Milngavie Residents angry at hike in Fuel prices

Today Campsie Branch Scottish Socialist Party held street work in Milngavie gauging the effects of the fuel price rises and giving the residents of the town an opportunity to sign the SSP fuel prices petition. Again, the Party members were overwhelmed with the response. The people of Milngavie are every bit as angry at the fuel profiteers and the Government as those in Irvine (see HERE for a report about the stall in Irvine and see below for photos.).

Milngavie has a high proportion of retired residents, and pensioners we spoke to said they wouldn't be switching on their heating until mid October instead of September this year. One retired lady spoke about the fact she had worked all her life only now, in her late eighties, to be contemplating knitting a thick jumper and giving up her only luxury – bingo – in order to afford the price hike.

As in Irvine, at some points of the afternoon, people were queuing up to sign the petition and even when we ran out of space (we collected around 300 signatures in the space of an hour and a half) people insisted on signing the back of the sheets as we were packing up!

Bearsden SSP member, Linda Howie said, “Lot’s of people in Scotland have the impression that Bearsden and Milngavie is an affluent area. It is true there are well off people here – but there are also huge amounts of pensioners and families who have been hit hard by price rises in oil, gas, electricity and food.”

Lenzie member, Thomas Swann agreed and added, “the people of East Dunbartonshire have been let down by politicians and profit takers. Today ordinary people in Milngavie showed how angry they are at this government’s betrayal of families, pensioners, the low paid and working parents.”

Thomas Swann explains the SSP solution to the fuel profit takers to Milngavie residents.

Milngavie couple sign the SSP petition.


Milngavie resident signs petition as SSP member Neil Scott gives out "Free Public Transport" leaflets.






Milngavie residents sign petition as people voice their concerns about making ends meet over the winter to Thomas Swann.

Local campaigning - Irvine

Campsie Comrades spent Wednesday helping the Ayrshire Scottish Socialist Party with streetwork on Fuel prices and Free Public Transport.

Full article here
Angry Irvine residents mob the SSP stall. For most of the time during the stall the Irvine comrades were swamped with people three deep, clamouring to tell their stories of fuel hardship imposed by the profiteers and to sign the petition.



Denise Morton from Irvine mans the stall.


The streetwork and stall were extremely successful - the Campsie members had a wonderful reception from the Ayrshire comrades and the Irvine people. A day to remember!


It was difficult forPhotographer, Rikki Reid to get a shot of the table as it was constantly busy from the moment it was set up, to the time we decided to call it a day! As Denise says in the press release on the SSP main site, “Irvine has definitely rejected the policies of the New Labour project.”

Kirkintilloch Meeting

Jim Bollan will be leading a discussion on "How we take the councils" and sharing his experience in West Dunbartonshire Council as well as explaining the amazing community owned Cordale Housing Association in Kirkintilloch Leisure Centre this Saturday at 10.30am-12.30pm. All welcome. Please pass on to SSP members who would be interested in joining this discussion.

Reflections of a Glasgow candidate

Morning Star, 05/08/09

FRANCES CURRAN

FRANCES CURRAN on the by-election campaign where Labour lost the plot.

DURING the course of the Glasgow East by-election campaign, I kept coming across people who had voted Labour all their lives saying: "Never again."

Labour's loss in Glasgow East appears to confirm something that my Scottish Socialist Party colleague John McAllion has written of recently. Labour in Scotland is in a state of terminal decline.

The party that had represented Glasgow East unbroken since 1922 and held a vice-like grip on politics in central Scotland for generations has found itself humiliated and in headlong retreat since its defeat at the hands of the SNP in the 2007 Scottish parliamentary election.

I started my political life in the Labour Party Young Socialists in Glasgow's East End in the late 1970s. It is still startling to see the extent of the decay in Labour's support among the working class and the total domination of US-style spin and froth, even though we have had 10 years of new Labour to get used to it.

Voters in Glasgow East clearly signalled that they had had enough of a government which has done nothing to protect working people in the gathering financial crisis and is seen as remote and no longer on their side.

Everywhere I went there was revulsion with expenses fiddles, John Lewis lists and Labour politicians living high on the hog as former supporters struggle to pay the bills.

In contrast, SNP candidate John Mason clearly benefited from the fact that Alex Salmond's Scottish government has adopted policies such as abolition of prescription charges and free school meals, both policies that were pioneered by the SSP, alongside a renewed programme of council housing, and the abolition of bridge tolls.

So, despite his conservative views on issues such as abortion, Mason came across as a supporter of an Edinburgh government treading something like an old Labour path and attracting traditional Labour voters as a result.

Importantly, the result also shows that attempts to create fear around independence no longer have the impact that they once had, even though the issue was highlighted constantly and negatively by the Labour campaign.

The clear lesson here is that working-class voters want a government which is seen to be on their side against the fat cats and not one which simply pours them more cream while lapping up some itself.

In Scotland, the twin blows of economic crisis and the popular SNP administration look like turning a difficult new Labour crisis into a terminal one, with the prospects of a public fight for the leadership of their crisis-ridden Holyrood group looming.

Significantly, the result also shows that there is a bedrock of support for socialist politics, with the SSP gaining 555 votes, Solidarity 512 and the Greens trailing on 232.

But it also underlines the criminal folly of Solidarity's breakaway from the SSP and the mistake of its assertion that there is room for two socialist parties in Scotland.

Star readers need to understand that the SSP was successful as a result of being a unified socialist party and that the wipeout of socialists from the Scottish Parliament is a direct result of the split led by Tommy Sheridan.

The change from last year, when Solidarity outpolled the SSP by five to one in Glasgow East, to a position where it was behind the SSP last week indicates both the folly of the split and its declining influence.

As the crisis engulfing new Labour intensifies, the SSP is committed to playing its part in winning support in Scotland for a democratic socialist republic and for a serious left-wing programme across the UK.

We are already involved in organising a grass-roots conference between our activists and ecosocialists from both Green and no party traditions later this year.

The SSP is also officially supporting the September Convention of the Left in Manchester and a delegation from the party will be participating fully in the event.

It seems clear that the death knell of new Labour is sounding. This makes the task of left in fashioning a democratic socialist alternative a task of the greatest urgency.

Frances Curran was the SSP candidate in Glasgow East.

Campsie Branch meeting

This Saturday (9th August), 10.30am in Kirkintilloch Leisure Centre Conference Room.

Councillor Jim Bollan will be leading a discussion on his work in West Dunbartonshire Council.

Glasgow East By-Election

CLICK ON PHOTO FOR MORE IMAGES FROM THE SSP GLASGOW EAST CAMPAIGN

Ritchie Venton on the outcome:

"Thousands of Labour voters simply stayed at home in disgust with their record on food and fuel prices; failure to tackle poverty and inequality; assaults on the sick and disabled, and their wholesale neglect of the working class. Others did a straight swap to the SNP, as punishment for New Labour in an area they have treated with decades of contempt, stepping on people’s heads en route to grossly overpaid political careers."

MORE HERE

Frances Curran fighting for Glasgow East

Glasgow East campaign begins

Ritchie Venton speaks on Newsnight (7/7/08)
here

Three parties launch (including the SSP) here
Battle of the Currans (I know which one is the most principled!) here
Battle of the Currans in "The Times" here

FRANCES CURRAN TO STAND IN GLASGOW EAST

Former MSP Frances Curran , who has been selected to fight the Glasgow East by election for the Scottish Socialist Party, has vowed to “expose” New Labour desertion of working people in the area.
Frances, who grew up in the East End, made it clear that New Labour will be her main target in a campaign which will focus on poverty , jobs , transport and other key issues facing voters.

More on www.scottishsocialistparty.org

Article by Campsie SSP Branch member Pamela Page

Bin the bunny!

The moving vigil in George Square for women victims of men’s violence a few
weeks ago was sadly overshadowed by a massive billboard of a bikini clad young
woman. Apparently the city fathers earn big bucks this way.

Images of seemingly sexually available women are so pervasive in our day to day
that it may as well have been the city

chambers that was adorned with such
advertising rather than the adjacent building. Where would be the harm?

The school I work in is awash with porn merchandise. Not showers of naked
ladies exactly but so many girls and young women have porn logos emblazoned on
their pencil cases, school bags etc that I hardly register it anymore.

How the hell has the playboy brand become so desirable for young girls and so
mainstream that it passes as acceptable school stationary?

It is a malevolent masterstroke. Playboy Enterprises profits from the
exploitation and degradation of women and girls. Yet I have lost count of how
many tell me they are getting Playboy stuff for their Christmas.

Playboy merchandise such as pencil cases and single duvet covers are targeted
to appeal to pre-teen and teenage girls. Hugh ‘I don’t care if a baby holds
up a playboy bunny rattle!’ Heffner and company are unashamedly

grooming girls
as consumers of a porn brand and promoting the Playmate and Playboy bunny as
something for young girls to aspire to.

The ‘Bin the Bunny’ Campaign aims to remind us of the fact that Playboy,
while being marketed to young women and girls as a ‘stylish and
sophisticated’ brand, is a pornography company.

‘Bin the Bunny – The Trilogy’ by Rabbit films (each film has, as its
central character a giant pro-feminist rabbit!) use satirical humour to expose
Playboy Enterprises’ exploitative practices against women and girls.

Playboy operates several porn channels in the UK. In which women are
‘bitches’, ‘sluts’ and ‘whores’. Perhaps Playboy Enterprises
marketing department decided that insulting and degrading women would attract
more paying customers. Perhaps they are trying to tell us something about the
product they are promoting and selling. A delightful list of some

shows on
Playboy TV includes; ‘Bound, gagged and shagged’,
‘Piss loving lesbian sluts’, ’Extreme insertions’, ‘Barely 18 Anal
Virgins’ and ‘Young and tempting’. Cynic that I am, I would still expect
eye brows to be raised if these were the slogans of choice emblazoned on school
bags.

At the FEM 08 Conference I attended a workshop where Jan MacLeod from Glasgow
Women’s Support Project showed us the true nature of easily accessible ‘run
of the mill’ or ‘soft’ pornography. I was stunned. The images were
certainly horrendous but strangely I was left more wounded by the language and
its discourse of utter contempt for women and girls.

It is vital we remember that pornography is a misogynistic multi-billion dollar
industry which violates real women’s human rights. It is not harmless fantasy
as some would have it. That is why the bin the bunny campaign is so important.

Next

time you get into a taxi in Glasgow emblazoned with a lap dancing club
logo remind yourself that five minutes drive away is a school fit to burst its
PPP casing with playboy branded pre-pubescent girls. Another five minutes away
is a brothel whose website boasts of having ‘debt-bonded labour’.
Presumably so that men can do what they like with the captives.

Sexism, sexual violence and pornography all censor women. They are about
keeping women powerless and voiceless.

It’s time we told Hef to Eff Off!

Playboy must be banned from advertising in our schools.
An end of term bunny bonfire is long overdue.
www.binthebunny.com www.womenssupportproject.co.uk