
The CAUCUS has problems of their own. They lost a lot of street cred in London last month when their former blue-eyed boy, CHRIS FORD, jumped ship leaving the service with a £50,000-plus pay-off only a few months after beating his victimisation rap. Members of his own branch who lost two days pay when they went on strike to get him reinstated are particularly incensed to see that their efforts only served to push FRAUD’S price up.
Though no expense was spared for his farewell bash with a bar, band and hired comedian many of his erstwhile comrades shunned it. Others came hoping that FRAUD would share his largesse with the fringe-of-the-fringe groups like the WEEDY WANKER that backed his struggle. They will surely be disappointed. The only lost cause CHRIS supports is himself.
CAUCUS leaders are aware of how fickle the members can be and swallowing the loathsome LANNING would be the last straw. In fact there’s not the slightest chance of them endorsing another shoddy BAUGH manoeuvre. Almost anyone would be better than LANNING and RED BACON would be their obvious choice. The question is whether they are going to try and stop it at the December LUNITY conference.
The CAUCUS has grown in London despite CHARLIE McDONALD, and on paper they could probably outvote LEON BAUGH’S legions if they all joined and mobilised for the conference. But this would require Herculean organisational efforts alien to them, so it’s likely that they will simply sit back and hope that it will pan out in their favour just like last time when the time comes for nominations.
A further name for the DGS frame is IAN LAWRENCE, unheard of outside his own REVENUE GROUP, and most members in it. If the members vote in favour of the rule changes, and if the NEC decides to put a 50 branch nominations stipulation on the runners and riders, it should be interesting to see just how popular the candidates are at branch level. The well-known and admired branch activist LANNING had no trouble convincing 50+ branches that he was the man for the GS post, but sadly, the rest of the thousand odd branches saw things differently.
Meanwhile the LUNITY steamroller marches on at FALCONCREST. The review of full-time officer posts is over and the first victim has been PAUL SMITH, a useless MODERATI placeman of long-standing who had to re-apply for his old job and predictably failed to get it, even though his chums EMMA and ALAN CHURCHYARD were on the board. SMITHY’S future now looks decidedly uncertain.
HANSON applied for a promotion post but as SERWOTKA and Madame GODRICH were on his board he was wasting his time. The job went to FRANK BONNER, a useless TROT placeman of long-standing. HANSON was so delighted at the news that BONNER will now be his boss that he’s bought FRANK a hedge-trimmer for Christmas.
Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt.
(Men willingly believe what they wish)
Julius Caesar