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

Meacher debacle boosts John4Leader campaign

Firstly, I want to apologise for being so rubbish at updating this blog. The past month or so has been ridiculously busy for both me and Marsha (as it has been for most people on the Labour left recently) - but hey, we'll try and make up for it in the coming months.

Thursday was a bit of a shock for many in the labour movement. Former New Labour minister Michael Meacher announced his intention to stand for Labour leader on Thursday - and explicitly stated his intention to force John McDonnell out of the contest.

As everyone who has been remotely connected with the John4Leader campaign will know, Meacher's campaign was not, in fact, launched last week. It has been rumbling along for months. During this time, John has been rushing up and down the country, addressing packed public meetings, actively re-engaging with trade unionists and party members, and winning the support of numerous Labour party and trade union grassroots organisations across the country. In stark contrast, Meacher has focused all of its efforts on winning support in the Westminster Bubble - meeting MPs for cups of teas and inviting them for dinner in an effort to win their support.

The John4Leader campaign has always been open and honest about its tactics from the very beginning. The focus is on winning support from the rank-and-file of the labour movement. In the view of everyone involved, we will get the required 44 nominations if we win a groundswell of support - and prove that there is an appetite for a genuine contest. Our campaign is restoring the PLP's original intended role - that is, to serve as the political wing of the labour movement.

Firstly, I want to explain why Meacher chose this week to announce. His attempt to win support in the PLP - by ignoring activists in the grassroots - has failed disastrously. Last week, Alan Simpson (his campaign manager) gave Meacher a massive vote of confidence by announcing that he's standing down and doubting Meacher's chances of getting the 44. McDonnell had won the support of all the grassroots organisations of the Labour left, all the main trade union broad lefts, and most recently ASLEF. It was now or never for Meacher.

As we all now know, Meacher's campaign launch was a disaster. Only two MPs turned up - Kelvin Hopkins and Ian Gibson. Ian Gibson (who chaired the press conference) then let it be known that he was not backing Meacher for leader, adding: "He has asked some people if we would respect his decision to run, but that doesn't mean we will vote for him." Peter Soulsby was alleged by Tom Watson to be another prominent backer - and quickly wrote on Watson's blog making clear that he was not backing Meacher and had written to him to say so. Meacher is an easy target, and the media have had a field day - ridiculing his lack of support, his "vainglorious" campaign, and the number of houses he owns (estimates range from 7 to 11).

Meacher has no support base in the labour movement. He was a New Labour minister who voted for all of Blair's reactionary policies - whether that be tuition fees or Foundation Hospitals. He stayed in Government to vote for the war - unlike, say, Robin Cook, who (credit where credit's due) had the guts to resign on a point of principle. Only when he was sacked from the Government in June 2003 did he decide to perform a spectacular u-turn, suddenly opposing all the policies he had voted for - including the war in Iraq. Support for Meacher is non-existent in the trade unions. The only 'Meacherites' out there are a handful of 9/11 conspiracy theorists and anti-GM food activists. Unfortunately for Meacher, neither have a slice of Labour's electoral college.

However - ironically - Meacher's campaign has provided a huge boost to the John4Leader campaign. All of a sudden, the media blackout was broken - and John was all over the news. Meacher was bombarded with messages from angry Labour party members and trade unionists demanding that he step down. The John4Leader office was overwhelmed with messages from supporters promising to increase their involvement. Tony Benn, Christine Shawcroft (Labour party NEC), Elaine Smith MSP and a range of leading trade unionists and Labour councillors wrote a letter to the Guardian demanding that he support John's campaign. A number of MPs have indicated since Thursday that they will nominate McDonnell - flushed out by Meacher's catastrophic launch. The Westminster Bubble was full of a mixture of ridicule, pity and frustration.

Crucially, John is now on the map as the only possible credible left candidate. Some of those who identify with the "soft left" have been reluctant to support our campaign on the basis that they have reservations about the level of support John would win. True, many of these have already been won over by the level of support that John has achieved since last July. However, Meacher's launch has now shown beyond reasonable doubt that there is no "credible" left alternative to John. As if to drive this point home, the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy (whose leading parliamentary representative is Kelvin Hopkins, one of the sole Meacherite MPs) backed John's campaign by a margin of 4-1 just two days after Meacher's launch.

It is undeniably true that Meacher's launch was an attempted coup against the labour movement. A left candidate has already been backed by the grassroots of the Labour and trade union left. Thursday's events represented an attempt to impose a candidate against the will of trade union and Labour party activists by a handful of parliamentarians. Meacher's message was thus: "You may well support John McDonnell, but you're never going to get the chance to vote for him. Therefore, you will have to support me whether you like it or not." Unfortunately, his claim that he had 30 supportive MPs has been exposed as tragic wishful thinking. In actual fact, Meacher has the support of between 5 and 7 MPs. In contrast, John McDonnell has 22 signed up - and a previous 15 or so who have indicated they are likely to support him. This has been achieved solely because of the grassroots campaign.

Nonetheless, we need to bare in mind the slightly sinister side of recent developments. Two weeks ago, the Independent on Sunday wrote that Gordon Brown much preferred to "crush" Meacher rather than McDonnell. On the day of the launch, Brownite MP Tom Watson claimed that Meacher had more parliamentary support than McDonnell. For those who can't remember, Watson led last September's attempted Brownite coup against Blair. Watson is extremely close to Brown - and indeed visited Brown just a day before the September putsch. The Evening Standard suggested: "Speculation is mounting at Westminster that allies of Mr Brown have encouraged Mr Meacher to stand in order to split the vote on the left of the party." The Torygraph suggested that "Brown gets leadership opponent he wants", adding: "Do not be surprised if a number of presumed Brown loyalists appear on Mr Meacher's ballot paper."

It is clear that New Labour would prefer Meacher over McDonnell. Meacher is a representative of Labour's distant past; he is compromised by his support for New Labour's policies prior to his sacking; he has no base in the labour movement. McDonnell has a consistent political record; he is a solid and growing base in the labour movement; he is one of the most articulate, convincing members of the PLP. New Labour know that he would wipe the floor with Brown in any public debate. They recognise that a successful McDonnell campaign will put the Left back on the map and threaten to completely unravel New Labour's grip on the party.

Our task ahead is clear. We need to renew our commitment to building a successful campaign. We should ignore the Meacher campaign which, frankly, has no chance of gaining any grassroots support. Let's keep getting people in the party, giving out John4Leader leaflets, encouraging MPs to sign John's nomination papers. Ironic as it may seem, but the chances of our campaign succeeded have now considerably increased. Let's no waste the opportunity before us.