Scotland's Currency

in support of Colin Fox's blogpiece

 

by Bill Newman

 

 

Suddenly everyone wants to speculate on what form an independent Scotland's currency should take and it is not surprising that the No campaign should use its usual scare tactics to frighten the electorate. It is nonsense to pretend that an independent Scotland would be compelled to use the Euro, just as it is absurd to insist that a link to the sterling would inevitably mean that an independent Scotland would necessitate an economic policy beholden to Westminster.

However, it has been unwise of the SNP to insist that an independent Scotland would continue to use the pound sterling, dependent on the monetary policy pursued by the Bank of England (and, inevitably, to Westminster). Even if the English authorities were to acquiesce to a Scottish Government's request for a member on the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee, is it seriously believed that such a presence would make the slightest difference to policy decisions? Indeed, Scotland' s monetary policy decisions would have to be those determined by the Bank of England (and, again, inevitably, by Westminster). It's true that Scotland would be able to make its own fiscal policy, but fiscal policy is heavily dependent on monetary policy.

There are, though they are unsurprisingly not publicly stated, good reasons why Westminster would want to continue to dominate Scotland's economic policy decisions through monetary ties. There can be no doubt that the UK's balance of payments would suffer drastically without Scotland and some continued hold on Scotland's monetary policy would at least alleviate a crisis in confidence in sterling. But why should Scotland not want to sever formal links to the Rest of the UK's currency when its external balances would be so far superior to the RUK's? For the Scottish government to demand such an unwise subservience to an English currency in these circumstances seems perverse, and not all nationalists agree with this stance. Margo McDonald has expressed a wish for an initial parity link with sterling and it is such an informal link that makes sense. The arguments put forward by Gordon Macintyre Kemp and the eminent economists cited in newsnet Scotland for a continued link with the pound sterling are compelling, not least as a free-floating Scottish currency would appreciate rapidly on positive prospects for Scotland's current account of the Balance of Payments, damaging prospects for Scotland's exports and tourist earnings, but any such tie need not be formal or depend on the whims of the Bank of England. An informal link by an independent country of its currency to another or to a basket of other currencies is by no means uncommon and would seem to be, at least as an interim measure, the most sensible course for an independent Scotland to take. Certainly, Scotland would need an independent Currency Board of its own with powers determined by the Scottish Government. Given the scale of Scotland-RUK economic transactions and a rational desire not to disrupt such transactions, then an initial establishment of parity between a Scottish currency and a RUK pound would seem sensible, at least in the short to medium term. What future arrangements could be made with the Bank of England and the Westminster government could happily be left to time and the development of relations between the two states.

Colin Fox was, of course right, in his recent blog to point out that there are no simple, infallible solutions to the establishment of a future Scottish currency. He was also right to mention that any of the possibilities being currently discussed are all within the framework of a capitalist economy within a capitalist world, but that is the present reality of Scotland's situation and practical solutions are needed to practical questions. In these circumstances, the establishment of an independent currency linked for the time being to the pound sterling would seem to be the best solution for an independent Scotland.

Bill Newman spent most of his working life in banking, latterly as head of economics and then as Assistant General Manager of a City of London bank. For some 15 years he was also editor of and wrote for a journal on international monetary economics.

He has an interest in African matters, having been responsible for economic and political reporting on sub-Saharan Africa for Westminster Bank and writing for some years for the Europa Yearbook on Somalia and Ethiopia.

He was also on the Executive Committee and the Management Committee of the Banking, Insurance and Finance Union (BIFU) and a delegate to the TUC.

Great ideas for advancing the BIG society

Bill Newman

I see that the noble traders of Milngavie are doing shift work to operate the town's public toilets themselves in order to save the Council money and to promote, presumably, the "big society". But why stop there? Residents could be volunteered to organise their own refuse collection, unpaid of course, and hard-working voters could be encouraged to maintain the roads in their spare time. No-one could then complain to the Council about the pot holes endangering motorists and discouraging cyclists from venturing out. Perhaps graves could also be dug by grieving mourners.

The main drain on the Council's coffers is our schools, however. There is a simple answer to this problem. Scotland has a huge pool of unemployed teachers and these could be used without pay to gain valuable experience in educating our youth. Should this prove insufficient, then surely there are many retired teachers who would relish the opportunity to renew their joy in front of the eager faces of school students; naturally, there would be no need for monetary compensation. Nor need the size of classes be limited. Academic studies on the merits of small class sizes are ambiguous at best.

Should all this sound too idealistic, readers should bear in mind the great new scheme from Strathclyde Passenger Transport that residents in remoter areas should organise their own bus transport needs.

You may think that the implementation of these imaginative advances towards the "big society" would save the Council sufficient money to reduce Council tax, but it must be remembered that the future cost of the private funding of school construction and refurbishment has to be paid for at great expense into the remote future and we have to continue paying the wages and expenses of our senior executives and our governing Labour-Conservative councillors.

If none of this appeals, then it is surely time that we return to the concept that our Council gives priority to the real needs of our community and endeavours to meet these needs. But this, of course, suggests a socialist alternative where needs take priority over greed and opportunism. This may be unfashionable to our current breed of politicians, but it is a realistic alternative whose time will come again.

Crocodile Tears

by Bill Newman

"Let's gear our society to social need, not personal greed."

The death of Jimmy Reid (above) has produced the predictable eulogies extolling his socialist  principles and consistent morality from many of those driven by motives far removed from Jimmy's beliefs.  The hypocrisy of politicians and journalists praising Jimmy Reid when their own opportunistic actions and utterances are so at variance with his ideals is sickening.  In his famous Glasgow University rectorial address in 1972, Jimmy Reid famously stated that the "a rat race is for rats" and one must wonder what sort of creatures our astonishingly greedy multimillionaire bankers are.

Reading this rightly acclaimed speech, it is extraordinary to recall that it was delivered almost 40 years ago, for the greed exposed and the inability, or unwillingness, of our political masters to curb the excesses of capitalists is now worse and more blatent than it was in 1972.  Bankers who created the global recession continue to enjoy unwarranted massive salaries topped up with unearned bonuses even when those banks are effectively owned, like the Royal Bank of Scotland, by the State (ie you and me).  Similarly, company directors give themselves obscene salary increases while politicians bewail such greed, but do nothing to curb it. 

The Prime Minister and his acolytes proclaim their mission to improve social mobility and deplore the poverty in which so many live, yet their actions to date have only increased the burdens of the growing numbers of the poor while doing nothing to curb the greed of the rich. Indeed, it is just as simple for the rich to evade taxation as it ever was, while the companies they control find ever more simple ways to locate in tax havens to avoid paying tax in the U.K.  Even wealthy footballers are helped to find ways of minimising tax on their earnings through tax avoidance trust funds held overseas.

Moreover, as we all know, politicians who could curb these excesses are only too keen to play games to top up their already generous salaries, as evidenced by the Westminster MPs' expenses scandal and the generous pensions and severance payments they award themselves.  Of course, many of these politicians state that they have done nothing illegal, as though they have no moral responsibility for their actions!  Nor do these immoral games stop at Westminster.  The merry games which Glasgow councillors have played in ensuring their councillor salaries are topped up with payments as directors of 'arms-length' companies (previously run directly by Glasgow City Council) may be perfectly legal, but the morality of such payments is another matter.

How saddened Jimmy Reid must have been to witness the fact that the political, social and economic environment which he railed against in his rectorial address has steadily worsened in the last 40 years.  Yet despite this accelerating decay of moral values, these words of Jimmy Reid remain as true today as when they were spoken in 1972: 

"Let's gear our society to social need, not personal greed.  Given such creative re-orientation of society, there is no doubt in my mind that in a few years we could eradicate in our country the scourge of poverty, the underprivileged, slums and insecurity."  

We urgently need the honest will of politicians to realise Jimmy's vision, and surely only a socialist programme can bring this about.  No more crocodile tears, no more cynicism, no more hypocrisy; we all need leaders with the consistent honesty and compassion which Jimmy Reid demonstrated in his life.

No to War! No to Cuts!

Bill and Willie, two of the leafletting team today.
1800 leaflets advertising the Public Meetings were delivered to households in Lennoxtown.
(see leaflet HERE)

PRESS RELEASE FROM CAMPSIE BRANCH SCOTTISH SOCIALIST PARTY

Public Meetings in Lennoxtown and Kirkintilloch

The Campsie Branch of the Scottish Socialist Party is holding two public meetings to highlight the futility of the war in Afghanistan and in opposition to the local and national cuts planned by all the major political parties.

The first meeting will be in Campsie Memorial Lesser Hall in Lennoxtown on Wednesday, 31 March at 7.30. Speakers will include Colin Fox (spokesperson for the Scottish Socialist Party and a former MSP), a member of the Afghan community in Scotland and local Party members. This will be followed by a further meeting in the Kirkintilloch Leisure Centre at 7.30 on 21 April. The SSP believes that neither the truth about our economic crisis nor the real reason for the conflict in Afghanistan is being told and the meetings will encourage discussion on these crucial issues.

Colin Fox said, “After 8 years of occupying Afghanistan, 50,000 civilian and 270 British deaths, it is time to support our troops and bring them home. Our politicians at Westminster ignore the polls showing 70% of Britons want our soldiers brought back home and have themselves shown, just as they did whilst they were fiddling their expenses, that they are completely out of touch with public opinion in this country.”

Campsie Branch SSP urge Council to ensure current Kilmardinny/Westpark development is blocked.

Bill Newman, Campsie Branch SSP member, had the following letter published in the Bearsden / Milngavie Herald about the proposals to build 550 new houses on the Kilmardinny/Westpark site. Photos by Neil Scott.



The Campsie Branch of the Scottish Socialist Party, which covers Bearsden and Milngavie, shares many of the concerns expressed by kwag concerning the plans of Cala/Stewart Milne for the construction of 550 houses on the Kilmardinny/West Park development.


The doubtful future of an adequate replacement for the Allander Sports Centre, the lack of clarity on and the absence of finance for the proposed rail halt, the lack of space for retail construction, serious doubts on building on a functional floodplain and the moving of the West of Scotland rugby ground are all matters which make the Government Reporter's approval of the development surprising, to put it mildly.


Little attention has been paid, however, to the vague undertaking to provide affordable housing.

The question, of course, is affordable to whom? More often than not, promises to provide affordable housing mean nothing to those on modest incomes and, given the total lack of precision in Cala/Stewart Milne's plans, the assumption must be that the housing will be aimed at those with deep pockets.






What is really needed, of course, is a real mix of publicly-owned social housing, and this is not in the interest of private developers to provide. The approved proposals are geared entirely towards the profits of the developers and though the equivocal position of our bizarre Tory/Labour Council should not surprise anyone, it is to be hoped that the public outrage which is being expressed might stiffen the resolve of our Council to forcefully lend their weight,unlikely as this seems, to ensure that the development as it stands does not go ahead.

Bill Newman
Loyal Gardens
Bearsden

Click on Photo to go to the KWAG site for more information and to sign the petition...

There Must Be An Alternative

Bill Newman, a retired City of London Banker, witnessed the greed and corruption of the Capitalist system at first hand. He explains why the greed MUST be made history…


The media continues, with total justification, to forecast more economic doom and gloom to come. And many commentators, with equal justification, identify these economic woes with a collapse of our current version of the capitalist dream (or should that be nightmare?). But if, as so many now agree, the overwhelming greed of financiers was an inevitable result of the capitalist system, then why do none of our major parties offer a socialist alternative?

It is hardly surprising that the Conservative Party and the neo-conservatives of New Labour should want to protect their chums in big business. Given Vince Cable's capable analysis of the stupidity and avarice of the bankers who got us into this mess, it might be expected that the LibDems would offer some radical alternative for the future. Not a chance! Nor is any alternative on offer from the Scottish National Party. It might reasonably be thought that with a substantial swathe of our financial institutions on nominal public hands, at least some modification of banking philosophy and behaviour would be evident. No such evidence exists and all New Labour wants is to hand ownership back to the very kind of people who bought their institutions to disaster. Almost unbelievably, in this context, privatisation of Royal Mail is still being pursued.

So will it be business as usual for bankers and financial traders once their bail-out has enabled them to continue to print their own money again? Tighter domestic and international banking regulations (incredibly slow in emerging) might curb some more outlandish financial gambling, but the very nature of capitalism will ensure that greed will be resumed with merely a tactical nod towards the common good. There may now be few who will proclaim openly that "greed is good", but the basic operation of capitalism rests on such greed.

Of course, politicians and financial supervisors are guilty for letting bankers feather their nests with an absolute minimum of interference. Senior bankers were naturally more than happy to be left to their own devices. Indeed, in my own experience in banking, I witnessed the progressive diminution of risk analysis. Both those with responsibility for credit analysis and the structures within which they worked were steadily down-graded, while internal auditors changed from being individuals feared by colleagues to unnecessary irritants.

The obvious alternative is socialism, and the Scottish Socialist Party offers such a rational alternative for a Scottish public proud of its radical political history. Nor could it be thought that the SSP in anything but internationalist in its outlook, for strong links continue to be forged with burgeoning socialist parties throughout Europe.

An alternative is available and a vote for the SSP in the European elections gives an opportunity to reject the incompetent opportunism of the mainstream political parties, none of whom are willing to challenge the system which got us into this crisis.

Financial Crisis- what we need to know.

Click on picture below for article from Bill Newman and video discussion featuring Raphie de Santos, Bill Newman and Frances Curran.


More left coverage of the financial crisis at the LEFT BANKER site.

From Recession to Depression: the U K Experience

Facilitated by the SSP co-convenor,
Frances Curran
Speakers—Raphie de Santos, Bill Newman.

ARTICLE BY BILL NEWMAN

It is at last dawning on even the most deluded of our MPs and MSPs that the recession (two quarters of negative growth) is not a temporary phenomenon and respected media commentators are not just crying wolf when they talk of years of economic pain. We are just at the commencement of a long depression (a recession lasting years) and it is apparent that governments have no cohesive plan for dealing with this, nor even an understanding that this is a crisis in the very nature of capitalism which requires radical socialist solutions. Indeed, the vacuous dialogues at the Davos forum meeting this year confirmed a global lack of meaningful policies.

The crisis was initiated by those bankers who thought that they could avoid the laws of capitalist economics and procede for ever to enrich themselves at everyone else's expense, and the tacit endorsement of politicians too ignorant, lazy or complacent to control this arrogant greed. It's worth recapping in overall terms the culpable stupidity of senior bankers in recent years:

- The naked greed of bank traders, bank executives and bank boards. This greed rewarded short-term speculative gains with obscene cash rewards. Bank risk analysts, where they had the courage to point out dangers, were ignored or even shown the door. Traders, often with little technical understanding of the instruments with which they were trading, could afford to ignore long-term problems given the massive short-term payments they were receiving. Likewise, chief executives and board chairmen were blinkered enough to believe that they could ignore longer-term risks. It is worth recalling that none of the former chairmen and chief executives of Royal Bank of Scotland and HBoS hauled before the UK Parliamentary Treasury Committeee on 10 February had any banking qualifications. Established politicians overtly claimed that 'greed is good', a mantra now castigated by the media without an acknowledgement that greed is an essential ingredient of capitalism.

-Profligate lending. The progressive loosening of prudential controls on the granting of credit led to the ludicrous self certification of borrowers whereby the word of borrowers as to their financial status was accepted without checks. This was compounded, for example, by the granting of mortgages in excess of 100% of the value of the property in question, presumably on the incredible belief that property prices would rise for ever and interest rates remain at historically low levels.

-Bankers as salespersons. All bank customers know that staff at their local branches were there to sell their products rather than cater for their mundane banking needs. Indeed, as every bank clerk knows, performance assessment and the rewards arising there from depended heavily on their ability to sell products and extend credit to bank customers.

- Weak banking regulation. Tight supervision of banks through inspection and financial parameters has been steadily eroded, through the deliberate embrace of the extension of the free market, an embrace, despite evidence to the contrary, that still controls the philosophy of the UK government. It is instructive that where bank regulation has remained tighter, as in Spain, bank crises have been lesser.

-The extension of derivative trading. Derivatives are in essence merely contracts whose values depend on something else. These can be useful and in their simpler form have been around almost as long as banking. The example which used to be used in basic banking instruction was that of the farmer who sold his crop in advance of harvest to a miller at a fixed price for future delivery, removing the element of future financial uncertainty to farmer and miller. In the last two decades or so different types of derivatives have become much more complex and varied. Many, such as credit derivative contracts, although they look like insurance contracts, provide considerable scope for profit when they are traded, not least when the value of contracts is leveraged. They also provide vast opportunities for loss when economic circumstances deteriorate. An indication of the scale of derivative trading and the overhang of contracts in the market is shown by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) which valued derivatives outstanding on the market in June 2008 at $684 trillion. It is clear that senior executives seem not to have either understood the nature of the complex derivatives which their banks were trading, nor the risks involved.

-The crazy belief that as a result of the miracle-working Gordon Brown there would be no more boom and bust. Such a belief defies all economic laws. You haven't got to understand Karl Marx (though it helps!) to understand the cyclical nature of capitalism. If Gordon Brown had never read Marx, he should at least have known a little of Maynard Keynes, or even Adam Smith.

It is certainly true that the whole world is involved in what is indeed a global recession, compounded by the onward rush towards economic globalisation, but the recession is due to bite harded in the U K than elsewhere. Thus the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has forecast that the U K economy will shrink by 2.8% this year, compared with a deline of 2.0% in the Eurozone and 1.6% in the USA (see appended table 8). Why is the U K performing worse than other developed nations? There is a myth, which seemed to gain credibility in the media and even among opposition MPs that Prudence Brown was a sound, pragmatic chancellor. In practice, he was far from prudent as even a cursory look at his economic stewardeship shows.

Astonishingly, very few in the Westminster Parliament or the media seemed willing or able to expose Brown and the dangerous overheating of the U K economy, though, to be fair, Vince Cable did raise some warnings. Indeed, it seems to have been deemed to be unpatriotic to disclose the deterioration in economic performance.

Just look at performance of the U K's payments balance with the rest of the world (table 1). The U K's trade in goods has moved from a deficet of £12.5 billion in 1995 to a colossal £93.2 billion last year. In the company of astonished European MPs I heard a Goverment economic advisor claim many years ago that the reduction in British goods production and exports was of no consequence as what the U K was good at was the overseas sale of financial services. Well, at the very least, as Table 1 shows, our earnings balance on services by no means compensated for the growing goods trade deficit. And should we expect overseas financial earnings to be sustained this year? How, then, has the U K's growing current account payments deficit been financed? Net investment in the U K has shrunk and in 2007 recorded a substantial net outflow (Table 2) with valatile short-term borrowing meeting the gap.

Moreover, the gains from North Sea oil production have been frittered away and Britain's trade in oil has now moved from a solid surplus a decade ago to a deficit (Table 3). To compound this reverse, coal production, which could have helped meet energy needs, has been deliberately destroyed, first by the Tories, but, as Table 4 shows, New Labour has tamely followed the Tories policy so that the U K now imports more than twice as much coal as it produces, the largest supplier being Russia.

Nor can Gordon Brown claim prudence in managing Government finances. In the early years of New Labour, debt did indeed shrink, but, as Table 7 shows, Government deficits have emerged and grown to pump up economic growth, limiting the Government's room for manoeuvre in the current recession.

It is clear, then, that Gordon Brown's stewardship was far from prudent and was rather associated with a steady deterioration in the U K's economic performance. Nor can it be said that, despite the grandiloquent bluster, that he has shown a grasp of the depth of the financial and economic catastophies facing the U K. Measures such as the pointless reduction in VAT and the reliance on inadequate and inappropriate support for the banking sector hardly augur well for the radical restructuring required. Both he and his tame chancellor, Alastair Darling, seem terrified lest they are accused taking of socialist measures. Even with banks now owned by the state, there is still a reluctance to declare banks nationalised and to take control. It has been explicitly stated that the banks are best left in the hands of those with the necessary expertise, quite regardless of the fact that it is these overpaid "experts" who carry a large amount of the responsibility for getting us into this fine mess.

A totally new and socialist response is urgently needed and none of our established parties will provide this in Scotland or elsewhere. It is more important than ever that people are made aware that capitalism has failed and a different world is possible, and that world must no longer rely on capitalist "solutions".


Click on table for bigger image:

INVITATION - "THIS GREED WAS BEYOND IRRESPONSIBLE!"

YOU ARE PAYING!
WHAT’S THE ALTERNATIVE?

THE FINANCIAL CRISIS

—your questions answered.

THIS GREED WAS BEYOND IRRESPONSIBLE!

Kirkintilloch Leisure Centre Conference Room
Saturday 7th February, 10.30am– 12.30pm
Facilitated by the SSP co-convenor,
Frances Curran

Speakers—

Raphie de Santos— was head of Equity Derivatives Research and Strategy at Goldman Sachs International. He was an advisor on derivatives and financial markets to the Bank of England, London Stock Exchange, London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange and the Italian Ministry of Finance. Raphie has been a guest lecturer on derivatives and financial markets at Harvard and New York universities and the London School of Economics and has spoken at the annual Nobel Foundation conference in Stockholm.

Bill Newman spent most of his working life in banking, latterly as head of economics and then as Assistant General Manager of a City of London bank. For some 15 years he was also editor of and wrote for a journal on international monetary economics.
Bill was also on the Executive Committee and the Management Committee of the Banking, Insurance and Finance Union (BIFU) and a delegate to the TUC.

THE CAMPSIE BRANCH SSP invite your participation in this important discussion. How will this crisis effect YOU?

About the Scottish Socialist Party
While it fights to defend jobs, working conditions and living standards and for houses and health the SSP also demands a new economy.
Such an economy would start the task of harnessing the stupendous technological and material resources which already exist to meet the needs of society rather than the greed of the few.

African Socialism

by Campsie SSP member, Bill Newman


A more appropriate heading for these notes could well be Whatever Happened to African Socialism? The progressive arrival of independence for sub-Saharan African colonies following Ghana's independence in 1957 saw the overt embrace of socialism by the continent's new leaders from Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana, Sekou Toure in Guinea (Conakry), Mobido Keita in Mali, Julius Nyerere in Tanganyika, Patrice Lumumba in Congo (Kinshasa) and, later, though he was assassinated shortly before independence, Amilcar Cabral of Guinea-Bissau, among others. Their formative influences were diverse, but included anti-colonialists and Marxists such as Marcus Garvey, W E B du Bois and C L R James among the British colonies, Aime Cesaire and Franz Fanon among the French colonies and Alvaro Cunhal in the Portuguese colonies. None of the new African leaders could be said to have been orthodox Marxists, though a number had spent time in the Soviet Union and the GDR, but they all believed, in varying ways, that Pan-African Socialism, in its different interpretations, represented the future for Africa. Indeed, the ideal seen by many was a united Africa and with this in mind, Kwame Nkrumah was largely instrumental in creating the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in 1963, though a group led by Leopold Senghor of Senegal (the Monrovia Group) was much more cautious concerning African unification.

On a more realistic scale, various attempts have been made to build regional federations, all of which, like the grandiose hopes of many in the early OAU, have failed. The catalogue is depressing. The entirely logical federation of Senegal with The Gambia never developed as a fully functioning body before collapsing. The East African Community of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, established in 1967, showed more hope of development before collapsing in 1977, though the merger of Tanganyika and Zanzibar has proved durable. However, fragmentation, feared by African leaders, has been at least as prevalent. The breakaway of Eritrea from Ethiopia and the establishment of the still unrecognised Somaliland (the former British Somaliland Protectorate) in response to the anarchy prevailing in Somalia illustrate this fragmentation. With some justification, the tensions in Africa have been blamed on the arbitrary borders created by European colonialists, but subsequent tribal and clan conflicts illustrate the difficulties in creating homogenous functioning democracies. The fragmentation of Nigeria into 36 states from an original three represents the tribalism still present in Africa's largest state, though increased opportunities for wealth creation for the corrupt elite as well as attempts to weaken regional power vis-a-vis the central government also have played their part. Indeed, the slow growth of truly national political parties can be, at least in part, attributed to ingrained tribalism as can be seen, for example in the Ndebele/Shona divide in Zimbabwe and the Hutu/Tutsi divisions in Rwanda and Burundi, though in the latter case Belgian colonialism in favouring the Tutsi populations can be held partly to blame. Worse, in some failed states, tribalism has fragmented into clan warfare, as in Somalia. Yet there are some glimmers of hope for regional co-operation as in the more modest remit of the Southern African Development Community and, hopefully, in the more ambitious East African Federation.

Why, then, have the early hopes of Pan-African Socialism failed and why have hopes of sustained socialist development in individual states failed to materialise. First of all, it is a sad truth that power corrupts and absolute power currupts absolutely. The transition from hopeful moderniser to intolerant kleptomaniac dictator can be seen in more than one state. Sadly, Zimbabwe is not unique. Equatorial Guinea gained independence from Spain in 1968 with Francisco Nguema as president. Under his notorious rule, a third of the population either fled or were killed. A ghastly example of his homicidal rule was the public execution of 150 political opponents to the playing of Mary Hopkins singing Those were the Days. One would hope that the UN, and developed nations, not least the USA, would react to such monstrosities, yet silence was complete. His overthrow by his reputed nephew, Obiang Nguema, gave hopes for the future, but although less vicious than his predecessor, the impoverished population has seen little, if any, improvement to their lives while their President salts away vast sums of oil wealth. It is almost possible to imagine that the plot allegedly financed by Sir(!) Mark Thatcher and Edy Calil, could not, if successful, have made the condition of the population worse. Their motives, however, were to grab the nation's oil wealth for themselves and their pliant allies. Obiang Nguema has now offered the British Government a deal: he will return Simon Mann to the UK to complete his sentence if the British authorities will deliver Thatcher and Calil to Equatorial Guinea for trial. A tempting offer!

Nkrumah is rightly held up as a model leader, but it should be remembered that for all his idealism, his democratic principals were far from perfect and as early as 1958 he banned all strikes. In 1966, he was overthrown and retreated to Guinea where in 1978 Sekou Toure renounced Marxism. Disillusionment with the willingness of populations to modify their life styles and disappointment at the lack of material growth after independence led to mutual frustration and the ability of armies to carry out coups, partly out of a desire for positive change but more often out of an opportunity to enrich themselves. Some countries have painfully pulled themselves out of lengthy periods of military misrule and, for example, Ghana is now a relatively stable democracy (though socialism has not been espoused by recent governments). Others are still suffering under corrupt kleptocracies.

The West, of course, is also complicit in poisoning the early shoots of socialism in Africa. The apparent murder of such promising leaders as Patrice Lumumba and Samora Machel, the support of anti-democratic armed forces as in Angola and the support of corrupt one-man fiefdoms as in the Zaire of Mobutu all weakened fatally any emerging democratic, socialist forces. It should also be said that the West's insistence on totally inappropriate free market 'reforms' before aid is provided gives almost no scope for socialist solutions to chronic economic problems.

But what about South Africa upon which so much hope had been heaped? After all, the tripartite association of the ANC, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the South African Communist Party (SACP) promised much, not just in healing the wounds of apartheid, but in striving for a more egalitarian society. Under Mandela, much seemed to have been achieved, but social progress has been depressingly slow in recent years. And now we see ominous signs of fratricidal warfare in the ranks of all three tripartite members. The departure from the ANC of the former Defence Minister, Masioua Lekota and former premier of the Province of Gauteng, Mbhazima Shilowa seems to herald the birth of a new party (the South African National Congress/Convention). This in itself may not be an unwelcome development but the extreme reaction of the established ANC, COSATU and SACP gives considerable cause for concern. Calls at an inaugural rally of this new group by organised opposition that Lekota and Shilowa should be killed, though, hopefully, hyperbolic, do not augur well for the future. Already there are signs of revived tribalism as many isiXhosa speakers and isiZulu speakers line up on opposite sides. It is to be hoped that the SACP will encourage politicians back to the real needs of the working class, but recent utterings, notably at an address to the miners' union, have not been reassuring.

The future for socialism, even democracy, in Africa looks sombre, but there are hopeful signs. Some nations have established a progressive record and in this respect, Mozambique, Botswana, Sao Tome, Ghana and, at last, Liberia are among those with positive records. Moreover, the refusal of dockers in South Africa and Mozambique to unload arms from China bound for Zimbabwe shows that the power of the working class can still be marshalled. Perhaps it is necessary to go back to the vision of the early liberators of African colonies and, avoiding the straight jacket of Marxist formal terminology , encourage the growth of indigenous African Socialism. In a time when capitalism is clearly failing, socialism remains the hope for Africa just as much, it not more, as for the developed world.


Bill Newman spent most of his working life in banking, latterly as head of economics and then as Assistant General Manager of a City of London bank. For some 15 years he was also editor of and wrote for a journal on international monetary economics.

He has an interest in African matters, having been responsible for economic and political reporting on sub-Saharan Africa for Westminster Bank and writing for some years for the Europa Yearbook on Somalia and Ethiopia. More from Bill here

This Greed Was Beyond Irresponsible

by Campsie Branch member, Bill Newman

Bill Newman spent most of his working life in banking, latterly as head of economics and then as Assistant General Manager of a City of London bank. For some 15 years he was also editor of and wrote for a journal on international monetary economics.

He has an interest in African matters, having been responsible for economic and political reporting on sub-Saharan Africa for Westminster Bank and writing for some years for the Europa Yearbook on Somalia and Ethiopia.

He was also on the Executive Committee and the Management Committee of the Banking, Insurance and Finance Union (BIFU) and a delegate to the TUC.

No. The headline above was not from the Morning Star, but was from that house newspaper for the rich and powerful, the Financial Times of 18 September. And how about these headlines from the Herald: Capitalism has proven Karl Marx right again and Bailing out banks is socialism for the rich. All this is true and reflects the intrinsic truth about capitalism, but you won't hear any MPs or MSPs accepting this or recognising that this profound crisis merely reflects the inevitable effect of uncontrolled capitalism, nor will they acknowledge that socialism is the answer to these periodic catastrophes. The press and politicians fulminate about the greed of financial traders and bankers and fail to recognise that it is this greed which is the rationale for capitalism. Without greed and exploitation, the whole structure of capitalism would collapse.

It may seem strange that apparently intelligent men could bring mighty financial edifices to their knees, but if you are earning stratospheric sums trading bits of paper to other overpaid traders, why worry that these pieces of paper might represent worthless or, at the very least, suspect commodities. Did no-one not bother to consider that sub-prime mortgages, for example, were, by their very nature highly risky loans and that by the time they had been packaged up with other dubious products, it was virtually impossible, once they had been traded time and time again on the financial merry-go-round, to tell what underlying value they represented. Some years ago when I worked in banking, I queried with the Bank's chief trader what the quantifiable risks in the derivatives he traded were. In reply he pointed out that the Bank made substantial profits from such trade and that all banks of any consequence were also engaged in this paper chase. In consequence, I raised my fears with the Bank's Board only to receive the same answer. In essence, the boom in these dubious trades was a classic case of pyramid selling, not unlike the South Sea Bubble, and only the greed of bankers blinded them to the escalating risks of these increasingly complex markets.

But do the travails of overpaid bankers affect the average citizen? Unfortunately they do and the coming months will show a massive decline in all economic activity as banks try to rebuild their balance sheets, refuse to extend credit and shed staff. It is impossible to believe, for example, the reassuring noises that Santander makes on employment in their subsidiaries in Britain. If Abbey, Alliance and Leicester and Bradford and Bingley are owned by the same company, is it credible to believe that these banks and their staff will not suffer from consolidation? Without access to credit, what is left of our manufacturing industry will shrink at an escalating rate, unemployment will soar and house price collapse will leave many with unsustainable negative equity.

So what is the response of our politicians? Inevitably, the bail-outs envisaged are bail-outs for the very people who got us into this fine mess, a fact that the American public has been quick to realise. Nor will the enormous sums involved remedy the sickness in the world economy. It is not surprising that our leading politicians seem to have no knowledge of Karl Marx who , as Ian Bell in the Herald pointed out, defined with precision the inevitable economic crises at the heart of capitalism. It is rather more surprising that they seem to have forgotten, if they ever knew, the lessons taught by Lord Keynes, so besotted have they become by the simplistic notions of the free market as propagated by American economists of the so-called Chicago School. It should surprise no-one, not even politicians, that the only UK bank to be trusted by the public at the moment is the only nationalised bank, Northern Rock; so successful that the Bank's deposit services have been curtailed! The lesson, which our politicians will not learn, is that publicly owned banks are secure and privately-owned banks are not. At the very least, it would help if the Government greatly expanded public expenditure, but the very reverse seems to be happening.

The answer to the pending economic crash, is socialism, and now should be an ideal opportunity to get this message across. Given the control of the media and the absence of sympathetic politicians, this will not be easy, but the public will be looking for real solutions and will not be fooled for ever by sticking plaster measures of Western governments. The Scottish Socialist Party offers a principled and practical solution to our economic ills and it is crucial that we get our message across.

NO TO FINGERPRINTING IN SCOTTISH SCHOOLS!

CLICK ON THE FINGERPRINT TO READ THE ARTICLE ABOUT BIOMETRIC FINGERPRINTING IN EAST DUNBARTONSHIRE SCHOOLS, PROMPTED BY CONCERNS BY CAMPSIE BRANCH MEMBERS (Neil Scott, SSP Campsie member added, "In schools, we teachers are always told to think what the learning outcomes are for various activities in school. I would like parents, children and teachers alike, to think "what are the learning outcomes expected from fingerprinting our children?"):

Letter in the Bearsden/Milngavie Herald, Friday 15 August 2008, from Bill Newman, SSP Culture Spokesperson, Campsie Branch.

"I am appalled to read that biometric fingerprinting is being introduced into new build schools in East Dunbartonshire and that this infringement on personal liberty has already been introduced in Lenzie Academy and Boclair Academy without, as far as I know, any public consultation or any debate in the council chambers.

It is absurd to say that pupils can opt out of fingerprintin. How can the average 11 year old know the implications of such a move? Why have parents not been directly involved in this sinister development? Nor is it sufficient to say that safeguards are in place to protect the use of the data so obtained.

A glance at our Westminster Government's ability to lose extensive personal records shows how well protected databases are in practice.

It is a relief to know that at least one MSP has written to education secretary Fiona Hyslop for an explanation, but I would be more reasured if protests had been heard from our councillors and from our mainstream political parties.

I would think it important that all such biometric fingerprinting records should be destroyed prior to a public debate on the necessity, desirability and safety of such intrusive record keeping taking place."

CLICK THE IMAGE BELOW FOR MORE DETAILS ON THE WORLDWIDE CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE FINGERPRINTING OF CHILDREN

www.leavethemkidsalone.com/

East Dunbartonshire Council election results

Click here for East Dunbartonshire Council results:

VOTE FOR THE SSP TEAM IN WEST OF SCOTLAND AND EAST DUNBARTONSHIRE...

Place an X beside Scottish Socialist Party, Pamela Page for your regional MSP.

Read more about Pamela here:

http://eastdunbartonshiressp.blogspot.com/2007/04/introducing-west-of-scotlands-ssp.html

Council Candidates
More information about your candidates here:

http://eastdunbartonshiressp.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html

Willie Telfer, East Kirkintilloch and Twechar

Neil Scott, Bearsden North

Bill Newman, Milngavie

Moira Brown, Lenzie and Kirkintilloch South

HOW TO MAKE SURE THE SSP REPRESENT YOU AFTER MAY 3rd

HOW TO VOTE ON THURSDAY

Paper ONE - SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT

1.Voters use the first ballot paper to elect members of the Scottish Parliament. Your MSP's. This is where we vote to get Pamela Page into the Parliament as a representative of the Working Class - the other parties all represent the world of business and the millionaires.

2. The left side of the ballot paper is peach, the right side is lilac

3. You get two votes on this ballot paper

4. The peach side is where you choose your regional MSPs. This is where you will find Pamela Page - put your X beside Scottish Socialist Party - Pamela Page.

5. The lilac side is where you choose your constituency MSP.

6. If you do not want to vote for any of the constituency choices (the SSP are not standing in the constituency vote) - leave it blank. IF YOU SPOIL ANY PART OF YOUR PAPER IT INVALIDATES BOTH BITS!!

7. Do not fold the ballot paper when you put it into the appropriate box

Paper TWO - COUNCIL

1. Voters use the second ballot to elect their local councillor. In EAST Dunbartonshire, your SSP Choices are in Bearsden North, Neil Scott; In Milngavie, Bill Newman; in East Kirkintilloch and Twechar, Willie Telfer and in Lenzie and South Kirkintilloch, Moira Brown.

2. This is the white ballot paper

3. You do not use a cross for this vote

4. You number the candidates in order of preference 1 for SSP candidate and 2,3 etc for any other candidates you feel will promote social justice. You can only place the number 1 on the ballot paper if you like.

5. You can mark as many or as few as you like, but you must use numbers not an x

7. Do not fold the ballot paper when you put it into the appropriate box

Introducing West Of Scotland's SSP Candidate, Pamela Page

Read below to find out what Pamela Page and the SSP propose for the West of Scotland and the rest of Scotland!
Scroll down for the East Dunbartonshire Council candidates.

PAMELA PAGE- FOR THE PEOPLE OF WEST OF SCOTLAND - NOT THE
PROFITEERS!

Pamela Page is the SSP’s Top of List candidate for the West of Scotland. She lives in Kirkintilloch where she works as a Modern Studies teacher. She is a union rep in the EIS. As a community activist, Pamela has battled to save local bus services and is a determined opponent of the privatization of facilities through PFI.

"If elected I will strive to emulate current SSP west of Scotland MSP Frances Curran’s tireless fight alongside local communities in West Scotland against hospital closures and the privatization of our services.

I joined the SSP because it is Scotland’s anti-poverty party. This is the 21^st century yet parts of Scotland remain scarred with near Victorian levels of poverty. Scotland is not an impoverished 3^rd world country. There is no excuse or justification for poverty.

We in the SSP believe in taxing the rich, redistributing wealth and curbing the power of big business in a move towards a society where our wealth and resources are harmonized for the benefit of the people rather than plundered by an elite.

There are no career politicians in the SSP. We are the only party that insists that its MSPs live on no more than the average wage of a skilled worker. All four SSP MSPs donate half their salaries to aid the fight for a socially-just independent Scotland. If elected Pamela will do the same. “ Politicians are among Scotland’s privileged elite. Their 50,000 salaries – plus perks – puts them in the top 5% salary bracket. Which possibly explains why they are so out of touch with the real world!”

To this end I will wholeheartedly campaign for the SSP’s five flagship policies.

1) An Independence referendum within one year.

The 2007 election marks the 300^th anniversary of the union. Let’s make it the last anniversary!

Our call is for a Scottish Socialist republic, in which the people are sovereign, not monarchs or multinational leeches. We will fight for a nuclear free Scotland that is outside of NATO.

2) A Scotland Wide Free Public Transport Network

Dramatic and radical action is needed to move hundreds of thousands from private cars to public transport in the fight against climate change.

Does it sound too ambitious? Possibly, but in the 1930s/40s, the idea of a free National Health Service sounded like ‘pie on the sky’.

Many of us in the West of Scotland are all too aware of the cost of bus/ rail travel in our daily commute.

It is a matter of priorities. A free public transport system would cost 500 million pounds. This is less than a sixth of Scotland’s share of military spending.

Free public transport has been a resounding success in the Belgian city of Hasselt where since its introduction in the 1990s car use has plummeted and bus passenger numbers have risen by 1000%.

Instead of tax handouts, which mainly benefit the wealthy, the SSP will fight for the Scottish parliament to phase in the biggest pro-environment and pro- social inclusion measure enacted in Scotland for generations.

3) 100,000 new houses for rent

A million and a half Scots do not own their own home. For them the housing boom is a cruel mirage.

Decades of government cuts in housing support to local authorities, combined with the disastrous right to buy policy, has condemned hundreds of thousands of families to a life sentence served out in dilapidated crime ridden housing schemes.

Last year 11,200 council houses were sold off – but there was not one single new council house built in Scotland.

The SSP wants to redress this imbalance between private and public by building 25,000 new homes for social rent every year.

It is a myth that we can’t afford high-quality social housing.

In contrast to the mainstream parties, the SSP believes that high quality; low rent social housing holds the key to averting a future housing calamity in Scotland.

4) Nutritious Free School Meals for Scotland’s school children

According to a new report by Save the Children, nearly half of all families are living in poverty.For 6 years the SSP has spearheaded the fight for nutritious free school meals as part of a serious onslaught against obesity, junk food culture and child poverty.

The cost of free school meals is negligible when set against the overall budget of the Scottish parliament. Frances Curran’s bill would cost just 74 million pounds – one third of the Scottish parliament under spend last year.

Our politicians get subsidized meals at the parliament; surely our kids deserve the same!5) The replacement of the council tax with a progressive income tax.

The SSP wants to replace the council tax with a new system of taxation that truly reflects income differentials within Scotland.

Our alternative is the Scottish service tax. It is unashamedly redistributive. It would be based on annual personal income, thus shifting the burden of local taxation from the low income to the high-income households.

All earnings under 11,000 would be exempt. Earnings over 11,000 would be taxed progressively. Over two thirds of households would be better off, and the top 15% would pay more.

It is about time that the poor stopped subsidizing the rich!

In short we are for people not profit!"