Nationalise the banks!

I thought I would break the long silence on this blog by posting on the need to nationalise the banks. The banking sector is in crisis. It can not service the short-term loans it has taken out and it lives in fear of untold losses from reckless dealing in mortgage-backed securities and other such instruments.

Some would say that the banks have made their bed and so should lie in it. However, the failure of banks has huge knock-on effects. Many other companies need credit from banks and not to have it would mean that they would have to close down and lay off staff.

The Government has recognised the need for a functioning banking sector by taking some equity stakes in banks and by offering them insurance for some of their new loans. However, this is not enough. RBS and Lloyds/HBOS are now 'neither fish nor fowl'. They are not nationalised nor fully-private companies. This is an untenable situation as it means that the state has part ownership but no control of organisations that could be racking up huge losses that the taxpayer could have to pick up through the recapitalisation mechanism or through the insurance scheme proposed.

After dithering for months, the Governemnt eventually nationalised Northern Rock and the mortgage arm of Bradford & Bingley. It now needs to bite the bullet and throw free-market dogma away and extend this nationalisation to RBS and Lloyds/HBOS. There is a petition calling for bank nationalisation and I urge people to sign it.

Public Services Not Private Profit meeting this Friday!

The blog springs back into life!

Please come to our Public Services Not Private Profit rally

This Friday, 17th October
7pm at Room 2A, University of London Union, Malet Street, London

Speakers include: Ross Marshall (RMT Young Member), Hazel Rees (NUT Young Member), Wes Streeting (NUS President, invited)

See www.publicnotprivate.org.uk for all Public Services Not Private Profit events

All welcome!

SYN Exec

As my last post indicated the Exec met and discussed putting into action a campaign for a real living wage as we all decided at our Conference.

The name we've settled on is COFUP! - which stands for COalition Fighting Unfair Pay.

The focus of the campaign is
a) to campaign for Labour councils to have a living wage as part of their workerprocurement agreements; and

b) to make a Living Wage official LabourParty policy by having it passed at Conference.

The Launch rally will be on Tuesday 24th July at 7pm in Committee Room 9, House of Commons.

Speakers TBC

Put it inyour diary - and start spreading the word!

More details to follow!

SYN also have a facebook group that can be found here

Real Living Wage campaign

Hello all,
next up on our agenda is SYN's real living wage campaign.

Our founding conference passed a motion that stated "all workers, regardless of age, are entitled not only to a minimum wagebut a universal wage high enough to live on."

and instructed the exec to campaign for a universal living wage of at least £8 an hour.

(The full list of motions can be found here.)

The exec will be meeting soon and I'll keep you posted on what is happening.
In the meantime you can sign e-petition calling for a real living wage here!/

In the meantime if your not a member of SYN you can join here here. and members can join our email list by emailing myself or Owen (or leaving a comment on this blog)

Final Hurdels!

As the campaign enters the final stretch - were all neeed to campaign heavily - I hope to see you all at the SYN meeting on saturday where we'll be working out exactly what we can do to help!

In the meantime check out the latest on John's Blog

John wll be campaigning in Scotland and Wales to help Labour candidates in their campaigns. Campaigning for Elaine Smith in Scotland (20-21 April), and Sue Lent in Wales (30 April). They are both strong candidates with a fantastic record of standing up for working class people. They are both consistent and vocal opponents of the war in Iraq.


We will be sending up a group of people to campaign with John in Wales - please let us know if your interested in going.

See you all Saturday!

Meeting!!!!!!!!!!

Profound apologies for the lack of posts - please please please dont kill me (well at least not till after the revolution its ok i know your gonna shoot me after that ive already been promised by at least 3 rival sects ;p)

Anyway onwards and upwards eh comrades!

Hope to see you all at SYN's next meeting - it is open to all so please if your not a member yet come along see what were about and Join up!!

21st April between 2 and 4 in the conference room of the RMT Office Euston ( map can be found here http://www.multimap.com/map/browse.cgi?local=h&scale=10000&title=Unity%20House%20-%20national%20office%20of%20the%20RMT&pc=NW11JD&icon=x)

This will be mainly to discuss the John4Leader campaign and SYNs input in the final few weeks
But we'll also briefly touch on

SYN so far - update on SYN'S first year
SYN plans for autumn 07
Promoting SYN and building on an excellent first year.

I hope to see as many of you as possible there.

Please RSVP to me, many thanks

Rally 31st March

Sorry for Cross Postingbut everyone should know about this fantastic rally on the 31st March in support of John McDonnell.

Venue Shaw Theatre Euston Road 12.30-4.30
A combination of Comedy Music and Politics - a must have for all you anoraks.....

Acts include
Steve Gribben
Dave Rogers of Banner Theatre
'Jago' panjabi folk band singing and dancing
Lost Marbles string band
plus more

speakers :
Tony Benn
Mark Serwotka PCS Gen Sec
Matt Wrack FBU Gen Sec
Alice Mahon, former MP
Jeremy Dear NUJ Gen Sec
Doug Nicholls General Secretary of CYWU
Suresh Grover Monitoring Group
Dot Gibson National Pensions Convention
Jim Mortimer AMICUS Unity Gazette
Gary Heather (CWU Broad Left)
Andy Reed ASLEF National Organiser
Patrick Sikorski is Assistant General Secretary of the rail union RMT
Darren Williams Secretary, Welsh Labour Grassroots
Martin Mayer, Chair of TGWU Broad Left
Vince Mills Campaign for Socialism - Scotland
Jon Rogers UNISON United Left
Marsha-Jane Thompson Co-Chair of SYN
and of course.......John McDonnell MP