Tendance Coatesy

I went down this Friday to the TUC day of discussion on Welfare  Reform.

That is, against.

I can’t say I was in a good mood before I got there: paying £1 40 for a small bottle of water on the train does not inspire great thought.

The seminar was well-organised.

But let me observe these points.

Firstly, there is no compromise with the likes of Brown. The only response he respects is absolute opposition. I said that. To some agreement.

Secondly, there was very obviously what we call in French an OPA (take-over) attempt from two quarters. One, from Anne Gray, ex-CPGB (old CPGB that is) who wanted the Green Party to be the main reps of the unemployed. Sorry Anne but your mates in Norwich who banned foie gras from chippies are not going to be leading this one.

The other was the lassies from the various front groups of the King’s Cross Women’s Centre (now in Kilburn). Even a hardened sectarian like Coatesy can’t keep up with all your fronts. I don’t wish you ill.  You played a role in supporting us in Ipswich which shall never be forgotten.

But please you are not going to get a campaign going on an assemblage of women’s groups.

Same goes for that black women who talked of ‘her’ people (as if she bleeding owns blackness). And talked of slavery etc. That, the New Deal was about putting ‘her’ people back on the plantations.

Excuse me darling, I went to Westminster Further Education College to do me A levels.  A few streets from Congress House. I was in a minority of ‘whites’ (what the hell does that mean?). At the time in Peter Street, just off Berwick Street Market. The woman who took care of me (chief of library), and was me Mentor was a Jamaican. Jackie, an absolute pearl of a person. She was not oppressed: she helped  free me from oppression!

Stop talking gobshite.

Class Unity!

Smash Welfare Reform!