Though Cowards Flinch

Sunny thinks Ed Miliband should now:

[A]sk Cameron if he will call for a referendum on the EU itself to clarify whether the UK stays in or out.

He says this because:

[C]alling for a referendum would expose the fact Cameron doesn’t want to be out of the EU despite the crumbs he has thrown at his Eurosceptic MPs. It would put him in a bind and expose the farcical situation that Britain is in now.

I disagree with Sunny on this one. 

I think raising the possibility of a referendum will make Miliband looks like he’s playing silly party politics. 

Cameron will get all the favourable media exposure he wants over the next week or two on this, as he struts around, doing the British Bulldog.  That image is all over the rightwing press this morning.  By comparison, Miliband asking about a referendum will look like an annoying little chiwawa snapping petulantly at Cameron’s heels.

Instead, Miliband should focus on what’s important.  Strategy, not tactics.

Miliband should ignore Cameron as far as possible, other than to point out how much he has sided with the fund managers, and how very typical that is.  The main message should be that Cameron is now an irrelevance.

Miliband should get on with setting out clearly how the removal of the fiscal stimulus option, under the proposed Treaty, would be an unmitigated economic disaster both for the Eurozone and for the UK as a key trader.   He should be pointing out that Germany’s economy has remained fairly strong till now precisely because:

a) Back in 2002, Germany broke the same deficit rules now proposed under the Treaty, but then set out under the European Growth & Stability Pact, using its political weight to have the rules ignored;

b) Germany, now calling for fiscal restraint, has itself used a bigger stimulus  to keep its economy going than any other European country since the 2008 crash.

Miliband should be in Europe every other weekend, talking to Centre-Left and Leftwing leaders about developing coherent alternatives to the proposed Treaty, following on the lead given by François Hollande.  He should not be afraid to go for Merkel’s jugular, calling her out on her hypocrisy.  The message he should try to get over is that Merkel is the important player, not Cameron.

He should be using his Labour MEPs to the maximum to ram home the message that Labour is interested in finding workable, long-term solutions to the European crisis. This will send a strong message, to LibDems in particular, about where Cameron’s tactics have got us, without ever having to mention Cameron, other than as an irrelevance.

Finally, he should recognise that if Francois Hollande does become French President in May, the whole political landscape in Europe will change, and that there is a chance the disastrous Treaty could effectively be stopped in its tracks (even if it has been signed, implementing it is another matter).

He should be talking to the Labour NEC this week about how the Labour party can get behind the Socialist Campaign in France, getting resources and volunteers over in numbers; this campaign is more important now than the Obama campaign in 2008, which saw lots of willing young Labourites lend a hand.

It’s time for Miliband to stop shouting from the sidelines, brush Cameron aside, and get on with the real business of social democratic politics in Europe.

Owen Jones has a short piece up at the New Stateman in which he says, quite rightly, that the focus of the British Left should be less on the domestic politics of the Euro summit, and more on the way the new 26 county intergovernmental agreement effectively bans leftwing economics (though I don’t care much for the way the young whippersnapper instructs me to pay attention to what I’ve already been paying attention to for some time now).

In the piece Owen says:

François Hollande — the Socialist candidate for the French Presidency — has already spoken out against a treaty cooked up by Europe’s overwhelmingly right-of-centre governments. If we’re going to listen to European leaders, Hollande is a sounder bet than avowed right-wingers like Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel.

The link he provides, though, is a few weeks old and doesn’t really mention Hollande speaking out. 

Given ths, and given a tweet request, I thought I might usefully translate something Hollande did say a few days ago, and which I posted here last week. 

I think the piece, from a French paper interview, is as good a reflection as there is at the moment of where Hollande is coming from – basically a straight down the line Keynesianism with a call for a European New Deal.  As I’ve argued, it’s an approach Miliband would do very well to copy in the next few weeks.

Of course, Hollande’s position is vital, as he takes on Sakrozy for the Presidency in May,and it is not out of the question that support now from Miliband, and other European leaders, could galvanise a real leftwing alternative to the Merkozy plan and stop the Austerity Treaty in its tracks. Here’s hoping.

Here’s the important bit translated (original below). I’m not a professional translator so apologies if it’s a bit clunky – I wanted to do it more or less word for word rather than risk misrepresenting:

We can’t wait.  I propose a responsibility pact, for governance and growth.  Today, if we’re to mount a struggle against the crisis of the Euro, we don’t do it by announcing a machinery aimed at convincing the markets and citizens.

Confidence can return quickly, and speculation can be conquered, if the European Central Bank relaxes its interventions, by statute, if the European Financial Stability Fund is transformed into a bank which can come to the aid of the most vulnerable country, if the European Investment bank engage in a policy of large scale public works, and if the European budget gains new resources, through the establishment of a Financial Transaction Tax and the launch of Eurobonds.

Nous ne pouvons pas attendre. Je propose un pacte de responsabilité, de gouvernance et de croissance. Aujourd’hui, pour lutter contre la crise de l’euro, ce n’est pas l’annonce d’une machinerie qui convaincra les marchés et les citoyens.

La confiance peut revenir rapidement et la spéculation être vaincue si la Banque centrale européenne même dans ses statuts actuels assouplit ses interventions, si le Fonds européen de stabilité financière se transforme en banque pour venir en soutien des pays les plus vulnérables, si la banque européenne d’investissement engage une politique de grands travaux et si le budget européen dispose des ressources nouvelles en mettant en place la taxe sur les transactions financières et en lançant les euro-obligations.

Mark R. Levin is a talk show host in America and is much considered by his critics to be like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh – idiotic but loud.

In 2009 he wrote a book called “Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto” in which he made a meager attempt at proving global warming to be false – at the despair even of fellow conservatives such as Jim Manzi, a contributing editor at National Review, who went on to call the book a case for “willful ignorance”.

But willful ignorance is the order of the day – and nowhere better can this be seen than in the very Republican circles that Levin treads.

Though this should not have affected Newt Gingrich’s standing – the candidate with a PhD! Surely as the heavyweight he would not water down his message – the people respect a guy who knows what he is doing, right?

With Herman Cain out the contest now (the author of the words uz-beki-beki-stan-stan) Gingrich is having to fill his place for dumbing down and, as aforementioned, willful ignorance.

So right on cue, at a church in Texas recently, he said:

“I have two grandchildren — Maggie is 11, Robert is 9,” he said.  “I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they’re my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American.”

A secular atheist country dominated by radical Islamists is not only a mouthful, but a bloody headfuck.

This is the same chap who was recently lampooned by conservative pundit George Will in the Washington Post for his “intellectual hubris” and “enthusiasm for intellectual fads” not to mention the charge that Newt “would have made a marvelous Marxist, [believing] everything is related to everything else and only he understands how.”

Now more than ever before should Paul Krugman’s words of wisdom about Gingrich should apply: “Newt Gingrich is a stupid person’s idea of what a smart person sounds like”.

It should be noted that after Manzi took issue with Levin’s book calling it willful ignorance, he then went on to say it was “an almost perfect example of epistemic closure.” Gingrich, I suppose, is only doing what is necessary of him.

My colleague Carl wrote about the riots a few weeks ago, contrasting them with the ‘politeness’ of the Occupy movement, and offering a warning:

For reasons such as the riots, at a time when the measures of austerity are only just being felt, it would be most unwise for our politicians to ignore societal atomisation, or excuse its expressions as sheer criminality – something which I’m sure the Reading the Riots project will provide a challenge to.

As I had some involvement in the Reading the Riots project, I commented:

On Friday I called on Ed Miliband to wake up to the European crisis and promote a socialist alternative with, amongst others, French Presidential candidate François Hollande:

If Labour wants to gain any credibility on Europe, and any kind of stable economy to inherit in 2015, Miliband and Balls need to stop shouting from the sidelines about how the Tories are shouting from the sidelines…..

Instead, they should be catching the last flight out to Brussels tonight to work through the weekend with the Party of European Socialists, and whoever they can drag in (Francois Hollande would be a good start) on a joint anti-Merkel statement ready for Monday’s meltdown signs.   

This statement should be unequivocal in its short-term support for a Eurobond backed by all members, riding roughshod over Germany’s (historically) understandable but now irrelevant fears of inflation. 

The statement should also be unequivocal in its support for a revision of the Lisbon Treaty – not to move it further towards the disastrous neoliberal entrenchment Merkel’s domestic political needs demand of her, but further away from it.

Miliband did nothing of course (and his spokesperson Emily Thornberry was simply hopeless on Radio 5 this evening) but Francois Hollande has at least spoken out:

Nous ne pouvons pas attendre. Je propose un pacte de responsabilité, de gouvernance et de croissance. Aujourd’hui, pour lutter contre la crise de l’euro, ce n’est pas l’annonce d’une machinerie qui convaincra les marchés et les citoyens.

La confiance peut revenir rapidement et la spéculation être vaincue si la Banque centrale européenne même dans ses statuts actuels assouplit ses interventions, si le Fonds européen de stabilité financière se transforme en banque pour venir en soutien des pays les plus vulnérables, si la banque européenne d’investissement engage une politique de grands travaux et si le budget européen dispose des ressources nouvelles en mettant en place la taxe sur les transactions financières et en lançant les euro-obligations.

The prospect of immediate meltdown has receded slightly during the weekend, but the threat of the Merkel-driven Treaty of Austerity, designed to temporarily satisfy ultimately insatiable markets by impoverishing millions of Europeans (and by proxy much of the rest of the world), has grown even greater.

Francois Hollande, at least, understands what’s happening, and how serious it is. 

Ed Miliband must wake up, smell le café, and follow Hollande’s lead.

This is not a far left rant intimating that, in the aftermath of some successful industrial action, we’re ready to seize control of the country. We’ve achieved a little. Paul is right when he suggests that a lot of people will come away feeling buzzed by the mood of the marches, demonstrations and conversations on that day. I certainly went back to work the next day feeling like we had made our point.

Paul is also right when he suggests that there’s plenty more to do. There are concerns even more pressing than his particular objections to protesting and marching ad infinitum, or at least til the momentum has worn away as in the anti-war and anti-top up fees campaigns. Succinctly; we need to wrest control of the movement before we’re all bored to death by mid-level union bureaucrats.

Tory Canterbury answered the call to strike with fair aplomb. Somewhere around two hundred and fifty people met at a local hotel to hear union representatives from NUT, ATL, PCS and GMB speak. UCU and UNISON were also in marked attendance. As the pickets from around the city began to come in, this number swelled until there were some five hundred people either marching or milling at the Dane Jon.

Without intending to give offence to the speakers from the above-mentioned unions, however, having a captive audience for a full hour, they managed to lecture us all in hesitant style about why we were on strike. As I said afterwards, and several random people within earshot agreed, we don’t need to talk about why we’re there. We need to be talking about next steps – and a hall filled to bursting with the people who turned up to picket and protest strikes me as exactly where we should be talking about this.

The lack of questions from the floor, and the extended contributions from people who have no more authority than the rest of us, meant that when important matters were mentioned – e.g. the potential for a Canterbury-wide Trades Council, pulling in public AND private sector unions – there was no follow up. This comes back to something Paul was saying the other day, about how these meetings should be structured, if we’re not to be put off by continued pontification from above.

It’s all very well the unions stamping their feet like some latter-day Pompey Magnus. and expecting the foot soldiers to spring into action. But having answered grassroots anger with a coordinated strike, most will be content to going back to sleep, for now. We can’t let the momentum fade. The best way to do that is to establish, by locality, lists of people interested in continuing work as organisers not just within their own unions but in other venues too.

Whilst I have my own ideas about what exactly we need to organise, I’m more interested in the establishment of a local centre of gravity than in dictating the future, one which invites contributions from all workers of whatever political level, whatever role they hold or don’t hold in a union. Through these contributions, union reps can only improve their own performance, better representing their members and their class. And people are more than willing to share, with a little help from a ruthless, watch-wielding chair. This environment – of rigorous scrutiny and vigorous democracy – should be the backdrop to deciding where we go next.

And there are complicated questions to be answered about what comes next. Are we activists only, or is there a cross-over into electoral politics? What’s the fastest way to get rid of the Tory government? Is that the ultimate objective? Are we prepared to accept the Labour doctrine of continued cuts, albeit slower and shallower? Is our role limited to industrial questions? Are there practical ways one union can render support to others, even if we aren’t all on strike?

I suspect that last question should be the first answered; there are immediate, practical ways to begin rebuilding the political consciousness of the working class – a goal which should be common to socialists in Labour, in the Greens, in the smaller parties and those who don’t like the current gamut of party politics. For example, one goal should be the re-institution of the refusal by one worker to cross another’s picket lines. This sort of thing is vital to prepare the next national strike – and there must be more.

Rather than engaging in the sort of sectarian banter that gives Weekly Worker readers a hard-on, communists can use their skills and their knowledge of history, of other places and situations and tactics, to throw down deep roots in their class and establish a natural leadership. Merely by pushing for an aggressive line with the government and for the full accountability of those who claim to be our leaders we alienate nine-tenths of Labour Party hacks. Most Greens for that matter. This approach would be the making of any socialist, in my eyes.

One of the things which struck me so forcefully was how absolutely anathema the people brought out on Wednesday last would consider the usual sort of stilted, bureaucratic meetings that any local Labour Party basically runs on. Similarly, how ruinously dull would be judged the “political discussion” meetings so beloved of the smaller socialist parties? Millions of people are up for the challenge of beating the government and answering their ideologically-driven cuts agenda; to do them justice, we have to escape from the old paradigms. And the first step is making every meeting count.

For all the scorn Marx poured upon idealism and utopianism one might naturally think that the fine arts, contemplative as they are near-spiritual, would seem trivially vacuous to him, and out of kilter with the cold hard study of scientific socialism, which Marx’ name has obviously come to be synonymous with.

But not only was the man a keen friend of German poets during the heady days of the 1840s, but some of his earliest notebooks are filled with poems and songs that he has written.

The poetry books, consisting of 3 mixed topic albums from 1836-7, one album dedicated primarily to his Father and the largest album with 53 poems dedicated to his sweetheart Jenny von Westphalen, happened to be found at the same time as the philosophic and economic manuscripts of the 1840s – and for this reason played second fiddle.

But from material Marx wrote, to the literary criticism he and Engels produced later on, we can see that with a broadening taste came an understanding of a maturer political project.

Marx as poet

One of the criticisms that Marx’ poetry has received is that it was “technically limited” (pdf) and “pre-scientific”. Indeed for the most part, the subjects on which Marx wrote about were love, particularly for Jenny.

The poetry that Marx sent his Father, Heinrich Marx, was always appreciated, and the letters the young student would receive from the man would attest to this. Though the appreciation was not without warning. His Father, in a letter, told the young Marx:

I tell you frankly, I am profoundly pleased at your aptitudes and I expect much of them, but it would grieve me to see you make your appearance as an ordinary poetaster; it should be enough for you to give delight to those immediately around you in the family circle.

In a nod to what later become appropriated in Marx’ work on alienation, for all that the young student put into his published output, he neglected in the delights of pleasing his loved ones with private verse.

The Kantian turn

David Rjazanov, who along with Vladimir Adoratsky edited a biography of Marx in Soviet Russia, divided Marx’s poems between the purely Romantic and literary realism. It was the oscillation of is and ought in Marx’ poetry, and the emergent interest in historical conditions which tempered the literary writings, that really showed the late Marx’ becoming.

As far as the early Marx’ literary interests are concerned, it’s a very telling trajectory to see a love of the unattainable goal in Greek epic poetry to the Renaissance period motivated by revolutionary uprisings. In favourable terms Marx notes, of the ancient Greeks, that they:

still give us aesthetic pleasure and are in certain respects regarded as a standard and unattainable ideal

In this sense the unique perception and relationship Marx has with the Greeks is that it is literally a world apart, a glory in which we can only aspire, for the beauty, creativity and courage, but which achievement will never be found.

Like in the Christian Kingdom of God, the goal is the aim, and the work in trying to succeed in that aim, not the goal itself which is, by definition, unachievable.

The same cannot be said of Marx’ relationship with Renaissance poetry. As one writer put it:

Marx’s and Engels’ evaluation of the Renaissance as an age of “the general revolution,” “the greatest progressive revolution,” explains the warm sympathy they felt for the “giants” of that age. They saw the great men of the Renaissance not just as outstanding scholars, artists, or poets, but, at the same time, as great revolutionaries in world science and culture.

The same specifically with Dante. With him and his poetry, it was the opinion of Marx and Engels that they could not be separated, and that Dante’s lived experience – “as an inflexible warrior whose poetic works were infused with Party spirit” – was reflected in his work.

It could have all been so different

The course which Marx’ literary taste took reflects the movement from one side of the Hegelian coin (the idealistic, the spirit) to the one which Marx is most considered for. His own poetic work reads much like the emotional reflections of one consumed by love and dreams.

For some of Marx’ more interesting critics, not only did the poetry show a more spiritual tendency of Marx, but a move towards the dark arts, particularly Satanism. Richard Wurmbrand, a Romanian Christian who spent eight years in a Communist prison for sharing the Gospel, asked the question “was Marx a Satanist?” An example from Marx’ oeuvre, which Wurmbrand jumped upon, was two lines from a poem called Invocation of One in Despair, which reads:

On myself revenge I’ll proudly wreak,

On that being, that enthroned Lord […]

The image painted here is Marx not so much as an atheist, but an anti-theist. But to read the poem (which can be found here) one tends to pick up more of a move towards “the problem of evil”, for which an individual sense of hopelessness seems to want to blame anything that seemingly has authorship over the world. The despair felt by the narrator, in this work, hopes to be alleviated if only vengeance is taken towards the author of the felt anxiety.

Aside from the rather odd reading by Wurmbrand, the poem at least gives the feeling of isolation. The obsession with the felt, lone experience, in Marx’ early literary output gave way to a more considered prose on the collective, felt historical situation. Only this latter work was not fictional and allegorical, it was his better known works such as the Communist Manifesto and The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.

Without trying to be purposefully controversial, it should be noted that these works, though politically influential, are deeply indebted – stylistically – to literary works and aesopian language. Despite Marx’ Father’s reluctance for his son to go public with his early poetry, his flair for poetics was not lost on his public.

Lines like “Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win,” though having real-world significance, also can hardly be matched for attention to literary excellence.

The study of how Marx matured politically and philosophically is incomplete without an understanding of how he matured poetically, alongside

Update (3/12/11): Looks like I am wrong on Merkel stopping ECB action, and that the promise of the imposition of an austerity treaty may enable a short-term bail out. This is a good thing as it gives breathing space, if it comes to pass.  Nevertheless, in the longer term Merkel’s treaty will be disastrous and the British/European Left needs to combat it as best it can.

The Eurozone is sinking fast.  I thought it would hold to the New Year, but now I think I was wrong. 

The markets seem quiet today, as though they are pausing for breath. My sixth sense is that, come Monday 5th December, there’ll be the beginnings of the end as the big investors re-read Angela Merkel’s speech, realise she is not backing down, and that the European Central Bank will not  be riding to their rescue. 

Perversely, the end will begin when the markets realise Keynesian support is not forthcoming.

As the chaos and swift, deep recession take hold, Merkel will say that she acted for the German national interest in the short-term, and for the European interest in the long-term.  She will push forward undaunted with the drafting of a new treaty under which all EU countries will be held to account for their fiscal rectitude by an unelected organisation which remains effectively under her control. 

This organisation will be able to levy fines on countries that are unable to meet their fiscal targets, precisely because the austerity measures imposed in the short term as a desperate attempt to meet those targets militate against growth in the longer term.  The fines will worsen the situation. 

When Germany’s time comes to miss the targets, the rules will be reinterpreted, as those of the existing Growth & Stability Pact were reinterpreted in 2002, the last time Germany missed its targets.

The poor will suffer.  Social unrest will ensue on a scale hitherto unknown.

As this scenario starts to unfold - perhaps in around 72 hours – the British Labour Party is awaking from its Euroslumber long enough to realise that all might not be well.  

Shadow Minister Helen Goodman tells us this morning, with a nice line in both condescension and ignorant understatement,  that we’ve all been “constantly uncritical of the European institutions”, and that what’s been going on  “does suggest a rethink is needed”.

Labour hasn’t got time for a re-think. 

If Labour wants to gain any credibility on Europe, and any kind of stable economy to inherit in 2015, Miliband and Balls need to stop shouting from the sidelines about how the Tories are shouting from the sidelines. 

Yes, the Tories have abdicated, but with abdication by the Tories comes responsibility on Labour to assume control.

Instead, they should be catching the last flight out to Brussels tonight to work through the weekend with the Party of European Socialists, and whoever they can drag in (Francois Hollande would be a good start) on a joint anti-Merkel statement ready for Monday’s meltdown signs.   

This statement should be unequivocal in its short-term support for a Eurobond backed by all members, riding roughshod over Germany’s (historically) understandable but now irrelevant fears of inflation. 

The statement should also be unequivocal in its support for a revision of the Lisbon Treaty – not to move it further towards the disastrous neoliberal entrenchment Merkel’s domestic political needs demand of her, but further away from it.

Instead of fiscal targets and penalties are the heart of a new constitution should be targets for sustainable growth, employment and income equality, with fiscal measures to attain those objectives left to individual states, and the European Central Bank under the democratic control of the European Parliament.

I’m not confident, sadly, that Miliband and Balls, or the Parliamentary Labour Party in general, yet get their roles as a responsible, active opposition.

Yesterday I didn’t go on a march. 

Instead, in semi-journalist mode, I went round pickets in my area, having a bit of chat with those who were left, offering a tenner for the strike fund.  In some cases, no-one was left, and the stray placards stood forlornly by the official picket notices.  Those left behind reported that most had gone off to the marches and rallies, some to Wigan, some to Liverpool.  There were no strike fund buckets.

Those I spoke to on the semi-deserted pickets talked of their grim determination to see it through.  Not just the long hours yesterday, but the whole thing.  They know that the battle lines have now been drawn; if we lose this battle, then we’re likely to lose the war.

The overall impression I took from yesterday is that we may be getting our tactics very wrong for the war of attrition to come, and that we need to pay attention now to the basics of strike organisaton.

I accept that those who marched yesterday generally had a good time, and may have come away from the post-march rallies buzzing with solidarity.  But city centre demonstrations, where we all go to the pub afterwards, will not win us the battle.  Instead, we need to get seriously local, we need to get seriously organised, and we need to get grim.

I say this for several reasons:

1)  In the war of attrition to come, attending demonstrations will be a luxury most strikers simply can’t afford, given the travel costs and the inevitable cajolings to city centre pubs.  To keep on arranging them in light of decreasing numbers will not only look bad with the media, it also discriminates directly against the poorer strikers left to hold the picket line.

2) The strikes will take place at many thousands of different workplaces across the country.  It is important that picket lines are seen (it doesn’t matter so much about heard) whenever people pass them.  If you’re an undecided member of the public, a real life picket line – perhaps with someone you know on it – is much more effective means of attracting your support than watching a large group of jolly people waving banners on the telly.  If you’re a private sector worker going off to an industrial estate, seeing that the maintenance lads with the council base right next to your works are out in force in the freezing cold dispels the myth of gold-plated pensions quicker than any False Economy blogpost can.

2) At the level of senior union organiser too, demonstrations will become a luxury we can’t afford.  The hours and costs that go into orgnanising, publicising and controlling city-centre demos and rallies need to be diverted towards grassroots organisation.

3) The message we now need to get across is that this is for real.  We need to contrast the buffoonish, petulant, childish behaviour and image of ‘senior’ Tories – now starting to get established in many people’s minds – with the grim, silent determination of ordinary people on cold, winter picket lines.  It’s about buy-in.  A passerby who, on the third morning of seeing cold strikers, spontaneously chucks a quid into the strike fund bucket, or even toots her/his horn, has invested in the labour movement; she/he feels part of it, and there’s no turning back.  This initial buy-in is the roots of solidarity, or what we now call community organisation.

4) Likewise, keeping it day/night-long local builds solidarity both amongst the committed and the less committed.  I’m not a great one for scab-calling – I understand that workers have a whole set of countervailing pressures on them - but walking/driving past the steely silence of the co-workers who are out to defend your rights can have a motivating effect.  In public sector workplaces there are many middle and even senior managers who have risen from the shopfloor, and still share the values of their ex-colleagues.  While they may no longer feel able to join the picket themselves, a correctly organised strike fund, for example, can help them to engage, as well as making striking more possible in the longer term.

5) Large scale demonstrations create an environment for confrontation between police and workers/supporters.   The police may well be the agent of a repressive state, but we need to make clear that our enemy is the government, not the police.  It is better, through widespread local action to disperse police resources, so that they are in less of a position to express their own perverted forms of solidarity. 

All of this may start to sound like I’m denigrating the efforts and commitment of those who turned out to march yesterday.  I’m not, and I have no big problem with a one-off like yesterday, but our tactics now need to change.

The key question is where does this leave the nascent solidarity between the mainstream trade union movement and the newer, potentially powerful student/occupy movements.  

There is no doubt that the new movement has brought colour, life and energy, and this is something for us all to value and foster.  As Mil rightly says this morning:

Playing games was once the preserve of professional politicians.  Now the expertise has been massively acquired by whole swathes of amateur aficionados.

But, just as I said last December with reference to the Heinz strike, I do think the new movement needs to face the uncomfortable truth that its message has not yet reached out to the working class, despite laudable efforts to make some of those connection.   What the coming war of strike attrition offers is an opportunity to take some of the ‘expertise’ refers to places where the working class actually congregate.  The mountain will not come to Moses.

For my part, I’ll be doing my own little walk into the lion’s den on Wednesday 14th December when I do a workshop at the Bank of Ideas a  (partly) on how my old-style trade unionism can and should meet new-style rebellion through engagement in dull-sounding things like Trades Union Councils (where wider community and unions are supposed to come together, but mostly don’t).

ps.  If you’re interested in what this post has to say, please also do have a look at a post from 2008  by my blog comrade Dave Semple Student strategies and the carnivalesque, which was good then, but now looks very far-sighted.