WIGAN DIGGERS FESTIVAL

A Socialist writes: 

‘The Labour Party has sent us an email from Sir Keith Starmer addressing us, rather presumptuously, as “Friend”.

Here are some extracts:

“Frankly, things will get worse before they get better.”

“I’ll have to turn to the country and make big asks of you as well. To accept short term pain for long term good. The difficult trade-off for the genuine solution. And I know that after all you’ve been through, that is a really big ask …”

Actually it’s a bloody cheek.

How many times have government asked workers to put up with pain on the promise that things will get better? That before we can reach the sunny uplands we have to pass through the Valley of Austerity? Or that if we tighten our belts today we’ll get Jam Tomorrow?

It’s the standard government line when the state of the capitalist economy forces them to give priority to profit-making over meeting people’s needs.

As of course is for an incoming government to blame the outgoing one rather than capitalism.’

Sometimes one is driven to use intemperate language as an antidote to the otherwise detrimental effect upon the body’s blood pressure.

There is B_________ and then there’s the B__________ that politicians come out with.

The latest example comes from Lucy Powell who is a Labour (sic) MP and Leader of the House of Commons.

In an interview she said, that was no alternative to removing the Winter Fuel Allowance from millions of Pensioners and the government was ‘really sorry’. She could at least have said that it was ‘really, really sorry.’

As justification for the saving of one and a half billion pounds a year she iterated that if such a step had not been taken disaster would have overtaken British capitalism with financial markets losing confidence, government borrowing costs going up, a run on the pound and the pound crashing. Sure Jan.

‘There is no alternative’ was a favourite saying of Margaret Thatcher.

‘Thatcherism’ was a political style: abrasive; uncompromising; and ruthless. It was unapologetic. ‘There Is No Alternative’ she said and hammered the words home again and again. Her message was simple and accurate. Capitalism runs in accordance with its own laws and, despite the assertions of many politicians, offers little choice to those who claim to run it. TINA cut back on government spending, opened the nationalised industries to the discipline of the market, allowed unprofitable businesses to fail and sank her teeth into the miners. She was very, very thorough.’

Socialist Standard Thatcher, the Icon. May 2013

The most charitable reason which SOYMB can come up with for the nonsense which Powell expressed is that the Sir Humphries of the Civil Service laid a bet with each other other as to who could get the most outrageous and stupid remarks made in public by a Labour politician.

The joke, however, is on us. The continued support of the majority class in electing pro capitalism politicians, of whatever hue, to pretend that reformism will benefit said class, is of benefit only to the capitalist class.

The benefits of a socialist society where quality goods and services are produced for use, not profit, goes far beyond the economic. Lives which under global capitalism are lost to wars, poverty, stress and all of the ills visited upon the majority everyday will no longer be lost.

As Billy Connolly said, ‘“The desire to be a politician should bar you for life from ever becoming one.”

When The Socialist Party puts forward candidates in elections it is with the aim of furthering socialism, not to shill for capitalism.

Excuse the military comparison; during World War Two when asked to surrender by German forces at the Battle of the Bulge, American General McAuliffe simply replied ‘Nuts.’ Far be it from us to tell capitalists what to do but perhaps Elon Musk should reply to the Brazilian capitalist executive committee with a similar response.

Alternatively he could use the response that Private Eye used in response to a legal threat, Arkell versus Pressdram, 1971. Reader discretion advised.

Brazil isn’t the first State to try and shut down free speech and it won’t be the last. This is a free speech issue and is important to everyone who resents and resists attempts by governments to control even more than they do the dissemination of ideas and opinions which threaten the status quo.

‘Alexandre de Moraes of the Supreme Court of Brazil has ordered the operations of X (formerly Twitter) to be “immediately suspended” and threatened draconian fines against anyone trying to sidestep the ban.

De Moraes demanded that X censor several accounts that “spread disinformation” by criticizing him, but the platform’s owner Elon Musk refused.

On 29 August the judge ordered the platform banned in Brazil, giving Google and Apple five days to remove X from their app stores. He also threatened a fine of around 50,000 Brazilian real (approximately $8,874) a day for anyone using a virtual private network (VPN) to get around the ban.

“Free speech is the bedrock of democracy and an unelected pseudo-judge in Brazil is destroying it for political purposes,” Musk said in response to the order.

Musk also called de Moraes “an evil dictator cosplaying as a judge” and accused President Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva of being his “lapdog.”

On Thursday, de Moraes froze the accounts of Starlink, a subsidiary of Musk’s SpaceX, saying this was needed to ensure the payment of fines levied against X for failing to appoint a legal representative. Musk objected to the “absolutely illegal action” taken without any due process, pointing out that X and SpaceX are “two completely different companies with different shareholders.”

According to X’s Global Government Affairs team, de Moraes “threatened our Brazilian legal representative with imprisonment. Even after she resigned, he froze all of her bank accounts.”

“Our challenges against his manifestly illegal actions were either dismissed or ignored,” the company said, pledging to make public all the related court filings in the interest of transparency. “Unlike other social media and technology platforms, we will not comply in secret with illegal orders.”

The US embassy in Brazil said only it was “monitoring the situation,” adding that “freedom of expression is a fundamental pillar in a healthy democracy.”

The dispute began earlier this year, when de Moraes ordered X to suspend the accounts belonging to several supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro, calling them “digital militants” who spread “disinformation” about himself and the court. Musk refused, calling the order a violation of Brazilian laws.’

 ‘Sir Keir Starmer says:

“Frankly, things will get worse before they get better.”

“I’ll have to turn to the country and make big asks of you as well. To accept short term pain for long term good. …. And I know that after all you’ve been through, that is a really big ask …”

Actually it’s a bloody cheek. How often have government asked workers to put up with pain on the promise that things will get better? It’s their standard line when the state of the economy forces them to prioritise profit-making over meeting people’s needs.

Just as of course it is standard for an incoming government to blame the outgoing one rather than capitalism.’

DID YOU SEE THE NEWS? (ZOOM)

‘When you are unemployed, which is to say when you are underfed, harassed, bored, and miserable, you don’t want to eat dull wholesome food. You want something a little bit ‘tasty’. There is always some cheaply pleasant thing to tempt you. Let’s have three pennorth of chips!’

George Orwell The Road to Wigan Pier

‘Fish and chips, a traditional British meal valued for its affordability, has seen a significant increase in price over the past five years, several UK media outlets reported  citing data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

According to July figures, the cost of fish and chips has surged by around 52% to nearly £10 ($13) per serving from an average of £6.5 in July 2019. According to the ONS, the cost of the popular dish has seen the largest increase over the reporting period in comparison to pizza, kebabs, and Indian and Chinese food.

According to industry representatives who spoke to the BBC, a mix of increased energy and labor costs, poor potato harvests due to bad weather, and Ukraine-related sanctions on Russia, the world’s leading cod producer, were the major drivers behind the spike.

London placed a 35% tariff on seafood from Russia shortly after the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, which immediately affected the cost of fish and chips, as around a third of Britain’s white fish at the time came from Russia.

Western sanctions and Russia’s countermeasures also affected energy supplies, which triggered a rise in energy costs for British businesses. As a result, the price of fish and chips spiked by 19% by March 2023. More recently, Russia has also denied the UK’s fishing vessels access to its Arctic fishing grounds in the Barents Sea, ending the Fisheries Agreement signed in 1956 and further affecting prices.

On top of this, extreme weather conditions over the past year have jeopardized potato harvests, which also affects the cost of fish and chips. According to the latest Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs’ Agricultural Price Index (API), in the 12 months to May 2024, potato prices posted the largest increase among UK agricultural goods, surging 4.1%.

Industry representatives warn that fish and chips is becoming less affordable, and may soon lose its status as an iconic British dish.

“We’ve had the perfect storm of events in terms of cost pressures. It’s not a cheap meal anymore,” Jon Long of Long John’s Fish and Chips in Dorset told the news outlet, adding that the current economic climate is the “toughest set of conditions” he has seen in the past three decades.

“People think that fish and chips is a cheap meal and it just isn’t. People are prepared to pay £15-20 for a pizza but they’re not prepared to pay it for a portion of fish and chips,” Angela Cartwright, the owner of Kingfisher Fish Bar in Salford, said.’

Should the World Socialism Movement send these social media capitalists some free copies of the Socialist Standard? Edifying, or not, as it might be to observe this ongoing conflict between various billionaires and various States there have to be concerns about the longer term implications this power struggle holds for freedom of speech.

As usual capitalism is demonstrating that power over the lives of the majority needs to be abolished sooner rather than later to be replaced by the only sane social system, socialism.

‘A leading EU parliamentarian has warned Elon Musk that X could be shut down entirely in the European Union if it fails to censor so-called “disinformation and hate speech”.

Sandro Gozi, an Italian Member of the European Parliament who serves as the Secretary-General for the European Democratic Party (Democratic? LOL) and in the leadership of French President Emmanuel Macron’s Renew Europe group in Strasbourg, issued another threat of censorship towards Elon Musk and X, warning of a potential outright ban of the platform if it does not abide by the speech directives in the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA).

Speaking to the Italian paper La Repubblica the MEP said “The former Twitter must also comply with the DSA directive on disinformation and hate speech.”

“If Elon Musk does not comply with European rules on digital services, the EU Commission will ask continental operators to block X or, in the most extreme case, will impose a total dismantling of the platform in the territory of the Union,” Gozi added.

The warning from the leading EU parliamentarian came just a week after Thierry Breton, the European Commission’s censorship czar, wrote an open letter lo Musk, demanding that the X boss censor his live interview with former President Donald Trump.

In his letter, the former tech executive turned Eurocrat threatened to use all the powers in his “toolbox” to punish X if the Trump interview violated EU restrictions on disinformation, hate speech, or in any way served to harm “civic discourse and public security” in the bloc. Under the DSA, EU regulators, led by Breton, have the power to impose fines of up to six per cent of the global turnover of large internet firms. The draconian legislation also empowers Brussels to potentially ban platforms throughout the EU.

Breton’s intervention drew pushback from other power players within Brussels as the EU faced accusations of “election interference” in the United States by demanding censorship of the Republican nominee for president. The following day, after Breton’s letter, a spokesman for the European Commission said that it was sent without the knowledge of EU chief Ursula von der Leyen. Other unnamed EU sources slammed Breton for being “attention-seeking” and for engaging in “electoral interference.”

With the intervention of Gozi it appears that Breton is not without allies in the push to launch a censorship campaign against Elon Musk and X.

However, following his threat to ban X, Gozi travelled to Chicago to attend the Democratic National Convention (DNC) and to support the Kamala Harris campaign, perhaps demonstrating his partisan reasons for seeking to censor the free speech-oriented social media platform.

“US elections will also have a huge impact in Europe. For years, as European Democrats, we have been committed to strengthening our ties with American Democrats. With our participation in Chicago, we want to show our support for Kamala Harris and her fight for civil rights, for the middle class, and against Trump’s extremism,” Gozi said.’

Breibart 20 August

‘France has crossed all boundaries by arresting Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov, Chris Pavlovski, the CEO of video-sharing platform Rumble, has said, adding that he left Europe after the news broke.

Durov was taken into custody at a Paris airport on Saturday evening after arriving from Azerbaijan by private jet. While the French authorities have yet to publicly announce the reason for detaining the Russian tech mogul, reports indicate that the charges are related to his alleged complicity in drug trafficking, pedophilia offenses, fraud, as well as failure to address criminal activity on the messenger.

Telegram has denied any wrongdoing, adding that it is “absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform.”

In a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Sunday, Pavlovski said he had “safely departed from Europe” in the aftermath of Durov’s arrest. He slammed the move by France, saying it “crossed a red line,” while noting that the country had already threatened Rumble.

”Rumble will not stand for this behavior and will use every legal means available to fight for freedom of expression, a universal human right. We are currently fighting in the courts of France, and we hope for Pavel Durov’s immediate release,” he added.

Pavlovski’s platform, which has positioned itself as a free speech alternative to YouTube, has been embroiled in its own legal battle with the French authorities. It began in November 2022 after officials in Paris banned Rumble over its refusal to comply with a request to remove Russian media accounts blocked in the EU due to sanctions over the Ukraine conflict.

Though Durov’s arrest occurred in France, a number of opinion leaders, including American entrepreneur David Sacks, have suggested that the US was behind the move. In April, Sacks also predicted that Washington could go after Telegram, X, and eventually Rumble, given that the US passed a law that would ban the video-sharing platform TikTok if its Chinese-based developer, ByteDance, refused to sell it within 12 months.’