12:
NO NONSENSE AT THE LABOUR PARTY CONFERENCE?Report from SchNEWS, Friday 30th September 2005:
A
ll this week our town has been playing host to the corporate jamboree of the Labour party conference. A dumbed down Nuremberg rally inside a heavily policed exclusion `island', Brighton's very own "Green Zone", with the police carrying out random stop and searches under the Terrorism legislation.The whole world witnessed the Neo Labour governments toleration and "respect" as an 82year-old man was dragged out of the conference by private goons in good North Korean style for uttering the word `nonsense'. (And how typical was it of the spinelessness of Labour delegates that
only one of the hundreds assembled intervened.) Outside an atmosphere of intimidation by the police prevailed. Anybody gathering to demonstrate was photographed. One man was arrested under terrorism laws for wearing a T - Shirt saying "Free Omar, Jail Blair" and driven out of the area. Why the need to clamp down so fiercely on dissent? Well Tony's speech gave us a few clues.While the press picked over the bones of Tony's offering and examined the entrails for omens and portents of the Blair/Brown soap opera, SchNEWS found it to be a remarkably honest appraisal of how the British people (sorry workforce) are to be shackled into the global economy, while the elites remain in power.
It's made very clear that luxuries like human rights and the principle of innocence before guilt must go if the country is to become `strong' and not be `overwhelmed'. Good leadership and discipline are necessary if we are
to meet the challenges of globalisation. Let's strip away some of the feelgood spin and see what the future holds for the proles of Airstrip One. Over to you, Tony:
We are the Changelings - Tony Blair
"I hear people say we have to stop and debate globalisation. You might as well debate whether autumn should follow summer. They're not debating it in China and India. All these nations have labour costs a fraction of ours... In the era of rapid globalisation, there is no mystery about what works: an open, liberal economy, prepared constantly to change to remain competitive. The temptation is to use Government to try to protect ourselves against the onslaught of globalisation by shutting it out; to think we protect a workforce by regulation; a company by Government subsidy; an industry by tariffs". (So we're supposed to swallow the IMF medicine that so many third world countries have choked on. Forget any social principles or values, it's rules out the window and hello unrestricted free market)"We will publish proposals radically to reform (the) benefits for the future and help people who can work, back into the work force where they belong." (so long as we know, noses to the grindstone everyone)
"For how much longer can countries like ours allow the security of our energy supply be dependent on some of the most unstable parts of the world? ... and that means an assessment of all options, including civil nuclear power." (Having stirred up a hornets nest in the Middle East, Tony&Co want to retreat to their nuclear bunkers - the reliance on a growth economy leaves us with a choice between Basra and Chernobyl)
"The same adjustment to the modern world challenges traditional thinking on law and order. The whole of our system starts from the proposition that its duty is to protect the innocent from being wrongly convicted... For 8 years I have battered the criminal justice system to get it to change... First a radical extension of summary powers to police and local authorities to take on the wrong doers. Second, we need a uniformed presence on the street in every community... We know we need strict controls. They are being put in place, along with Identity Cards, also necessary in a changing world." (As people won't be happy about being screwed over even more and discontent grows, our `nineteenth century legal system' - you know habeas corpus and all that bleeding heart liberal fluff - will break down under the strain of differentiating between innocence and guilt, so we're going to go with a bit more of a heavy-handed approach...)
"I never doubted after September 11th that our place was alongside America and I don't doubt it now. This is a global struggle. (thanks to you, you fucker) Today it is at its fiercest in Iraq... Britain should also remain the strongest ally of the United States." (a country where the first priority after a natural disaster is to shoot the looters. A country with two million people behind bars. The gaolers of Guantanamo Bay... sweet)
"Government is not a state of office but a state of mind. A willingness to accept the burden of true leadership." (The scales fall off and the ghost of Nuremberg rears its ugly head)