You are in the company of Roger Warren Evans, Welsh socialist lawyer and company director, on a journey to work out a new socialist order capable of generating equality and freedom for the world.  Nothing less will do.
    

 

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 Diary in date order Jan 2002 to date
but you also find this search engine useful, in keeping track of events

Renewing participatory democracy

My Little Red Book

A New Socialist Settlement

Bevan
Re-visited 

Multiple Differential Uncertainty

Who am I? Biography  

 

      040419  Make sure you have not missed
the previous edition  Check it out   
And the one before that?   
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Week 17  Saturday
24 April 2004

Anger was
never enough

I am tired of being told that “Whitehall” is very cross indeed about the illegal invasion of Iraq, and the thousands of Iraqi dead.  Very cross.  Richard Norton Taylor once more tries to bring Whitehall onto the side of the angels, writing in The Guardian – Whitehall’s private anger won’t abate. 

But where were they when it mattered?   In June and July 2003, Christopher Smith of Islington and I strained our utmost, as retired left-wing lawyers, to find some way of instigating legal action to get the infamous Iraq invasion declared illegal – we searched every option, every legal byway.  It was quite clear that, as a matter of law, none of his defences worked: this is what I wrote at the time.

But we were on our own.  Everyone looked the other way.  And for my part, I lost a number of good political colleagues along the way: they considered I was being exploitative, abusing the media, and disloyal to the Party and the Labour cause.

And now I am told that the gurus of Whitehall shared the same views, all the time!  Big, big deal.  They were no doubt all looking after their careers and their pensions. 

  • To be constructive, I will be suggesting a reformed pensions system, for public service whistleblowers.

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Touch of Class

Is the power of social class weakening, in English society?
The commercial evidence suggests that it is. The current travails of both Marks & Spencer and Sainsburys – I say - have a common explanation.   

The Shaming of Labour

As we doughty Labour loyalists gear up to fight the 10 June Elections, this uncritical lovey-dovey relationship between Bush and Blair sticks in our gullets.  Blair, having never understood the Labour Party, has left us without values to fight for, without a vision of society to endow that pavement-pounding drudgery. 

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Why Bremer must go...

My thanks to The Guardian for giving me a platform last week. You will find my views following those of Ali Abunimah - check them out!   I am outraged by the precipitate, undemocratic handover of power to a Coalition puppet Government in Iraq, principally to meet the demands of the Big Corporations.

"This is a
historic struggle"

Well - No it isn't, actually.  We are simply having to deal with the consequences of a sordid, misjudged post-Imperial military adventure.  I agree that we have no option but to stay with the Americans  and sort it out: on that, I have clearly stated my position.

Council Election Special

The countdown for the 10 June Council elections has started.  I have been adopted as the prospective Labour candidate for Swansea's Oystermouth Ward, in Mumbles - if you are a fellow political activist, follow my -

The Fabians are a great, enlightened Left-Wing political community some 7,000-strong - and we have many skills among our number.

PS  If, without joining, you would like to be added to the monthly Fabian Update e-mail list, just e-mail Fabian Research

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Left Activists' Corner

I have three moderately-left political projects to engage your interest, in 2004 - nothing too revolutionary, you understand - and for your delight I retain the Royal Mail stamps for February, which are light-hearted and good fun...

(a) Company Reform Coalition  my group of fellow schemers met in London on 20 April, and we are planning new initiatives for November, seeking to make common cause with others who understand the global issues..;

(b) Questors - the birth of a new profession, group planning expansion - we are seeking allies, co-promoters, progress steady but slow - next stage anticipated c 28 April;

(c) Labour Links, seeking to unlock the resources of the Labour Party - the idea of re-structuring the Party, to give the rank-and-file its own role, is going down badly with the professionals, understandably - they want to keep their fingers on all the strings..

  • Let me know what you think    

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Special Footnote

I love the online newspapers, which are my access to the world - share them with me - click through to their here -  I have added the English-language China Daily ... and I now offer you the leading English-language Indian paper The Hindu. 

They are all just a click away.

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Never miss Steve Bell!  His cartoons, from The Guardian - his wit and perception illuminate the absurdities of the political scene...

I enjoy dipping into informed US West Coast chat, always up to the minute, which can be found at www.metafilter.com.

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 		      There will be
No Referendum

"Let the people have the final say".  That's what the man said, in the Commons on Tuesday.  And that's all the man said.  He did not promise a "referendum".   He is keeping open the possibility of calling a General Election, on Britain's place in Europe. And for good measure, he used precisely the same words in his letter to loyal Labour Party members like myself - which I give you in full, word for word.

I am, of course, biased.  I said the same thing, right here on this website, in January 2002. 

Congratulations
to Fabians

This time, to the Cardiff Fabians.  Last Thursday they had the courage to debate the End of Drugs Prohibition.  I was their speaker - wearing my hat as promoter and secretary of the pro-reform Angel Declaration. 

I can testify that very few Labour groups display the same courage.  We have eight Labour MPs openly committed to legalisation as signatories to the  Angel Declaration.   And (I am proud to say) two of them are Welsh, as is the sole Plaid Cymru signatory Adam Price - the Labour pioneers are Paul Flynn and Jon Owen Jones. There are no Tory signatories, and only one Liberal - the admirable Dr Jenny Tonge.

The Great
GMC Conspiracy

Dr Jim Sharp is a dedicated campaigner. The Stapleford cases are currently attracting his attention.  His campaign is against the General Medical Council.  He makes a devastating case against the Council's wrongful and abusive intervention in matters of drug prescribing.  Parliament assigned the jurisdiction specifically to a specialist Misuse of Drugs Tribunal, but that has proved a dead letter.  The GMC is said to have stepped into the breach, with devastating and abusive consequences.

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Chaotic frontiers

Home Office administration is in disarray, over the 1 May switch to the new Workers Registration Scheme, for EU Citizens.  My heart is being broken this week, by trying to help a Polish family who originally (three years ago, in 2000) claimed asylum by virtue of criminal, Mafia-type attacks in Poland.  The complaints were eventually (in 2001) held to be too weak to justify the grant of asylum.

The couple, with two young daughters have been allowed to stay in the UK ever since, barred from working but receiving minimal "Asylum Support" from the Home Office. Three weeks ago, Immigration Officers arrived unannounced at their home and told them they would have to leave for Poland straight away - even though Poland would be entering the EU on 1 May. 

  • STOP PRESS 21 April  I am delighted to report that intervention by the Swansea West MP Alan Williams secured the reconsideration of the deportation of mother and children, although I understand that her husband opted to return to Poland on Tuesday. Their Files will now be reappraised.

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No Man's Land
for Swansea Iraqis

Some of our "Swansea" dispersed asylum-seekers are Iraqis, terrified of enforced "repatriation" to a country at war.  They will warmly welcome the Government's decision to suspend the Iraqi Repatriation Programme.  But that is not enough. They must be given the right to find a job, and get on with their lives.

Quite a Cobber!

I've heard again from the tough-talkin' Australian Mike Davis (this is not Mike Davis, just how imagine him...) And this time, he gives his full address. Mike has strong views, and some of them intolerant to our ears - views which no self-respecting Welsh Liberal Socialist like me would be caught dead with!  But his arguments rollick along with great punch and tenacity - and if he provokes you, let me know what you think. I love his image of the Trooping of the Colour ceremony with an ethnic-minority majority...!

Having discovered this remarkable NASA website, linked with the Hubble Telescope and the NASA Mars exploration vehicles, with its current photographs from outer space, I am reluctant to let it go

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Recent topics

Extending the Welfare State >>>

Territorial v Membership States >>>

Universal Inheritance: Capital for all >>>

IRAQ What I think now... >>>

Old politicians have six options >>>

Prison last!  That's my policy >>>

Adjustment Pay - for every worker >>>

French origins of VAT >>>

Multiculturalism, Crick and me >>>

"Choice" means means, not ends >>>

 

And read my Big Theory itself, at Multiple Differential Uncertainty...

Or try my snappier and more practical analysis of the Corporations and the Left Coming to Terms

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040419  Make sure you have not missed
the previous edition  Check it out   
And the one before that?   
Other recent topics highlighted here

Week 17  Saturday
24 April 2004

 
   

 

  
 

 
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The originating content of this website is my own work, and subject to my copyright. But on one condition only, I hereby give my consent to its unrestricted reproduction for any purpose: the condition is that its source is subject to proper acknowledgment, giving my name, my assertion of copyright, and the name of this website as its source, namely: www.warrenevans.net - is that a deal?  Roger WE