Who’d have thunk it eh, not only is Gordon Brown a closet Marxist but it turns out the ideas of Socialism have now penetrated the Tory opposition as well. As soon as Maggie took her eye off the ball, we managed to plant our people in the Conservative party and convince them that they had got it all wrong.

At least that’s the only way I can interpret David Cameron’s theft of Socialist policies, as he calls for a maximum wage in the public sector,

A Tory government would establish a fair pay review to ensure that no senior manager in the public sector can earn more than 20 times more than the lowest- paid person in their organisation.

The scheme could mean that up to 200 senior public sector executives would face pay cuts. Public sector chiefs whose salaries would be cut include Ed Richards, the chief executive of Ofcom, whose £392,056 salary is 22 times higher than the estimated lowest full-time salary in his quango, £18,000.

Well done Dave, the SSP has always thought it was ridiculous quango chiefs and council bosses could earn so much more than many of their low paid employees do as civil servants, cleaners, nurses, clerical staff etc – particularly when they try to sack them.

With any luck we should have an announcement from Tory party central office within the hour that, in the spirit of fairness and being in it all together what goes for the public sector must also go for the private sector – which means no private sector CEO should earn more than 20 times any of their workers.

We know it might be hard for the Tory party considering one of their biggest donors, Lord Ashscroft is so wealthy his own personal fortune is considered equal to that of the entire GDP of Belize, but we have faith David Cameron will do the right thing. I mean anything less would be total hypocrisy and make him look quite full of shit, wouldn’t it?

As the SSP candidate for Glasgow Central, I feel the burden of being an official member of civil society. To my mind, the norm when a prominent death occurs is for the media to do the rounds of Important People, gathering their balanced reactions. In order to assist our friends in the press, I have prepared an official statement, constituting my response to old Eugene’s passing:

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA

HAAAAAAAAAAHAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

WOHAHAHAHAHA

HAHAHA

HA

The only good fascist is a dead one

SSY has a long and proud record of celebrating when fascists die in embarrassing and or unfortunate circumstances. Whether it’s the sad loss of BNP founder John Tyndall (we coincidentally had a BBQ the day he popped his clogs – remember Tyndall burgers?), Austrian Fuhrer Jorg Haider who killed himself in a car crash after coming back pissed from a gay bar, or of course, Mussolini riddled with bullets hanging upside down in an Italian Garage. So SSY is pleased to announce another addition to that list of human shit, none other than Eugene Terre Blanche.

"I look all annoyed because I don't like the blecks"

Eugene Terre Blanche was the leader of the AWB – the Afrikaner Resistance Movement. The AWB is a far-right organisation that was founded in the 70’s because some Afrikaners were so mental they thought pro-Nazi Prime Minister BJ Forster was too liberal. The AWB violently opposed relaxation of even “petty apartheid” rules, like black and white people kissing, marrying, shagging etc.

Even when the chips were obviously down for apartheid, the AWB were trying to organise a civil war and carve out their own all-white Boer state out of a multiracial South Africa, not dissimilar to what the Serbs did in Bosnia. At their height the AWB had the support of roughly 5-7% of South Africa’s white population, a similar % that the BNP get today from the UK population.

The AWB organised violent attacks against Blacks in South Africa as well as those Afrikaner politicians they believed were too liberal; for example, shooting and throwing grenades at Black South Africans during the chaos of the Bophuthatswana coup where their members declared they were on a “kaffir hunting picnic”.

The AWB also turned up armed and provoked violence outside a meeting where President FW Klerk was speaking in the Battle of Ventersdorp. Klerk had enraged a minority of Afrikaners for unbanning the African National Congress and releasing Nelson Mandela. This wasn’t the only violent attempt to stop the dismantling of apartheid – the AWB also stormed the Kempton Park World Trade Centre where negotiations to conduct South Africa’s first free and fair multiracial elections were being conducted.

The AWB’s campaign of violence was unable to stop the inevitable destruction of apartheid however. Despite having a small but armed minority of support among Afrikaners, the White population of South Africa was too small to survive as an indefinite dictatorship over the Black majority population any longer. The AWB’s demand for a white ruled Boer Republic was a fantasy, as there was no contiguous landmass in South Africa that had a white majority. The South African state and economy was dependent on the overwhelming majority of the population, the Black population, having no rights whatsoever, allowing South Africa to construct a slave economy over the backs of the populace.

The Boers themselves were largely made up of the descendants of Dutch colonists who had arrived in the South of Africa over 300 years ago. They fled the British ruled Cape Colony, in what was called the “Great Trek” where they lived a nomadic lifestyle. They called themselves “Voortrekkers” and were similar to the European colonists in North America and Zionist settlers in Palestine in that they saw their role as taking control of “virgin territory” that had been unused, left to waste until a superior race of people could exploit it. Like in North America and Palestine however the Voortrekkers were not alone – this land too had a people.

The Voortrekker’s superior technology allowed them to massacre the indigenous Zulu tribes. At the Battle of Blood River the Voortrekkers were able to slaughter 3000 Zulu Natal warriors. No Voortrekkers died – only 3 of them were lightly wounded. After this defeat of the native population, the Voortrekkers were able to establish several Boer republics, which eventually became the apartheid South African state.

It’s this siege mentality among sections of the White South African population, that has been a part of their history in settling in Africa that the AWB relate to and try to exploit. Since the collapse of apartheid many White South Africans have lost their old privileges in the political and economic systems of South Africa. Many Boers and their farms have also been attacked, and there is fear among the Boers that what happened in Zimbabwe – where White farmers were expelled from their land will happen to them. On the opposite side many Black South Africans have not seen their quality of life increase substantially in democratic South Africa, and whilst losing a lot of their privileges the Afrikaner population is still better off than any other racial group in South Africa.

We don't know if Wikus Van De Merwe did kill Eugene with alien weaponry, but we are prepared to float it as a possibility.

So whilst most of South Africa’s population support the dismantling of apartheid, it is by no means a perfect multiracial rainbow paradise yet. There still remains a minority of Afrikaners who are attracted to the ideas of the AWB. In 2004 a poll was conducted to find out who South Africans thought their greatest countryman was – unsurprisingly, Mandela topped it, but Terre Blanche came in at No 25.

If you want to see more about Eugene, Nick Broomfield has done a series of documentaries about the nutter which are available here.

Sir Bob shows his radical credentials

The world has watched in horror as the outrageously corrupt BBC and Channel 4 has attempted to make the ludicrous claim that there are still problems in Africa.

Sensible people everywhere know that Africa is now a paradise thanks to the efforts of their saviour, multi-millionaire Saint Sir Bob Geldof the Wonderful.

Sir Bob has been on the defensive over the last few weeks, after several different investigations attacked his legacy of work against poverty.

First of all, a BBC World Service investigation received information from several former rebel leaders in Ethiopia that a portion of aid money raised by the Band Aid charity in the 80s was in fact diverted by rebels to buy weapons.

Now, Channel 4 is to screen a documentary next week that attacks His Holiness for distracting attention from the Make Poverty History campaign in 2005.

During the 80s, at the time of Band Aid, the Ethiopian national government was at war with a number of rebel forces in the countryside. Leaders of those rebels are now in power in Ethiopia. However, some former rebel leaders have since fallen out with their former comrade and current Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. They told the BBC that the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) tricked aid workers into giving them money, by disguising themselves as merchants, as well as covering sacks of sand with sacks of food when taking aid cash.

Former TPLF leaders claim that they got $100 million this way, which was spent on weapons to overthrow the government. They also claim that they used front groups, such as the Relief Society of Tigray, to get cash. Band Aid’s own records show they gave $11 million to the society.

His Excellency Sir Geldof has been outraged by the claims, and has threatened to sue the BBC, demanding that the reporters who filed the story and their bosses should get the sack.

“Martin Plaut, [the World Service news and current affairs editor] Andrew Whitehead and Peter Horrocks should be fired. There should be an immediate investigation into what went wrong, steps should be taken to rectify the identified faults and the World Service must work very, very hard to re-establish its trust and hard-won reputation as the world broadcaster of excellence.”

It seems that, according, the His Most Generous Wonderous-ness Geldof, Band Aid should be completely above criticism. How

"Why don't people get that I'm fantastic?!"

dare anyone suggest that a major aid effort in a starving country beset by civil war could ever be affected by corruption?! As BBC journalist Rageh Omaar pointed out in the Guardian, the journalists behind this story were in Ethiopia in the 80s, received serious and credible information, and were right to go ahead with it. There should now be a full investigation. The Most Marvellous Geldof’s response? Omaar is “ridiculous.”

Geldof went on to make the laughable claim that:

“Not a single penny went on armaments. Not one. Not a pound; not a penny. Let me be clear on that. And I’ve also spoken to some of the others, including the Red Cross, who say it is absolute rubbish that any of their money could have possibly gone on arms.”

At this point he really does sound desperate. He could have argued that corruption wasn’t on the scale the story claimed. But to claim that “not a single penny” went astray? As this article on Pambazuka points out, every single aid effort to Africa suffers from corruption. In a continent afflicted by poverty, undemocratic governments and the interference of imperialism in their affairs, it’s impossible to have a completely clean and transparent aid process. In fact, much of the way that aid is given by the western capitalist powers makes things worse.

The vehemence of Geldof’s denial has the opposite effect from the one he intended: it leaves you wondering what it is he’s so desperate to hide.

Meanwhile, in a separate programme, More 4 are screening a documentary called Starsuckers next week which will attack Geldof’s role in the G8 protests in 2005.

At the time, a major coalition of charities, campaign groups and churches came together in the Make Poverty History coalition. This demanded debt relief for third world countries and more aid from rich ones. It organised a mass march through the centre of Edinburgh, all dressed in white. At the time the SSP and SSY took part, but instead of white, we dressed in red, to symbolise our desire to Make Capitalism History. We argued that the structure of the international economy was geared to do nothing else but increase inequality and keep poor countries poor. An appeal to the G8 leaders meeting in Scotland was useless, they must be attacked and defeated.

SSP marching against the G8

However, even this charity campaign was too radical for the All Knowing Genius Geldof, who organised Live Aid, a massive celebrity mutual masturbation fest, were stars both young and has-been got together for a concert where they told the world how great they were.

Starsuckers claims that Geldof hijacked the Make Poverty History campaign for his own ends. After the summit, it became clear that G8 leaders were going to do sweet FA to help third world countries, and that all the talk of progress had just been rhetoric for the cameras. But Geldof said he gave the global political elite “10 out of 10″ for commitments on aid, and “8 out of 10″ for debt relief. He later said the 8 score should be upgraded to 10 out of 10. In the process he showed just how much he himself was part of the PR machine defending the corrupt imperialist governments of the west.

The ever furious Geldof has penned a 6,000 word letter attacking Starsuckers and attempting to defend his rapidly-vanishing legacy. The theme underlying all this outrage is that clearly Geldof is pretty sensitive to allegations that show him up for what he is: a completely useless celebrity attention seeker. A man who wanted to do good, but has been completely compromised by working hand-in-glove with the powerful forces actually responsible for third world poverty.

He attacked anti-poverty campaigners as “wankers dressed as clowns”, and said Make Poverty History was “a bit lame and almost entirely ineffectual. . .boring, futile and adolescent.” Again, he says he’s contacted his lawyers.

On the other hand, according to his letter, Live Aid had an acute political vision of the world economic situation and the realistic prospect of ending under-development throughout the global south. Just listen to this piece of stunning analysis from Geldof:

“Richard [Curtis] and Bono came to me and said do another gig. I said you fucking do it if you’re so eager. Bono said he’d play with McCartney and they’d open the gig with “It was 20 years ago today” – a reference to Live Aid. I wanted to see that. Precisely that rock n roll moment I wanted to see, so I said ok. That’s why I did it. Pathetic but y’know …”

Yes Bob, we do know.

The fact of the matter is, the protests against the G8 weren’t as successful as some of the previous mobilisations against international capitalist summits, like the Battle of Seattle. A lot of this was to do with the political confusion-were we against the summit, or asking the leaders to do something for us? Despite the best efforts of the SSP and others, Make Poverty History’s campaign contributed a lot towards stopping a more radical, anti-capitalist approach.

But Geldof knows exactly what side of the power divide he comes down on. In his letter he writes:

“Like it or not the agents of change in our world are the politicians. Otherwise you’re always outside the tent pissing in. They stay inside their tent pissing back out at you. This is futile. My solution is to get inside the tent and piss in there.”

"When we get inside the tent can we piss on each other again?"

Whilst Geldof and the G8 leaders engage in bizarre watersports, those of us who actually know what they’re talking about can unpick what he’s said here. The only way to get any change is to rely on the same global elite who are responsible for creating the situation as it stands, claims Geldof. But rich countries are rich precisely because they have looted Africa and the rest of the third world for centuries now, and it’s still going on. Those people and movements who’ve tried to stand up to this have faced ferocious attacks from the west and their corrupt allies. The G8 leaders will NEVER solve poverty in Africa, because they are responsible for it.

The way forward for poor countries is demonstrated by the handful of examples where the people have won and the government stands up to the rich world. Today, Venezuela and Cuba, which have revolutionary governments supported by the mass of the people, are able to provide world class health and education to their people, and do not suffer from famine as countries like Ethiopia do. The people of these countries, and their allies here, are the real agents of change, not rich politicians.

As for us in Scotland, it’s clear that sitting around watching wanker celebrities on telly is going to change nothing. We have a responsibility to help people in the third world. The best way we can do that is by fighting for socialism here, and trying to take down our own corrupt governments responsible for so much suffering across the globe.

In a last ditch attempt to impress voters, Nigel Farrage prepares to swallow his own fist.

Anybody who will take pleasure in seeing UKIP leader Nigel Farrage getting the pish utterly ripped out of him will enjoy the latest episode of Have I Got News For You. Watch it here, and make sure to stay tuned for a classic Kilroy clip and details of UKIP’s new super sexy line of dressing gowns.

As Britain is gearing up for the most important election in decades, it’s also the most closely fought. Successive opinion polls have shown that it is unlikely any party will have an overall majority to govern – that either means working as a minority Government, or one in coalition. This has an obvious disadvantage, that at the time when the ruling class in the UK needs a strong Government to enforce public sector cuts, take on the trade unions and face down community campaigns against cuts to their services they may in fact have the weakest Government in decades; a Government that can be undermined by appealing to the opposition or coalition partners with cold feet.

This scenario has caused considerable and obvious disquiet to Britain’s bankers and potential investors. In order to quash this concern, the British state is, according to at least one press report prepared to rely on undemocratic and ancient rules to enforce stability at the price of democracy; that is, the use of Crown Powers.

The Daily Mail reports that none other than The Queen has been approached by leading civil servants to discuss using her powers as a Monarch in relation to a hung Parliament. It outlines a scenario in which no party has a majority, and the Parliament is a hung one. The minority Government could approach the Queen to request another general election to secure a stable majority Government. Leading civil servants are worried this would cause instability in the UK, and are discussing with the Queen the possibility of her using her Crown Powers to deny a request for a second General Election.

This would be designed to force the political parties to form a stable coalition Government, able to make the cuts necessary to make the UK profitable for capitalism again. Such use of Crown Power in the UK would be shocking and controversial, and it may not be necessary but it is far from impossible. Crown Powers have already been used in people’s lifetime – the Governor General in Australia dismissed a left-leaning Government in Australia using Crown Powers. These powers have also been used to overrule a High Court ruling which said the expulsion of Diego Garcia’s indigenous population to make way for a US military base was illegal.

The reality is the Crown still has plenty of power in the UK, if not to be used on the whim of the monarch itself but in the interests of Britain’s ruling establishment of MP’s, civil servants, bankers etc. It is still used in the Privy Council, whose prerogative powers were used to deny justice to the islanders of Diego Garcia and to ban GCHQ workers from being allowed to join a union. And there is of course the undemocratic House of Lords, whose peers are allowed to block laws voted on democratically in Westminster.

All these hang ons from the medieval ages are kept as an insurance policy in case any Government – in the past a feared “ultra-left” Labour one – would go too far, and for any Government to use as an extension of it’s powers beyond the relative transparency of Parliament. Remember that the next time the Monarchy comes up in a debate – tourists they may attract, but Mickey Mouse does not have the power to deny elections to the Senate in the United States!

The Queens Diamond Jubillee will be held in 2012, with public holidays on the 4th and 5th of June to celebrate her glorious reign. The SSP won’t be attending however – and will organise a demonstration for an Independent Republic, like we did at Calton Hill in 2004. We’ll be protesting so that the Queen and all the undemocratic hangovers of the middle ages have no role in politics, and Scotland is a modern, 21st century democratic Republic without inherited privilege or power.

A major investigation by Greenpeace has revealed what we always knew: climate change denial is a well funded conspiracy, centered on oil corporations.

In recent years, there’s been a lot of focus on the role of companies like Exxon in funding organisations that spread lies and propaganda to undermine climate science. But even their contributions are dwarfed by a little known US firm called Koch Industries.

The company is based in the US but has interests all over the globe. Despite being little known, it’s the second largest privately-held (that is, its shares aren’t traded on the stock market) company in the US.

The billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch who own the company put $50 million into climate change denial between 1997 and 2008. Their interest is clear-they want to discredit any attempts to end the fossil fuel economy and limit carbon emissions. What they have done is a spectacular crime against the world, allowing huge amounts of lies to be disseminated that have seriously undermined efforts to tackle the biggest problem in human history.

Through a series of front groups, the Kochs have used their money to shift political debate away from action that needs to be taken. A few examples include:

-The American for Prosperity Foundation received $5,176,500 from the Kochs between 2005-8. This money was used to organise “grassroots” events across the US as part of the ‘Hot Air’ tour, which featured a hot air balloon. The aim was to build opposition to US legislators taking any action on climate change.

- The Cato Institute received $5,278,400 between 1997 and 2008, which it used to get climate change deniers on to panels and in the media to spread lies about what’s happening.

Scumbag liars

- The Kochs funded a Spanish study that tried to claim, falsely, that renewable energy had cost Spain jobs, which has been used by right wingers in several countries despite being shown to be nonsense.

- They also funded a non-peer reviewed study that tried to claim that the declining numbers of polar bears was not related to global warming, which has also been discredited.

- Koch funded groups have played a major role in hyping and repeating vastly exaggerated claims about the East Anglia Climate Research Unit hacked emails.

These guys are scum, capitalism at its worst: endangering the entire future of human civilisation for their own short term profit. Their (extremely well funded) politics has done so much damage to the world, and embodies all that is insane about our current economic and social model.

Make no mistake: organised climate change denial is a criminal conspiracy, perpetrated by the global rich to try and prevent social change. It needs to be challenged every time it rears its head.

Don’t blink. Don’t even blink. Blink and you’re dead.

James Lovelock is a notable scientist and inventor. He’s most famous for developing the Gaia theory, which argues that living organisms and the physical processes of the Earth are part of a huge system that regulates conditions on this planet to keep it comfortable for life.

He’s also a total knobhead.

Lovelock has been prominent in recent years in the debates about climate change and ecological destruction. What he says shows that he’s good at understanding the global climate, and absolutely useless at understanding human beings, politics and social change. His rantings are seriously damaging to those of us who actually want to change the world and make society fairer and more ecologically sustainable.

He recently gave his first interview in months to the Guardian. In the intervening period the world has seen the hacking of emails from climate scientists that was blown into a huge controversy by the media, the total failure of the global elite to tackle climate change at Copenhagen, and the really cold winter.

In the face of declining public trust in climate science, Lovelock says he hasn’t read the hacked emails, just the media coverage, but that he was “absolutely disgusted.” Thanks for taking a balanced view and making up your own mind there James!

But more importantly, the headline given by the paper was his claim that “Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change.”

James Lovelock is a serious misanthrope. He ultimately believes that humans are doomed to face the collapse of civilisation through runaway climate change, and we’ll never do anything about it. In his book ‘The Revenge of Gaia,’ he argues for an effort to preserve as much of human science and knowledge for survival in a mass produced book in preparation for the coming apocalypse.

Not if we have anthing to do with it

The risk of runaway climate change is all too real, and could indeed lead to a situation that undermines the basis of human civilisation. But there is another way we could go. What James Lovelock fails to understand is that it isn’t humans that are stupid. There are millions of humans all over the world that understand that it’s our social and economic system, based on inequality and constant growth at the expense of the environment, that’s responsible for taking us to the brink. What we urgently must start doing is changing our society and economy, allowing us to meet everyone’s needs without further destroying the planet.

In the face of apocalypse, people feel powerless. But as long as there is the chance of survival, humans must try to survive. Accepting it as inevitable would be the most spectacular example of us ignoring our duty from the whole of history. But that’s what Lovelock advocates, saying he favours “adaption” to climate change. It also leads people to going “Fuck it, what’s the point?”, something that he’s encouraged when he says “Enjoy life now, because, if we’re lucky, it’ll be 20 years before it hits the fan.”

It’s understandable that Lovelock is unable to see the eco-socialist alternative to catastrophe when you take a look at his political views. He blames a lack of “elitism” for the email scandal. He talks of “dumbo” scientists “churned out” by “mass produced universities.” “Elitism is important in science. It is vital,” he argues.

What this sounds like to me is a belief that science has been corrupted by the break down of traditional privileges that meant it was hard for working class kids to get a job in science. (It’s still pretty hard tbh.) It completely ignores the fact that the scientists who wrote the controversial emails are under siege from an organised, right wing climate change denial movement, which aims at protecting the profits of energy corporations at the expense of long term human survival.

His love for elitism shines through as well when he talks about what needs to be done:

We need a more authoritative world. We’ve become a sort of cheeky, egalitarian world where everyone can have their say. It’s all very well, but there are certain circumstances – a war is a typical example – where you can’t do that. You’ve got to have a few people with authority who you trust who are running it. And they should be very accountable too, of course.

But it can’t happen in a modern democracy. This is one of the problems. What’s the alternative to democracy? There isn’t one. But even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.

At this point he really is skirting the territory of eco-fascism. The desire to see a strong state, or some kind of virtual dictatorship impose ecological limits will not work, and turns people off environmentalism. What we need is real democracy, equality that’s social and economic as well as political.

Quite right old chap, these plebs have got no place in a lab!

I’m not going to go into here some of the more mad things he’s said, such as that most people should have to eat food that’s been chemically synthesised, leaving real food a luxury for those that can afford it. Or that this science fiction process should be fuelled by a massive programme of building nuclear power stations, and that we should dump the nuclear waste in the Amazon jungle.

The point of all this is that Lovelock is a respected voice of the environmental movement. Much as he is a great scientist, Lovelock has absolutely no solution to the problems facing human society. Far too much of the coverage that environmentalists get is human-haters who are unwilling to confront the people in power. The eco-socialist alternative isn’t covered because it’s the real threat to the system.

It’s really important that the people who see the real issue here begin to make their voices heard. And the real issue is that capitalism and climate change are two names for the same process-a corrupt, unfair human society that is incompatible with humans being part of the global ecosystem. A system that can and must be changed.

People like Lovelock believe apocalypse is inevitable because it is easier for them to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.

Home Secretary: "Fuck you, science!"

So, the inevitable has happened. The government yesterday announced that their agenda on drugs is being set by the corporate media, when Home Secretary Alan Johnson told the media he will rush through a ban on Mephedrone in the few days left before parliament breaks up for the election.

How quickly can newspapers and the privately owned media write a government’s policy for them? In the case of Mephedrone, it’s taken just 5 months.

The Mephedrone moral panic got started in earnest when Gabrielle Price died. The media lied and lied again about the tragic death of this 14 year old at a party. They quoted anonymous neighbours, claiming that she’d been at a party taking Mephedrone and Ketamine, and that these had caused her death. Of course, to legally protect themselves, the headline had “took Miaow Miaow” in inverted commas, so that the newspapers didn’t have to take responsibility for the lies they were posting.

What they didn’t report was that the coroner concluded Gabrielle Price died of natural causes, following an infection she’d been suffering. Sussex Police announced there would be no inquest into her death, as it was not a mystery. It was NOT a drug related death.

As we’ve already reported before, this pattern was repeated again and again, as death after death was reported as “linked to Mephedrone.” Yet only one death has directly been attributed to Mephedrone through toxicology reports, and that man was also found to have other Class A drugs in his house. Most of the other deaths that have been blamed on Mephedrone were of people who had also been taking cocktails of methadone, alcohol, coke and other drugs. There is not a single other death from Mephedrone proven in the UK. FACT. In the same time, literally thousands of people have died as a result of legal drugs alcohol and tobacco, which NOBODY thinks it would be a good idea to ban.

Inverted commas means-"this is lies"

Other ridiculous scare stories were peddled, such as the total fabrication that “teachers are having to hand Mephedrone back after confiscating it in school.” Again, a total lie. This particular tall tale was pushed with the co-operation of headteacher Mike Stewart from Torquay. He was quoted again and again as saying that teachers would be forced to hand back confiscated Mephedrone because it wasn’t illegal. He NEVER said that THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED. Because it never has.

Imagine you’re in school and a teacher finds you with a white powder. Do you actually imagine they would give you that back at the end of the day? Absolute bollocks. Do we really believe that the head/rector (who would inevitably be brought in as part of such a scenario) would just take a student’s word for it that the powder wasn’t coke or speed? No, what they would do is phone the police. Devon and Cornwall Police felt the necessity to issue a press release affirming that if they seized a white powder, they would hold on to it. They even went so far as to say that if the substance was found to be Mephedrone, they would still destroy it rather than give it back!

As this whole sorry affair rolled towards its conclusion, there could have been no doubt in anyone’s mind that, in an election year, all parties would not have the courage to stand up to the lies and bullying of the massive profit-making corporations that own papers like The Sun. These completely cynical companies, who are interested only in greater profit for themselves, realised long ago they can make a lot of money by scaring people. To do this, they have completely exploited the tragic deaths of numerous people, and in the process pulled grieving families into a political crusade.

In the last year any pretense that government policy on drugs is made through scientific information has been totally discredited. First the government sacked Professor David Nutt because they didn’t like him publicly telling the truth about drugs like cannabis and ecstasy. Numerous other government science advisers resigned in protest. Then, this weekend, Dr Polly Taylor resigned in protest at new government guidelines that told scientists they “must not breach trust”, i.e. tell the truth if it contradicts government policy.

The Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs is required by law to give evidence before a drug can be banned. Since the resignation of Dr. Taylor the committee has been inquorate, that is, according to their own rules they are not properly constituted as a committee. Therefore they aren’t able to make a proper recommendation. But quickly after she resigned we heard that “Home Office lawyers are confident” that they could move forward with the ban. Translation-the government know they’re on dodgy territory, so they had to get lawyers to back them up.

Normally the ACMD will have several meetings about a drug, before drawing up a draft report to go to the full committee, which will then go to the Home Secretary. After the Home Secretary responds, it goes back to the committee for further consultation and research. The whole process should take at least a year and a half. The process that led up to the reclassification of cannabis was after a painstaking period of two and a half years research. And even then, the government IGNORED the committee’s advice, and went ahead with reclassifying cannabis as a class B drug!

Cover of government guidelines to scientists

Alan Johnson yesterday claimed he was following the advice of the committee by banning Mephedrone. What he should have said is that he was following the very preliminary findings of a depleted committee which has been unable to function properly over the last few months following the sacking of Prof. Nutt. Most of the members will not have seen the report on Mephedrone until yesterday, when they were told to approve it and hand it on to the government. There has been no proper scientific assessment of Mephedrone yet whatsoever.

Parliament in Westminster has about 3-4 days left to meet before the election is called. This period is known as the “wash-up”, when all parties co-operate to rush through bills that they all agree on, with virtually no democratic or public scrutiny. One of the measures pushed through this procedure will be the classification of Mephedrone. A complete victory for the corporate media, and a complete failure for science and the public good.

Something must be done!!!1!!11AAARGGGGHHH

Drugs prohibition doesn’t work. It is a cancer at the heart of our society, which makes drugs more dangerous than they should be, means there is no way to regulate the harm that they cause people, and enriches huge criminal capitalist organisations. People have taken drugs since the first evolution of humans. They are not deterred by laws passed by unscientific and ignorant governments. This idiotic government decision is supported by the entire mainstream political process, regardless of the fact that Mephedrone is far more likely to do harm when it’s illegal compared to when it’s legal. Not to mention the masses of free advertising it’s had in the last few months. It will also further discredit the government in the eyes of young people, meaning they are even less likely to listen to drugs advice from any kind of authority figure.

I’m proud to be part of one of the only political organisations that has told the truth on this issue, and stood by science instead of lies and hype.

“A moral panic is the intensity of feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order. According to Stanley Cohen, author of Folk Devils and Moral Panics (1972), a moral panic occurs when “[a] condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests.” Those who start the panic when they fear a threat to prevailing social or cultural values are known by researchers as “moral entrepreneurs”, while people who supposedly threaten the social order have been described as “folk devils.” Moral panics are in essence controversies that involve arguments and social tension and in which disagreement is difficult because the matter at its center is taboo. The media have long operated as agents of moral indignation, even when they are not self-consciously engaged in crusading or muckraking. Simply reporting the facts can be enough to generate concern, anxiety or panic.” (From Wikipedia.)

Jim Murphy, champion of Glasgow

While being interviewed by Brian Taylor about all this nasty Purcell business, which SSY has made passing comment on, Jim Murphy, Scottish Secretary (AKA official attempted whip of the entirety of Scotland) and knobhead, has said that he wishes everybody would stop being so nasty to Glasgow. The problem, of course, is that Jim seems to be getting the Glasgow Labour Party mixed up with Glasgow the city.

“The Labour Party is more than one individual. I think what happened to Steven Purcell was a horrible situation for himself and his family. It was a personal trauma for him, but there are wider issues about Labour in Glasgow.” Jim says. Resisting my language student temptation to analyse Jim’s interesting semantic choices (I guess all those drugs just ‘happened’ to jump up Steven Purcell’s nose), and the fact that it wasn’t just a tragedy for his family but a total abuse of Purcell’s office, from which he has escaped quickly and cleanly for a nice holiday in the sun, Jim’s right to say that there are wider issues about Labour in Glasgow.

School closures, service cuts and now their new plan to privatise Glasgow’s wonderful parks*; all of these are major issues that I have with Glasgow Labour. The fact is that they do a good enough job of besmirching their own reputation without Steven Purcell’s help.

Don't let those straws get their hooks into you, Jim!

Jim also says that “We should be proud of Glasgow in the same way we’re proud of Edinburgh, in the same way we’re proud of Dundee with the games industry, in the same way we’re proud of Aberdeen with the oil and gas industry.” and he’s right – Glasgow is a fantastic city. But the problem Jim has here is that nobody’s been saying that the whole of Glasgow’s been caning it up, palling about with super dodgy guys and abusing their office. This is just a really weak attempt to distract from the whole Purcell debacle. Take some friendly advice Jim; if you really want to upstage Purcellgate, then you’re gonnae need to check into rehab, disappear for three hours, come back covered in Llama shit and then run away to Antartica to live with the penguins.

* For more info and to help out with stopping this totally stupid plan, join the Facebook group here.