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 - September 1998
As the combined left wing of the union departs to lick its - in some cases mortal - wounds following its glorious election defeat, and wonder how they yet again misjudged the forces of righteousness, BARRY finds himself in an invidious position. Whilst he was certain that his National Moderate machine would carry the Clerical constituency, he hadn't reckoned on ME FIRST whitewashing the assorted gaggle of TROTS and TANKIES as well as the MODS in the Executive constituency. As the RED menace recedes, a fresh spectre comes to haunt the Great Scot - that of the odious James UNDY. Puppetmaster of ME FIRST, he recently turned up at a members meeting at HSE and was challenged by a disaffected member. His response? "Well, you can always leave the union if you don't like what we've done!".
But he really has it in for Bladder, who blithely assumed that within the new union there was room for only one true faith, that of the MODS, and that ME FIRST would simply be subsumed into the March of the MODS, and all allegiance transferred to him. Not so, as he found to his displeasure, which required him to set up the MOD faction in the Executive constituency with a handful of ex-CPSA has beens and never wases who got promoted to EO and joined PTC. His expectation being that with a few REDS and TANKIES elected to the Executive constituency, who would not in any case form allegiances with the Right wing, his MODS with a few anticipated ME FIRST renegades would hold a majority on the new NEC.
But the Left vote collapsed and Barry didn't get his turncoats. UNDY,who will now have to be consulted on important matters such as political appointments etc., reckons he's entitled to get his snout in the trough. But Barry is a proud man. This sort of grovelling is not his style. Future NECs should provide us with a clearer picture of the two dinosaur factions squaring up to each other. Some old timers didn't make it back on to the NEC for various reasons. ROUSE got himself shat on, Sir WOY was past his use-by date, Owen DODD (£10 please) rather stupidly told the MODS to get stuffed, he was going to get promoted to an executive job. When inevitably the job fell through, DODO crawled back to the MODS and asked to go back on their list, but too late! It wasn't actually, but that's what they told him.
Newcastle Central Office does not often come to our attention, fortunately, but this little gem for electioneering almost deserves an award. Sean FAHEY (ME1st) and Joe COX (MODR8) are great chums and both stood for the NEC in their respective Executive and Clerical constituencies. Joe Le Taxi asked SHORN if he wouldn't mind distributing some election leaflets for him. Only too pleased to be of assistance, he had distributed some 3000 leaflets before a helpful Clerical member pointed out to him that Joe's scribble also contained advice to vote for SHAUN's MODR8 opponent in the Executive constituency at NCO.
West Midlands regional officer Malcolm TEABAG TETL(E)Y is making quite a name for himself. For starters, he buggered off to GHANA right in the middle of pay negotiations for his biggest area, the CSA. Now he's topped that, and demonstrated just how bright and talented he really is. Every official gets the new, improved PCS business cards (no doubt they'll be really useful to TEABAG on his other four trips to GHANA and AUSTRALIA), but when his cards arrived in Birmingham, his name was misspelt. Rather than speak directly to the design unit , he penned a stunningly stroppy missive to BASIL Hanson. Ever thorough in his investigations, Jim asked TopCat how this could have occurred. Within seconds the proof slip was produced, signed off as proofed and corrected by the over-brewed E-BAG himself.
BASIL is sporting a new look this season, sans moustache. Mysteriously, he tells the inquisitive that he allowed his daughter to shave him and she got carried away. But what is the true reason? On his metamorphosis from JESUS to BASIL, he left the turmoil of the DHSS (as it was called then) for a sinecure at CPSA HQ (pre-Falconcrest days). Could he again be polishing his CV? Is having a singing combo popular among younger people no longer enough for the mans ego?
HUGE PLANNING certainly made an impression at the first meeting of the recruitment and organisation committee. Chair Les "The Monk" PRIESTLY thought he'd allow one last debate before he'd let the NEC members go to lunch. He called in nine speakers on the subject matter with every one of them agreeing with the suggested recommendation. His big mistake - or perhaps it was part of his strategy to get everybody to hate the man of many titles - was to call in POO-BAH to wind up the debate. Now, Falconcrest canteen opens at 12 noon. The best of the food's gone by 12.15. POO-BAH took the floor at 12.30 and rambled on and on until The Monk finally shut him up at 1.15. The NEC members, some of whom had left home at 6am to travel to the meeting, were already somewhat esurient when he started and were almost too weak to reach the canteen by the time he had finished. Predictably by this time all the food had gone - well, not quite all - one plate of salad remained and a few plates of cheese and biscuits. There was no time even to go and get a pub lunch, The Monk having given them only 1/2 an hour for lunch because POO-BAH had gone on for so long. And what was POO-BAH's important and necessary contribution to the debate which brought about this unhappy situation? Not a lot. He just repeated all the points made by the other nine speakers and put the recommendation which had appeared in the original paperwork.
Nobody can deny that BARRY plots hard (surely "works hard".ed) and deserves a break, but he must take care who he hands the reins to while he's gone because the loathsome POO-BAH has a habit of getting involved. During one of The Great Scot's recent fact-finding trips away to foreign climes, the van which is used to transport documents etc between the Falconcrest and Southwark Street HQs developed a dodgy door and was not safe to be driven. In the absence of BARRY, noboby was prepared to take the decision to fork out the £150 to fix it. Enter POO-BAH stage right: Problem solved - rent another van. This had an accident. Problem solved - rent a third van. Driver then goes sick. Problem solved - engage a casual driver. New driver turns out to be only 23 and therefore too young for the insurance. Problem solved - get one of the HQ messengers to drive the underaged driver around on his deliveries.
Still, things are back to normal now: Micky DUGGAN got permission to borrow the van to take the C&E GEC on a "bonding trip". 300 yards down the road - before they even got the first pint down them - DUGGAN lovingly wrapped the van around a lamppost, writing off both van and lamppost, severely bruising the occupants and knocking out the front tooth of the group organiser. They have themselves to blame. Well, would you allow the pot-bellied,Trot-bashing, myopic, lager-swilling dwarf to drive you anywhere?