Carolyn Leckie MSP's column in the Scottish Daily Mirror

IT'S TIME FOR US TO BE GROWN UP ABOUT SEX

WE'RE weird, you know that? On the one hand, we won't even discuss sex, especially if there are minors present. On the other, we're obsessed with it. How many front pages have you seen lately, emblazoned with photos of women's bottoms, perched provocatively, flashing a bit of knicker? Sometimes you might even be able to identify the head the bum belongs to. From all corners, we're assaulted by images of women reduced to body parts. Body parts raring to go, just switch on the ignition. Worse than that, in any newsagent you can buy magazines that boast of "barely legal teens" gagging for it. That may sound shocking but these days, equating school uniforms with precocious sex appeal is mainstream stuff. An example? The same papers that went gaga over Russian pop duo TATU, a pair of supposed schoolgirl Lolitas, go ballistic at the idea of open debate on sexuality in schools.

"Women's" magazines are no better. "Be yourself!" they shriek, as long as your real self has the body of a supermodel and the face of a movie star. It's no accident that eating disorders are now appearing in countries where TV has just arrived. Young women grow up checking out their rear view in the mirror and young men grow up thinking sex is something you do to someone. It's not cool to complain. You're supposed to join in and pretend it's all a laugh.

A woman who refuses to engage is written off as a prude, someone scared of sex and hateful of the human body. As a midwife, I've probably seen more vaginas than even the most obsessive porn fan. My beef is not with anatomy. But I've a problem with the world we live in.

In some deprived suburbs of France, gang rape has become a sport called "tournante" - turnaround. Relationships have become so distorted young women are hunted like deer. Women in Dol Dol, Kenya, have found the courage to accuse the British army of years of similar "sport". It's all part of the same continuum. The commodification of women has reaped huge profits for the beauty industry, the media industry and the in-your-face sex industry. But it's a rather less lucrative affair for women.

We still earn only 80 per cent of male earnings. We still dominate in the low-paid, part-time end of the employment spectrum. We still struggle to find a level playing field and to be treated as equals. IT doesn't help that, everywhere you look, you see images of doe-eyed women in various states of undress.

On billboards, in magazines, in adverts on the bus you take into work. It doesn't help that male-dominated business - and that's all business - has an interest in keeping women in their place, in thrall to the power of men. Showing men and women in all their diversity, having equal relationships, would upset the status quo. There's too much money in insecurity. And that's too much power to give up.

We do need a debate about what is erotic and what is abusive. What sort of relationships do we wish for our children? What sort of society do we want to hand to them? One that's tilted in favour of one sex? Or one of equals? It's a debate we desperately need to have, and keep having. Without being constantly red-carded by, on the one hand, the anti-censorship brigade who equate Penthouse with the free press, and on the other, by the Victorian revivalists who'd rather leave sex education till the wedding night. We need to start being grown-up about sex. Or how can we expect our children to be?

SUCH A BAD IDEA

YOUNG people are under siege. As if the government's fixation with academic testing wasn't bad enough, now they're considering "Fat Report Cards". Yup, you heard right. Lining 'em up at school for regular, humiliating weigh-ins. Like teenagers weren't self-conscious enough as it is? Quite how this will address the rising rate of obesity is beyond me. Junk food has been revealed to be addictive. But just along a corridor from one of these proposed weigh-ins, you can bet they'll be serving up chips as normal. Obesity is now costing the NHS in Scotland £150million a year. But the Scottish Executive, it seems, cannot bring itself to spend just £24million more to introduce a measure that wouldn't just take the strain off the NHS, but immeasurably improve the well-being of our children - universal, free, nutritious school meals. Meanwhile, on Planet Holyrood, there are concerns that the seats in the new parliament building's "contemplation chambers" won't be big enough for MSPs' bums. Maybe we should line them up for a weigh-in? It's time the Labour gang stopped bullying our children and did something to help them.

COST OF PERIODS IS A PAIN

EVERY 28 days, Mother Nature gives women something to think about. Something painful, inconvenient, messy... and expensive. In Scotland, we spend £10million a year for the privilege of periods. There are three menstruating women in my house; that's £20 a month out of the household budget. What happens when your purse is empty? How many of us have resorted to rolled up toilet paper when we've been caught short? Sanitary "protection" is a multi-billion pound industry that, like all businesses, is ever on the lookout for new ways to make money. Its advertising preys on women's insecurities, using words like "discretion" and "invisibility". They don't care about the health risks, the environmental impact, or the cost to women struggling to makes ends meet. Towels and tampons should be free. And they should be comfortable, chemical-free, safe for women and safe for the environment.

CENTRE STUPID

IF you see a pink elephant drifting over Glasgow today, do not adjust your set. It's here to protest against BT's decision to shift thousands of call centre jobs to India. Directory Enquiry services have already been "remotely sourced" to Bangalore and New Dehli, and thousands more jobs could follow. The CWU, who represent many of the 10,000 call centre workers in Glasgow alone, have nothing against the people of India. Far from it. This move is bad news for everyone. For the UK, it's tens of thousands of lost jobs. For India, where call centre workers earn around £3,000 a year, it establishes them as a low-wage economy, to be abandoned the minute an even lower-wage economy becomes available. If you've got time in your lunchbreak today, pop down to the BT centre on York Street and give the call centre operators your support.

FAME ACADEMY FOR REAL PEOPLE

FAME Academy is back! I'll be glued to the TV talent show... looking for people who actually have talent. Of course David Sneddon was really discovered at the Edinburgh People's festival last year. I was there. In the front row. Colin Fox MSP is organising an even bigger People's Festival this year. A festival not just for Hooray Henrys or pampered Penelopes. A festival you won't need a bank loan for. A festival of culture for the many, not the few. I'd like to see the whole Edinburgh Festival becoming a Scottish People's Festival - with prices everyone can afford. In the meantime, get your tickets from Colin at the CWU club: 0131 556 8869 or at www.edinburghpeoplesfestival.org.uk

NURSE CASH

DRAWINGS of nursery nurses my children loved adorned my fridge for years. Their investment in our children is immeasurable and the return invaluable. But their pay packets suggest anything but. Despite two years' training and over 10 years' experience, the maximum pay for a nursery nurse in Scotland is £13,800 a year. They're asking for a modest maximum of £18,000. Labour"s Margaret Curran recently laid claim to feminist credentials, promising she'd fight to improve women"s lives and close the pay gap. Well, here's an opportunity for Margaret to put those principles into practice. By not only supporting the nursery nurses' pay claim, but also making it her business they get the wage they more than deserve. Meantime, I hope you'll join me in cheering on the valiant and determined Nursery Nurses. They've been striking since May and are really skint. The proceeds of the column go to them this week. You can help by sending donations to: UNISON Nursery Nurses Campaign c/o Joe Di Paula, Douglas House, 60 Belford Road, Edinburgh. Tel: 077996 42929. Cheques payable to: UNISON Nursery Nurses Campaign.

New move for independence

THE first step towards creating a "national movement" for Scottish independence will be taken at Inverness next month on the fringe of the SNP conference.

Taking as their model the Scottish constitutional convention which led to home rule, the organisers - mainly SNP activists - believe a cross-party coalition could move Scotland on from devolution to independence. Support for an independence coalition has found broad agreement inside the divided SNP, now preparing for a leadership contest amid accusations that it has lost its way.

The idea carries the conditional support of John Swinney, the troubled SNP leader, and the endorsement of Alex Neil, his sternest critic, who sees such a coalition restoring force to the independence cause.

The plan is backed by the pro-independence Scottish Socialist Party and its leader, Tommy Sheridan. John McAllion, Labour's most famous supporter of independence, will address the meeting with Mr Sheridan.

Organisers have also invited the Greens, who say they are open to "a greater level of independence for Scotland", along with other groups and individuals. The move partly reflects the strong support for independence in the second vote at Holyrood in May, where 33.7% of electors backed parties supporting independence, the highest yet in a Scottish election...

Mr Sheridan said: "The SSP will co-operate with all parties to put independence on the political agenda. But, of course, I will be asking for an independent and socialist republic of Scotland and I am not sure how many people in the SNP want that these days." The Herald

Chisholm urged to intervene in maternity row

CONTROVERSIAL proposals to overhaul maternity services along the Clyde coast have caused a storm of political protest.

Malcolm Chisholm, the health minister, has been urged to step into the row over sweeping changes to maternity care which would affect 800,000 women and children from Oban to Campbeltown...

But Frances Curran, the Scottish Socialist Party MSP for West of Scotland, accused the local health board of refusing to listen to the concerns of local people.

"These are life and death issues and local women and their unborn children will pay the price," she said. The Scotsman

  Police called after maternity unit is closed

ANGRY protesters jeered health chiefs at a stormy meeting as the axe finally fell on maternity services in Inverclyde. Police were called to the heated Argyll and Clyde NHS board meeting where it was decided to rubber-stamp the closure of the Rankin maternity unit at Inverclyde Royal Hospital in Greenock. The meeting was attended by around 100 members of the public as well as MSPs Jackie Baillie, Duncan McNeil and Frances Curran. Tempers erupted when Argyll and Bute councillor Billy Petrie said he would not support the board's recommendations to centralise consultant-led services at Paisley's Royal Alexandra Hospital. This resulted in a furious outburst from Scottish Socialist Party MSP Ms Curran who interrupted the proceedings to demand that the public have more say in the matter. Eventually police were called to warn her if she did not stop interrupting she would be removed. Evening Times

'People's Festival' line-up revealed




SSP MSP Colin Fox said the aim of the festival was to counter what he called "the silence in the schemes" as the rest of the city comes alive during August.

He said: "Of the Edinburgh Festival's 20,000 shows this year, virtually none takes place in the schemes.

"No leaflets are distributed there. No students unicycle up the Calder Road. No fire-eaters are found in the Fernieside.

"Furthermore, the escalating price of tickets now leaves many people feeling more and more excluded.

"The Edinburgh People's Festival will bring music and entertainment to an audience often ignored." BBC News Online

It goes to the soul: John Swinney is under threat as he has never been before

The challenger is Dr Bill Wilson, a party convener from Glasgow who switched to the SNP from Labour in the late 1980s. A bright man by all accounts - he used to be employed in Glasgow University's Department of Zoology but is now doing IT work for an insurance company - he hasn't had much success in politics. In the May election he was roundly thumped by Labour, although it was the SSP that did the whipping, stealing nearly 11 per cent of his share. He is a symbol, and a victim, of the SNP's failure in West Central Scotland.

Wilson is also part of a small clique of activists who consider themselves as SNP 'fundamentalists'. They were opposed to the stock transfer of Glasgow council houses, which they believed cost them votes in the election. They are opposed to a referendum on independence. They are opposed to the 'New Labourisation' of the SNP. Their attitude is seen by others to be almost entirely negative. The Observer

Welsh left looks to Sheridan for advice on how to succeed

DISAFFECTED left-wingers in Wales are to seek advice from Tommy Sheridan on how they can achieve the same kind of electoral success as the Scottish Socialists.

The SSP leader will travel to Wrexham next month to address a conference at which it is planned to announce the setting up of a left-of-centre political party in Wales.

John Marek, a former Labour MP, who won a first- past-the-post seat at the Welsh Assembly this year as an Independent, is the man behind the attempt to emulate the six-seat electoral breakthrough achieved by the SSP.

After serving as a Labour member of the assembly, he failed to be selected as a candidate and defied the party by standing under his own banner.

He said: "We want the SSP to tell us about their experiences and we want to hear their views on how they got to where they are in Scotland."

He said the new Welsh party, which has yet to be named, would be determined to defend public services and would support increased powers for the Welsh Assembly. It would back the renationalisation of the rail network and oppose the creation of foundation hospitals.

Mr Sheridan said: "Wales, like Scotland, has suffered from the failure of New Labour and there are many good socialists in Wales looking for a new home. John Marek's victory at the Welsh Assembly election in May shows that Wales could follow the Scottish example and have a successful alternative to Labour and Plaid Cymru."

A hastily set up John Marek Independent Party won about 6.5% of the vote on the North Wales regional list at the May poll, which was almost enough to secure a seat. Mr Marek claimed this showed the potential basis of support for a new political grouping. The Herald

SNP challenger 'no stalking horse'

The activist challenging Scottish National Party leader John Swinney has said he is giving grass roots members a chance to speak out.

Bill Wilson has put his name forward to stand against Mr Swinney at the party's September conference...

Some former SNP members said they were not surprised by the move.

Bill Taggart was a member of the party for 24 years but left to join the Scottish Socialist Party.

He said: "SNP members were banging their heads against a brick wall and there was a lot of in fighting and backstabbing.

"The party has gone down hill, it has lost its way and a lot of people are not happy. The leadership don't listen." BBC News Online

Experts call for new Holyrood vote system

ELECTION experts are calling for a new voting system for the Scottish Parliament.

The Electoral Reform Society claims Labour and the Liberal Democrats both won more than their fair share of seats in this year’s elections.

They want a change to a system which they say would link each party’s seats more closely to the votes it won.

And if applied to the May 1 poll, their proposed alternative would probably have left Labour and the Liberal Democrats without enough seats to form a coalition unless they involved a third party...

The SNP would have won an extra two seats, taking them to 29; the Tories would have had one more, giving them 19; the Scottish Socialists would have had eight instead of six; and the Greens would have had eight instead of seven; but there would have been one less independent. Edinburgh Evening News

BBC hopes tape of Dr Kelly proves to be 'smoking gun'

Last night, both the Scottish National party and the Scottish Socialist party called on the prime minister to resign over the war.

The SSP, which has submitted a motion to the Scottish Parliament condemning the war, demanded that the Scottish Executive recognise that it was "misled by the Westminster government, and declare it wrong to support the war". The Herald

This week Carolyn Leckie MSP will be providing Tommy Sheridan's Daily Mirror column.

Dark Actors

Rosie Kane and I took a walk in the Botanic Gardens the other weekend. From over the hill we heard a cry, "Stab him! Stab him!" As we were in the West End of Glasgow, we assumed it was a posh fight and ran up the hill to get a swatch. Turned out it was just a rehearsal for Shakespeare in the Park.

Growing up in the Gorbals, Shakespeare seemed about as relevant to me as quantum physics. But I've been fascinated by the brilliant series In Search Of Shakespeare on BBC2.

He wouldn't be struggling for material today.

The apparent suicide of Dr. David Kelly, who was Head of Microbiology at the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment, Porton Down, for eight years, was a ghastly twist in a tale that takes in a murderous war, a power-mad leader and a court of liars. The phrase "theatre of war" has never been so cruelly appropriate.

In an e-mail, Kelly talked of "dark actors" and referred to having spent five days under the "protection" of the MOD. MI5 have "cleaned" his home. What more did he know?

That people like Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair and Geoff Hoon may be capable of driving a man to take his own life does not shock me. That they might be capable of lying comes as no surprise either. Nobody trusts Tony.

And no wonder. When he appeared on telly on Saturday, asking for "respect and restraint" to be shown, Alastair Campbell was rounding up such trustworthies as the Prince of Darkness, Peter Mandelson, to turn up the heat on the BBC.

The ruling powers may not hang, draw and quarter its victims anymore, but they sure hang people out to dry.

And lie, distort, manipulate and murder.

Just like Dubya and Papa Bush.

Half of all Americans now don't believe a word Bush says. Last week, he said, "We gave Saddam a chance to allow weapons inspectors in and he wouldn't let them in..we decided to remove him from power."

A blatant lie. Despite the fact that Hans Blix pleaded for two more months, Bush removed the weapons inspectors.

Now the all-conquering USA can't find WMDs. (Despite supplying them in the first place)

Making the justification for...

1.5 million deaths through sanctions
7000+ civilian deaths and rising
152 American military deaths and rising
14 British deaths
who knows how many more deaths through torture, rape and lack of food, medicines and water?

..ever less credible.

All of those victims have names, families. They all used to have a future. The children have been denied any chance of contributing their talents to the world.

There won't be televised church services for any of them.

It would be horribly ironic if the death of one man finally led to some of these "dark actors" exiting the stage.

Blair's clearly feeling the pressure. His post-Senate golden glow has been replaced by a gaunt greyness. He looks more haunted than Hamlet.

But his regime will remain intact even if Tony bows out; he'll just hand his star-spangled collar on to Gordon.

And the occupation will continue to cost Britain £5million a day. And people, not statistics, will continue to die.

The only end to this carnage is total regime change. The billions who took to the streets against this war can make it happen. Socialists share the dream of a world without poverty and war, and without shadowy figures playing our destinies like a game of poker.

The current situation is the stuff of Shakespeare alright. Blair and Bush have dragged us into the new "dark" ages and I believe that only socialism will offer us a way back out.

Domestic abuse

Every ten seconds, a woman in Scotland gets a doing from a man.

Research by Professor Elizabeth A. Stanko, conducted on a random Thursday, showed that:

In the last twenty minutes somewhere between 60 and 200 incidents of domestic violence happened.

4 out of 5 will be women abused by men.

Twenty of those affected will ring the police for help. Injuries reported will include:

• bone fractures


• rape


• stabbing


• chemical burn in the eye


• throat slashed


• broken jaw


• bleeding due to being kicked while pregnant

Few arrests will happen.

Despite the thousands of women trying to escape violent relationships, there are very few places for them to go.

In East Kilbride, valiant Women's Aid have only six refuge places. There should be ten times as many, and funded by the government. It's an outrage that Women's Aid has to depend on charity.

That's where the proceeds of the column will go this week.

Morning after pill

Young people shouldn't have sex before they're ready. Agreed

Parents should be open and honest and talk to their children about sex and relationships. Agreed

But real life is rarely like the Waltons. (Thankfully)

Talking about parental responsibility till Paw comes home hasn't worked.

While we wait for Paw, the 'moral' minority are quite happy to leave young women holding the baby. I'm not.

The morning after pill can be bought over the counter at chemists. Make it free. Make it available confidentially in schools, and back it up with access to proper, non-judgemental advice and contraception.

Malcolm Chisolm never has to wonder where his next period or pay packet is coming from. But he doesn't seem to mind condemning young women to unwanted pregnancy and poverty.

Get on his case.

When you fail to take the above

We want it all, us women.

If we do decide to have babies, we want them where we want and how we want.

I'm a midwife and a mum. I resent the way the male-dominated medical profession has wrested control of childbirth from the women going through it.

For instance, I believe that a woman has a right to an Epidural. Maternity Hospitals across Scotland face closure. Epidurals won't be available in the Midwife-only units that will replace them.

Women will be forced to elect whether they have an Epidural before they even know what a contraction feels like! If they get it wrong they'll face a very painful ambulance journey across hills and glens at the height of their labour.

Maybe the NHS should consider providing a complimentary tarot reading to help them decide?

Bamstick Bush

Whilst Blair basked in the dubious glory of Washington last week, 70 British passport-holders languished beneath an escalator at Heathrow Airport.

No standing ovations for them. Not even a handshake of welcome.

What's the connection? These people came from an island called Diego Garcia, forcibly cleared by the British in the 1950s to make way for a US military base. That military base was used during the recent US-led war on Iraq.

Britain has been quietly signing away sovereignty to the USA for decades. Hence the love-in at the Senate. That sovereignty is now in the hands of George Bush, a self-confessed bamstick.

You think I'm kidding?

"I'm...not very analytical. You know I don't spend a lot of time thinking about myself, about why I do things."
-- aboard AirForce One, June 4 2003

Special Needs

Jason is eight. For a quarter of his life he was miserable. And all because he went to school.

His mum Lesley describes how he went from being a confident, affectionate wee boy to one with so little self-esteem, he wouldn't even meet your eyes.

Jason is a boy with special needs whose needs weren't being met in a unit within a 'mainstream' setting. It took two years to get a placement at Craighead School in Hamilton. But ever since, he has been regaining his confidence, thanks to the support of expert teachers, skilled in helping children like him.

Unfortunately, like lots of schools across the country, Craighead has been selected for culling. The building is deemed inadequate. But rather than rebuild, the council have decided to disperse special needs pupils across mainstream schools.

Jason, robbed of the chance Craighead gave him, is about to be tipped back into the very system that damaged him.

He doesn't want it. His parents don't want it. The education professionals, who know that social interaction between mainstream pupils and those with behavioural and educational problems can sometimes cause more problems than it addresses, almost certainly don't want it.

Properly resourced, integrated education can and does work for lots of children. But it should be a choice.

The Council, led by the Scottish Executive, pretend to be combating prejudice and encouraging intergation. But all they're doing is seeking new ways to slash the education budget and it's vulnerable people like Jason who bear the full brunt of it.

People’s fest to challenge ‘elite’ Fringe

AN alternative to the Fringe Festival is to be launched next month amid accusations that the world-famous event has become elitist and turned its back on the city’s ordinary population.

The Edinburgh People’s Festival, which ran for just one night last year, is to be expanded to a week by organisers as part of a drive to reclaim the Festival by taking theatre, poetry, comedy and music to the outskirts of the city.

With prices for some Fringe shows reaching an unprecedented £15 this year, those behind the alternative event – to run from August 10-16 – say the need for the People’s Festival has never been greater. They are confident that their festival can expand further next year and become an annual part of the Edinburgh Festival calendar.

Scottish Socialist MSP Colin Fox, who is organising the event, accused Edinburgh Festival bosses of running “nothing more than a tourist attraction” with no cultural benefit to the working people of the city.

He said: “The Festival has become too commercial and expensive. It’s no longer aimed at the Edinburgh people and it can’t pretend it is an event for the people of the city. It’s become nothing more than a tourist attraction. Nothing takes place outside of about three streets.

“It’s actually quite ironic because the Fringe was born out of criticism that the Edinburgh Festival was elitist and now it faces the same charge. Our event puts the Edinburgh Festivals in context. What Edinburgh has now is a multi-million pound tourist extravaganza which leaves the city cold.” Sunday Herald

People's Festival to challenge 'corporate' Edinburgh Fringe

Colin Fox, who is organising the People's Festival, said it would give a platform for new performers in areas such as Wester Hailes, Portobello and Gilmerton. 'The same thing is happening to culture that happened to football,' he said. 'It is being taken over by brewers and multi-nationals and prices have shot up.

'The festivals make millions for the hotel chains and big pubs in the heart of town, but does little for the people who live in the parts of Edinburgh not being shown off to the rest of the world.'

A one-night prototype People's Festival was held last year at the Jack Kane centre in the Craigmillar area. Its success encouraged Fox, who is also a Member of the Scottish Parliament, to organise a full week of events this year. Tickets costing just £2 will sell for performances of theatre, music and art. The Observer

For more information see the Edinburgh People's Festival Website

COVER-UP: Files on brutal schools closed to the victims

THE Scottish Executive was accused of a cover-up yesterday after files on brutal schools run by monks were withdrawn from public access.

The records had been open to the public for years but were closed after three men were jailed last week for beating and molesting boys at a school run by De La Salle monks...

Last night, Scottish Socialist Party leader Tommy Sheridan called for a public inquiry.

He said: "If Scottish Executive officials are found to be deliberately closing files to prevent further outing of abuse, they stand accused of attempting to pervert the course of justice.

"This smacks of conspiracy at the highest level.

"It's a sad day for democracy when government officials are closing files that may prove the widespread abuse of children." Sunday Mail

Schools to be sued over junk food Sunday Herald

Pride Scotia 2003



Thousands took to the streets of Edinburgh to celebrate Pride Scotia 2003. Before marching off the crowd heard speakers from several parties, with Rosie Kane of the SSP speaking first. The SSP banner led our contingent on the march and a fringe meeting was held by the SSP LGBT group.

More Pictures: >> 1 >> 2 >> 3

Comedian leads war arrest demo

COMEDIAN Mark Thomas was joined by around 80 protestors presenting themselves for arrest at St Leonards Police Station.

The group, which included Lothians MSPs Colin Fox and Mark Ballard, were protesting yesterday over the arrest of an Edinburgh man at an anti-war march in the city on March 22.

Simon Alderson, 23, from Leith, was charged with inciting racial hatred for carrying an upside-down stars and stripes flag with the words "F**k Bush" emblazoned across it. Many of the protestors waved flags identical to Mr Aldersons, but police refused to arrest them. Edinburgh Evening News

Indymedia Report

Mark Thomas

Tommy Sheridan in the Daily Mirror

Travel to almost any city anywhere in the world and you’ll see their logos screaming out at you from billboards and neon signs.
They’re the giants of global capitalism, vast corporations whose tentacles stretch into every corner of every continent.
It’s staggering fact that 51 of the biggest 100 economies in the world are not countries but businesses.

Multi-nationals like Ford, General Motors and Wal-Mart control bigger budgets than countries such as Greece, Poland or South Africa.
These global corporations control huge areas of our lives, from the air we breathe to the water we drink and the food we eat.
They control the news we consume and the medicines we use. They control our collective savings, our pensions and our insurance policies.
They bankroll governments. And sometimes they help to overthrow governments that they don’t like the look of.

The sales of the top 200 global corporations account for a quarter of all economic activity in the world. Yet they employ less than one per cent of the world’s workforce.
Between 1983 and 1999, their profits soared by an astronomical 362 per cent. Yet the numbers of workers they employed grew by just only 14 per cent.
So who controls them? Who elects them? To whom are they accountable? The answer – no-one except themselves.

The Mirror writer, John Pilger, called them the New Rulers of the World – and he is spot on.
The job of international bodies like the World Bank, the World Trade Organisation, the International Monetary Fund is not to improve our world - but to make it an even more lucrative goldmine for the mega-corporations.
The newly-published UN Human Development Report paints a picture that deserves to spark off revolution from one end of the globe to the other.

In last ten years, despite dazzling economic growth, 13 million children have died from poverty. In 31 countries, the child mortality rate is higher now than it was decade ago.
Every single minute of today and every other day, a woman dies needlessly in pregnancy and childbirth.
As the monsters of global capitalism gorge themselves on the biggest profits feast in human history, 800 million suffer from malnutrition.

Hunger, disease and poverty are the real weapons of mass destruction – and even Tony Blair could find them if he ever bothered to look.
Most governments in the world today are in the back pockets of the global godfathers of capitalism.

Big business wants lower corporate taxes, big business gets lower corporate taxes. Big business wants privatisation. Big business wants anti-trade union laws, big business gets anti-trade union laws.

Politics for me is not just about the odd reform here and there. Yes, we should fight for free school meals, for fairer local taxes, for a higher minimum wage, for better public services and to reverse privatisation.

But socialism is not just about redistribution of wealth, it is about redistribution of power. It is bringing the resources of our planet under the control of the people of our planet.

It is about building a more democratic and just world, where agricultural, industry, trade, finance, transport and energy are socially owned.
Another world is possible, a better world, a world where poverty, starvation and war are erased from the dictionary.

But not while the big corporations rule the roost. In Big Brother parlance, it’s time they were evicted from our world.

Tommy Sheridan writes a weekly column for the Scottish edition of the Daily Mirror. The column is not otherwise available online.

Nationalist MSPs face £3000 party tax

THE SNP faces controversy at its September conference over a call by some activists for MSPs to pay £3000 of their salaries into the party's coffers.

A resolution will suggest that the 27 MSPs should donate £250 a month to the party, which feels lack of money was a key reason for its failure to win more seats in the last election. The Nationalists had 35 seats before May's election...

Scottish Socialist MSPs already donate half of their salaries to their party, insisting that they only need £25,000 a year to live on.

Tommy Sheridan, the SSP leader, said: "We accept the average wage of a skilled worker in Scotland as defined by the Scottish Parliament information and research centre and the Inland Revenue.

"That results in £1300 per month being donated by each one of our MSPs to our party, so £3000 a year to us is a mere drop in the ocean.

"Most people in Scotland don't even earn £25,000 a year, and 97% of Scots don't earn £49,000 a year, which is what an MSP's salary is." The Herald

Protests at lipstick sacking The Scotsman

MSP leads cannabis calls BBC News

SCOTLAND: SSY: giving voice to young socialists

SCOTLAND: Union backs socialists Green Left Weekly

Morning Star July 01, 2003

© 2003 People's Press Printing Society Ltd

'The parliament has failed miserably to tackle the poverty and inequality which scars Scotland.'; TOMMY SHERIDAN

THE Scottish Parliament elections of May 1 have radically transformed Scotland's political terrain. The parties of big business, which variously flew different flags of convenience as Labour, Liberal, Tory or SNPships of free enterprise, all lost significant support and subsequent credibility. The differences between the four main parties are now so slight that the biggest motivation for not voting reported to the Electoral Commission survey last week was the perception that all the parties "were the same." The Scottish Socialist Party and the Greens campaigned vigorously on anti-big business platforms, with the SSP highlighting the incompatibility of big business control of society and a more just equal and environmentally sound Scotland. It was formed at a conference in February 1999 in Glasgow. Within three months, we fought the Scottish parliament elections and secured just over 40,000 votes - or 2 per cent of the votes cast across Scotland. The press tried to strangle our socialist experiment at birth. May 1 2003 exposed the fact that they failed miserably.

Just under 130,000 Scots cast their second vote for the SSP and almost 110,000 Scots cast their first votes for the SSP. In other words, not only did we secure a magnificent list vote, but we also secured a fantastic first-past-the-post vote as well. Our percentage of the vote rose to over 7 per cent. Despite the press denigration, distortion and demonisation, our vote has increased by over 240 per cent. We fought the elections on socialist policies of wealth redistribution, public ownership and trade union rights. The parliament over the last four years has failed miserably to tackle the poverty and inequality which scars Scotland. In fact, poverty and inequality have both grown during this period. The SSP group of six will concentrate on the key priorities we identified in the course of the Scottish general election. Of course we will fight on many fronts and support progressive ideas and policies whenever they are presented.

Our priorities however, will be the replacement of the unfair council tax with a new Scottish Service Tax based on personal income to tax individuals according to their ability to pay, and thus redistribute wealth from the well-paid and millionaires to the pensioners and ordinary workers. Under our system, 77 per cent of Scots would be better off than they currently are with the council tax.

We are also determined to reintroduce the universal, healthy, nutritious school meals Bill. This has the support of just about every anti-poverty group, trade union and children's charity in Scotland. It even has support from the British Medical Association and we believe it would be a radical anti-poverty and pro-health measure to deliver the same results as those evident in Finland, where a horrendous coronary heart disease record has been slashed by 65 per cent, primarily on the back of the free school meals policy introduced in the 1970s which has transformed the dietary eating habits of Finnish children.

We are also determined to tackle poverty pay within our public sector. We have the power to impose a higher minimum wage and a shorter working week. Seven pounds 32p per hour is the European decency threshold level and should be the minimum for publicsector workers in Scotland. Associated with a 35-hour week, these measures would not only improve the disposable income of hundreds of thousands of hospital, ancillary and school staff, but also create 24,000 new jobs.

The SSP has developed in the last four years from a good idea to a working and formidable project. My appeal to everyone on the left throughout Scotland is to join with us and help us grow in influence and size, particularly among trade unionists and young people.

In England and Wales, my appeal to socialists is to cut the crap and start pulling together. Our class in England and Wales deserves a united and credible socialist vehicle to support us, just as we have provided in Scotland. There is much more that unites socialists across England and Wales than divides them. In the interests of humanity, the left must come together and cut across the poisonous scum of the BNP and other reactionary forces that grow when the left leaves a vacuum.

Big Issue Scotland Issue 433

Tough talk on youth crime - MSPs state the case



The Big Issue in Scotland broke the story of how Scottish Socialist MSP Rosie Kane had begun to question whether it was appropriate for ministers to use the word 'ned'. She claimed that it is an acronym derived from the phrase "non-educated delinquent", and that the use of the word by senior politicians stigmatises young people and does nothing to get to the root of the problem, which Kane and her colleagues claim is poverty and lack of opportunities. In the media onslaught that followed, with Kane being told by the headline writers of several tabloids that she was "Off Her Ned", the debate became somewhat lost in a wrangle over political correctness and the origin of the work 'ned'. Meanwhile, the Executive ploughed ahead, recently outlining its proposals for the extension of tagging. In order to take the debate forward and help refocus it, we asked both Rosie Kane and communities minister Margaret Curran to state where they stand on the issue.

Rosie Kane, Scottish Socialist Party MSP;

I hope readers will excuse me for not mincing my words, but anyone associated with the Executive's document, `Putting Our Communities First', should be hanging their head in shame.

The Executive seems to have invented a new crime to level at Scotland's young people - is there to be a Hanging Around (Scotland) bill? I'd like to ask communities minister Margaret Curran if the name Easterhouse Community Centre means anything to her. It's a facility in her own constituency that the local community repeatedly tried to save but which in the end fell to the Labour blitzkrieg that has flattened scores of Scotland's community facilities.

No wonder then that young people are hanging around on street corners - with the exception of very few places, there is nowhere else for them to go. Proposals to electronically tag children, place them under house arrest and threaten to send their parents or carers to jail while telling police to disperse groups of "more than two" young people has left professionals working with young people dumbstruck.

The plain fact of the matter is that poverty is the single biggest risk factor in pushing young people into anti social behaviour and then possible criminal activity.

Take Glasgow. It has 12 per cent of the Scottish population but 30 per cent of the homeless population and five times the average incidence of drug abuse. In Glasgow, 42 per cent of families are reliant on income support, compared to the Scottish average of 2 5 per cent and levels of deprivation, unemployment, mortality and chronic illness are above average.

In 1999, crimes recorded per 10,000 of population was 851 in Scotland overall; in Glasgow it was 1,431, 70 per cent above the average.

The Executive's document is clear on the responsibilities young people have to society but short on the failure of adult society to meet its responsibilities to young people. To put it bluntly, we have failed them. The Tories removed benefits from 16 to 17year-olds and the Lothian Anti Poverty Alliance estimates that this has resulted in 11,000 Scottish young adults who currently have no job nor benefits of any kind.

Labour in power has not lifted a finger to overturn this catastrophe. Sixteen to 18 year olds pay tax to the government if they work but have no say on what that government should be. They pay National Insurance if they work but receive no benefits if they are unemployed. And 16 to 18 year-olds are not eligible for NHS psychological treatment even though they may be suffering from serious problems.

Kids hanging about in groups may be an irritant for some but it is hardly of the order of problem that can appear so insurmountable to young people that they attempt to take their own life; suicide now accounts for the deaths of more young, Scottish men than road accidents. This is an increase of 70 per cent in 30 years.

There are certainly problems in Scotland in relation to anti social behaviour, criminal justice and our communities.

Children and young people that come to the attention of the Children's reporter and social work departments are the most marginalised of Scotland's youth. Many are suffering from neglect, physical, emotional and sexual abuse and violence from their parents, care givers or adults close to them. Some children need to be secured for their own and their communities' safety. But because of a lack of secure accommodation these children remain on secure orders living at home. Local Authorities are unable to cope with the pressures on them because of inadequate funding.

Many children and young people that need to be looked after cannot be due to the lack of Young People Units, Crisis Centres and foster parents. The chronic shortage of residential care staff due to stress, low pay and terrible conditions has resulted in a greater use of agency staff and a resulting constant turnover of staff. This is distressing to the children and young people who are in need of consistent, high quality care.

Tagging children may assist some young people to live at home but if it is used as an alternative to looking after children, securing them when they need to be kept safe or offering good quality services, then it will only add to the problems of children and the communities they live in.

Without adequate public funding, local authorities are unable to recruit and retain staff, maintain good quality resources for children and, most increasingly, even to provide what is statutorily necessary within the Children's Act and the Education Act.

Anti social behaviour and juvenile offending are symptoms of the problem but the root cause is the crippling poverty, social exclusion, drug abuse and hopelessness that have cut like a scythe through our communities.

Fury as 'Brutal Warrant Sales Brought Back

ONE of the first Scottish councils to abolish warrant sales has sparked fury by reintroducing the controversial policy. Council chiefs in one of Scotland's poorest areas have re-employed sheriff officers to collect unpaid council tax - four years after scrapping the practice. Politicians and opposition councillors condemned the move by West Dunbartonshire Council, saying poverty-stricken families would be targeted. It means sheriff officers can force their way into debtors' homes to value and sell off property.

Scottish Socialist Party leader Tommy Sheridan, who launched the campaign to abolish the "draconian" practice in 1999, attacked council chiefs. He said: "They are humiliating rather than helping the poor, and the sheriff officers are their paid humiliators."

Mr Sheridan introduced a Private Member's Bill in December 2000 to abolish warrant sales, which was backed by MSPs. A group was created to establish a replacement for the scheme and The Debt Arrangement and Attachment (Scotland) Act came into force earlier this year. However, warrant sales will still be allowed in the most extreme cases.

Mr Sheridan added: "New Labour is back in control in West Dunbartonshire and introducing old Tory methods to claim council tax arrears. "It's sad West Dunbartonshire Council is returning to the old methods of debt collection."

In a gesture of support for Mr Sheridan, West Dunbartonshire was one of the first councils to change its debt recovery methods in 1999. Instead, it funded debt support agencies and employed council workers to chase up arrears. But SSP councillor Jim Bollan, who voted against the proposals, warned the poor would still suffer. He said: "West Dunbartonshire has one of the highest levels of poverty in Scotland and the second highest unemployment level. "Its child mortality rates are among the highest in Britain. "But the council has insisted on using brutal and draconian methods to punish the poor. "Under the old system the evidence was that people on benefits were getting targeted. "There's a lot of people on partial benefits and low incomes and they are not people who can pay their tax - they are on the edge of poverty." But council leaders have voted to reintroduce the old system to target those who "can pay but won't pay".

A spokeswoman for the council said: "We have taken the decision to target residents who can afford to pay, but who deliberately don't pay their council tax. "People on benefits will not be affected by this new ruling." Glasgow Evening Times

Biz Ivol - End of a desperate legal battle? The Scotsman

SSP joy at union's new cash gift rule

Scottish Socialist Party leader Tommy Sheridan today welcomed a move by the UK's biggest rail workers' union to let members give cash to his party. In the "watershed" decision at their annual conference in Glasgow, Rail Maritime and Transport Union delegates said total disaffiliation from Labour was inevitable after they launched bitter attacks against the government. As well as the move to let members give financial support to other political parties, the union also decided to halve its annual donation to Labour to £12,500. Senior Scottish Labour Party sources said the RMT had been "semi-detached" from the party for years and that the loss of the union's affiliation fee would cost it just £310 north of the border. A Labour insider said: "It's not the end of the world as far as money is concerned."

Mr Sheridan said the union's decision was "truly historic" and at the heart of creating a party to represent working class Scots. He said: "The SSP has survived and developed over four years without a single penny of trade union funding or official trade union support. That is coming to an end. "The RMT's decision will enable the further development of the SSP. "The question now for other trade unionists is whether they continue to support the big business anti-trade union Labour Party or the pro-socialist, anti-war SSP." Mr Sheridan recently became the first non-Labour politician to address the general council of the RMT. Glasgow Evening Times


Blair Govt. rift with unions widens The Hindu (India)

RMT Leader calls for union to back SSP.

Historic break with Labour.




Rail union leader attacks Labour ‘war criminals’ The Herald

UK rail union turns its fire against Labour

The descendant of one of the Labour Party's founding unions could see itself branded an outcast under the party's rules after it voted on Tuesday to seek "closer links" with a range of other parties, including the Scottish Socialist Party, Plaid Cymru and the Greens.

Bob Crow, general secretary of the 65,000-strong Rail Maritime and Transport union, went further still by exhorting his union's Scottish branches to affiliate to the far-left SSP. Financial Times

WHY DO WE PAY FOR TORY BLAIR?

TONY Blair's relationship with the unions sunk to a new low yesterday as the RMT slashed financial support for the Labour Party.

The country's biggest rail union said it would now donate just £12,000 a year, compared with £150,000 in 2001, and seek closer ties with other political parties.

General Secretary Bob Crow said branches should be allowed to support other parties because New Labour had "betrayed" its grass roots.

He said: "Like a marriage, sometimes it is better if there is a divorce. I am not urging a divorce but how long can we sit back and support a party that has gone further than the Tory party?

"People say do we want the Tories in again. I say, how would we know?"

A stream of delegates were cheered as they attacked New Labour at the union's annual conference in Glasgow.

Craig Johnston, from Carlisle, said: "We waited 18 years for this Government only to find out that we have Tony's Tories in Downing Street."

The RMT has 65,000 members but only 1,000 are in the Labour Party. It will seek closer ties with the Scottish Socialist Party, Plaid Cymru and Green Party, as well as London Mayor Ken Livingstone.

Bobby Law, who represents London Underground, said Labour had betrayed workers. He said: "We are going to have to bang heads together so we have an alternative in England."

Mr Crow also accused the Cabinet of being "war criminals" over the "illegal" war with Iraq and said he expected his union to support George Galloway if the Labour MP was expelled. Many delegates accepted the decision could lead to the union being expelled from Labour for breaking party rules. The Mirror

RMT halves its Labour funding

The conference overwhelmingly agreed that RMT branches will now be allowed to seek authority to support other organisations, a decision described as a "watershed" by officials. The Guardian

Union goes to war with Labour The Guardian


RMT votes to let branches reduce links with Labour The Independent

Letter to The Herald

Dreadful drugs failure presented as success

ON June 30 you uncritically presented the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency's annual report as a success when it was in fact one of the most devastating indictments of the failure of the law-enforcement agencies in Scotland to make even the slightest of impacts on the black market in illegal drugs.

The SDEA report stated that £55m of Class A and Class B drugs were seized in Scotland by the SDEA, the police forces, Customs and Excise, and other law enforcement agencies. This was presented as a seemingly huge haul which had Jim Orr (SDEA director) and Cathy Jamieson (justice minister) patting themselves on the back for a job well done. The report implied that the law-enforcement side of the war against drugs was making good progress. Simple arithmetic suggests otherwise.

Heroin addicts spend an average of £17,500 a year maintaining their habits. There are some 30,000-55,000 opiate addicts in Scotland. Even if we exclude methadone addicts and use a conservative estimate of 30,000 Scottish heroin addicts, the lowest possible estimate of the value of the heroin market in Scotland is £525m. The UK cannabis market is estimated to be around £5bn a year (Observer, February 2, 2003). For Scotland an annual cannabis black-market estimate of £500m won't be far off the mark.

To go back to the SDEA's annual seizure of £55m, it was stated in the report that it included a single record bust of a £25m consignment of cocaine. Therefore the total of all the heroin and cannabis seized last year by all law-enforcement agencies in Scotland would be included among the remaining £30m of seizures - along with all the rest of the cocaine, ecstasy, amphetamines, and LSD intercepted.

Only when you compare this paltry £55m of seizures with the very conservative estimates of Scotland's heroin black market (£525m) and cannabis black market (£500m) do you realise that all the law-enforcement agencies put together are incapable of taking off the streets even 5% of Scotland's illegal market in Class A and Class B drugs.

But it gets worse. If the total UK black market in illegal drugs - estimated at £20bn annually - is accurate then that would mean the total black market in illegal drugs in Scotland - where drug use is higher than the rest of the UK - is closer to £2bn per annum. The SDEA, police, and Customs may therefore be intercepting around 2½% of the Scottish illegal drugs market in a record year.

This isn't a success. This SDEA report is a devastating indictment of failure being presented as its complete opposite. This report should be held up as further confirmation - if it was ever needed - that every law-enforcement initiative against drug use has made practically no difference to the amount of black-market drugs hitting the streets.

The damage that drug prohibition does to our society is bad enough without the government and its agencies trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the public in order to maintain funding for a futile and destructive war against drugs that was lost a long time ago.

Kevin Williamson, drugs spokesperson, Scottish Socialist Party, 73 Robertson Street, Glasgow.