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 AND ABOUT
BY JUDAS ISCARIOT late July 2006
It's all quiet on the Western Front as the DWP pickets bask in the baking sun waiting for their leave or studying the latest Management offer that the Socialist Caucus were branding a sell-out two weeks before it was made.
But while the guns are silent the knives are flashing back in the rear as the Carcase battles the "London Left Alliance" for control of the DWP's London Regional Committee. There's little entertainment for the troops on the front line but the spectacle of CHARLIE MACDONALD ranting and raving at a challenge, for a regional committee that has no power or influence, from two CPSA has-beens, was the one bright spot in our existence.
The "London Left Alliance" or the "Anti-Caucus Alliance" as it is colloquially known was cobbled together by DAVE SPAGNOL, the only active member of the Grandee's Socialist Party in the whole of DWP London, and HOWARD FULLER, a middle-aged serial faction joiner (currently in 4theMembers) who reads comics. But their list, which includes three sitting CARCASE members, ROD BACON, JOHN BALONY and JACKIE DUTTON enraged the CARCASE who responded with an eight-page diatribe titled "In bed with the Moderates" penned as usual by CHARLIE MACDONALD who must have friends in the paper manufacturing industry.
SPAGNOL & Co are dismissed as useless layabouts motivated by petty hatred and sectarian vendetta. While this is largely true much of it could equally apply to CHARLIE AND HIS ORCHESTRA ( try that phrase in Google. B. ). SPAGGERS is accused of having secret dealings with 4TM in the shape of FULLER, who is not on the Anti-Caucus slate, while CHARLIE'S own discussions with JAKE WILDE at the CAUCUS bash at conference to "look at common ground" was definitely kosher. It left DAVE spluttering with rage or as he put it on the Indie:" Ah!! So when Charlie (a LEADING FIGURE of SC) talks to Jake (the LEADER of 4TM) it's "a pragmatic search for common ground", but when I (no-one special) and others talk to Howard Fuller (claiming to act in a personal capacity), it's a "deal" between the "Socialist Party" and "4TheMembers" !!!!"
While the Caucus may well see off the LLA challenge when the vote is taken on 18 th August (the election is by branch vote only) they're not going to let the matter drop. Moves are afoot to get SPAGGERS and BRYSON expelled from Left Unity on the grounds that they were organising a list opposed to the official LUNITY London slate (ie the CARCASE list).
Apparently (and I use this device because I wasn't there) there was a London LU (not just DWP) meeting last week which ratified the Carcase slate as "official". Quite why LU in Depts other than DWP should have a say in parochial election affairs is not clear, but I'm sure the rather indistinct club "rules" by which LU conducts its internal business allow for that sort of unnecessary nose poking, or the chair (SWP) of that meeting should have ruled it out of order, but I wouldn't wish to comment on that.
The effect is that it "legitimises" (in Caucus tunnel-vision) their slate and thus purifies their complaint that other LU members standing against the Official-Double-Endorsed (with bar) Really Really I-Kid-U-Not Slate are rotten bastards and should be expelled forthwith.
Get this: they agreed to leaflet DWP offices in support of the Caucus LRC slate (now upgraded to LU Club Class but without mention of the words "socialist" or "caucus"). Que? The punters don't get a vote - only the delegate from the BEC. "Take this leaflet and lobby your BEC member!"
The leaflet lists the incumbents' names and achievements, but no forward policies, and contains the threat that not voting for them will allow the Moderates to take control (Anyone remember Barry's Trounce the Trots ? Meet the bastard sibling). Still, if London DWP Socialist Caucus wants to splash generalist LU members' cash around on their self preservation society, who am I to complain? But it's a question they may want to ask themselves. "Nurse, fetch an auditor - my dosh is being spunked!" Needless to say SPAGGERS will not be losing any sleep over the CARCASE threats because everything he does is at the behest of JAN'N'DAN who have delegated this responsibility to BIG MAC.
However, the Forces of Light in London have an ally in MRS ROB WILLIAMS who has decreed that a couple of groups with a considerable card vote can come into play in DWP London: Glasgow and Makerfield (Wigan). Carcase had dismissed these folk out of hand as they were remote and even tried to cut their facility time to attend LRC meetings:
"My understanding is that both are entitled to send delegates to the DWP London Regional Committee under rule 3(a) of the DWP Regional Committee Constitution which states: "members of the Regional Committee shall comprise all branches with members employed in the Region". This has long been interpreted as including members who, though geographically distant in these cases, are employed by the London Region and whose Industrial interests are served by that regional committee.
Their entitlement to vote was established in the predecessor unions' CPSA Area Committee and has carried on through PCS.
I understand that the Glasgow Benefit Centre hold a full Branch card vote as all their members are employed in the Region.. The Makerfield delegate holds only the card vote for the BPC, as their Branch membership includes members employed in the North West Region also.
I am happy to clarify that I believe this practice to be in order."
The Grandees have been trying to cut the CARCASE down to size for the past two years and have made no secret about it (see PFL passim ) because they want the Big Tent that is Lunity or the "Democratic Alliance" to continue to infinity and beyond but only as long as they call all the shots .
Those who play ball get a place in the sun. There's enough seats on the NEC and the GEC's for everyone to have a slice providing that the lion's share remains in the hands of the Grandees. It's good enough for the former Me Firsters who became the "PCS Democrats" who otherwise would have vanished into obscurity without the Grandee machine to keep them afloat. It works for the Secret Left's "Unity" faction who are in the same boat. Secret Commissar PHIL MORCOM has even got a full-time post at last. But the CARCASE is not playing the game and it's difficult to see where else they can go.
Back at Falconcrest other problems are looming. The sale of FALCONCREST and moving the work to the old IR HQ in Victoria is now being seriously considered. But what's on offer. The Moderati had plenty of offers when it was the old CPSA HQ from developers who want to pull the whole block down including the Falcon pub and replace it with a shopping complex and luxury flats. But all they were offered were peanuts for a site worth millions upon millions (especially now that the Jubilee line is being extended to Clapham Junction). The Victoria block is older and smaller but it would also attract developers. Why its sale is not being considered is puzzling.
Meanwhile the Grandees hope for an easy ride until the Lunity AGM in December. They expect the DWP deal to be accepted and they have no doubt that their AGM will, one way or another, once again confirm their leading role in the Big Tent. The Grandees are essentially all former members of the old MENDICANT TENDENCY now in the Scottish Socialist Party, the Socialist Party of England and Wales, still in Labour or in no party at all. But the dominant trend has been the Scottish SSP faction headed by DANNY WILLIAMSON and honorary Scot JANICE GODRICH. But the SSP is in deep trouble. Their party is being torn apart over the TOMMY SHERIDAN scandal and whichever way the libel case goes it is bound to hit the SSP's chances in the forthcoming Scottish parliamentary elections. Their English and Welsh cousins are also in trouble. The SP's "campaign for a new workers' party" designed to head off the SWP/Respect bloc never really got off the ground and both the SP and the SSP are on the defensive in the face of the GALLOWAY band-wagon that could threaten both groups existence in the wider political arena.
Fortunately for them little of this gets out to PCS activists. GORGEOUS GEORGE can have his 200-strong rally at Conference every year but the SOCIALIST WANKERS can't even recruit anyone under the age of 50 inside the union these days.
Some say the "SP" in both parties names stand for "self-preservation" but what it really stands for is "self-perpetuation".
Joe Cox (as his alter-ego Joe Le-Taxi) is driving an old couple from Cramlington to Newcastle Central Station.
"Eeeh it's a grand day tha knows" says the old man
Joe says "Yorkshire folk eh"?
The old man replies "Aye from Swaledale"
The old lady digs her husband sharply in the ribs and says "What did he say?"
The old man replies "He was asking if we're from Yorkshire"
Joe says "I've been to Swaledale once. I stayed with an old couple. The woman was horrible, a real bitch, it put me off on ever going back there!"
The old lady prods her husband sharply in the ribs again and says "What did he say?"
The old man says "He says he knows thee!"
Nam, quae volumus, et credimus libenter et, quae sentimus ipsi, reliquos sentire speramus
What we wish, we readily believe, and what we ourselves think, we imagine others think also
Julius Caesar