Campsie Socialist Voice

Campsie Socialist Voice's are being delivered across the Campsie area from Moodiesburn, Twechar, Kirkintilloch, Bishopbriggs, Milton of Campsie, Lennoxtown through to Bearsden/ Milngavie and Torrance.

You can read a copy online HERE

The national version of the Scottish socialist Voice, available fortnightly, can be downloaded HERE

Foodbanks

Following the opening of a foodbank in Milngavie, the SSP has been voicing it's disgust at the Tory and Liberal Democrat austerity drive that forced people to become reliant on food packages.

SSP member, Angus Clark had this letter published in the Bearsden/Milngavie Herald.

Dear Sir,

The opening of a foodbank in Milngavie, as referred to in a recent B&M Herald article, made depressing reading. Although the initiative is to be welcomed in one sense, it is an alarming indicator of how desperate ordinary people have become and is a shame on our society.

 In the last 18 months the number of foodbanks opening across the UK has tripled. In only the last year the biggest provider of foodbanks, the Trustle Trust has handed food parcels out to 355,985 people, including 120,000 children. These people are relying on foodbanks to survive but this represents just the tip of the iceberg as this only includes those referred by their GP of welfare advisers. This situation has arisen as a direct result of the Con Dem Governments attack on working people through welfare cuts, the Bedroom Tax, fuel price increases, poverty wages, and delays in welfare payments, and this is borne out by the Trusts report. This crisis is so bad that Tesco will be supplying the equivalent of millions of meals a day and most of its surplus fresh food to charities. The British Red Cross have, for the first time since the Second World War, announced that they will be distributing food parcels in Britain. Most people are having to spend a bigger proportion of their income on escalating food prices and some are even having to buy less food.

 This is all leading to a social catastrophe and the Con Dem Government are trying to deny that their policies are linked to this massive increase, blaming it on’ poor financial planning’. People who have worked all their days are proud and do not find it easy to ask for food hand-out’s. Those who are in poverty wages also feel guilty but find it impossible to pay the mortgage, clothe the children, heat the house and put fuel in the car. The decision to go down to a foodbank will be a painful one but they should not feel ashamed. The Government should feel ashamed. The young schoolboy who has not enough money to pay for his school lunch and no food in the house to make a sandwich and decides to stay off school to avoid embarrassment should not feel ashamed. The Government should feel ashamed.

The Con Dem Government, of which our MP Jo Swinson is a Member, commissioned an Investigation into the reasons for foodbanks and said they would publish the information by the summer of 2013.The need for a survey was a diversionary tactic as we all know the reasons for the increase in foodbanks, notwithstanding this, our elected representatives decided not to publish the Investigation. Maybe they had something to hide? However on 4^th December 2013 a member’s motion was tabled to get this Investigation published along with measures to help people avoid having to rely on foodbanks. As usual our elected representatives voted against this motion, including our local MP Jo Swinson. Jo voted predictably along party lines, just as she voted in favour of retaining the bedroom tax, which is now in the process of being defeated in Scotland due to public pressure.

The increase in foodbanks is a worrying trend in that they are the last ‘safety net’ for ordinary people who are in desperation. They run the risk of becoming ‘institutionalised’ and taken for granted which we as a society must never accept. If they fulfil a need in Milngavie then, by implication, they will fulfil a need throughout the country and this is a depressing fact. However, in reality the increase in foodbanks are just one symptom of a failing and degenerated economic system which is no longer capable of providing for basic needs never mind advancing the living standards of ordinary people. This is what we are witnessing in the 21^st Century, a system which does not deserve to live, but which refuses to die. We all need to do what we can to help it on its way.

ANGUS CLARK

SCOTTISH SOCIALIST PARTY

Campsie SSP Branch AGM

Saturday 26th October 

Special guest speaker TBA.

For details please email eastdunbartonshiressp@hotmail.co.uk

This is our review/planning meeting for year ahead.  

If you are interested in helping/joining/becoming more involved - please come.  This meeting will also help us plan our engagement in the YES campaign locally as well as our own SSP independence campaigning.  

The SSP, like any union and organisation of the working class, only works with your involvement - we are not an organisation like the Labour Party/ Tories/ Lib Dems with huge resources at our disposal.  We can't afford to as these parties do, pay for huge media campaigns; PR firms or leafleting/canvassing teams.  The SSP is Your party - and needs you to commit to something - no matter how small - to ensure our message of fairness and socialism is heard.

At the meeting we will also be looking at how we engage in local issues as well as wider campaigns such as the bedroom tax etc. 

The SSP are one of the three parties who set up Yes Scotland - we are key to the campaign.  

To read our arguments for an independent Socialist Scotland - please buy our new pamphlet which clearly sets out our case. HERE 

And let the world know about us by buying a badge/ poster! - HERE

Milton of Campsie Yes Scotland public meeting...

Yes Scotland held a public meeting today in Milton of Campsie Village Hall. The conversation with local people was kicked off by speakers Fiona Mcleod SNP MSP; Dr Sonya Scott (SSP -speaking on the Westminster Liberal Democrat/Tory Welfare cuts and economic attacks on the working, the working poor, those without work and our vulnerable poor and disabled) and Gordon MacIntyre (economist).

The meeting was lively and positive and all of those who attended, after expressing concerns and asking questions, signed the Yes declaration.

The next meetings are in Milngavie Fraser Centre next Saturday between 2 and 4 pm and in Twechar on Sunday between 12 noon and 2pm. There will also be a Yes Scotland Public meeting in Bearsden Public Hall on Wednesday 20th March from 8pm - 10pm.

See you all there!

The democratic deficit. Remember, our MP was one of those who voted "yes."

SSP Election Leaflet - Bearsden North

Local teacher, Neil Scott to stand in Bearsden North in May's council election

Statement:

“East Dunbartonshire has, in recent years, had the misfortune of having had a Liberal Democrat Council followed by a coalition of Labour and Tories. The mishandling of the council by these three versions of the same thing has seen an attempt to close schools in the past two years; terrible deals with corporations that have meant millions of pounds of our Council Tax money being given over to massive PPP/PFI “Guaranteed returns on investment” for minimum outlay; a decimation of our local services from Libraries through to schools, and more. If any of these parties gain the council in May, there will be more of the same, and in fact the deferred closure of East Dunbartonshire Schools will go ahead.

 As a father and a teacher I have a different vision for East Dunbartonshire services. Our area is a well off council area, one in which money could be invested in our services rather than further job-losses and cuts. I see a clear need to renegotiate PPP/PFI deals. Some of these venture capitalists are making millions of pounds of our tax money with investments of a few hundred pounds. I see East Dunbartonshire being a place of opportunity for all; a place where our money is invested in real jobs and services which will help stimulate the Scottish economy. The real drivers of any economy are people. The profits creamed off by corporations from our Council tax should be reclaimed and invested in real jobs and in our people.”

Reform? No - TORY DESTRUCTION morelike!

- from Ron Mackay

I welcome the new Holyrood committee set up to examine UK welfare reform 'destruction' as reported by Robbie Dinwoodie. Unlike Tory Alex Johnstone, I do hope it “drives a wedge between Scotland's two governments. 

The Westminster government, run by millionaires, is out to destroy the welfare state. Whatever their words their actions indicate their aims. Holyrood, on the other hand, “appreciates the severity of the concerns on welfare reform”. 

 Reform implies improvement -  the Tory policies do anything but. Destructive changes would better describe the Westminster policy on welfare.

WORKERS HAMMERED FOR PROFIT

by Richie Venton, SSP national workplace organiser

7 February 2012 Working people and their families face the worst assaults on their rights and conditions in generations, and the leaders of the multi-millioned trade unions need to rise to the challenge and defeat the Tories, if they are not to allow a lost generation. Young people, the disabled and women workers are amongst the hardest hit, but nobody is exempt, except the obscenely overpaid top company executives. Over a million young people are unemployed in the UK, 250,000 of them for over a year. In Scotland 230,000 people are jobless, a third of a them aged under 24. A recent Commission on youth unemployment calculated that the long term impact on young people includes a loss of £2,000 to £3,000 a year after they reach the age of 25, even if they manage to then get a job.

  Parasite capitalism

 The destruction of the manufacturing base of the country from the days of Thatcher in the 1970s; the turn to service sector and finance as the main source of profit; and the complete dominance of the monetarist razor gang in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and European Central Bank have all piled on the misery and destitution for a whole generation. School leavers now usually face a choice of low-paid or even unpaid work experience; insecure 'precarious' jobs; pressure to take on voluntary work on pain of loss of benefits; or shoddy training schemes. Even University places are shrinking, with a massive drop in applications recently reported, through a combination of rocketing fees, cuts to student support grants and fear of rising graduate unemployment or underemployment. In the further education colleges, increasingly an escape route from poverty and unemployment for some working class people of all ages, savage cuts threaten to choke off people's chances. Behind the noisy battle between the SNP government and the imperialist arrogance of Cameron & Co, the SNP quietly slashed student support grants by over 10 per cent, from £95.6m to £84.2m. And that is on top of about £54m being hacked off FE college funding.

Cameron out of Scotland!

 When Cameron breezes into Scotland on 24 March to address Scottish Tory Party conference in Troon, he should face a furious demo against youth unemployment, cuts to education and cuts in general. The unions need to make a massive event against the Westminster butcher. They should likewise mount pressure on the SNP government to stand up for Scotland's future in terms of jobs, education, and housing (which they have cut by an appalling £150m, or 40 per cent, despite 120,000 Scots languishing on the housing waiting lists), as well as on the constitutional issue.

  Recession an excuse to attack workers

 As the recent survey by Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS) confirms, employers are using the recession as a golden opportunity to hammer workers' rights, wages and conditions. Over the past two years CAS has dealt with 107,000 cases of unfair treatment at work - and that is only the tip of the iceberg. Tens of thousands more are afraid to object to pay cuts, withheld wages, longer hours, illegal changes to contracts and victimisation of those who dare to object. As the CAS report comments, often these are low paid and low skilled workers, who do not even know their legal rights. The unions have a massive job to do to organise and defend these vulnerable sections of workers, who are being hammered to pay for the capitalist crisis and the naked greed for profit of those at the top of society.

  Mad-dog Tories on rampage

 Of course the Tory Coalition is egging on all the worst employers to do their damnedest. They are planning further anti-union legislation. An obnoxious cabal of right wingers in the Tory party has launched what is called the Trade Union Reform Campaign. This extremist outfit has been praised in writing by David Cameron. It is chaired by Aidan Burley MP, who was sacked as Transport Minister after it was revealed he had strutted round in a Nazi SS uniform, toasting the Third Reich, with Nazi salutes, at a stag party in France. It's most prominent members include Eric Pickles, local government minister, and the disgraced Liam Fox. At their launch meeting in Westminster they boasted that the government is about to produce a White Paper to slash trade union facility time in the civil service, issue 'helpful guidance' to councils on how best to cut facility time for union reps, and charge unions for deduction of union subs from wages across the public sector.

  Shackling workers' reps

 These creatures of profit and reaction want to outlaw unions, to abolish the ability of elected shop stewards to defend workers from abuse, as highlighted in the CAS report. In doing so, they ignore inconvenient facts, like the report by Hertfordshire University showing that the role of workplace union reps in reducing staff turnover, cutting down on the number of Employment Tribunals and reducing workplace sickness and injuries, saves the economy about £700m a year! Compare that to the paltry sums paid in wages to shop stewards, who in real life invest vast amounts of their own time in defending workers from the unscrupulous attacks that are running riot across workplaces, especially now the employers have the whip of mass unemployment to try and cow workers who live in fear of their jobs. And contrast too, the vast sums of taxpayers' money consumed by the salaries and expenses - legal or otherwise - of MPs and government ministers, who then use hobnail boots to walk all over workers' rights! The bankers, bosses and billionaires rely on capitalist politicians to pass laws that help to shackle workers whilst this class of robbers dip their pockets, with pay cuts, benefit cuts, job losses, grinding more work out of fewer workers, and vast amounts of unpaid overtime, squeezed out of workers through terror tactics, fear of losing their job and family livelihood.

  Wealth transfusion to the rich

 It is no surprise to discover that a new study proves workers today are paid £60billion a year less in real terms than 30 years ago! This shocking revelation goes alongside company executives' pay rising 10 per cent in 2010 and another 17 per cent in 2011- a planet apart from the pay cuts workers have suffered, with economists predicting their wages will not recover their pre-banking crisis value until at least 2020. This appalling transfer of wealth to the rich from the rest of us, from those who actually produce and deliver the goods and services, is causing such widespread fury that the parties of the capitalist elite have to pretend to do something about it - whilst actually making it easier to exploit workers and those on the likes of sickness benefits through their legislative changes.

  Sops and diversions

 The recent hue and cry about stripping Sir Fred Goodwin of his knighthood is cheap diversionary tactics, a tiny sop to the public outcry at greedy bankers. He still has his £650,000 a year pension, on top of the £2.7m lump sum he walked off the job with in the middle of the taxpayers' bailout of the banks. If a worker had wrecked the state of his company (let alone a whole banking system), he would at best have been sent packing without a penny or a reference, and probably jailed. Likewise the headlines greeting Stephen Hester's decision to hand back his £963,000 bonus as head of the RBS diverted many people's gaze from the fact that his fellow executives are to get £425m in bonuses, that Hester himself got a package worth £7.7m last year, and that the Coalition has said they will not 'micro-manage' future RBS bonuses. So they intend it to be 'big business as usual', with a thin smokescreen of one or two high profile 'sacrifices'.

  Stand up and fight!

 Fighting for a reversal of the wealth transfusion from the millions to the millionaires is at the heart of every specific struggle against cuts to pay, jobs, benefits, education and workers' rights. Without powerful union memberships, workers will be left defenceless against ruthless employers out to maximise profit. And unless the unions are seen to stand up on their hind legs for the members they already have, young workers in precarious jobs, or workers of all ages in the least-organised sectors, will see little point in joining the unions.

  Pensions battle continues

 That is one of many reasons why the battle over public sector pensions is of critical importance, to the future of the entire working class. Well over 2 million workers showed their readiness to battle the Westminster pension robbers on the magnificent 30 November strike. To their eternal shame, central leaders of the TUC, UNISON, GMB and other unions caved in to the pre-Xmas offer from the government, despite the latter boasting it still contained every single penny in cuts to pensions that was threatened before the N30 strike. And to their eternal credit, other union leaders - and a vast army of active members who have bombarded their leaderships in protest any dirty betrayal of their pension rights - are standing firm and preparing for further united strike action to try and force the Coalition into retreat.

  United strikes in March

 The national executives of several teachers' unions (NUT, NASUWT, UCU, EIS), the civil service PCS, and UNITE in local government and the NHS have all rejected this shoddy offer, which would still mean workers paying more, retiring older and getting less in their pensions. The PCS, NUT and UCU have called for strike action in March, before some of these attacks take effect in April. In addition, members of the SSP have spearheaded the demand for a recall delegate conference of UNISON branches in local government, to debate and overthrow the attempted sell-out by the union's national figureheads, led by fake-radical Dave Prentis. And UNISON's Scottish NHS committee has thrown out the deal, calling a series of strikes in months to come.

  Put a million on the pickets

A united strike in March - one day or if possible two days - of over one million workers would be a powerful impetus to the resistance to pension cuts, a revival of the flagging momentum, and could help members of UNISON and GMB rescue their own situation from the capitulation by their 'leaders'. SSP members in all the public sector unions will continue to strive for this courageous course of united action, confident in the knowledge that the Coalition is not some all-knowing, all-powerful dictatorship that cannot be beaten. In fact, as several partial retreats and sops to public opinion shows, they are susceptible to the pressure of a mass movement - but only if that opposition goes beyond verbal outbursts into united strikes, demonstrations, peaceful civil disobedience, and a real political challenge too.

  Defy Coalition, Labour and SNP cuts

Labour clearly won't provide that; Miliband & Co have spelt out their support for continued cuts to pay, services, pensions and jobs even if they were elected in 2015. The SNP government has rightly made mincemeat of Cameron's interference in a Scottish referendum, but they have capitulated like wee timorous beasties when it comes to Westminster's cuts, passing on the pain to councils, colleges, the NHS - to workers, students and communities that spurned the Tories by 85 per cent in the last election.

  Give youth a future

 The Scottish Socialist Party stands up for Scotland, for working class people and young people whose future is lost unless we unite and fight back. We demand the choice for all school leavers of a well-paid, secure job, or proper training, or a place in education with a living grant. We demand taxation of the rich and big business, and democratic public ownership, to fund vast investment in jobs, public services and decent pensions and benefits - not a few token nail-clippings from a handful of individual bankers or 'rogue' bosses. It is not just these notorious individuals that need to be tackled: the entire capitalist system of profiteering and exploitation is rotten to the core, with the chasm between rich and poor, the corruption in 'high' places and rule by Old Etonians just as prevalent as in the Victorian times portrayed by the great Charles Dickens.

  Struggle or starve!

Employers and pro-capitalist politicians of numerous party colours are trying to hammer the working class and young people, to grind even bigger profits out of them. In the 1930s, one of the slogans common on banners was 'Struggle or Starve'. That same choice has come back to haunt us in the 21st century. They might be the millionaires, but we are the millions - and united in action with a fighting socialist alternative, we can win. Join the SSP and help to secure a future worth fighting for.

Minutes of todays SSP Campsie meeting:

May Council Election: We will have candidates across the three LOCAL NEWSPAPER areas in East Dunbartonshire. Further discussions required.

Morning Star advert: further discussions required.

Coalition of Resistance: We will affiliate to the Coalition of Resistance as a small organisation (£15 per year). It was also noted that Owen Jones is speaking on the coalition of Resistance in the STUC on 15 February (and also as part of the Aye Write! festival along with Paul Mason in the Mitchell Library - three events well worth going along to). there is also a meeting of the Coalition of Resistance on 7th February in the STUC.

CND: Re-affiliation to SCND. It was also suggested that we could run a joint public meeting with CND as part of our POSITIVE campaigning for an Independent Nuclear Free Scotland.

Independence campaigning: We will meet with local SNP to help with a positive non sectarian campaign and towards a positive outcome in the Scottish Independence referendum.

Well Red Book Club: meeting to be held on 18 February in Kirkintilloch Library. Posters to be printed this week and distributed to Campsie Branch members to have displayed across the East Dunbartonshire area. Graham Martin will also be contacted regarding an article in the Bearsden/Milngavie Herald about the launch of the Book Club.

NO TO CUTS Meeting in Kirkintilloch this Saturday

Click on leaflets for closer look...

Finally Getting Hip to the Capitalist Ruse! - SSP Campsie Podcast

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New Banner?

We are currently updating the look of the Campsie blog.  We want your suggestions as to how to change the banner/ background etc!

A comrade from the SSY has created this banner as an example of what we could do.  If you have any suggestions/ advice, please email us on eastdunbartonshiressp@hotmail.co.uk

Perpetual War - Impoverished People

The following letter appeared in the Glasgow Herald ( 16/9/10 ) and for those who missed it we regard it as meriting a wider circulation.

“The UK ranks fourth in the list of countries with the highest defence expenditure ( 3.8% of world total expenditure), outranked by France (4.2%), China (6.6%)and the United States with 43% of world expenditure on defence. We spend about 2.5% of our GDP on defence.

In contrast most of our neighbour s spend much less – Germany 1.3%, Italy 1.7%, Spain 1.2% Netherlands 1.4%, Norway 1.3%, Sweden 1.3%, Belgium1.2%, Denmark1.4%, Portugal2.0%, Ireland 0.6%

. The UK, however, is right up there with the paranoid nations, where Eisenhower's forecast of the domination of the military/industrial complex has become a nightmare reality. We had not yet reached the dizzy heights of the US or Israel (7.0%), but were on our way until the financial crisis forced us to realise that we could not persist in faded dreams of empire and the UK as a world power any more.

Any society committed to a state of perpetual war as the operating principle of the state is fated to ultimately impoverish the ordinary people while enriching the minority. A commitment to the production of weapons of war and mass destruction as a job creation scheme and economic driver of the economy of a state can only be sustained by the creation of external threats to frighten the population into supporting such a strategy, allied to the pretty blatant threat/bribe offered to those employed by the armaments industry.

It also ignores the fact that this is not true productive economic activity – it has to be financed by a levy on the people, and at the sacrifice of the standard of living and them benefits of the many, while enriching a few.

Scotland, freed of the commitment of the defence needs of the UK delusional foreign policy would also be free to redirect effort and money into more life-enhancing and economically beneficial activities. The militarist state, with war as it's central policy, leads inevitably to fascism, even though it may last for many years under the cloak of democracy.

But politics is self-interest writ large, and the pressing task for real democrats is to show the electorate how they are being manipulated by powerful interest groups. We live in interesting times and, as we move into autumn and winter, they are set to become more interesting still. The trades unions with members in the defence industries are, unfortunately, caught up in a terrible paradox in pursuing their members interests.” Peter Curran.

As a postscript let me add, exactly one week before the above letter appeared, a motion was set before the Westminster Parliament calling for support for the deployment of UK troops in Afghanistan. Of the 310 M.P.'s ( less than half) who turned up, only 16 voted against of whom 2 were the Scottish Labour M.P.s -Katy Clark and Mark Lazarowicz.

Ron Mackay SSP Campsie Branch

Campsie voice No.7

Click on image for larger copy...

SAVE OUR SCHOOLS IN EAST DUNBARTONSHIRE - Public Meeting

Public Meeting

Wednesday 9th June at 7.30pm

Campsie Memorial Hall Lennoxtown (Hall opens at 7pm)

Chair:

Willie Telfer – local SSP campaigner

Speakers:

Gerry McTiernan – Lennoxtown Primary Parents Council (in a personal capacity)
Richie Venton – Glasgow Save Our Schools organiser
Charles Kennedy – Campsie independent Councillor

Unite and stop all school closures!

Demand smaller class sizes- not fewer schools – 20’s plenty in any class!
Unite and campaign for the funds from Holyrood and Westminster to invest in our schools and other community services!

Attend the meeting to hear a report of what is happening. Help set up a campaign- to make sure we are ready for the next attempt at making our children pay for the bankers bailout.

See below for reports

Over 1000 signatories to the "no to education cuts" petition in Milngavie today...

Milngavie parents still angry.

Today we ran a stall in Milngavie town centre, calling on local people to join with others across the East Dunbartonshire constituency in setting up a "Save Our Schools" Committee and Campaign.

We spoke to many local parents and education workers who are very angry at how the Council launched these proposals on the communities and who were confused by exactly what had gone on in the council Chambers on Thursday night. Local SSP activist Willie Telfer was on hand to explain the minutae of the decision and also to explain why the machinations on Thursday night only mean a temporary stay of execution.


This stay of execution is not even a not principled one - we believe this was engineered by the Lab-servative coalition to save their own political neck. Next year, we have the Scottish Elections and the following year are the Council Elections.

This proposed East Dunbartonshire wide campaign must put councillors on the spot and show them that it is unacceptable to make communities and young people pay for the cuts.

Please follow us on twitter for updates: www.twitter.com/sspcampsie
Please click on the leaflet below and print - let others know in your school when the meeting is:

Our job as socialists...

Neil Scott, Campsie Branch, gives his view on the coming battles with the right:

The main parties will be vying for places in the Parliament and in councils to defend the neo-liberal capitalist machine in their varying ways. Markets have failed - and it should be the job of socialists to help people understand this. The current economic situation is capitalisms "Berlin Wall" - this is really and truly the end of capitalism. And it is not just the left that are saying this - this is being realised by academics across the world in medicine/ health/education/economics/ecologists etc.

We can allow the existing parties to drag this end of market economies, painfully out, to the detriment of the working class - or we can show people that there are alternatives - viable ones. An economic system is supposed to ensure goods etc are divided out... not a method of squeezing the blood from the poor to support our rich "betters" and "wealth makers" etc. - stuff we know - and stuff we need to get across to people in the simplest, most dynamic, active, interactive, positive, relevant ways.

One thing I have learned from this General Election campaign/ the crisis etc is that people DO want change - they do want an alternative, and our dynamic working class are searching through those. Fascism seems to be being looked at and dropped after people realise exactly what it is. The alternative of the Lib Dems is being seen to be what it always was - no alternative at all... and people are sick of swinging back and forth from the Tories who will quickly shaft us, to Labour who do it a little more slowly...

It is our job to show people we are the alternative to the mainstream parties who have let Scotland and in fact the world, down.

If the Tories get in through whatever mechanisms they make up in the coming hours/days, then there is a real possibility there will be more battles of Orgreave in the coming years. People need alternatives to blind rage - they need solutions - political ones... and we have them!

Campsie Socialist Voice

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Willie Telfer - defend our communities and services!