Welcome to the New Nanny State

The Tories first coined the term “Nanny State” as a criticism of an overprotective and overbearing government that interferes with the personal lives of its citizens. It’s strange then that David Cameron’s government has embarked on an unparalleled scale of monitoring personal activities ever envisioned. 

I'm not sure about you but the type of Nanny I want is one that has money set aside for hard times and is supportive of modern technology even though she doesn't understand it because she trusts you to use it for good. The type of Nanny David Cameron obviously had is one that blames you for your misfortune, checks your internet history to make sure you are looking for job, thinks you may be a terrorist and blocks what she doesn't trust you to see. 

The idea for an automatic pornography block for children is nothing new. Many other countries have toyed with the idea. Australia recently decided that such measures would be too difficult and costly to implement with no guarantee of protecting children. 

Claire Perry MP first raised the issue which lead to a public consultation concluding that parents already have the safeguards they need. “UK Rejects Automatic Porn Filter” the internet cried. No so fast. The Daily Mail has been running a year long campaign to “protect our children from porn” and today crowed that it had won. That’s right all Dave has to do now is flick porn block switch under the desk in Number 10 and all the children will finally be safe. Actually...

While the concept of blocking porn sounds easy in principle, it’s actually very difficult to achieve in reality. The first is what classifies as porn? How nude does someone have to be before you call it porn? Even if you come up with a rating system how to you automatically classify this? 

Websites may contain a wide range of language, pictures and video that may be submitted by users. If you find a nude image posted by a user on a public forum do you add the whole site to the block list? Any user generated site is susceptible to porn uploading. Should Wikipedia and YouTube

On the subject of scanning for porn. Scanning imagery for nudity is massively processor intensive task confined to the likes of Google with their complex algorithms in it’s huge data centres. Even then it’s nowhere near fool proof. Are our ISPs suppose to do this? Even though most basic measures would mean that ISPs would have to make an investment and pass the cost on to everyone. I’m not sure that I want to pay more for my internet so that parents can pass the blame for monitoring their children’s activities off onto BT. 

You would think that when Claire Perry states that the sexualisation of children must be stopped that she would start with sexually suggestive music videos, unrealistic fashion imagery and sexually suggestive clothing all directly marketed at children rather than online pornography which is not. 

The moral of the story is that the Tories neither understand technology nor trust the public. They create systems based on a pessimistic view of humanity. Parents can’t be trusted to monitor and regulate their children on the internet, the unemployed cannot be trusted to find jobs so should be monitored and everyone is potentially a terrorist who should be watched. If you navigate this sea of pessimism using the moral compass of the Daily Mail then you are unlikely to find your way to reasoned shores. I suppose it’s not all bleak though, at the very least one can hope that such a filter will block filth like this, this, this, this, this, this, and this.

The incredible story of Cuban medical internationalism

Source: New Internationalist

Cameron's game of political Guess Who

Cameron’s latest bunch of cabinet cronies looks like the worst game of Guess Who imaginable.

Is this person a millionaire? – Yes

Is this person right-wing? – Yes

Is this person BME? – No

Is this person a man? – Almost certainly yes

Is this person a vile cretin? – Certainly

Doesn’t leave you much to go on…

The real danger to the Edinburgh fringe isn’t the big venues, it’s the BBC

After reading one of our greatest living stand-up comedians Stewart Lee’s annual mawkish piece for the Guardian about the commercialisation of the fringe – and how it was much better when Edinburgh consisted of shows like Professor Nutty’s Racist Flea Circus played to three people in an abandoned shoe at the bottom of Arthur’s Seat – I felt an urge to respond.

Stu – (I can call him Stu because he’s done about 5 gigs for me, I’ve interviewed him a couple of times and if I see him in the street he will say hi. Actually, saying that, since he’s had his deserved critical acclaim and commercial success, the last time I saw him he ignored me) – Stewart makes some good points, but he ignores the real danger to the fringe – the BBC.

Lee’s main gripe is aimed at the so-called big four venues and the Etonian cabal who run them. I dislike the big four as much as the next man, but they’ve been at the fringe for over 25 years (Underbelly 12.) They are here to stay, get over it. The real problem is not the big four or Eton. And unless someone wants to burn Eton down and throw all its students into the sea, we are going to have to put up with its alumni continuing its stranglehold over British society – David Cameron, Boris Johnson, Bear Grylls, Prince William...

Lee mentions the cost of performing at some of the venues as upwards of £10,000 (the figure is closer to £6,000 and venue hire makes up very little of that). One of the biggest costs is actually accommodation. Scottish landlords charge a month’s London rent for a week to live in a city with worse weather than the moon.

Most of the big four venues actually do a pretty fair deal apart from forcing you to advertise in their brochure. If you are arrogant and deluded enough to think – after working the open mic circuit for a year with one appearance on Russell Howard’s Good News – that £2000 is a worthwhile amount to spend on PR, then you deserve the debt you find yourself in. Show business is not a charity vanity project. You don’t book the London palladium and ask them to cover your losses if your show is rubbish and no-one comes, so why should the big four? That’s not reality, unless you are playing the Stand it would seem (“The fiercely independent Stand underwrites all its shows, so performers lose nothing,” writes Lee).

Edinburgh offers a platform to develop, become a better performer and build an audience. It is the ultimate meritocracy: the better your show is, the more people come and the more money you make. You can be in the back room of a pub on the Free Fringe or at the Pleasance, managed by Avalon or some bloke who operates out of a public toilet in Peckham, if your show is shit no-one is going to come and see it. So either stay at home or give me £6,000 and I’ll make you a star (1).

What Lee fails to mention was that last year the BBC re-launched their Edinburgh presence by moving their operations out of the Pleasance and setting-up a full time comedy venue to house the live recordings of some of its flagship comedy shows, masterclasses and Q&A’s with TV stars. All totally free.

For £12 a ticket you can see their long running mixed-bill BBC Comedy Presents. At the risk of never getting my own BBC series – something that seems unlikely after 10 years of failing to be called into a meeting, let alone receiving a reply to any of my proposals (2) – the BBC venue is wrong and is a real danger to the fringe.

With over 100 shows scheduled by the BBC, several pages of listings and advertising in the fringe brochure, this is taking thousands of audience members away from other shows at the fringe. Performing to no people is not a show, it’s mental illness.

The BBC’s defence is that they film and record shows for broadcast and this advertises the fringe – but instead of showcasing innovative fringe shows, it produces Q&A’s with bloated TV stars and soulless mixed-bill nights in a marquee more akin to hosting a wedding reception.

And who’s paying for the privilege? The acts, producers and promoters who produce the majority of the fringe’s output. If Rupert Murdoch set up a Sky venue and gave all the tickets away for free there would be calls for it to be shut down and a Levenson-style enquiry into why a massive corporation set up a free venue that took tickets away from the fringe. But because it’s Auntie it feels like their free comedy is a reward for our license fee, when in fact it’s slowly eroding performers’ audiences.

The BBC should be covering the festival as a broadcaster the same way it covers Glastonbury or the Olympics. There is no imagination in their programming despite the fringe having one of the most inventive programmes possible. This should a) be reflected in the BBC venue (which it isn’t) and b) be represented in the BBC’s broadcast output (which it isn’t).

Essentially the BBC in Edinburgh becomes a rival promoter putting on free shows with TV names and – worst of all – charging for their mixed-bill shows that take further money out of the fringe economy (the equivalent of two tickets for two unknown shows). With many acts producing their own shows, appearing on the Free Fringe or being backed by a small promoter they are never going to be able to compete with this.

So Stewart Lee is right that the fringe has changed but has it changed for the better or the worse? I think the spirit of the fringe is stronger than any corporate entity but you have to look a little harder for it. Artists being abused is a dance as old as time – but that’s not to say I agree with it. The BBC should have a presence at the fringe, but in its current form it takes more from the fringe than it gives back. Right that’s Edinburgh sorted, now can I have my own TV show and a prime slot at BBC Comedy Presents?

(1) I say this to a lot of the young female performers

(2) Can someone forward this sentence to the head of comedy at the BBC?

Guest blog by Harry Deansway, comedy writer, producer & promoter

Sport at the heart of revolution

Interview with double Olympic gold-medalist Alberto Juantorena

On a recent visit to a North London primary school, Cuban Olympic legend Alberto Juantorena was asked by a pupil how much his gold medals were worth. Nobody had asked Juantorena the question before and, unsurprisingly, he didn’t know the answer – but the exchange gave a fascinating insight into the contrasting British and Cuban mentalities. Whilst Britain racks up an £11bn bill for the Olympic games, Cuba continues to punch above its weight in the field of sport despite a relentless blockade. As Britain’s Olympic bill grows, Juantorena observes wryly, “with a smaller budget you could do fantastic things as long as you organise and have government support”.

Alberto Juantorena remains the only athlete to win both the 400m and 800m Olympic titles. At the 1976 Montreal games, Juantorena – also known as El Caballo (the Horse) – achieved the unique feat of winning golds in both sprint and middle-distance events. He smashed the 800m world record and, in doing so, redefined middle-distance running.

Despite his unequalled sporting achievements, Juantorena remains best known in Britain for being the subject of one of the most infamous commentary gaffes. As Ron Pickering exclaimed as El Caballo galloped to victory in 1976, “there goes Juantorena down the back straight, opening his legs and showing his class”.

Standing at well over six foot tall, Juantorena is an imposing figure. Affable and with contagious enthusiasm, he is a giant both on and off the field. Having served in Cuba’s National Assembly for over a decade, he is now Vice-President of INDER, the Cuban Institute of Sport, as he seeks to nurture the next generation of Cuban sporting heroes.

Originally a promising basketball player – representing Santiago province and the national team – Juantorena was encouraged into track and field by his Polish coach Zygmunt Zabierzowski after running the 400m in 51.5 seconds whilst wearing basketball shoes. In 1972, at the age of 22, he made his Olympic debut in Munich where he was narrowly defeated in the semi-finals. For the next two years he remained undefeated and – after recovering from two foot operations – emerged as the 400m favourite in Montreal.

Success in the 400m seemed inevitable – until the indomitable Zabierzowski had another brainwave:

"Three months before Montreal he said ‘you will run the 800m in the next Olympics’ and I said ‘No way man, you’re crazy’. Do you know why? Because I was afraid. I knew that the 800m was the first event and I was worried that I’d be tired after the first race and wouldn’t win anything in the 400m either." 

Zabierzowski set about building Juantorena’s confidence and – at a training camp in Italy – asked him to pace the first lap for two teammates who still needed the 800m qualifying time. He found the first lap so easy that he completed the second and chalked up the second fastest time in the world that season. 

The only person to run faster was Rick Wolhuter of the United States who dismissed the unknown Cuban’s chances in an interview with the French newspaper L’Equipe: “I don’t think he’ll be able to make three rounds in Montreal”.

“They didn’t know about me,” beams Juantorena with a smile as wide as his gigantic stride. “I didn’t have any history in the 800m and from a psychological point of view that gave me an advantage over them”.  

"We changed the strategy of the 800m. Before the first lap was 52 or 53 seconds because they ran the 800m and 1500m. Because I was a 400m runner I could do the first lap in 44.6 seconds, and I was walking! The first lap was faster than ever."

Juantorena broke Marcello Fiasconaro's world record and became the first 800m Olympic champion from a non-English speaking country. “No-one thought the tall guy with the basketball socks and the big hair could win. Nobody cared about me and suddenly boom, I smashed it”. Three days later he sprinted to 400m glory and became the first person to compete on every day of the athletics programme.

Returning to Cuba a national hero, he was greeted at Havana airport by Fidel Castro.

“Fidel gave me a big hug. He congratulated me and called me his colleague. I asked him why he called me a colleague and he said that he also ran the 800m. He told me about how he ran in the 1946 college competition in Havana. He had a magazine from the Jesuit school and there he was winning the gold medal! I was very proud to have a colleague like Fidel”

As we sit chatting, Juantorena removes one of his gold medals from its original commemorative case. It is the first time it has left Cuba since 1976 and the other remains on permanent public display in a museum in Havana.

“This belongs to the Cuban people, not to me. It belongs to everyone: the man who prepares the track, my doctors, my coach, my team and my Commander Fidel – but also to every single Cuban who strives on behalf of our country”.

It is a sobering and inclusive sentiment which has underpinned Juantorena’s whole life. He spent the summer after his Olympic triumph volunteering on a sugar plantation. “I wanted to cut cane, support the workers and help the economy,” he declares proudly. “The first voluntary work in Cuba was created by Che Guevara and it is part of our tradition”. 

Juantorena sees himself as both a product and champion of the Cuban revolution. “When the revolution triumphed, the opportunity to participate in sport opened up to everyone regardless of religion, gender or race,” he reflects.

“Before 1959, professionalism was the only way to compete in sport. You couldn’t go to sport installations because they were private. But look at the change! Fidel abolished both these things – professionalism and private institutions – and put all those facilities in the hands of the people”.

The revolution brought a new mentality and new coaches to Cuban sport. Before 1959, there were only 800 physical education teachers, now there are 78,000. “We had only one Olympic champion – and he lived and trained in France,” says Juantorena. “Now we have 62”. All this has been achieved despite an unrelenting and pernicious blockade.

Juantorena – who has been denied a visa to the US on four separate occasions for being a “danger” to the American people – laments the debilitating effects of the blockade. “We cannot buy anything from the United States. If we want to buy a javelin, shoes or rice, we need to go via another country like China or Pakistan. It would be cheaper to go to the United States, but we cannot do it.”

“Two of our pole-vaulters – Lázaro Borges and Yarisley Silva – need equipment, but the pole they need is produced in the United States by UCS Enterprise and we cannot trade with them. Do you know how I got them five poles each for a tournament last month?” he asks.

“I called a friend of mine in Mexico who was a former president of their association. I asked him to speak to UCS – even though they are friends of mine – and we had to get the poles via Mexico.”

“We practise sport in Cuba with a real lack of everything. Almost nothing. Our infrastructure is not sophisticated. Our resources – from an economic point of view – are not high. But we have been successful because we focus on children. We pay a lot of attention to physical education which is compulsory in school from primary to university. And we produce athletes like a windmill – we never stop. Why? Because if you have mass participation, if you have 2.5m students – from primary to university – practising sport at least three times a week, then you can see the talent, select it and nurture it. It’s easy.”

The organisation of physical education in Cuba is multi-layered. Primarily, it focuses on mass participation and, as a sub-product, it seeks to develop champions. Mass participation in sport is a key pillar of Cuba’s exceptional health system.

“Sport is a key benefit to people’s health. It’s better than medicine and it’s also good to socialise, interact with friends and to teach people to think collectively. It’s about providing tools for people to improve their own health. If people can reduce their blood pressure then it reduces the risk of heart attack. Mass programmes of activity can help people with diabetes or obesity.”

Playground sport in Cuba

Juantorena – in his role as Vice-President of INDER – is a sporting visionary focussed on equal and inclusive participation. “We promote sport not to promote competition, but to increase life-expectancy. We aim to increase the health of the people first – but, as a consequence of this, you can develop talent and win medals.” 

At the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Cuba won nine gold medals – the same as Britain – despite being a sixth of the size. Furthermore, whilst more than one third of Great Britain’s Olympic team in 2012 will have been privately educated and rely on private sponsorship to compete, Cuba’s emphasis on inclusion and mass participation has made sport accessible to all. 

“All the sports people in Cuba are students. They are studying different subjects at university such as physical education, engineering or journalism. It’s very different to everywhere else because our sponsor is the state. The state provides revenue, budget, materials, equipment, medical care, education, flight tickets, food, everything. It’s a completely different approach”

So how well would Britain do if we adopted the same sporting principles as Cuba? “Really, really well,” admits Juantorena. “Because you have the resources and the infrastructure we don’t. The British love sport. My advice is always focus on physical education, not just for future champions, but for the whole country. Everyone might not be a champion, but they will be the politicians, teachers and doctors of tomorrow.”

This interview originally appeared in CubaSi magazine

Media Watch: The Anti-Islam Bias

Iran is trending on Twitter. It must be true.

While the Arab Spring was a democratic triumph, the resulting wave of Islamic conservatism seems troubling. Reading media reports describing proposed Egyptian laws allowing sex with dead wives and plans to destroy the Pyramids one can’t help feel that the previous regimes had a place in suppressing this Islamic madness.

That may be the case but neither of the above stories are actually true – and yet they were still reported as fact around online and print media. Once the truth behind the stories came to light, most media outlets pulled the story – but the damage had already been done.

These stories typify a trend of spurious anti-Islamism which dominates Western media, and it occurs for a number of reasons:

1.       Lazy Research

Decreasing resources and corporate competition mean that journalists are under increasing pressure to churn out more copy. This “churnalism” results in little or no research time and therefore uncorroborated falsehoods are often reported as fact. In a market where stories are the product, it’s cheaper to buy in from public relation companies or reprocess press releases from the news wire than spend precious resources on producing well-researched original content. A well-researched story is likely to be less sexy – and less saleable – than something specifically designed by a corporate PR company to be emotive.

2.       Bias

The first rule of PR is to “be the journalist”. When working for the Labour government I attended constituency training on how to increase your vote. The talk was given by Tom Watson who stood out by defying the national trend to hold his vote in 2005. Tom explained that spamming the local press with stuff you wanted to get in will get you nowhere as you are asking the journalist to find value in your message and extract it by rewriting it. Instead you evaluate the saleability of the story yourself and write it for them in that vein. If you are successful they will print it pretty much word for word and whack a journalist's name on it. This is ideal since you are getting your message through intact in a way that looks like ‘objective’ journalism. The media thus has become middle ground for competing PR interests who win and lose depending on the market value of their message. You can increase your chances of getting in by appealing to the known bias of a media source or by democratisation.

3.       Democratic Journalism

The rise of social media has taken the guesswork out of determining the market value of news items. If a story is trending then it obviously has appeal and can be reprocessed and sold to a different audience. The very fact that it has been popular creates safety in numbers as if you print the story and it is disproved you are not alone.

Let’s take the above example of a Daily Mail article that was debunked.  They first published the article on having sex with dead wives on the 25th of April – but the correction exposing the hoax didn’t appear until over a month later even though the story was contradicted within a day (as soon as the Egyptian authorities could respond). The reader comments underneath show the reaction to this lie. I wonder how many people who read the article saw the later correction? Why, also, does the story link to other articles about Muslim women’s rights rather than other false stories?

The journey of the story is fairly typical. It was seeded and propagated through Twitter (democratic journalism) and at no point did the Daily Mail check with the Egyptian Parliament to see if this proposed law was on the table (lazy research). And why would they bother? It fits nicely with the Mail’s constant bashing of Muslims (bias). 

There are also some who believe that corporate interests play their part in promoting or suppressing stories. It's difficult to find direct evidence of this in the UK (in the US it isn't).

Media Watch: The First Casualty of War is Truth

The above image appeared in the Kronen Zeitung – Austria’s largest newspaper with a daily readership of over three million – on Saturday. It shows war-torn Aleppo in Syria alongside the title "Assad’s Tanks roll through the streets to the Mother of all Battles". It’s a powerful and emotive image – but, as the photo below demonstrates, it only tells half the story.

This original image emerged from the European Press Agency. Whether the Photoshopped consumer-friendly image was produced by the newspaper itself, or an unscrupulous PR company, it perfectly symbolises how the West wishes to frame the Syrian conflict. Sometimes the truth just isn’t enough. 

Further Reading: Interesting article by John Rees on U.S. intervention in Syria and the Middle East & the response of the left 

Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival 2012

We went to the Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival this year. Check out some of our photos.

You can see more photos on Facebook.

Tips on making Marxism unmissable

Outside the university sphere it becomes difficult to access authors, academics and political figures – but the annual Marxism Festival provides an unparalleled opportunity to see renowned leftist commentators whilst meeting like-minded people. 

Expertly organised by the SWP, there are more than 200 talks over five days on a wide range of topics including philosophy, history and contemporary issues – all from a Marxist perspective. The most expensive ticket – £65 for the whole festival – gives access to people like Tariq Ali, Owen Jones and Slavoj Zizek. If you fill your diary, it works out about £3 a talk. If you're unwaged, you pay half that and the SWP will also help provide (basic) accommodation for free. If you're interested in social sciences at any level then this is an unrivalled opportunity.

However, as with everything, there is always a drawback. Whilst it’s clear that the SWP isn’t doing this to make vast quantities of money (they are socialists after all) there are many pitfalls that you need to be aware of to get the most out of the experience. We have been attending the festival for 10 years and have compiled our top 5 tips and tricks for you:

1. Don’t pick a topic, pick a speaker

This is the most important point. You might have an interest in a specific area and be tempted to pick talks relating to it – but don’t always do this. We make this mistake every year. Many talks are given by SWP members themselves and will reflect a Trotskyist line you’ll soon become familiar with. At worst, some sessions can be factually inaccurate (depending on speaker). For instance, in a talk on the Cuban Revolution, the speaker asserted that Cuba is still run by Fidel and operates a “dollar currency”.

Try to research the speakers beforehand. Many of the most interesting talks which attract the most debate will be from non-SWP figures. If you don’t recognise any speakers, pick the largest rooms. The best talks I have been to are on things I previously wasn’t interested in. Michael Rosen for example really opened my eyes to the dangerous education strategy Michael Gove is employing. Get to meetings early to secure a seat.

2. Don’t be threatened

When the main speaker has finished, the Chair will open the meeting to contributions from the floor. The first people called will probably be ones known to the organisers and you’ll hear the same dull SWP party line being repeated again and again. You know stuff, challenge them! There aren't enough people who do this. You might get booed but there will be people like me in the audience who think you are cool (I won’t show you any overt support though). On a number of occasions I have been humbled by some of the excellent points by contributors who have mind-blowing levels of knowledge. There are a lot of clever people around and sometimes the topics are so niche you might not have much of a clue what’s going on.

3. Social media is cool

You don’t have to stand up and speak to join the debate. The Marxism Twitter hashtag provides a great way to debate even when a talk is in progress. It was fascinating to view the online fallout when David Harvey suggested groups like the SWP sometimes puncture organic movements by trying to hijack them as recruitment exercises.

4. Don’t be afraid to be on your own – you won’t be  

The festival is a really friendly place and the demographic of attendees is diverse. People are there for similar reasons and many attend on their own. I was engaged in conversation many times in the talks and bumped into the same people time and again – even though I make minimal effort myself. Social media is good for connecting with people since two of you might be tweeting in the same room.

5. Don’t be afraid of eccentricities

In any low cost event with thousands of attendees, you get a fair share of eccentrics. You’ll meet people coming to verbal blows over North Korea or the role of the peasantry in the revolution – why not join in? Immerse yourself in it as much as you can. Talk to the International Bolshevik Tendency and the Revolutionary Communist Group. Buy the New Worker or Workers’ Vanguard. By the time you’re done, you’ll know why the term “loony left” was invented.

Have you been to Marxism before? Why not post your own tips below?

Marxism Festival 2012 Highlights

We’ve been going to the annual Marxism Festival for nearly ten years and this year – with over 5000 attendees – was definitely the biggest we’ve been to. Whether it’s a result of austerity at home, a weak Labour opposition, organic movements like Occupy or Anonymous, the Arab Spring, the rise of the left in Greece or the continuing growth of progressive movements in Latin America, the left is growing and we should be encouraged by the fact Marxism is enjoying a Renaissance. Whatever you think about the SWP – and we’ve certainly disagreed a lot with them in the past – they deserve credit for organising the event which remains the biggest celebration of socialist ideas in Britain.

Here are just a few of our highlights from this year’s festival.  

A No Nonsense Guide to Equality, Danny Dorling

In a special session launching his new book, A No Nonsense Guide to Equality, Human Geographer Danny Dorling provided a powerful and engaging overview of why greater equality is good for us all – even the super rich. The talk was rich with empirical evidence and compelling statistics and placed the growing trend towards inequality within a historical context.

Dorling’s book differs to the monumental Spirit Level because more focus is placed on discovering an alternative. He investigated countries that have mapped out an alternative to savage austerity and looked at key ways we can restore levels of greater equality.

Perhaps most shockingly of all, Dorling demonstrated that – for the first time – the amount that the United States (that infamous beacon for socialism) spends on public services as a proportion of GDP is set to overtake the UK in 2015. This helps show how enthusiastically the government have adopted slash-and-burn neo-liberalism – but Dorling’s book helps arm the movement with a positive framework for a genuine alternative.


Hacktivism & Anonymous: A Marxist analysis, Kieran Crowe

This was a good overview of the relatively recent rise to prominence of hacking groups such as Anonymous and Lulzsec. Crowe attempted to relate their (often anti-corporate and anti-oppression) actions from a traditional leftist standpoint which gave the lecture a nice twist. The bulk of the talk was an interesting historical overview of 'hacktivist' targets such as Scientologists, the Iranian government and immoral US companies and the methods used to attack them (including the interesting cross-over from online to physical protests). Paired with a genuinely inquisitive, forward-looking and positive welcoming of the potential political role activist hackers can play, this made for a refreshing talk.

With the increasingly aggressive measures being imposed against people who infringe copyright and frequent attempts to curb internet freedom it was interesting, and probably quite realistic, to hear the speaker conclude that it was 'hard to imagine any future left wing movement without a hacking element.'

The press, power & the phone-hacking scandal, Nick Davies

Nick Davies – the man who helped break the phone-hacking scandal – provided a witty and withering analysis of the modern media. Based on his peerless study, Flat Earth News, Davies outlined how big business and corporations have tightened their grip on popular media since the Wapping dispute of the 1980s smashed the trade unions.

Through a mixture of emotive anecdotes and robust factual evidence, Davies urged the left to move away from its traditional view that powerful media moguls set the political agenda through personal diktat and advertising pressure. As Davies declared, “Replace Rupert Murdoch with Rupert the Bear and everything would be exactly the same”. 

Instead, a corporate culture emerged as a result of ingrained fear combined with the strangulation of the journalistic profession. The defeat of the unions undermined working conditions meaning that fewer and fewer journalists have to produce more and more copy. This means journalists no longer have time to check their stories or produce original research. A study commissioned by Davies found that 12% of news stories originate from independent research by a journalist; 8% of stories have an unknown origin and a whopping 80% come from news agencies or public relation companies – all of which go unverified by journalists. This effectively means that 80% of news is created, manufactured and distorted by corporate interests.

Dear Mr Gove, Michael Rosen

Michael Rosen began his talk in inimitable style by reading what was essentially a Twitter-poem decrying the education reforms being pursued by Michael Gove and the Conservatives. Following this Rosen got more serious and gave fascinating insights into the methods and motivations being employed by the government to transform education in this country. Arguably the most worrying of these was the link between Gove and Rupert Murdoch which could see the media proprietor and his corporate ilk setting up privately-owned schools throughout Britain.

In addition to the cosy Tory-corporate relationship in the education sector (among others), Rosen also highlighted the distorted and out-dated curriculum models Gove is introducing to our schools. The discussion that followed contained many illuminating comments from people who work in various parts of the education sector from teachers to HR. Unsurprisingly the unifying theme of both the talk and discussion was a disdain for Gove's regressive reforms and an encouraging sense that the education unions and - equally importantly - parents were not willing to sit back and take what would be a hugely negative blow for our education system and equality in the this country in general.

Class politics in austerity Britain, Owen Jones

Owen Jones was the last speaker we saw at this year's Marxism and was a great way to end the festival. He easily made it into our highlights for inspiration and sheer clarity of message. Jones focused on how class warfare is alive and well under the coalition government and gave concrete, practical suggestions as to how working class people can resist the onslaught of unfair cuts they are facing. This included linking the different sections of society under attack to help create a united front, 'telling stories' (as in creating a narrative, not making things up like the right-wing press) that people will relate and respond to and using the combined power of unions to organise industrial action and hold the Labour Party to its original purpose of representing working class people. Throughout his lecture Jones managed to be not only pragmatic and reasoned but above all inspirational.


You can read our thoughts on previous Marxism Festivals here and here

Paraguay “coup” is affront to democracy

Ousted Paraguay President Fernando Lugo

Three years ago this month the elected Honduran president Manuel Zelaya was ousted in a coup. Now, the Paraguayan people face a similar attack on their democracy following the removal of their elected, reforming President Fernando Lugo.

Vice-president Federico Franco has been put in power in place of Lugo after an illegitimate "impeachment" process last Friday.

Interestingly, at the time of the Honduran coup in 2009, an article on the Axis of Logic website argued that while "US influence in Paraguay is less obvious ... oligarchic forces in power for decades are conspiring to remove President Lugo, [who was] swept into power through popular mobilisation in 2008."

Lugo had had to "replace leading army officers accused of plotting. Calling Lugo a traitor, vice-president Federico Franco has signalled readiness to replace him."

Furthermore, Venezuelan Latin American Parliament deputy Carolus Wimmer has recalled how in 2009, Franco "did not conceal his involvement in the [coup] conspiracy" and had said he was "able to succeed Lugo," a situation that, according to Wimmer, has been "repeated again in June 2012."

Wimmer added there has been a vicious smear campaign against Lugo, "forged from the right sectors" and "under the auspices of the US embassy ... Names change, but the strategy remains."

Today, this scenario has become a reality with Franco put into power. The new government is linked to business elites and the landed oligarchy - those who grew rich during the 35 years of Alfredo Stroessner's dictatorship.

In contrast, Lugo, a Catholic bishop, was elected in 2008. Since then he has regularly denounced the actions of ultraconservative sectors and their attempts to remove him.

Lugo has labelled his removal as a blow against democracy and although he has accepted that he is currently out of office he has termed it an "express coup d'etat".

In what is widely regarded as a wholly illegitimate "impeachment process," both the Parliament and the Senate - both dominated by the right - voted in favour of impeaching Lugo and gave him just 24 hours to prepare for his trial.

These procedures have previously been declared illegal and unconstitutional by the Lugo government - a view echoed by regional bodies. Venezuela has denounced what has happened as a "new type of coup."

In order to justify his removal, Lugo's opponents accused him of irresponsibility and neglect during clashes between peasants and police last week.

It has also been reported that he was tried on four other charges: That he improperly allowed leftist parties to hold a political meeting in an army base in 2009; that he allowed about 3,000 squatters (landless peasants) to illegally invade a large Brazilian-owned soybean farm; that his government failed to capture members of a leftist guerilla group, the Paraguayan People's Army and that he signed an international leftist protocol without properly submitting it to congress for approval.

Some in the Senate even stated that proof of his guilt was not needed as it "was of public notoriety." One even accused Lugo of "committing the worst crimes since independence," conveniently ignoring the brutal 35-year dictatorship.

But it is obvious that for many the president's real crime was to challenge of the interests of the elite.

Although Paraguay's ruling oligarchy lost control of the presidency, they have continually used their stranglehold over the Senate to reverse the gains made by Paraguay's poor.

On Sunday, when asked whether he had any hope of retaking office, Lugo urged his followers to remain peaceful but suggested that popular national and international clamour could lead to his return, saying: "In politics, anything is possible."

Most governments in the region have reacted very strongly to these events. Argentina ordered the immediate withdrawal of its ambassador from Paraguay due to "rupture of the democratic order."

Brazil condemned Lugo's removal because he was not able to defend himself, saying that the actions compromised "a fundamental pillar of democracy."

Venezuelan Vice-President Elias Jaua said: "The battle of the Paraguayan people is that of the Venezuelans, and we are committed to thwart this new attempt by the oligarchies and imperialism as we did in Venezuela in 2002."

He added that "here we have a people and a government ready to defend the sovereignty and independence of all the countries in the region," stressing that they are "letting imperialism know that our Latin America is no longer their backyard."

In Paraguay itself more than 50,000 people rallied in the capital to defend their president.

Their protests were met by force from the police, who used tear gas, water guns and rubber bullets. There have already been reports of human rights abuses from the new regime. Activists in Paraguayan union federation CUT-A have reported that the military fired live rounds at unarmed protesters and campesino leaders have reported activists being killed.

But what of the US? While it seems Paraguay's elite has the military for internal support, it is also clear this military has for decades been funded and trained by the US.

To many it seems unlikely that Paraguay's elite would act without assurances that the new government would continue to receive US support.

A grave concern must now be that the new government will need more weapons to defend itself from the popular protest.

The strong regional response shows that this "express coup d'etat" comes as a blow to an increasingly strong democratic consciousness in South America.

Recent years have seen coups in Honduras (successful), Ecuador (defeated), Bolivia - in what was termed a "civic coup" - (failed) and now Paraguay.

Meanwhile plans for coup attempts are frequently unearthed in Venezuela, considered the backbone of the left-wing advance.

The overthrowing of Lugo before his term had finished and without any consultation with the people is deeply worrying. It must be seen in a continental context, which also sees the US 4th fleet practising war games off the coast of Venezuela and the increase in US bases in region.

It also shows us in Britain that international solidarity is vital. Ten years on from the temporarily successful coup in Venezuela we must always be vigilant against the forces of reaction in Latin America and their external allies. It reinforces the need for the labour movement and all progressives to continually build solidarity with and awareness of those leading progressive change in the region.

Guest article by Matt Willgress

Cuba mourns revolutionary boxing hero

Muhammad Ali with Teofilo Stevenson

Teófilo Stevenson – the Cuban boxing legend who chose the love of his people over a lucrative professional contract in the United States – died this week at the age of 60. Reporting his death, state newspaper Juventud Rebelde said Cuban sport had lost "one of its greatest exponents ". After rejecting the lure of the Yankee dollar in 1974, his death also means the Cuban Revolution has lost one of its greatest exponents. 

Teófilo was a product of the revolution as it eradicated the elitism of professional boxing and replaced it with a universal system based on mass participation. His father Teófilo Stevenson Patterson – an immigrant worker from Saint Vincent – fought seven professional bouts prior to the revolution but became disillusioned with the corrupt payment structure and insidious gangsterism of professional sport. As Teófilo Junior later remarked to one journalist, “I don’t believe in professionalism, only in revolution”.

He fought his first bout at the age of 14 and went on to win gold medals as a heavyweight in three consecutive Olympic Games – Munich in 1972, Montreal in 1976 and Moscow in 1980 – as he emulated the Hungarian Laszlo Papp’s feat of winning a trio of Olympic gold medals.

Widely considered the greatest amateur boxer of all time, he missed out on the chance to supplement his medal tally when Cuba boycotted the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. Teófilo had beaten Tyrell Biggs – Olympic Champion in Los Angeles – in a Cuba-US dual meet on the eve of the games. He retired shortly after Cuba boycotted the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

In a game awash with generous sponsorship deals and professional contracts, Teófilo remained loyal to the Cuban people. At the height of his dominance, American fight promoter Don King offered him $5m to challenge world heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali. He refused the offer, asking famously, “What is one million dollars compared to the love of eight million Cubans?” Sports Illustrated later ran the headline: “He’d Rather Be Red Than Rich.”

As the Guardian’s boxing correspondent Kevin Mitchell wrote:

Had he gone, he might well have won. Ali was in the fading days of his brilliant career and Stevenson, at 22, had just won the first of the three Olympic gold medals that would secure his place in boxing history, with a murderous right hand and exquisite ring skills. For a big man, he moved with the grace that Ali had once owned. Although there were clear differences between the skills of the three-round amateur sport and the longer version of professional boxing, the call on who would have prevailed ultimately was irrelevant; Stevenson's real victory arrived in a single sentence.

According to Mitchell, the eloquent declaration – which has become an iconic maxim for the left – “was so devastating … to the many and various enemies of Cuba's socialist ideal: the CIA, the US government and all the agents of capitalism who saw in the unkillable struggle of a minor paradise off their shores a threat to their hegemony and values.”

As commercial sporting deals continue to balloon – contrary to the direction of worldwide economic recession – the loyalty and passion which defined Teófilo is becoming evermore rare. But Teófilo’s integrity was not just reserved for outside the ring. He was renowned for his sportsmanship within the boxing arena and – after flattening an opponent in the first round – he famously helped him back to his corner.

After Fidel Castro, Teófilo Stevenson became the most recognisable Cuban on the planet. His unstinting support for the revolution and sporting excellence was an inspiration to a whole nation. Following Olympic victories in 1992, 1996 and 2000, his compatriot Felix Savon recreated his triple medal haul. Like his boxing mentor, Savon rejected Don King’s multi-million dollar advances to turn professional and fight Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson. 

Following his retirement, Teófilo was named coach of Cuba’s amateur boxing program as he sought to impart his experience to the next generation of Cuban boxers. He was figurehead of the masterful boxing team which secured four golds and three silvers at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. “I talk to the boxers, inspire them and remind them what they are fighting for,” he explained.

Teofilo may be gone, but he will remain an inspiration for generations.

Review: Mark Steel's In Town

Mark Steel’s In Town is a rallying call against the commercialisation and homogenisation of Britain’s towns. It is a celebration of regional quirks and local traditions that rejects the corporate desire to build identi-kit urban spaces.

Steel leads a rip-roaring tour of the British Isles – from Penzance to Wigan, from Exeter to Merthyr Tydfil – and reinforces his reputation as one of the finest and most compelling political comedians on the circuit.

The ostensible hook is that each show is tailored to the locality – and this show was about Highgate. Its first half is a tight anthology of various British towns and allows for a looser second period which – although laced with tested material – looks more closely at Highgate’s peculiarities.

Steel adopts a number of classic comedy techniques – such as observational humour, anecdotes and reading amusing quotes from obscure books – but the subject matter and his enthusiasm for history give it a unique twist. There aren’t many stand-ups who do a gag about ordering a Subway sandwich and later segue into a routine on Marx’s theory of alienation.

The ranty delivery and firebrand performance provide real appeal. Steel's passion is infectious and his range of voices and characters is impressive - take-offs of left-wing stalwarts Tony Benn and George Galloway are truly inspired.

Although some of the routines threaten to become hack – such as reflections on growing old and difficulties in finding the television remote – Steel’s expert delivery provides an original twist.

And his unique retelling of history - including the story of George Formby as an anti-apartheid protester - elevates the show to brilliance as he combines obscure detail with funny gags to create a genuinely insightful few hours.

Mark Steel’s In Town is much more than a polemic against the growth of corporate institutions, it is a meticulously researched and hilarious exploration of the idiosyncrasies and eccentricities of Britain’s towns. Part-comedy and part-lecture, each show is a melting pot of bespoke material, fail-safe routines and unusual factoids. Who needs Wikipedia when you’ve got Mark Steel?

This review originally appeared in the Morning Star. The show tours nationally until September.

A Bad State of Affairs

In today’s Daily Telegraph David Cameron set out his vision for “tearing down the big state”, a vision first revealed last year in the government’s Open Public Services White Paper.

The Prime Minister states that he wants “to end once and for all the closed state monopoly where central government decides what you get and how you get it”, ignoring the inherent contradictions this highlights in his own government’s polices and the cataclysmic problems this will cause in trying to fight poverty, create inequality and strengthen Britain’s vast democratic deficit.

Since the ConDem coalition came into being education in Britain has seen the most top down, central government changes in modern history in defiance of the Prime Minister’s statement. Local councils, unions and teachers have been usurped with power held solely in the hands of the education secretary who decides which schools can become academies and free schools, who can fund 10% or all of these respectively, who can teach in them and what they can teach. This is the bypassing of democracy.

The greatest choice of all, voting in a secret ballot, has been relegated by the choice of proprietor, fitting for a government that didn’t gain a majority and received only one-fifth of the possible public vote, fitting for a party that seek to challenge proportional representation and for a party that stands in the way of workers appearing on company rumination boards.

Power is ceded from the voter and the professional, in this case the teacher, to profit making bodies and charitable institutions that lie predominantly in the hands of the wealthiest in society. Follow the money and the freedom lies with them not with the majority of individuals. You are free to be a buyer but you must work for the seller. This may make “the user feel truly empowered” as Cameron argues but clearly they are not. For the public, and thus the individual, doesn’t have a say regarding services or industry.

No encouragement of unionization or collective power is asserted in a country with the strongest anti-union legislation in the EU. The desire it seems is for the false illusion of individual consumer power in a society where the vast majority have no say or hold in its foundations.

This eradication of democracy can be seen in the anti-state, “unashamedly pro-business” mandate pushed by the government since 2010 and strengthened in last week’s budget. These advocates of further privatization argue that as 45% of Britain’s GDP is generated by the private sector the state is still too large even after over 30 years of neo-liberal policy. This belies the fact that so much of the former publicly owned institutions are subsided by the state in league with the private sector who then cipher away the profits- the rail network being a particularly poignant example of this.

Factor in the example of the big six electric companies now operating in Britain and you find the appearance of choice masked in an oligargy that pushes prices up with society and the individual clearly being seen to suffer. Prisons, elderly care and unemployment are all recent examples of this failed ideology.

However, society still pays big business to run trains. It pays big business high prices as they run their electric supply and they have no say over either. Big business rather than the democratic state is therefore the predominant withdrawer of liberty, freedom and choice. You have no vote in it and all small business is suffocated by them.

Thus, as the public sector is opened up to multi-nationals under this bravado of choice the idea of strengthening the power of society and its individuals is weakened. With the availability of social media technology there has never been a greater chance to implement the nationalization, regionalization and co-operative community approach to public services absent in some of the top-down civil serviced structure that has existed in the past.

But it seems this is absent in the mind of the Prime Minister as he looks to force greater 'choice' and dismantle the public's hold on it' assets in the most unequal Britain since 1918. Where 20% of children are still brought up in poverty. Facts that lead effortlessly to the words of one of the creators of the public services structure the government is attacking, Nye Bevan: “If freedom is to be saved and enlarged, poverty must be ended. There is no other solution.”

It seems the Prime Minister’s main concern is to remove publicly-owned services “brick by brick, edifice by edifice” into the hands of those with the most rather than tackle the rampant inequality in Britain today. To create socialism for the rich and a laissez faire society for the poor.

But there is an alternative. To cite Bevan again we can create services run by society for society that exist ‘In Place of Fear’.

Murdoch teaches toffs a lesson

Rupert Murdoch – an unlikely champion of media plurality – took to Twitter today to declare: 

Enemies (have) many different agendas, but worst (of all are) old toffs and right wingers who still want last century's status quo with their monoplies [sic]

The statement is profoundly hypocritical considering the concentration of mass media in the hands of Rupert Murdoch – but the target couldn’t be clearer.

According to Independent Australia, “Murdoch bestrides the Australian media landscape like a colossus”. NewsCorp owns 8 of Australia’s 12 major newspapers and “dominates the regional suburban newspapers publishing industry”. Those newspapers not owned by Murdoch are usually produced by Murdoch-controlled printers, giving him ubiquitous influence over Australia’s entire print industry.  That’s not to mention his command of Australian television and News International’s dominance of media in the UK and United States.

But the Hackgate revelations and Leveson Inquiry have shaken the Murdoch Empire to the core. Whilst celebrities such as Steve Coogan and Hugh Grant and journalists such as Nick Davies have brought phone-hacking to public attention, it is the government – or “old toffs and right wingers” – which can cause Murdoch irreparable damage.  The Tweet – along with the behaviour of News International’s two flagship newspapers this week – serve as a stark warning to the Conservative government.

Firstly, a Sunday Times exclusive revealed footage of Tory Party Chairman Peter ‘Cash for Access’ Cruddas canvassing for generous donations in exchange for policy influence:



And whilst the controversy of the “pasty tax” rumbles on – exposing government toffs as out-of-touch – the Sun took to Parliament Square to hand out pasties like delicious confetti

Photo via Matt Zarb

The delivery couldn’t be more different, but the message is clear: Don’t mess with Murdoch because he’ll fuck you up.

By rallying against “monopolies”  and frightening the government into acquiescence, it is precisely his own monopoly he wishes to preserve. Furthermore, it was the structural inevitability of the concentration of media in the hands of one mogul which encouraged the routine practise of phone-hacking.  The only free press which Murdoch believes in is a press that gives him free rein.

The Tories' transparent agenda

As Budget Day looms, George Osborne has laid out plans to give taxpayers a detailed breakdown of how their taxes are spent in the name of transparency and accountability. According to Exchequer Secretary David Gauke, "We want to make tax more transparent and we want people to be more engaged with their own tax affairs".

Let's not kid ourselves that the initiative has anything to do with transparency or openness – it is instead about re-enforcing a neo-liberal assault on public spending.

The cognitive linguist George Lakoff – in his fascinating book Don’t Think of An Elephant – explores how conservatives consistently win political debates through their control and manipulation of language. Lakoff’s basic idea is “framing”, the idea that appropriate language can create a framework evoking a set of concepts supporting your point of view. Just as our natural reaction when someone says “don’t think of an elephant” is to think of an elephant, our natural reaction when someone says “look how much you’re spending in tax towards health” is to think we’re spending too much.

The mainstream media has neatly mimicked and echoed this discourse. BBC Breakfast News, the Telegraph and the Daily Mail – with varying degrees of vitriol – have focused on specific fields – particularly welfare, health and education – where the government are making the most brutal cuts. The fact that the political and media establishment have focused on these areas – rather than, say, Defence spending – demonstrates the real target of this policy.

The "frame" for Osborne's idea is not about increasing accountability, engagement or transparency. The implication is that social spending – on health, education or welfare – is inherently wasteful. If people can physically see where their taxes go, they are more likely to support the Conservatives’ austerity measures.

Labour cannot oppose the move – based as it is on 'progressive' values such as openness and accountability – but it can change the field of debate in three ways:

Firstly, in terms of value for money. According to the Treasury, someone earning £25,000pa contributes £743.26 towards education. As someone who received free education until the age of 18, it seems like a bargain – especially when you consider any children I have are entitled to free education too. Under £1,000 for full medical cover on the NHS also looks like a snip – especially when you compare it to the cost of private health insurance.

Secondly, in terms of real transparency. Osborne’s proposal will show us which areas our taxes are going to, but it won’t show us who they are going to. Where is the breakdown of how public taxes are being used to subsidise big business? Whether it’s bailing banks out during the financial crisis; subsiding multinationals such as Tesco through Workfare; or bankrolling private companies like A4e in the Work Programme – the Left must shape the debate to show the real abuse of taxpayers’ money.   

And finally, how about publishing a register of how taxpayers benefit from public spending – from museums, galleries and libraries to parks, roads and hospitals? As the Con Dem attack on public institutions continues unabated, it might prove a valuable historical document.