Make high-earners, not students, pay for our crumbling higher education system.

do you lot really need to open a new thread about this every time someone says you're wrong?

yes its middle england who will be hit the worst. but it wont leave them skint lets be fair. they wont be selling their second homes or their villa abroad to pay for uni. they wont be trading in their brand spanking new car for some twenty year old renault 5. they wont have to stop buying nice clothes, they wont have to stop eating out, or going out, or taking holidays abroad, or having all the cable channels, or every family member stop using their mobile phones.

YOU CAN AFFORD TO PAY FOR THAT WHICH IS A PRIVILIGE!

Stop being so damn selfish. Many of us have nothing in our lives which remotely resembles yours. Paying your fees will not mean you have to give up anything you need, though some of you may have to only take one holiday a year. Open your eyes.

...who want to send their children to uni, but will denied the oppotunity because of the ever increasing tuition fees, or will be forced to go to a cheaper uni whose course will be seen as less prestigous than the more expensive unis? Tuition fees will ensure that education is based on ability to pay rather than ability to learn, and your inverted class snobbery is just enforcing the view that higher education is soley for middle class onwards.

Final point, if the govt put more money into education (from primary schools to univeristies), and less into helping the Yanks committ war crimes in Iraq, anyone from any background could choose to go to uni if they so wished. Why the eagerness to say that higher education is nothing to do with working class people?

Will all of you nasty bitter I-never-went -to-university-and-hate-anyone-who-did types try and use your brains?

Education is a right, not a privilege. Everyone should be able to study whatever they want for their own personal development and NOT just 'cos it'll get them a shitty well-paid job in the city.

They should certainly not have to pay for it - fear of skintness should not deter anyone from applying to go to college, whether working class, middle class or otherwise.

Would all of you witless class warriors want the NHS to charge those who are "able" to pay? Why don't you go and live in America!

And are you so twisted that you actually think that nice Tony Blair is doing this as a blow against the bourgeoisie?

There is only one fair way of charging those graduates who get cushy jobs and that's through a fair and progressive income tax system - not through dicking about with fees, which will only increase elitism in Higher Education.

I don't like students either, but it don't blind me to the fact that equal access to education is worth fighting for.

first of all.. there are already two threads open and being used for this debate:

www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/01/283862.html
www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/01/283733.html


second of all, in case you hadnt noticed the increase in tuition fees will not affect working class students at all. the argument from the middle class contingent is that if they introduce fees for the wealthy then its natural they should also increase fees for the poor, at a later date. this argument is designed to scare the working class into submission on this issue, its bs. if the gov does decide in the future to make uni more expensive for working class kids, then we'll fight them. but currently the plans are to make it EASIER for us, so dont be fooled by the rich kid argument.

thirdly, noone said that education is nothing to do with the working class, thats you making bizarre assumptions without reading properly. i dont agree with the money spent on Iraq, but thats not the issue here. the issue is Whether People Who Can Afford Uni Should Pay For It. I say AYE.


Education is a right?? Tell that to the almost 60% who dont get the chance to go to uni. tell that to the (50% of working class kids) ones who didnt get to finish their a levels, or the ones who didnt get to do their gcses. If you believe education is a right then you should be fighting the battle for Better Access To Education at pre A-Level levels. One way to ensure we have more more in the education system reaching these people is by taking the burden off at the Uni end.

Everyone should have the opportunity to study what they want for their own entertainment? Whilst I wish this were true (do you actually live in the UK?), again by giving this opportunity freely to the middle classes while denying it to the great majority of the working class, we are going in the exact opposite direction. The gov is taking small steps at a time, and the first is the necessary step of making the wealthy pay some of the costs of their privilige. Lets not forget that the £3000 max is less than a third of the actual costs per year of each students fees. Why should each middle class student have around £10000 worth of tuition a year for free when so many people earn less than this per year (£8500 is the minimum wage for over 25s)?

And as for being skint... the loans dont have to be paid back until you are earning over £15000, almost twice minimum wage. They are charged virtually no interest, and you only pay back a tiny bit at a time. I believe the figure for people earning £15000 (correct me if Im wrong) is about a fiver a week, hardly likely to leave them skint is it?

Noone suggested that nurses shouldnt have their tuition covered by the NHS, in fact i support this. What was suggested by one of you students is that this Top Up Fees would stop people wanting to be student nurses or teachers, and I merely gave you the FACt that that was complete bs.

Go and live in America? Spoken like a true Yank. I dont agree with your ill advised nonsense and you react by slagging me off and telling me to go live somewhere else.. grow up.

I couldnt care less what Tony thinks he's doing. Its the only time Ive agreed with him since he came into power, and I find that shocking myself.

Again, the Income Tax problem being sorted out I agree with. But its not just about charging higher taxes on the wealthy. They should also pay for the services they recieve. Again some basic figures - 7% of the UKs kids go to public school paying between £3100 and 5000ish (check the other thread) PER TERM. Why shouldnt they pay £3000 A YEAR for uni?

You are right, equal access to education IS worth fighting for. thats the whole point Im making. Equal access is not what we have here. We have a whole load of people getting £10000 a year in free tuition while they do less than 32 hours a week in some course they couldnt care less about. Maybe if we make them pay a bit of it they'll think harder about what they want to study, if at all, and maybe they'll treat the opportunity with more respect.

Checked my info:

Currently you have to start paying your loan back when you earn £10000. Not only has this been changed to £15000, but the system has been rejigged so that in actual fact people will be paying £450 less per year than at the moment. So why will this leave anyone skint?

at £18000 you would have to pay back £5.19 a week. Hardly going to break the bank is it.

You can't see the wood for the trees and in doing so find yourself on the side of New Labour and the elitist VCs of Oxbridge. Mmm - good company.

Random - Leaving aside your ego problems which make you think that I was specifically talking to you, a few counterpoints:

I don't give a toss if working class students are not currently affected. I'm not bound up in some lazy class war analysis - education should be free to all and I oppose means testing of any kind.

"Education is a right?? Tell that to the almost 60% who dont get the chance to go to uni. tell that to the (50% of working class kids) ones who didnt get to finish their a levels, or the ones who didnt get to do their gcses." - Again, not my problem chief, You make a good argument for widening access to education and then fuck it up by drawking pointless distinctions.

"Everyone should have the opportunity to study what they want for their own entertainment?" - Didn't say that, did I. I said "personal development". If you want to value everything by how much money it makes, and dismiss all else as "entertainment" - that's your look out. You'd have been opposed to the Renaissance as well then, I take it?


Yes I do live in the UK. Have done since I was born guv. Telling [not you you oversensitive pussy] people to "go and live in America" was my attempt to co-opt the old red-baiting "go back to Russia" line. If you think that everything should be based on the market and the ability to pay, I reckon you'd like it there.

"I believe the figure for people earning £15000 (correct me if Im wrong) is about a fiver a week, hardly likely to leave them skint is it?"

Not the point. I believe in the PRINCIPLE of free education. You don't.

"What was suggested by one of you students is..." So now you not only know where I live but what I do? Wrong on both counts.

Now fuck off.

What the hell is all this fuss and whining about?

The vast majority of these students are only going to work for the state and for their own self interests in acheiving capital gain at the end of the day and further reinforce 'acceptable shitty slave positions' within society.

FUCK THEM AND THE GOVT.

it is the working class kids in the innercities that need the money for pre-school care so they do not go into primary school illiterate and also it allows their parents to work and ease the tight purse strings. The "principle of free education" fuck off, i am paying for your university education through my taxes that are paid by me who has nto gone to university so yes university education is free for you but only because me and people like me have to pay for it!
fucking students!

I'm not going to get in to an argument about classes or taxes; education should be free for ALL students full stop.

I have graduated and earn £16,000 a year... I pay my student loan off monthly, currently at £9.72 - not a lot I agree. Yet the interest on my student loan debt is £22.34 a month. So every month my debt increases approx. £13.00. How is this fair? If I stay on this same wage I will never pay of my debt!

prolier

if it isnt your problem, then why are you bothering to enter the debate at all? if you can call that debate. you have steamed right in, rolled off a load of balls with no idea of what you're talking about, and then backed it up with swearing at me (do you think i care?) rather than any factual information. yes i accidentally typed in the wrong word, whoops. i wouldnt call half of the so called degrees available 'personal development', they are much closer to entertainment anyway. and what makes you think i have a problem with the more creative courses? i object to degree courses in anything you would be better off learning by doing the job (thats called common sense) and that wipes out more than a couple.

btw, 'guv' doesnt make you sound more english or more working class, it makes you sound like a pretender. if you paid any attention to what i was saying you'ld see that i DONT think everything should be based on money, which is why i'm fighting for the side which doesnt have any.

nothing is free honey. if you want something in your left hand you have to give something from the right, whether money is involved or not. the fact is, people who can ill afford to pay for their basic living costs continue to pay for the taxes that in turn pay for that 'free' education you keep supporting.

just to finish, asshole, "What was suggested by one of you students is..." refers to a comment made at the top of the page, and not on your post. Actually, I didnt notice you made any suggestions at all. Because you have absolutely NO IDEA what you're talking about.



Seperately, Paul Twigger,
You are pointing out a serious failure within the current system, rather than anything wrong with the future one. One of the clauses with this new deal is that after 35 years the loan is written off, so (sorry to repeat) the new way would be to pay £5.19 a week at £18000 a year. If you havent paid that off after 35 years the debt is cancelled.

Im fed up with hearing people moaning about having to be in debt, Ive never had a loan or a credit card in my life and im always in debt to someone. Unless you are filthy rich it is highly likely you'll be taking out loans for houses, cars etc. You're going to be in debt anyway. The future student loans are at least low interest.

There are probably some valid points for and against tuition fees. If the money is used well. (Unlikely and I am being very generous here) However, the £3k fee level is only capped for 5 years, a very important point which undermines this whole stream.
>
What do you think is going to happen when that 5 years is up?? Cambridge/Oxford charging £50k per year, the likes of Bristol charging at least £20k per year, big inner city unies such as Manchester charging £10k per year etc etc. It's blatantly obvious this is the course of things. The rich go to decent universities n get decent jobs, reinforcing the elite classes and the establishment, that is that. With the poor probably fighting to keep their £3k tuition grant so they can go their local Higher Ed Institute. That is why tuition fees must be challenged.
>
Having a go at the middle classes is a bit silly in the age of globalisation by the way. The establishment runs things for the very few at the top. They don't give a shit about the plebs, social climbing plebs or not. Tuition fees are an attach on all of us. If we don't watch it all of us, our children and our grandchildren are going to be shafted. Without even the possibilty of an education to improve our lot. Let's just hope that there will be an explotion in the pop star/football star jobs market, as that's going to be the only way out.
>
Unless of course we get of our arses and sort it out!

Very random ramblings endeed. If we can afford to send our army out to invade country after country, spend billions on fighter aircraft and imprison thousands of people for nothing less than not paying a fine, then I think we can afford to make education free. What the hell is wrong with this country? If we are supposedly so well off, why not share that wealth with the people and allow people to study as and when they want for free? How come a country such as Finland manages it? Too much to ask for from blairites and neoliberals in this country though!

The majority of further education requires serving up the old lies sufficiently accurately to satisfy the well-indoctrinated marker
Perhaps we should be glad that our offspring will be dissuaded from this social indoctrination technique and have a chance to learn and think for themselves
Way beyond the lies that purport to underlie our everyday experience of reality

I don't give a toss what you think of my opinions, you nasty little tosser.

I don't give a toss whether you doubt my Britishness (as if it fucking matters where I'm from - Herne Hill as it happens), linguistic expert as you so obviously fucking are, "honey."

But -

I do give a toss that bitter, divisive shitheads like you infest the IMC "left" and are about as much use to the struggle for peace, justice and progress as a soap fish.

I do give a toss that there are always twats like you seeking to undermine any protest that people try to organise.

We're all fucked if the likes of "random" represent any kind of popular opinion.

God some of the people on this site piss me off sometimes.

prolier

you've made three posts on this thread. in each one you have been deliberately offensive and yet not once have you offered any actual facts or information to back up your poorly made opinion. you're missing the entire point about debate.

you can believe whatever you wish, but may i suggest that you try to form your opinions after you have at least taken the time to learn about which you speak. otherwise, you just come across as a fool.

if you're trying to wind me up you've failed, because other than taking a few seconds to answer you, you have had absolutely no impact on me at all. i think its very sad that someone as truly ignorant as you has the facility of a pc and web connection, when many more intelligent people have to go without.

opinion is a personal matter, and i dont resent people for thinking differently to me. however i will still try to engage them in a sensible conversation, to see if i can persuade themn otherwise, and also to see if i too can learn something new. i get the impression from you that you arent at all interested in this subject, and are just here to be a pain in the ass. although you are succeeding, is that really the impression you want to give?

--------------------------------------------------------------------

read chomsky,

i find it highly unlikely that in five years time suddenlly these unis will charge whatever they fancy. i expect the cap to rise, otherwise it would be totally out of sync with costs etc. however, if it ever looks as bad as you suggest, i reckon we'll all be fighting it together. i also would expect that when the cap rises, grants and bursaries will rise in line with it. to be honest i think you're more scared than you should be.


as for "Having a go at the middle classes is a bit silly in the age of globalisation" etc, there is a huge difference between the middle classes and the working classes. we do not live even remotely similar lifestyles. the objection im making on this thread is that the middle class students who can afford to pay these fees without any change in their lifestyle at all, are objecting to doing it because for some reason they think they deserve it all free. Put it into perspective, for every student (most of them middle class) it costs us over £10000 a year for their uni career alone. Compare this to the £8500 (before tax) that an adult over 25 earns on minimum wage, the £2249 we pay per year to someone under 25 on income support or unemployment benefit, or the £4027 per year we pay for the highest rate of basic state pension, all for these people to actually live on, not for their education.

From Sept 2004 the government is introducing an Education Maintenance Allowance, up to £30 a week to help children in low income families to stay in education for the two years after they reach 16. This adds up to £1560 per year to help them with their education. This is much less help than that offered to those Uni students.

When you start to look at it from this point of view, University starts to feel like a middle class unemployment benefit, with a load of wicked extras thrown in.

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ZZ,
Although I agree we waste lots of cash invading other countries, not taxing the rich properly, subsidising big business etc, if we DID have that money to play with i can think of better ways to spend it other than using it to pay for the education of people who can easily pay for it themselves. And i wouldnt call my ramblings random at all.

I am not fully aware of every technicality in this case, but it seems to me that again, there are many well-off people, call them middle class if you like but that might be missing the point to a certain degree, who DO NOT want to pay even though they are well-off and in some cases wealthy. The issue is selfishness and greed, full stop!!

If we had a government with balls, and that was geared to social justice, education would be free to all British citizens, class and anything else notwithstanding, and the poorest students would be helped financially. Unfortunately, Blair is obsessed with not offending this mythical 'middle England' who, although seeming to have the best jobs, best housing, best salaries, best lifestyles etc etc, are determined not to put their hands in their pockets and all seem to moan and bleat and complain the loudest when any form of progressive taxation or fairness comes along. Let's be perfectly honest; WHY CANT THOSE WITH THE MONEY PAY MORE THAN THOSE WITHOUT? Why is a very wealthy country like Britain constantly creating artifical pockets of poverty, and then getting mired in the inevitable clashes of those with and those without? If Blair and any of these politicos, of any class or party brand, had any real balls or guts, they would implement free education for all, with a helping hand for those who were poorest. In fact, a decent society, a civilised society would implement those ideals in every sphere of its activities. Simply put, if you can pay you pay, if you can't, you don't. Or am I being too naive? Doesn't all social justice really hinge on the poverty of the poor and the overabundance of the too-wealthy?

By the way, its "arse", not "ass" in this country, oh alleged "Yank" hater.

Kissy kissy

On every single point that the anti-top-up-fee pressure groups have put on the UK-IMC has been argued against convincingly by random and to a lesser extent myself and a couple of other amusing points. The main arguments against the fees are:
principle - "free education for all" - that is rubbish because it must bepayed for by someone.
Debt - "students should not be lumbered with huge debts" on this front the students will be better off - especially the poorer ones - because of burseries and a higher threashold for payments not to mention that they will be charged *after* graduation (which is important)
The government should tax the rich/big buisness to pay for it - With extra money in the tresury there are many more better things to help social justice etc... than fill the black hole that is the universities. A persons future is actually decided when they are 3 years old - that is where we should be putting money in.

Beyond these points it has just decended into slagging off each others mum, and if that is the best that you can do then maybe you need to get some education. I dont know what my credibility is on UK-IMC but i suppose you might want to call me one of the people from the so called "left" that divides opinion on this site. - either way i stand by my position.

translator

there are definitely a couple of people that are here just to offend rather than to provide any intelligent thoughts or arguments into the mix.

im still waiting for a credible argument against top up fees myself. everything the opposite side have said has been discredited quickly. i've noticed they make things up or spread false information when they get desperate - arguing that their priviliges are good for society as a whole, saying that it will stop people wanting to do nursing or teaching, that it will leave them more in debt or force poorer students out. Its all rubbish, and doesnt stand up to scrutiny. it has even been suggested that to not support these protests in some way damages democracy, which made me chuckle.

on the subject of the thousands of students who arent at uni for any worthwhile reason, noone ever replies, except to point out that they personally are not like that. i have to assume that they agree on the majority point.

we all know its pointless, because those with the money always get their own way. but i wont let that stop me trying and im glad that others are doing it too. maybe if these people werent so blind, they'd see the damage that having their freebies does to the less wealthy community. i cant imagine why they arent sick with guilt.

i can think of cities with two unis, and more close by. yet they have so little in the way of youth centres and other facilities for the poor. its a twisted situation.

The argument on top-up-fees has made me think about the core problems with respect to the top-up-fees and the "protest generation" in general and i have come to some profound answers (well they are profound for me but other may have already realised them).
On top-up-fees it is two fold -
1)Calous greed on the part of the average and better off students - who in these proposals will have to put more in.
2)The changes in society as a whole has left the far left and left in general out of pocket in terms of working class support - this has been through the end of the decline of the manufacturing industries and their traditional union power and the turn toward retail and services industries where there is no union. This means that the last unions that have any sort of power are the NUS where only the university students can participate in elections etc... (this leads to middle class representatives because the NUS members in college are less likely to be middle class compared to the university members), the fire brigade union and the far more general trade unions e.g the TGWU. The more general trade unions like unison and the TGWU have tried to flex their muscles but are more based on giving their members financial support the richer the better.
Youth provision is not on the agenda because it is a demand from the crime ridden inner cities, reviving the inner citiees in general because the left would prefer exasserbate the situation and try to profic from it and pre-school care is not on the agenda because there are no intelectual marxists promoting it partly because they cant comprehend stuff like social mobility and life chances.
I know this thread is about top-up-fees but i happen to believe that there are wider imlications and larger forces at play and in short the left is out of ideas.

I think you should open up a new thread on this very subject, because people may not find it here. I'll definitely be up for further discussion and debate about this. Yes I could open it myself now but i only have ten minutes before my dinners ready and my family is gonna start to get ratty if i spend any more time on here (in case you hadnt realised ive spent hours hunting down the details for all my arguments... research takes forever, sigh..)

Where are the protests about in favour of a living wage, rather than the pathetic minimum?

How about trying to get the gov to put a cap on rent, so private landlords couldnt overcharge the way they do? Maybe they could even make landlords charge to a 'quality system', and do spot checks to make sure properties are looked after.

Where are the students protesting against the anti social behaviour bill?

These three all affect the poorer students. To hear some students conversation, living in manky accomodation and doing badly paid jobs is kind of a 'rite of passage', you do it at uni so that you can say later "well i have been there you know". Little do they realise that for many people this will extend throughout their whole life.


We could spend more on our community centres, instead of making them beg for lottery cash all the time. We could make sure they all have 24 hour on call counsellors.

I'd like to see community centres provide weekly debate space, where members of the community can come listen and debate on local and national policies etc, with enough funds to pay for 'outside' talkers... can you imagine if working class kids and parents had the opportunity to have the sort of lectures that uni kids are privy too? i bet they'd ask different guests though, reckon mark thomas would be busy for a while. Theres one good way of tackling community problems.

The rights we have as commoners (the majority of us, working class & 'middle') were fought for and won at great expense. Since Thatcher they've been steadily and successfully chipped away at. Whether it be free education for all, a decent working wage, or reasonable working hours or a whole host of other things which we should regard as our right. We're a very rich nation and we can easy afford good health and education for all. Although Random makes some good points why must we loose these rights because some have relatively more than others (I'm just talking about the majority of us here, working class, middle class, commoners whatever). Like other people have been getting at, the public money lavished on the military-industrial complex which benefits the very few already disgustingly rich, should be spent on education at all levels, community centres, hospitals etc.

A simple solution to the higher ed issue would be to put up corporation tax, afterall who benefits from a highly educated workforce who get paid buttons and work long hours,(when compared to other rich nations)? It's interesting to note that since Thatcher, Corporation Tax has gone down whilst Personal Tax has gone up whilst public services have gone down whilst big business subsidy has gone up. We're all being shat on. So instead of having a go at the 'left' or the 'middle classes' see your real enemy. The business political parties (all 3), globalisation, the military - industrial complex, us/uk imperialism etc etc. The world is now run for their benefit and they don't give a shit about you. Random and translator you're obviously intelligent people, wake up n see the bigger picture.

for too long the internation problems have been seen as "sexy" and the run down inner cities have been forgotten, if the top-up-fees are passed then the attitude from the activists will be "we have done our bit for the home front" - which is wrong especially when bby the time someone is at university they have already cut themselves out a future. I know that the militry-industrial-prison complex is wasting our money but be realistic they will not sacrifice trident for the sake of uni fees. I will be out there on mayday and many other days protesting against the international infustices but our inner cities are in dire need of revival, and the people profiting from it are the BNP. - they see the selfish left getting priviliges for the middle students and they get angry so they rebel and some do a protest vote for the BNP. I am angry too - but my rebbelion is not for the bnp, my rebbelion is for the working class and their interests.

read chomsky, you are making the mistake of thinking that there are few differences between the lower and middle classes. in my opinion, the middle has much more in common with the upper class.

we rent. our landlords treat us like scum and when things break they are left to rot more often than they are fixed. if you live in a block of flats its is highly likely that there is no working lift, and that the hallway stinks of piss. there is nowhere for the youths to go, we cannot afford gym memberships, golf, meals out, etc. working class families cannot afford widescreen tvs, hi spec pcs, the various kitchen equipment you never use, the myriad of cable channels you never watch. most of our furniture belongs to the landlord, or is an odd assortment of second hand stuff from wherever we can find it, we will rarely get the opportunity to buy a brand new mattress. we do not redecorate even once every ten years, or redo the kitchen or bathroom EVER. we do not drive, or we have old bust up vehicles third hand. our clothes are from budget shops, we would not consider spending over £50 on a pair of jeans or shoes. the way we shop is entirely different to you, on the high street or in the supermarket. we check out EVERYTHING, we see if we can find it cheaper elsewhere and we are proud when we get a bargain. we check our change. if we dont work, we are considered to be scroungers. if we do, we are treated like scum. we rarely take any holidays, if we do they are likely to be to stay with friends. it is highly unlikely we will be taking many trips abroad.

i could go on and on pointing out the things we do not have that seem to be the 'absolute basics' for a middle class family. however its all material, isnt it?

but opportunity isnt. middle class kids have the opportunity to do their a levels without having to work, pay rent, whatever. they can have extra tutoring, access to the web at home, whatever books etc they need. they have extra curriculur opportunities too, music and holidays and many other things that our families cannot afford. they have driving licenses, and often they have cars too. they have years out to travel and see the world, and money to buy tickets. they have credit for any times they are short. they have nice clothes to wear to interviews, and nice accents for bosses to admire. they can easily raise start up capital if they have an idea for a business, and they have support if they choose university. all of these opportunities....

if you think i hate middle class people, you are very wrong. but i do resent this inability to see how much of a good thing you've got. its like you dont see how we live, dont get it at all. you think we're all part of the same gang, but you live in luxury while we live in shit. you may think its not that easy, but trust me, compared to this life it is. do you even understand what is meant by 'hand to mouth'? some guy complained on a different board, "how will i be able to pay into my pension and buy a house while im paying back my student loan?".... Pensions? Owning our own home? Gosh, next you'll be complaining about not being able to afford Private Healthcare...

I think that any argument based on 'we're all the same' is doomed to fail, because we do not live remotely similar lifestyles at all. This was illustrated well in todays news, some middle class village has been issuing attack alarms because a villager was murdered on his doorstep. as horrible as this is, some of us live in areas where this is an everyday occurence, but noone cares at all. i've called the police after an attack and waited FIVE HOURS, on the street, for a response, do you think that wouldve been the case if Id have been in a middle class area??

the worse thing about being us is the worthlessness. our employers, our government, does not consider us worthy enough to pay a living wage to us, or to listen and respond to our difficulties. when something is wrong for us, we're told we did it to ourselves, rather than it being the position society has abandoned us in.

im sorry this has been such a long rant, but i cant understand these arguments that we are all the same. please dont be so blind. i know this whole speech has been generalising, but you cant generalise more than saying 'we're all the same really' so i felt i had a free hand...

Great article. The issues are many of the differences between the poor working classes and the well-off middle classes, but you have written a well put together rant! The best rant I've seen for ages! Nice one.

Quite honestly, the real problem is not that we ('the government' in this case) should be spending more money on socially progressive policies. The problem is that any money saved from taxing the middle class will simply be spent on repression, criminalisation and prohibition of working (and to some extent middle) class activities. Whether in this country, or by invading or provoking conflict in a different country.

I agree that the rich should pay their dues, but top-up fees where you get £3000 as a 'poor' student will simply hit the poor, - both directly - and indirectly, - as the money saved will be used against the working class. Getting £3000 up-front is still not enough to survive as a student in any part of the UK. Perhaps a £7000 grant, maybe a bit more, but £3000 doesn't even cover the rent.

The only solution is towards higher direct taxation, and savings in socially repressive areas of spending.

you're misunderstanding the fee system - the £3000 is for tuition, there will still be other maintenance grants and loans available to help with rent and living costs, just as there are now.

You do have a point about rent costs though. Where there are students, many different studies have shown that house purchase and rent prices go through the roof. It hits us normal tenants really badly, as well as the students.

I absolutely think its time for the gov to set fair rent prices. Maybe properties could be graded, by size, by location and by quality. Then the government (not the local councils, which are full of private landlords) should set the rent prices, and landlords could not overcharge the way they do. I know it sound complicated, but I dont think it needs to be. It would make allocating housing benefit and maintenance grants a lot easier too.

Maybe it would even put some landlords of Buying To Let, which would perhaps give more people the opportunity to buy their first home.

Im also in favour of making homeowners pay full council tax on their second (and any more) 'empty' homes. I think this would encourage them to 'fill up or sell up'.

And to finish, because council tax is partly for services now and partly for upkeep for the future, and tenants tend to move around quite a lot so wont see those benefits, I think landlords should have to pay a slice of the council tax. I cant see this ever happening but its something thats bugged me for a long time!

>Quite honestly, the real problem is not that we ('the government' in this case) should >be spending more money on socially progressive policies. The problem is that any money >saved from taxing the middle class will simply be spent on repression, criminalisation >and prohibition of working (and to some extent middle) class activities. Whether in this >country, or by invading or provoking conflict in a different country.

good point but if top-up fees are not actually invoked then all the government will do is increase general taxation to pay for increases in higher education. Also I rekon that working class students will be much better off paying their fees after graduation because by then they will have a decent job (or if not default on their loan after 25 years). They will not have to carry debt while at uni and only start paying back after wards, it is the middle class students that want big mortgages and big cars that will loose out because mummy and daddy wont be able to pay off their debt.


>I agree that the rich should pay their dues, but top-up fees where you get £3000 as >a 'poor' student will simply hit the poor, - both directly - and indirectly, - as the >money saved will be used against the working class. Getting £3000 up-front is still not >enough to survive as a student in any part of the UK. Perhaps a £7000 grant, maybe a bit >more, but £3000 doesn't even cover the rent.
Either way £3000 is better than nothing and also they get the chance to pay less fees also. Your logic is also flawed '£3000 grant is not enough for students and the savings used against the poor'. The savings mean we pay less tax through NI and the grant means that we (if we choose to go to uni) will be better off at uni untill we get a proper job afterwards.


>The only solution is towards higher direct taxation, and savings in socially repressive >areas of spending.
I would like to see that too but lets be realistic the government has already commited itself to spending more on the MOD and the nature of government has changed from almost totally being about the militry to instead protecting the middle class through service benefits (additional education, health and jobs!) and at the same time giving the working class areas the short straw by neglecting working class proffesions and areas.

By the way i must mention - great article/comment random, it reminds me of when i was getting alot of shit from "youths" and the police never confronted them (even after attempted arson). Later about 18months after i had moved house and the area went "up market" i got mugged in that area and it took the police 5 minutes to be there. times change.

Random. You would probably 'class' me as 'middleclass' as I wasn't eligible for a grant and had to get into debt to go to uni. However, just about everything you listed as 'middleclass' is alien to me. I don't have the golf driving semi detatched gym membership lifestyle you ludicrously portray the 'middle' classes as having. It's about as realistic as saying all 'working' class people don't work, scrounge of the dole, thieve n do drugs. It's simply media/political driven right wing bollocks with the intention of instilling fear or hate, so we feel we need for the establishment's 'protection'. Divide n Rule. A Great British Establishment philiosophy.

By the way I live in a two up two down terrace in Merseyside, I own my own home, I have a little car, I commute to work etc. However, I'm in massive debt, I get no help at all from the state, my house is in dire need of repair n the only holiday's i have are camping weekends. What you are describing maybe 'middleclas' down south (a presumption) but it's not like that on Merseyside. That's Lord Derby as far as my comprehension goes.

It's also worth remembering that although I didn't get any assistance at uni because my parent's income, they are not the ones who are paying off the debt now. And, another point, you may know this, Does it not cost more to send someone to prison than send them to uni? Which action do you think will contribute most to society. I'm presumming you understand the concept of 'society'? (Friendly dig).

there are several variables which help lead people through the maze of social class (it has been clouded recently with blair saying "we are all middle class now").

1.income: £21 000 is the median wage
2.assets: do you have any assets? (other than your house) 50% of the population share less than one percent of the countried assets.
3.post code: is it a middle class area or not?
4.education: school/college/6th form/university/etc...
5.personal/familly history: did your parents go to univeristy?
6.current job: where are you in the hierachial pyrimid? are you someone elses boss?
7.luxuries: expensive clothes? meals out? new car?

It is not an exact science and it takes alot of honesty. These are only my personal guidelines and there is no 50/50 split, e.g with the post code one some areas move "up market" and still contain a large majority of working class people. With me i do not consider middle class people as 'bad people' but i am aware they use more natural resources and have many more luxuries.
I do not own a car - dont plan to either. Middle class people are not nessasarily golf club members and cigar smokers (like the traditional myth), but they do tend to live in suburbs and random is right about the expensive clothes and meals out.
I can understand what you mean about the debt, it is true that although middle class people have more luxuries - often it is all paid through debt and it ends up as a high portion of thier income goes on paying off the debt. Student debt is different because it is at such a low level compared to credit card debt or normal loans. To compare student loans in your way to normal loans is untrue because a graduate (even one with maybe 15k to 20k of debt) will not actually inhibit them from getting more loans (that is what the banks are saying). As a working class person the later fees would help me if i chose to go to university.

When people polarise their views of each other, as in class groups, they tend to reinforce negative stereotypes that they think are the worst attributes of those they dislike or mistrust. 'The working class are lazy and drink too much' 'the middle class are greedy and selfish' etc etc. It is a wheel that never stops turning and it can go on and on. It is however all negative, even if their are working class and middle class people who are negative and unpleasant and anti-social in one way or another.

The Class System in Britain is the overarching structure that we all adhere to, or react against, in one way or another. Class is not what it used to be, and though there is still poverty, and sometimes savage poverty and injustice in Britain, what the average working class person has if they have a reasonable job and are careful with their money and so on, isn't so bad compared to poor and working class people in many other parts of the globe. However, and it has to be said, the problem in Britain as a whole isn't that there isn't enough to go around, it is that some people get very greedy and the result is that there is overabundance in some areas and a lack of even basic resources and employment in others. The poverty is also that of 'poverty of opportunity', where those who have abundantly, can then go on to have even more. What we are then talking about is, at best, a 'natural' progression of any person or family wanting the best for their offspring and relations and so on, and at worst social injustice and despiteful greed, a greed that goes beyond 'feathering one's nest' and ends up with a person becoming unnaturally addicted to wealth and keeping up with the Jones'.

No one with a very good job, an expensive house, a bulging bank account, a decent car or two, a wine cellar, memership of exclusive clubs and perhaps a holiday home and all the perks of wealth and earned (even unearned) privilege really needs to add more and more to that. I am not talking about average earners here, of whatever class they belong to or profess to, I am talking about people who are to all intents cash and resource wealthy. When it doesn't stop at this, we have at worst 'greed-monsters' whose rapaciousness for more and more outstrips their needs, and all reason and commonsense. It is then that wealth is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, and the good jobs and lifestyles and opportunities are concentrated, creating consciously and unconsciously, ghettoes of wealth and of course ghettoes of poverty. And this creates the seemingly division of the class system. It is far too simple to say all this group are such and such, and all these people are so and so. It goes deeper than that because we are all individuals replete with our own biases, prejudices and fears and etc etc. I despise the Class System as anyone should despise any unjust social structure, but it appears that in the absence of class systems and apartheids, then there will be another structure anywhere in the world where someone is justifying more for them and less for someone else. That is the crux of the matter. It is largely an economic issue, and an issue of greed and unequal resource distribution.

chomsky, yes i would put you as middle class. you own your own home and you own a car. yes you're in debt paying for these, but that debt is an investment.

most of the people i know rent. Renting is often more expensive than a mnortgage. and it is no investment. our houses are often falling apart too, only we really do have no control over that, whereas you do, even if it takes a while to get there. Most of my friends dont drive, neither me nor my brothers have even got licences, these things are too expensive. This absolutely limits the sort of work we can do and where we can do it.

i appreciate that those at the bottom of the middle class scale do not have county club passes, but i know people who do. its the little luxuries, the odd night out, trip to the cinema, a week away, etc that make all the difference. My friend is getting married soon, and me and my partner cant even afford to go to the stag/hen do's, let alone buy them a present. WE'll make them something and hopefully they'll like it.

i own one pair of jeans, i wear them every day and when they're in the wash i have a £4 pair of tracky bottoms from argos i wear. when they come out of the wash they go on the radiator and then back on my legs. i have a coat that is five years old, with a broken zip, that doesnt fit and i cant afford a new one. i own exactly one pair of shoes. we can never afford to go out, although my partner does own a car (extremely useful as we have a baby, many people dont have one).

I know to you it seems like a constant struggle with debt, but Im in debt and I have nothing! i wouldnt mind so much if i had some stuff, clothes or whatever. I read an article that said the average household in britain is paying for its bills etc with loans and credit cards, it appears a lot of middle class families are living on borrowings. This is a very worrying situation. I dont really understand why people who have all their necessities and a bit extra would want to borrow so much.

In regard to these issue of access to higher education and student funding.

I'm working class and love learning, always have done, unfornately the education system has always got in the way of that for me, as it does for the vast majority of working class people. I was amongst a huge number of working class youth here in Liverpool who couldn't get job in the 1980's, so we went into Further Education at our local college (demolished circa 1997). I was a part-time student, ie being unemployed and surviving on benefits in poverty.

Now I wanted to study media production and it's really hard for working class people to get on these courses. I've got plenty of stories of the endemic class prejudice throughtout the education system, personal ones and those told to me by close friends and my family.

I had an unconditional offer for a place at Leeds Poly in 1989 but I decided instead to take a full time paid job as a Student Union president at a college that now no longer exists 'Millbrook' in the North East of Liverpool, a decision I don't regret. The reality for me was going to Polytechnic (to do practical based courses) or even University, was that I'd spend three years in even more poverty than I was already living in, with no guarantee that I'd even get a job at the end of it. In 1988 students had housing benefit withdrawn, students were stopped from claiming unemployment benefit or 'supplementary benefit' has it was then called during the holidays. So already for me and other working class students we lost housing benefit meaning we would probably be restricted to studying at our home town/city Poly's or Uni's, for me that wasn't an option because there weren't any media production courses on Merseyside. In 1989/90 the Poll Tax was introduced and the NUS crowed at how it got it reduced by 80% for students, thus from the grants frozen in 1989 students were expected to pay for 20% of Poll Tax, full cost of housing, no benefit through the summer months while unemployed. Then in 1990 came the loans to top up the frozen grants, or as we working class people perceive them "debts". Graduating students were ruthlessly pursued by the Student Loans Company's debt collectors and the bailiffs sent in to many, not something you hear much about is it. The government gave 'Access Funds' (sounds like Blair's Bursuries don't it) to colleges of FE and the Poly's and Uni's this was supposed to compensate for the loss of housing benefit and supplementary benefit claims in the summer. But it was a token and inadequate gesture and didn't replace a fraction of the housing benefit lost, many of the colleges abused the access funds and used it for college budgets, one example I recall from the NUS survey used it for buying books. You had to go cap in hand, prove you were poor, prove you'd taken out a loan, show them your bank accounts to gain perhaps a paltry handout maybe a one off £30 if you were lucky. I was an SU president for two years, and in that time we along with the many other SUs nationally went to our banks and told them if they (the big four banks) supported the government loans scheme we'd pull our funds, so collective action and the threat loss of numerous and often huge SU accounts forced them to withdraw, so the Student Loans Company was set up.

I was reading a leaflet from 1988 and it stated that then only 5% of working class youth got into University. Fact is academia is the middle class obsession, because they benefit directly. The sift and sort that decides who in society gets the well paid jobs gets done at 16 when the vast majority of working class youth already demoralised by poverty, poor housing and third rate education at the hands of middle class teachers who often despise, oppress, brutalise and demoralise us in the most deprived comprehensive schools. A'levels are where it's decided who will get into Higher Education and become middle class if you're not already. Most working class youth find the level of study intolerable our education simply doesn't prepare us for it we're purposely hampered otherwise there'd be too many people going into H.E. and not enough poorly educated, working class youth to be exploited by the poverty pay bosses. Though many of us hampered by our already poor education do surprisingly struggle though, though we're still treated with contempt by the lecturers and middle class students by and large. The majority of working class youth are out in the real world at 16 getting jobs just to live, because our parents can't afford to keep us without some income.

In the days when we had the Polytechnics set up by a Labour government in the 1960's to widen education access to H.E. the whole process was less harrassing than applying for the Uni's is now. Polytechnics application procedure was obviously less 'class' prejudiced than the Uni's, until the application process was merged along with the Poly's becoming new elite Uni's. Thus all H.E. 'UCAS' applications have the 'class' prejudice application forms from the Uni 'UCCA' forms which asked the class based question "what is the occupation of your parents", I accuse in that one question of the entire H.E. system of starting from first contact with 'class' based prejudice, it's to enable monitoring they say, bullshit, it unfairly biases your chance of interview at Uni without even stepping across the threshold.

Let's not fool outselves, working class students were cleared out en-masse in the early 1990's. Remember the 'soup kitchens' run by the Student Unions, because of 'working class' student poverty during those few years. There was also overcrowding because of the mass influx of middle class students who had to be accommodated at holiday camps because these new Uni's hadn't got enough 'Halls of Residence' space for them, that was when 'we' the working class were clearly forced out in the early 1990's, though defiantly a few of us still aspire and still struggle to get through putting huge economic pressures on ourselves and our families.

Blair and co. claim that more people are going to Uni' because of the expansion, but look at it, it's more middle class students. Remembering that in the 1980's the Thatcher government cut the taxes of the middle class through cutting the benefits of the working class in work and the unemployed, pensioners and the sick. It was a massive transfer of wealth from the majority to the minority. So middle England is angry, because it doesn't want to spend it's accumulated wealth in tax cuts (gained from working class cutbacks) since the 1980's on their children's education, thus when we hear about 'poorer students' what that is code for is working class students, we can't afford to go to Uni' in the first place I realised as much back in 1989 that's FIFTEEN years ago, because we know we've not got parents in well paid professional jobs to subsidise us through our education or bail us out when the loan company comes knocking or send the bailiffs in.

Additionally a hidden policy of the Uni's; they prefer out of town students over local students, because then they can get rent income from them in halls of residence, which are over priced sometimes £60 a week plus for a pokey little room. I was informed of the scandal a few years ago at Newcastle Uni' where it was exposed that it wasn't taking local 'working class' students in favour of out of town middle class students, who would do as advised and live in halls of residence for the first year boosting the income of these now private Higher Education corporations.

So when we hear about what Blair is offering poorer (ie working class) students to silence his opposition what is it? A grant of what £1500, this is to pay the tuition fees, with an accompanying loan to probably try and live off what is it... £1500 a year, rent at £60 a week comes to roughly £3000 a year alone. Not forgetting your living costs, food, heating, phone bill, gas, electricity, TV license, clothing, daily travel to Uni' I even forgot about books, paper and other course materials, forgetting that arts student have a fortune to pay out in materials costs, etc, etc... Oh so Blair mentioned the Burseries, these are like the Access Funds for those who are prepared to go 'cap in hand' and humiliate themselves and prostrate themselves in front of middle class administrators show them our bank accounts and plead poverty and then what can we expect if the money is already allocated on a first come first served basis. Is it any wonder that those minority 'working class' and less wealthy middle class students have to take low waged jobs just to feed themselves(incidently these were the jobs that local young people used to take until the early 1990's) thus the minority working class students are crushed by the system even if they get in by rising debt, working in the evenings and weekends, poverty, poor housing conditions in private housing and health due to the stress of trying to fit full time study around working to fund it.

Also the riddiculous argument that students should have to contribute something to their education, well they do when they get a job, as they'll pay more tax as a percentage if they are high earners, but myself as a Socialist believe we should increase corporation tax and bring back progressive taxing for the wealthy, including the middle class who will then benefit from the collective benefits of fully funded education system for all.

So let's no fool ourselves that these variable tuition fees if beaten will be a victory for working class students, it won't be, the variable tuition fees are in reality the further push of the 'free market' in every aspect of our lives and it was the Labour Party Fabians who first called for variable tuition fees by the way. It's mentioned that poorer students (ie working class) students won't be able to afford to get into Oxford or Cambridge because of variable tuition fees it's a red herring, we're rarely found in these elistest institutions full stop, recall the straight A's comprehensive students who've been turned down in recent years as highlighted in the media. What it actually means is the lower sections of the middle class are now starting to feel the effects of the full force the capitalist free market and after letting it rip on us working class since in the 1980's it's now making middle class life a little less stable and secure... Well remember 1984, it's twenty years since the battle to close British Mines and the working class have paid the price ever since.

So what would be my suggestion... Well support the SLP and it's education policy funding for all, better access for the working class. >>>

In higher education, student grants must be restored and the student loan system - which has kept so many young people from education - must be abolished. The *Socialist Labour Party* believes that grants in line with minimum wage levels should be available for all full-time students. All benefits (including housing and unemployment) that have been withdrawn from students since 1979 should be restored.

Education should be available to us all at whatever age. All adults should have the right to planned study leave during their working lives - and effective campaigning by the Labour movement to reduce the working week can turn such an opportunity into reality for millions.

There have been positive moves in Scotland on education, particularly insofar as student grants and teachers' conditions are concerned. However, these measures are only palliative.

What is needed throughout England, Scotland and Wales is a system which provides free education at colleges and universities, the payment of all grants by central government and an undertaking to pay students an income equal to the national minimum wage.

<<< Taken from the SLP manifesto...


Incently the NUS have and continue to be useless, I imagine Mandy Telford will become another ex-NUS MP for the Labour party as payment for keeping the students from taking to the streets. Just like Labour MPs Lorna Fitzsimmons Rochdale, Stephen Twigg Enfield, Jim Murphy Scottish MP, these were all beneficiaries of grants and of higher education in the case of Lorna Fitzsimmons a working class (traitor) from Rochdale they all voted for implementation of tuition fees during the first term of this Labour Government.

Incidently I see my local Labour MP, Bob Wareing is a speaker at this University debate tonight, he's useless, called himself a socialist in 2001 when he got re-elected, take it from me as one of his constituents, he's useless, not a socialist for sure, a former F.E. college lecturer, born in Norris Green and has stood by while our local college and swimming pool were demolished in the 1990's and stays silent while our homes have been bulldozed in the past two years. He's a favourite of the nicey-nicey 'collaboring left' who wheel him out to perpetuate the illusion the Labour party has some decent people in it, well it doesn't he's useless and I hope to stand against him in 2005 for the SLP...

Kai Andersen, Liverpool West Derby CSLP

Kai, I agree with everything you say, eloquently and comprehensively put.

One point:

"What it actually means is the lower sections of the middle class are now starting to feel the effects of the full force the capitalist free market and after letting it rip on us working class since in the 1980's it's now making middle class life a little less stable and secure... Well remember 1984, it's twenty years since the battle to close British Mines and the working class have paid the price ever since".

Well I dont remember 1984 to any great extent (I was 10) but I feel this is very true. As I have been advised above I am 'middle' class, (I meet 2 of the criteria on translator's measurement of class and I have been so advised by Random as I own a small terraced house on Merseyside and I have an old banger), and I can see around me what the capitalist free market is doing. If I earned more money (I certainly don't meet that criteria for 'middle' classness Translator), I would happily pay more tax to ensure decent public services, including free access to education for all. However, with the media what it is and popular politics shifting constantly to the right, are the 'Middle' class' likely to agree with me? I doubt it. Most of them have been completely brainwashed, by the cold war propaganda machine, corporate power, right wing press etc etc.

Yes the 'Working' class got shafted and 'Lower Middle' classess are now being shafted, but does that mean the 'Working' class should support it? It's ridiculus. We should be challanging the establishment, who as I've said, are only interested in the wealthy elite, the military-industrial complex, corporate power etc. I.E. Not you and not me. We need to challange the fear mongerers (Sun, Daily Mail, Sky etc) and reclaim democracy, this will inevitably lead to socialism and greater equality as people on the whole do have a sense of fairness and justice (it might sound naive but it is true). The majority of people are just out of wack due in the main to propaganda. We on the 'left', and if you are a supporter of the 'working' class you are on the 'left', must kick up a stink every time the establishment chips away at something else or spins lies. If nobody trusts the establishment, papers, corporations etc, more people will be won over to the 'left' and a progressive future could be had. As it is going the future for most of us will be Dickensian for the majority of us, forget working class and middle class, we're all gonna be paupers, peasants and commoners.

Random, in response to your prev posting, you are right when you say, without a car it is difficult to find decent work and a mortgage is cheaper than renting. This is precisely why I had to get into debt, because I couldn't find local work and I couldn't afford to keep paying rents. But because I got into debt in order to hopefully improve my income does this mean we are that different? Should you get a free(er) education whilst I get into serious debt if I want one? Whilst the government spends millions, possibly billions, on £600,000 'accurate' missiles just to bomb innocent people back to the stone age. Do you think this is right? Education is a right. Public financial support for high tech and miltary industry, in the guise of 'defense', is not. Changing this is a realistic goal, we just need to take on the fear mongerers.

The issue of class isn't simply black and white, there are those who are working class like me but who are class traitors who ally with their class enemy against their fellow working class like me. Then there are middle class people who are also class traitors to their own class, ie they ally with the working class, I've found a lot of them in the SLP youth section, they're not patronising middle class people thus their social differences don't cause hostility I can work with them for the greater good, because it's only when the majority consciously decide to change society that we will do... Those are the social areas where class boundaries overlap.

It's increasingly becoming a case that poorer sections of the middle class are now falling into the working class economically speaking, thus their conditions place them alongside working class people, however they haven't been brought up under life long working class conditions ie the poor housing, the poor schooling, poor health care, poor public services, childhood poverty due to low parental income, etc. However if they are amongst us then they'll be with us on our terms and maybe they'll be accepted when they've proved worthy of being accepted, not like those leech like pompous middle class people of the 'left' who want to join the working class 'temporarily' to mislead or dictate to us.

For the working class to be liberated and the poorest to have society run for their best interest they'll have to lead themselves for only that way do those who have the least to lose and the most to gain lead the way forward. Myself I'm hostile to middle class people until they prove me wrong, they rarely do, that's not unfair that self-defence, prove you're worthy of equal respect and we'll give it you. Heck I'm perceived as being middle class here in Liverpool, by the fuckwits, because I've got a southern English tinge to my accent because my mum was forced out of Liverpool in the 1960's due to being refused a council house here and had to moved to London.

However to deny there are collective interests and culture of groups of people called 'classes' is to deny a reality that oppresses us. For me I share an eyes wide open view shared by other working class people, all my life has been effected by the decisions of middle class professionals and even the 'nicey-nicey' middle class types who give the illusion they're decent people but in reality beneath the surface they're just as brutal. Without accountability or the right to speak against decisions imposed on us it's still a dictatorship of the middle class over the working class.

There are working class people who actually have a lot in common with the middle class lifestyle, the mortgage, the expensive car, the annual foreign holidays, the university education, private house on a private estate. But class isn't just down to your income, it's down to your social, family and cultural upbringing and community. Thus even if *in theory* I ever had the money and choose to live in a middle class community I wouldn't be at home in a neighbourhood of isolated individuals where neighbours never talk to one another, like on those new private 'for sale' only estates.

You said you don't remember 1984, well video record or sit down tomorrow night, Saturday 23rd January and watch Channel Four 9pm for 2 hours, it'll be history lesson for you and for me, I was a teenager at the time. Oh and Watch BBC next tuesday 9pm, for more...

I'm not in debt or my family, simply because I spent all my teenage years in debt with little if any pocket money never mind money for socialising, when I got my first full time 'poorly' paid job that one mentioned above I paid off our credit card debt which was what we used to buy things we couldn't afford like a TV or christmas presents. Now I save for what I want I still rarely go out, never having a holiday, and basically living as I had got so conditioned to living as an unemployed youth, sad but true. I rarely socialise or go out for a drink because I couldn't afford it as a teenager and got used to not going out.

You say:
>
I would happily pay more tax to ensure decent public services, including free access to education for all.
>

I think we should all pay what we can afford for the collective common good, our party the SLP says no tax on income under £10,000 for example. I do believe in the collective and that was destroyed in the 1980's, it's created the scally selfish families on the poorest working class estates who row, play loud music all times of the day, slam their doors, let their kids go wild, so they're a different kind of individualism, they're socially detached from their wider community. We've had the whole working class culture savagely destroyed by middle class led and orientated politicians, to further splinter us it's middle class professionals who get the youth worker jobs, community development jobs, tenant participation jobs, I was well enough skilled and experienced to get all those jobs, because I did them as a volunteer, but I never got even close to sniffing those jobs even after interviewing for them.

Oh and yes majority of the middle class are now used to paying low taxes and still getting better access to public services when they need them, they've got a win-win situation had lower income tax levels since the mid 1980's paid through cut backs in public services in working class communities and welfare benefit cuts too, but the service levels in their communities are always better resourced, often the last to get cut back. The middle class aren't just more vocal, they actually are part of a lower stratum of the establishment, thus the police give them better service and respect, the media bend over backwards to report their news at the drop of a hat, look at all the news reports that young middle class child minder who was convicted in the USA Louise 'whatever' from Cheshire, I mention her because she's been on TV recently having got a law degree. Yet there is a guy called Kenneth Richey a working class Scottish born man who's still facing the death sentence since the mid 1980's and the media and even those bastions of middle class society 'Liberty' and 'Amnesty International' aren't interested in promoting his case. What about that young Asian child carer accused of the same crime she got brief media coverage, but because she wasn't a darling of middle England one of the media's own she wasn't campaigned for.

You said:
>
Yes the 'Working' class got shafted
>

While the middle class sat by and cheered on the sidelines and gained greater wealth from us being attacked politically by the party of their choice.

You said:
>
and 'Lower Middle' classess are now being shafted, but does that mean the 'Working' class should support it? It's ridiculus.
>

What do you mean "should support it?" ie politically, campaign-wise or through the tax system, because we don't support it, just like we don't support the Queen because we all pay tax including VAT, we don't get a choice it's compulsory, we only get a choice through our elected representatives, ie working class councillors or MPs, which we don't have yet.

You said:
>
We should be challanging the establishment, who as I've said, are only interested in the wealthy elite, the military-industrial complex, corporate power etc. I.E. Not you and not me.
>

Well I have been and continue to, everytime I'm a working class candidate for the working class SLP, I'm challenging the 'establishment' and their allies, all the way from the media, press and collaborationist supporters. If you're NOT with us then you're against us.

You said:
>
We need to challange the fear mongerers (Sun, Daily Mail, Sky etc) and reclaim democracy,
>

Well while the working class (with middle class allies on our terms) remain unorganised and divided the media and press won't provide balanced or fair reporting, ever since the Soviet Union collapsed the UK press and media no longer feel it has to provide balanced reporting because the worldwide balance between capitalism (the right) and socialism (the left) swung overwhelmingly to the US and UK, free market capitalism. We've lost even what little accountability in this social-democracy we had even in the 1980's, so much was dismantled in the 1980's. For example until the late 1980's working class people like me could work our way up in our jobs, that's part of why more middle class youth are being encouraged to take jobs, because upward mobility in employment has stopped for working class people, the degree being the only access to a job that provides not only a good income some kind of satifaction.

Reclaim democracy? what democracy, when did we have democracy this sham of bourgeois (middle class) democracy isn't government by the majority of the people, it never has been, it's a government that represents the establishment time and again, the Labour Party have always been a party of capitalism and voraciously anti-working class, it's just we've allowed ourselves to be duped throughout the 20th Century by collaborationist right wing trade unionists and even the left have claimed to want to 'reclaim' the labour party for socialism and the 'left' what an illusion to perpetuate, what a pointless battle that can't win.

You said:
>
this will inevitably lead to socialism and greater equality as people on the whole do have a sense of fairness and justice (it might sound naive but it is true).
>

I do believe people as a majority do have a sense of fairness and justice, it's just we can be manipulated by politicians through control of the mass media. The media do brainwash us...

We've never had democracy which is a consequence of socialism, because we've never had socialism in Britain, we've had social-democracy which offered the working class of Britain in the time of the most extreme economic post war melt down a welfare state, ie the leadership of the working class were bought off from leading the country towards socialism, it was because the hammer & sickle flew right across eastern Europe and the British working class weren't going to be betrayed or misled like they were post the 1st world war that the capitalist establishment led by the 'capitalism' Labour party offered the 'post war settlement' ie establishment keep a house of lords and monarchy, private education and the working class get the welfare state.

Research clearly shows that it's the middle class who've most benefited from the welfare state, but you see you can't have it both ways, lower taxes for the middle class and a welfare state that they benefit from too, thus the idea is give the middle class their tax cuts, then they can buy private education, private health care, private pensions, private transport (ie the car), private houses, etc, etc then the downward spiral accelerates as the working class detach from the electoral processes and working class representation disappears, the middle class vote as the majority because in some places 70 to 80%+ don't vote, so they see little in public services for them so as councillors they vote for further cut backs like the LibDems here in Liverpool, so we the working class get the crummy leftovers, the overcrowded schools, the run down libraries, the lack of leisure services, the stretched to breaking point Fazakery Hospital, the poorer 'public' transport, ie no rail links, poorer bus routes, etc.

You said:
>
The majority of people are just out of wack due in the main to propaganda.
We on the 'left', and if you are a supporter of the 'working' class you are on the 'left', must kick up a stink every time the establishment chips away at something else or spins lies. If nobody trusts the establishment, papers, corporations etc, more people will be won over to the 'left' and a progressive future could be had. As it is going the future for most of us will be Dickensian for the majority of us, forget working class and middle class, we're all gonna be paupers, peasants and commoners.
>

The left, as Red Action and the IWCA have correctly identified haven't woken up to the fact the working class are longer unionised in large unions, the left aren't interested in us the working class on the council estates, those who've never had full time permanent employment since they left school in the 1980's. I see myself as a socialist, I don't personally identify with this concept of 'left', my choice, because I see the 'left' as being part of the illusion weavers of the capitalist establishment, they the 'Trotskyites' don't want socialism like the SWP, because they attack it wherever it exists or existed, the USSR, China or most importantly Cuba. The 'left' just want a slice for themselves and bigger crumbs from the establishment for working class they help to control and contain politically speaking, though we've shaken them off our backs in recent times, take a look at the Socialist Alliance it never moved beyond the middle class left-wing activists, the R.U.C. bandwagon only attracted the same bunch.

I've suffered a fair few defeats particularly on housing, in the past five years, I get knocked down but I bounce back eventually after a break. Take a look at the recent decision that the entire NW Euro and council elections will be postal ballot only. That's going to be a huge concern, we can't oversee this type of election, we can't scrutinise it, if I post my vote how do I know it's arrived? How do I know it won't get disallowed like 9,000+ were disallowed in Bolton in 2003 local elections, the council changed handed from Labour to LibDem, all because they were told to sign the ballot paper which has never been a stipulation of post votes many just refused and sent the ballot paper marked with their vote, jeez it makes sense they wanted a secret vote, well as secret as it can be traced to you anyway via the numbers on the ballot paper which matches to your name on the list the officers mark off. It was well known that communist party voters had their names sent to the South African embassy because of their political opposition to apatheid, ie before the ballot papers were burnt voters names were checked alongside ballot paper numbers by our security services.

You said:
>
Random, in response to your prev posting, you are right when you say, without a car it is difficult to find decent work and a mortgage is cheaper than renting. This is precisely why I had to get into debt, because I couldn't find local work and I couldn't afford to keep paying rents. But because I got into debt in order to hopefully improve my income does this mean we are that different? Should you get a free(er) education whilst I get into serious debt if I want one? Whilst the government spends millions, possibly billions, on £600,000 'accurate' missiles just to bomb innocent people back to the stone age. Do you think this is right? Education is a right. Public financial support for high tech and miltary industry, in the guise of 'defense', is not. Changing this is a realistic goal, we just need to take on the fear mongerers.
>

Interesting, I got my first car three years ago, simply because I was living in a village in the middle of nowhere and couldn't get from A to B easily, since I moved back to Liverpool I've paid the price higher insurance, had my car broken into, attacked more times than I can remember outside my own house. However it enabled me to get from A to B quickly easily and shop where I want, it gets my mum out who I'm now carer for. The fact is if 'public' transport which is privately owned profit making, was more reliable, far more cheaper (ideally free) I'd use it more, but it's over priced, uncomfortable, slow and unreliable and the tram system is going to be just as expensive from my enquiries. I offer my friends a lift when I can so as to share resources as I can. Education should be a right, but it's not a right, because we 'working class' don't have any 'rights' when we test the system it's quite clear what rights we have are an illusion the rights even middle class people assume are there quite clearly show now that they don't exist.
Our government increasingly flouts the UN Human Rights convention and arrests people without trial and fits people up.

Kai

"There are working class people who actually have a lot in common with the middle class lifestyle, the mortgage, the expensive car, the annual foreign holidays, the university education, private house on a private estate. But class isn't just down to your income, it's down to your social, family and cultural upbringing and community. Thus even if *in theory* I ever had the money and choose to live in a middle class community I wouldn't be at home in a neighbourhood of isolated individuals where neighbours never talk to one another, like on those new private 'for sale' only estates"

The statement above just shows the pure hypocracy of your entire rant. "it is cool to be poor". I also cannot take the SLP seriously because it supports the soviet union its proxies and calls them "socialist" - but then again hitler was a socialist. It would be fair to say that their collapse in the way it was carried out was simply horrific with huge increases in poverty etc... or that china has done well in the last 20 years to significantly reduce poverty. To say that people should support "communism" - bullshit.

My major point i am going to make is that simply wiping the slate clean which is what both of you seem to be proposing is actually a form of inequality - think about it.

"capitalism cannot reform...just kick it 'till it breaks"

I find it ironic and typical that it seems like two people who may well be middle class (i dont like to judge) talking to each other about tuition fees and middle class debt and agreeing about the injustice of it all. If you dont want to get into debt then choose not to take all the fuking priviliges.

It also proves my point about marxist scholars - majority middle class and almost all end up being concerned about middle class issues like tuition fees.

On the whole, this is a decent debate with some interesting points (with the exception of Translators previous two postings, no contribution!). Ok so according to Random n Translator I'm 'lower middle' class n deserve to be in debt n according to Kia I'm a 'middle' class, class traitor. Fine. I can't be arsed arguing over labels n definitions. The point is we on the 'left' need to stop arguing amongst ourselves over the finer points of ideology and dogma and unite behind what unites us. Decent Public Services (again including free education for all), Genuine Democracy, Social Justice (including many of the points raised above re cutting services in poor communities, improving access to higher education for working class people, police responses/repression etc) and the divertion of public money away from subsidising the Military-Industrial Complex towards real change (Health, Education, Welfare etc etc). These are real, attainable and worthy progressive goals. You never hear much of the 'right' fighting amongst themselves, because generally what's good for the establishment is good for them and besides they're united by a powerful force...Greed.

It is easy to be sidetracked by in fighting, especially when frustrated by the system, ('working class' against 'middle class', northerners v southerners, anarchists against socialists etc etc). More unites us than divides us. Liberty , Genuine Democracy, Justice, Fairness, all of which are under increasing assault. Random n Translator you may feel you have enjoyed none of these things or even worse, for some unknown reason, think they are a privilege. You are wrong. A united 'left' can reverse the tide against us and inprove your lot. Take on Capitalism, take on the Right Wing Media, take on the corrupt Politicians and challenge Corporate Power, it is the only way.

Translator...

There's nothing wrong with a good rant. By the way 'It ain't cool to be poor' especially when you've been extremely poor throughout your childhood, into your teens and beyond as I have..

I'm not in a 'reformist' socialist party. What are you doing to "kick it 'till it breaks'" huh?

Perhaps you've got the SLP mixed up with the 'Trot' middle class S'W'P. Just because I can write well doesn't make me middle class. Oh and you probably don't think highly of Arthur Scargill either, the greatest working class leader of recent decades and founder of the SLP.

You wrongly state "Hitler was a socialist?" shows how little you know, his Nazi regime attacked the working class, the unions, socialists, communists and others of the political left and put many in concentration camps and gassed them. So perhaps you should get your facts straight before you show us how little you know politically. Hitler was a tool of international corporate big business ie capitalism, he was put in power to put down the revolutionary working class in Germany and to attack the workers state to the east in the soviet union.

The fact is elements in the SLP do support the Soviet Union, a large section of the British working class in the 1930's supported the Soviet Union and blocked weapons being transported to anti-revolutionary forces. There are others in the SLP who support countries like Cuba, which I'm a greater admirer of. We've got a few bandit 'Trots' who basically condemn any country that has ever made the break with capitalism or imperialism, ie Cuba, Soviet Union, China, North Korea.

Wiping the slate clean? What I'm saying is everyone should be able to gain knowledge, learning and skills through education if they choose, the only requirement should be the desire to learn, not qualifications, money or entrance exams.

When someone gets a degree for the benefit of society, ie a teacher, doctor, nurse then why shouldn't society pay for their education. All that your argument leads to is fewer working class people becoming doctors, teachers or nurses. I can recall the rare example of one working class teacher at my school who treated all of us with a respect that none of the other middle class teachers did. Even at college it was the same again the rare working class lecturers really respected us and gave us good learning support. Not all working class people are suddenly changed by the H.E. system into middle class oppressors.

You have judged me suggesting I'm middle class, why would I wanna lie or deceive?

I'm also not talking to the other guy. Don't even know his name or yours for that matter. This is a public posting and out here for all to comment on.

I'm not primarily concerned with the injustice against the middle class as I clearly stated they've got the establishment listening to them, the media at their beck and call and they're represented by the big three parties. I'm primarily battling for my class, the working class. As I said we were largely cleared out of H.E. in the early 1990's, have you ever heard anyone ever state that in the press or media? That's speaking up for my class...

I'm not in debt and I wasn't prepared to go into debt to get a degree in 1989, I was in debt for the poll tax for a few years though and I didn't choose it, I was only on £90 a week from 89-91.

But consider this, if I was middle class, I would be a class traitor because I've already campaigned many times directly for working class issues here in Liverpool against middle class interests, so you sneer and consider me middle class. I've had police harrassment for opposing the demolition of the 'Boot' estate where I grew up, a poor working class community.

What have you ever done for your neighbourhood or community, your class.. Huh?

I think you should actually read my two postings thoroughly. Just being working class doesn't automatically make someone an ally of the working class, fucking drug dealers on our estates are working class and they're the enemy within.

I'm concerned about the fact that we working class don't get into Higher Education already, as I mentioned in 88/89 never more than 5% got into University. In fact I wanted to go to a Polytechnic with their greater concentration of working class students more practically based courses not a Uni' because Uni's are bastons of class priviledge. But the Poly's were abolished under the Tories in 1991, the door firmly slammed on us.

I stated that 15 years ago I couldn't afford to go to H.E. I've got a friend in Shrewsbury who's working class good anti-war campaigner there too, she's not well off, is worried about being able to afford the costs of studying a course she wants to at Uni'. Education isn't a luxury or privilege, it should be a right for all, including people like my mum who returned to 'adult education' in her 60's having had a shit third rate working class education at school.

I'm not a 'marxist scholar' just because I've read some good books and have learnt some working class history. I'm not keen on middle class intellectuals, but if we can learn something from them, then we should.

My point was 'tuition fees' aren't just a middle class issue. Oh and by the way I was talking about *student funding* in totality of which tuition fees were just part, it includes student loans, student grants and welfare benefits as well. I was talking as someone who was a former student union president at a college of Further Education in the North end of Liverpool. I went there to get the education I didn't get at secondary school, ie Maths and English O'levels to help me get a decent job. I've always loved knowledge and learning, that's not middle class, that is a natural human tendency.

I'm hoping that Blair loses the vote next week because I wanna see the bastard squirm and hopefully some upheavel in the rotten Labour party.

Kai

Chomsky fan.

Err I never said you were a 'middle class traitor'. I just described a middle class person who politically allies with the working class is a class traitor.

I happen to think we should continue to the debate, call it arguing, it's only when you argue something out fully and openly that you resolve things.

You said quote "you never hear much of the 'right' fighting amongst themselves"

Not true dude, UKIP is a result of the right falling out within the Tory Party over Europe. The Libdems are a party that's a result of split in the Liberals and the SDP were a result of the right of labour leaving. But the right do happen to be in power, always have been with variable extremes here in the UK.

Also you need to clear the air, discuss what divides us, either resolve it or accept it. It didn't work in the Socialist Alliance, because of competing party interests and egos.

You said:
"A united 'left' can reverse the tide against us and inprove your lot. Take on Capitalism, take on the Right Wing Media, take on the corrupt Politicians and challenge Corporate Power, it is the only way."

This is an illusion the 'united left', it includes too many opposing political strands, many of which are plain anti-working class. The Socialist Alliance which was a so called 'united left' it's actually failed, this new Respect Unity Coalition (RUC?) is set to fail as it's also the middle class left, it won't attract the mass of the working class. As I said in my perhaps over long post, I don't count myself as 'left' I'm a working class socialist. The IWCA really impresses and they're a radical working class organisation.

You have to have a common bond and collective interest otherwise your aims won't be the same. The working class who are the majority, just like the passengers on a train or bus can if they decide stop and hold a bus and take control of it. But as with the miners dispute in 84/85 (watch Channel Four 9pm this Saturday BTW) the miners led themselves, the middle class 'Trot' SWPers descended on mining villages and were telling these people how to organise themselves, when they were already doing it. It's just like the Defend Council Housing, it's got a large number of SWPers on it and is sadly led by middle class people and establishment collaborators in the end, who in actual fact block the radical demands of the tenant activists.

Whenever we working class set up campaigns, middle class 'left' come along and offer to support us, they then start trying to direct us and demoralise us, ie their support doesn't come without conditions, conditions that they start controlling our campaigns and if possible they'll usurp and derail us, that's my experience.

I think I made it clear and radical working class activists have realised that we've got to lead outselves and not get sidelined. The middle class don't easily take orders from working class leaders, so they inevitably fight or oppose us it's their class interest expressing itself. Just like it's the middle class who attack Arthur Scargill because he is working class leader, the middle class dispise him. The capitalist establishment despise him because he helped kick the Tories out in the 1970's miners strike and could have brought down the Thacher Tory government in 1984/85 if he'd not been betrayed by the TUC, like they betrayed the miners during the general strike in 1926.

Too many times I've seen the 'left' collaborators betray the ordinary people in campaigns, the blockers - the limiters - control agents, who stop working class groups taking radical action and stop them moving further.

Kai

Again the same bullshit from "the left", if you knew what was really important to working class people then you would be pushing for things that will make a big difference to a larger number of working class lives, that is why i push for more money into pre-school education. Universities already get £5500 per student but the places where money makes a difference aka pre-school education get £1500 per child.
What have i done for my community and my class?
as the most radical participant in my local StWC group i am always pushing for boycott obstruction and occupation of their facilities. Currently the SWP have the local StWC group acting as a proxy so my affinity group has decided in principle to take action. I am also involved in a local social forum and live in a housing co-operative. Plus several other projects are active that i am not prepared to disclose at the moment.
I do confess that i have only been involved in class based activity relativly recently and i hope that you will understand that it takes time to build trust with others active in these areas. Also with for example the StWC activity i have to be opportunistic and patient, at the last meeting the tension was very present and i have to wait for the SWP to drop their gaurd and not have an asolute majority in a meeting. It also takes time to build the skills nessasary for this tye of activity.
You make the mistake that because i am not part of a political party i am not active - not true. I am part of a trade union but i want out, because the union has been institutionalised by the state and those that get votes and get a certain amount of choice are from mainly the middle class. On their most recent issue i was not able to put any imput forward and so it worked against me and my classist interests.
I do not think that it is possible for a middle class person to have a class consience because they will always have a vested interest in their own class. However on saying this i admit there are middle class radicals that work for the benefit of the working class relativly often. With these radicals i do make strategic alliances and am prepared to work with them for specific goals but i would never commit myself to a long term blanket project, purely for the reason that they might infiltrate the group and change its goals.


Lastly the hitler thing was a slip of the tongue and i should have said "hitler claimed to be a socialist", but also the current arch bishop of canterberry also claims to be a socalist. As for my identity i have posted my email address on this current thread already and if you wish you are welcome to email me and people have done in the past and probably will do in the future. But also i dont want lots of junk mail so i tend to wait untill a thread is in the archive before posting my email address.

At the risk of being unpopular i am going to state that i am not a fan of arthur skargill. This is for many reasons like his party supporting stalinist states that repress the working class and butcher the peasents. The national union of miners also did not insist on getting equal rights for female pensioners that were part of his trade union. He also took part in "skimming" aka embeslement he did stuff like have an affair with some blond in a posh hotel (paid for by the NUM) while at the same time his "comrades" were almost starving because of the strike. Nobody is perfect i admit that but to choose skargill as your idol is just foolish.

"capitalism cannot reform...just kick it 'till it breaks"

Fair enough. Kai and Translator these last couple of postings have both been well argued. I have been have just been trying to be a bit positive and encourage some recognision between the different 'leftist' groups/ideologies whatever, that we do have things in common and common progressive goals that could be achieved with some co-operation and unity. If you read both your posting, in general you want the same things and in general I would say 'left' wants it too. (Obviously every poltical organisation will have trouble with power politics and clashes of interests, unfortunately unavoidable if large numbers of people are to become involved).

Kai "I don't count myself as 'left' I'm a working class socialist", well I would and Translator, 'kicking Capitalism til it breaks', well I'd say that quite 'leftist' as well. We do have a common enemy in Capitalism, Corporate Power etc, and they're pretty bloody big. I think if we at first achieve some kind of greater democracy by taking the 'big guns' on, we can then refine our finer ideological values etc. It may be being a little over optimistic in what is basically power politics, but if we're ever going to defeat our common enemies especially corporate power, the increasing 'marketisation' of everyday life and increasingly facist/neo-liberal/globalised state, it's going to take unity and it's going to have to happen pretty bloody fast.

This may be a bit over simple and over optimistic and I may just be being a bit of a 'bloody hippy' type, being so positive in what I think we can achieve, but there you go. 'Power to the People!'

read chompsky,

where you are incorrect in your tactics, ideology and all that is that you blame "capitalism", "the state" and "the ruling class". All of these do not really exsist - they are abstract inventions, afterall what do they consist of? answer: middle class people - think about it, it is simply differences within class that differentiate the middle class. Just because your priviliges are financed by debt it does not mean that you do not get them. The university thing in short is false poverty, it is a right of way for a middle class person, once through uni the middle class person can look down on the working class and say "i have been there". When a working class person first gets into radical politics a middle class person who went to uni and was a trot for three years can say "i was once into that".
I know you will find it difficult to overcome and deal with the fact that you are priviliged and through guilt and loyalty to the middle class you will blame the "militry indstrial complex" or the "elites" - who is the ruling class of the nuclear power industry or the tourism industry?. This all adds to the old theory that the working class
think rong,
act rong,
look rong,
spell rong,
fuck rong.

Translator

As I've said I don't count myself as being from "the left", primarily I'm a working class activist/socialist.

As for "pushing for things that will make a big difference to a large number of working class lives", we working class here in Liverpool can't bloody push, because we're on the defensive, many of us are fighting to defend our homes and communities facing demolition. I was active in my community from 1991 to 1995 solid full time as a volunteer, cos I was unemployed. I've campaigned against housing privatisation that is a bigger issue for the working class than the war in Iraq.

Your analogy of £5500 per student over £1500 per child is just robbing Peter to pay Paul, there's always pathetic excuses why we can't have money for x, y and z. As James Connolloy's poem says "we only want the earth", ie we want it all, not just the crumbs. I'm sick of hearing excuses here in Liverpool that the council 'hasn't got the money' for working class needs, but it always has the money for middle class yuppie luxuries and extravagancies.

StWC is that the Merseyside StWC by chance?

I haven't made the mistake of assuming you're not active because you're not a member of a political party. It was a straight question, what have you done for the working class? Because you've wrongly suggested I'm middle class, well I'm not end of story. I'm not out campaigning against 'variable tuition fees' just engaging in debate here.

What is a 'classist' interest? Never heard of that one (-;

As for your statement "I do not think that it is possible for a middle class person to have a class conscience because they will always have a vested interest in their own class." What do you mean by that?

Middle class infiltrate most groups and change their goals, we've got a minority of them in our party the SLP, their interest is not the same as the working class majority they're the intellectuals armchair socialists, as I said they're a minority and losing their influence which is good.

You say "The Hitler thing was a slip of the tongue", it was a sarcastic statement and I replied to appropriately.

As for setting up working class groups, I'm hoping to set up one that will attract working class only activists because what we're fighting is a working class only issue so it will be led by us.

So the Arch Bishop of Canterbury claims to be a socialist, first I've heard, but it's actions that speak louder than words. Church of England is a baston of the capitalist state and of the middle class.

My local MP, Bob Wareing, claims he a socialist he's not he's a member of a capitalist party of the free market, but as I've just said "actions..." he's not done a thing to represent the constituency he was born in, my constituency I don't recall him speaking out against the demolition of my former community the 'Boot' estate. When tenants in a tower block in Croxteth wrote to him to complain about how the Chief Exec was treating the tenants and threatening to demolish their tower block all he did was pass on the letter back to the Chief Exec' middle class twit. He's spoke at the StWC public meeting end of 2002 and frankly he's was a wet lettuce leaf, Arthur Scargill blew him away and the nicey-nicey Bruce Kent the main speaker.

Kai Andersen

Translator

you said:

"At the risk of being unpopular i am going to state that i am not a fan of arthur skargill."

Fine and neither was Margaret Thatcher, MI5 so you ally yourself with them by default if you're not with us you're against us.

"This is for many reasons like his party supporting stalinist states that repress the working class and butcher the peasents."

The SLP isn't his party, it happens to be 'our' party all the members. There are people in the party who call themselves Stalinists, I don't call myself a Stalinist, but under the leadership of Stalin the Soviet Union went within decades from being a peasant society to an industrial society, under his leadership the fascist Nazis were defeated, the Soviets put the first man in space. In my near 8 years as an SLPer I've never heard Arthur speak in support of Joesph Stalin, he always refers to British socialists like James Connolly (Irish socialist) and Bronte O'Brien (Chartist).

You said:

"The national union of miners also did not insist on getting equal rights for female pensioners that were part of his trade union."

I was actually at a meeting up in the North East of England, women canteen staff filled the hall and Arthur addressed the meeting telling them that he'd got them an equal rights settlement on their entitlement to holiday pay and sickness pay and backdated coming to many thousands of pounds from the NCB, so I doubt very much that female NUM pensioners would not be getting equal pension rights. I can't comment specifically on that issue...' I don't know the details, I'm not an NUM official but I know one who is.

You said:

"He also took part in "skimming" aka embeslement"

So you swallowed the lie set up by MI5, The Mirror and TV's Cook Report set up to destroy Arthur Scargill the capitalist state out to destroy a working class socialist. This was about the alleged money that Arthur took from NUM funds to pay his mortgage off? It was a fabricated lie, even the Mirror has appologised for printing that false story recently, if you want to back up your anti-Scargill views at least read "The Enemy Within - The Secret War On The Miners" by Seamus Milne. I read it before I joined the party and even his enemy in MI5 grudgingly admit he's a fundentally honest guy, meaning he couldn't be bought off, like numerous Trade Unionist were as was exposed in the recent BBC TV documentary series on the secret state.

You said:

"he did stuff like have an affair with some blond in a posh hotel (paid for by the NUM) while at the same time his "comrades" were almost starving because of the strike."

It's even worth replying to that nonsense.

You said:

"Nobody is perfect i admit that but to choose skargill as your idol is just foolish."

True nobody is perfect, Scargill isn't my idol or my hero, he's just someone who I better than most people one of the most approachable trade union leaders, I find him a fair guy, I don't always agree with him but I do respect him, his principles and his leadership skills.

You said:

"capitalism cannot reform...just kick it 'till it breaks"

So what the hell do you think Arthur Scargill was doing in 1984 then, he fought a class battle against the capitalist state in defence of working class communities. What do you think he did when he left the Labour party in 1995, after "wasting 30 years in it" to quote him, he wasn't thrown out kicking and fighting like Ken Livingston or George Galloway, he left it because the Labour party was then clearly beyond the potential of a socialist party with the loss of Clause Four, it was also clearly not a working class party, he was right in setting up the SLP in 1996 and has been proven correct in his outlook on Prime Minister Blair. Arthur addressed a public meeting in working class community in Ellesmere Port in November and it was a packed meeting working class people with an advanced political understanding respect the man, as I do myself. The most significant working class leader of the post war generation!

Kai Andersen, Liverpool West Derby SLP

Firstly i am not from mersyside, i am from south yorkshire. secondly i am against war because i do not think it is right for rich/middle class people to drop bombs on our working class and peasent brothers and sisters in another country. The army is funded through our taxes and i dont think my taxes should be spent on killing working class people in the middle east, far east afghanistan etc... Unlike almost all of the so called socialist parties i do not consider working class and strugle in general in this country of higher value than in others - imo it is equal value.
"Your analogy of £5500 per student over £1500 per child is just robbing Peter to pay Paul,"
I think that it is perfectly reasonable to rob peter to pay paul if peter is in a better position to pay than paul. there is a quote in the beloved communist manifesto i believe that says the same thing. Also the money to pay paul is going to make a far better difference than what peter could use it for (i know of a few students - trust me).
I have already explained some of the things i am doing/planning but somethings i am not prepared to disclose over the web to total strangers - sorry.
"What is a 'classist' interest? Never heard of that one" Everyone is from a social class and they almost always reflect the interests of their class. As said - "everyone has a vested interest". They are biased toward their class aka classist.
"You say "The Hitler thing was a slip of the tongue", it was a sarcastic statement and I replied to appropriately" rong, dont make assumptions like that please it was an honest statement i made.

With the groups i may be setting up i think you are making a key mistake:
"As for setting up working class groups, I'm hoping to set up one that will attract working class only activists because what we're fighting is a working class only issue so it will be led by us"
I am honest, there are some skills that middle class people have, for example a middle class person will find it easier to influence a counciler or such like. Because of this it is important to use/work with middle class people when nessasary but be willing to break with them when it is counter productive. From a personal perspective i have realised that the local StWC group has been almost totally taken over by middle class interests but i am staying in it because the group has alot of resources. Fortunatly some of the key resouces have been taken into control by working class people. As i have stated i am against token gestures and i am pragmatic.

As a full time payed employee of a trade union arthur skargill has taken thousands of pounds from working class miners in the form of fees payed by the miners to join the trade union. Arthur skargill failed in the miners strike partly because he failed to take a national ballot on the strike (did he not trust the miners to make the right choice?). He may not have said stuff in support of stalin but he did go globe trotting to see colenol gaddaffi. Because i am from south yorkshire i am right next to derbyshire and with regards to those members of the NUM they have not been able to get anything like backpay or equal pensions.

I like this hypocracy from you i find it funny:
"I don't call myself a Stalinist, but under the leadership of Stalin the Soviet Union went within decades from being a peasant society to an industrial society, under his leadership the fascist Nazis were defeated, the Soviets put the first man in space. "
Stalin killed 30 000 000 people (mostly pesents), ever read the book "battle of stalingrad by anthony beaver? Lastly it just shows how "socialist" the country was when it spent huge amount of resources on getting a man into space and it did it purely for propaganda reasons and to enhance its nuclear weapons (now thats socialist(!)).

regards - keep up the good work

something i read recently:
if the working class won't come to the Left then the Left will have to go to the working class. the Left talk at the working class (or as they say 'the masses'), not to them. They all tend to do so from a distance both to protect their illusions and to avoid retribution when they get it badly wrong, so there is no dialogue or actual communication.

: Can you expand on that point?
: on the one hand they idealise the working class in their propaganda and if in reality they do not measure up they are, contemptuously dismissed as some lumpen aberration. This form of schizophrenia is home of the fundamental misunderstanding that to be working class is an honorific term; an honour that needs to be earned rather than a fact of life. So naturally according to their analysis to qualify as a member of the working class means having to meet some rather strict politically correct criteria. Criteria incidentally set down in tablets of stone by the middle class left. So, in having failed dismally to convince the working class proper, this is an attempt to square the circle by creating a new working class. With themselves as the most advanced elements. As the most advanced elements it has fallen to them to draw up a programme of principles for the working class. And so it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy and a recipe for failure.

I was thinking today about the fundamental failings of marxism (ironicly while being told about how great marxism is). Marxism has becomean ideology and so lost any ability it had at explainging society. Marxism has repeatidly vilified the working class whenever the working class have rejected marxism, they call them "opportunists", "lumpenproletariot" and the peasents.

I also cannot get away from the fact that a)marxism hasnt got to grips with deindustrialisation and community based strugle, b)the fact that marxism is pro-capitalist- it says that we need to go through capitalism to get a worker revolution etc.. (we all know what that means). The labour and trade union movement is dead not because (as the left thinks) tory legislation, or (as the right thinks) the working class no longer exsist in large numbers. It is because there arent the type of big industrial employers anymore. The big employers are companies like debenhams, tesco and morrisons - these are companies that the left doesnt go near to try and get a trade union going.

Anyway just a few thoughts for you to help you on your way.

Genuine Class analysis is, like prising apart political affiliations and political ideologies, very difficult because there are so many people and so many variations of what class means, and what middle class means and what working class means, and so on. And we know that a lot of class struggle, genuine working class struggle for a proper minimum wage, better housing, fairer allocation of resource, jobs, healthier living spaces, better and more economical food and so on, has been thwarted for many reasons. Reasons that are political, social, because of greed, injustice and so on.

I bring myself to the point I wish to make; I am a pretty much radical working class bloke, from an impoverished slum background, who has managed to attain a degree and in the last couple of months get myself a job, and in the last couple of years turn my life around quite well. My living standards are quite tolerable, and I need very little, although like most people I want lots more! But, and in all truth, I try to put needs before wants.

In my limited experience (very limited in terms of actual campaigning etc) of lefty politics, there does seem to be an incredible amount of very middle class, and usually monied people claiming to be for left politics and workers rights and so on. I do not know whether this is just in Britain, but at any rate it appears to be a fact of left politics. My main problem here is this; if someone comes from a wealthy middle class background, with a high salary and owning an expensive house and living a very privileged sort of existence, if they genuinely campaign against economic injustice and so forth, they will have to criticise their own wealth! And this they won't do! SO, we are left with a left (no pun intended) that has no teeth! When I rant about justice, a fairer tax system, a fairer pension for all pensioners, better housing and so on, I talk about these issues because people like me and my families and community will directly benefit from more just and fair economic decisions. The monied middle class will very probably not benefit from fairer and more progressive tax systems and a better re-distribution of wealth through fairer wages and lower taxes for low waged jobs and higher taxes for high jobs.

SO, there are two strands that don't add up! I believe and have believed for a long time, that in many so-called 'workers groups' and so-called 'lefty groups' certain middle class people join them merely to become another form of control freak or merely join to confuse issues so that working class people, genuinely ordinary working class people are marginalised and so genuine issues are not aired or heard. I know there are genuine middle class people, often those whose economic situation isn't a great deal different from most working class people, who are working towards a fairer system. BUT, like with the Black Panthers, and Simon Wiesenthal who hunts down old nazis, the people at the centre of these organisations MUST be mostly working class people, who desire and demand change simply because they will benefit from change. Only then whill change come and only then will all these separate and often disparate organisations begin to make headway.

I will finally add one more thing that I think is the most important and really the major argument; It is that genuine working class organisations decide from the outset what they are fighting FOR, less about what they are AGAINST, AND to understand that a few geunuine issues well presented and fought for are better than a whole list of vague ideas that can be changed and distorted. SO, I believe that all working class groups should be campaigning for a proper minimum wage, a fairer tax system that hits the well-to-do and wealthy and doesn't penalise the poor, proper state pensions for ALL British pensioners. The argument, all the arguments in the main, centre on economic justice, economic injustice and a genuine better re-distribution of the vast wealth this country demands. When a well-to-do middle class campaigner will go on marches and demos for ever, but refuses to discuss economic injustice, I feel that any genuine change is not going to come from that person or group dominated by those who have no real desire to change anything merely because they are in fact benefitting from the class divisions. This is why only working class people can fight for their rights. We can get help from middle class but only as long as they are genuinely behind us and are campaigning for economic justice for all.

Translator...

In reply to your posting called "to set the record straight":

You and I are obviously never going to agree on much but because we're not just talking to each other, there's an audience out there, there are things you said which perpetuate lies that were created by the media the Mirror and ITV's Cook report in 1990, so I'll put the record straight on that at least.

You said:
"i am against war because i do not think it is right for rich/middle class people to drop bombs on our working class and peasent brothers and sisters in another country. The army is funded through our taxes and i dont think my taxes should be spent on killing working class people in the middle east, far east afghanistan etc... Unlike almost all of the so called socialist parties i do not consider working class and strugle in general in this country of higher value than in others - imo it is equal value."

Sure it's part of the greater battle for equality and liberation for all people of the world. So we agree on that and the rest of the SLP agrees that too, we were the only party of the 'left' in Britain to publicly oppose the destruction against Yugoslavia, the NATO backed attacks on Serbia and threatened carpet bombing if Milosovic didn't surrender and agree NATO's terms in the Rambouilet agreement. In fact many of our youth have visited Palesine in solidarity and even arranged for youth Palestine representatives to come over Britain I organised two meetings in Liverpool in 2003. Many of our members have been out opposing this last war, there were lots of 'NO WAR' grafitti spraying across Liverpool on empty property in town centre and in Toxteth.

But you lack consistency in your arguments.

You said:
"Your analogy of £5500 per student over £1500 per child is just robbing Peter to pay Paul,"

My point being is that under capitalist society the priorities are always going to be against working class people. What I'm saying let's not pick and choose, let's have it all, Britain is the fourth richest country in the world.

You said:
"I think that it is perfectly reasonable to rob peter to pay paul if peter is in a better position to pay than paul. there is a quote in the beloved communist manifesto i believe that says the same thing."

The marxist quote is "from each according to ability to each according to need", that's redistribution effectively.

You said:
"Also the money to pay paul is going to make a far better difference than what peter could use it for (i know of a few students - trust me)."

Hey I know loads myself, many of whom (the majority) are aren't living hand to mouth, but I know many who are poor and struggling. Thus my argument which is far stronger and principled than your's, that is take from the wealthy via higher taxes (increase corporation tax)and redistribute to the poorer, ie grants for all students, which in the 1980's did achieve more equality, students were at least closer together economically.

You said:
"rong, dont make assumptions like that please it was an honest statement i made."
But look at what you said >>> "but then again hitler was a socialist" that's not 'typo' even mate. This goes out to an audience and I don't appreciate you linking socialism with facist leader Adolf Hitler, it's untrue, otherwise it would have been socialist USSR versus socialist Nazi Germany, it wasn't! It was facist (extreme capitalist)state versus socialist state.

You said:
"I am honest, there are some skills that middle class people have, for example a middle class person will find it easier to influence a counciler or such like."

That's rubbish, patronising and condescending, if you can argue your case then it doesn't matter what your background is, I'm working class and argued strongly at Liverpool City Council as a community activist for parents to be given 'cash not vouchers' for their children's school clothing it was a principled campaign, I did the media/press releases too. What you're saying shows the class prejudice in this society, remembering that most councillors and MPs are middle class, more journalists and reporters in the press and media are middle class thus getting a middle class person pleading your case is just middle class people doing a 'gentlemans' agreement to silence working class opposition.

You said:
"Because of this it is important to use/work with middle class people when nessasary but be willing to break with them when it is counter productive."

Sure I've said as much, but in the end if the issue is working class issue then we lead it they support it, just like disabled people must lead disabled people's issues seeking abled bodied support on disabled people's terms. That's why the middle class left despise Arthur Scargill and the SLP, because it's the working class led by the working class and the middle class realise they can't control it, which is why they created Socialist Alliance electoral front and this year R.U.C, but fortunately the middle class left are high and dry without working class electoral support.

You said:
"From a personal perspective i have realised that the local StWC group has been almost totally taken over by middle class interests but i am staying in it because the group has alot of resources. Fortunatly some of the key resouces have been taken into control by working class people. As i have stated i am against token gestures and i am pragmatic."

The STWC on Merseyside (are you and I talking about the same?) was set up by the middle class left back in 2001. The only working class people were pushed out, I include myself in that, I went to one meeting and it was like an academic lecture and later I heard about the call from working class activists for the STWC (Merseyside) to campaign for a referendum on the Iraq war, they were undermined, slandered and politically excluded.

You said:
"As a full time payed employee of a trade union arthur skargill has taken thousands of pounds from working class miners in the form of fees payed by the miners to join the trade union."

He was paid a full time wage as *the elected* president of the NUM, that's all.

You said:
"Arthur skargill failed in the miners strike partly because he failed to take a national ballot on the strike (did he not trust the miners to make the right choice?)."

He led from the front, a significant number of miners were already out on strike before the NUM made it official, thus to do things the way their class enemies the Thatcher government would have wanted it, they'd have had to call all miners already out on dispute back into work and then go through the ballot thus losing the momentum that had already built up.

You said:
"He may not have said stuff in support of stalin but he did go globe trotting to see colenol gaddaffi."

Well just to put you straight... The Daily Mirror has admitted that it's Editor in 1990 Roy Greenslade was guilty of "falsely smearing" his "reputation", ie Arthur's. The Mirror further said "Mr. Greenslade's main contribution to journalism as editor of the Mirror for just one year included falsely smearing Arthur Scargill's reputation with a dispicable link to Colonel Gaddafi".

You said:
"Because i am from south yorkshire i am right next to derbyshire and with regards to those members of the NUM they have not been able to get anything like backpay or equal pensions.

That's an NUM issue, but the government itself has plundered NUM miners pension fund, taking millions out of it, it's the government who have blocked miners pensions not the NUM or itself leadership. It's the NUM who are taking the government to court to get the millions of pounds for miners whose health has been impared by mining related diseases, you'll have seen Railey's Solicitors adverts on TV recently.

So between Thatcher and the capitalist state and Scargill and the working class miners you would have obviously sat on the fence.

You said:
Stalin killed 30 000 000 people (mostly pesents), ever read the book "battle of stalingrad by anthony beaver?

Oh so that'd be more than the 20 million that Hitler's troops killed then in their invasion in 1941. Get real, thirty million people killed under direct orders of Stalin??? Even those who historically wanted to demonise the Soviet Union and Stalin's leadership don't come anywhere that figure of 30 million, also the middle class 'Trotskyites' regularly attack the soviet union, but working class people don't swallow that. Where did these 30,000,000 people die then? I've read "Lies concerning the History of the Soviet Union" by Mario Sousa of the Communist party of Sweden. That debunks the false allegations of mass deaths of millions includes references to the opening of the Soviet archives under Gorbachev.

You said:
"Lastly it just shows how "socialist" the country was when it spent huge amount of resources on getting a man into space and it did it purely for propaganda reasons and to enhance its nuclear weapons (now thats socialist(!))."

When you've lost 20 million in the war (from the Nazi invasion) and you're threatened by the US who drop a bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to warn you of their power what do you do... Surrender?

Kai

Timbo O'the 'Pool

How you see it is how I see it, your class analysis is correct. I agree with what you say in terms of a fight FOR the positive forward move, rather than the back heel negative of being AGAINST.

But we the working class are in a defensive stance ever since the 84/85 defeat of the miners and the attack on the 'left' Liverpool City Council the same year, so we're fighting against 'housing privatisation' and against 'community demolition', against 'job losses', against 'wages cuts' and against 'welfare benefit cuts'. The working class do need to be moving forward rather than on this defensive back heel position, here in Liverpool we need a victory of some kind don't we. Up in Bootle the Klondyke/Orrell community are on the fight back defending their community against threatened demolition which is inspiring (-:

As we both agree the working class must lead ourselves and the middle class must follow in support or ultimately side with the capitalist state.

Kai Andersen

Stalin tortured people, he had death camps, secret police and alot of other brutal policies. We need to accept that.
I was also out on the streets after the bombings in the balkans (which didnt even bring regime change) and i was also out against the invasion of afghanistan.

Is it not reditribution to charge those students that are going to the big universities and will in the future earn far more than the average person more than say someone not going to university?
I think the big difference with my position on top-up-fees and the orthodox lefts position is that i consider university education a privilege, the is because the personal gain is far more than the collective gain and so i think that the individual should contribute. I would much prefer more money to help kids finish their college courses (through expanding the EMA schemes) and i would prefer alot of new money into pre-school care and youth provision. I know we are a "rich" country but i must admit that we cannot afford everything - yet. We have to choose priorities and i do not consider students a priority.
On the hitler thing, as someone who has studied nazi germany abit, hitler was a "national socialist" he belied in volkermeinschaft ("peoples community" - although it never worked out like that in practice - similar to stalins communism.). If you read the book "battle of stalingrad" you would find out that there were no "goodies" or "baddies".
As a working class person i get patronised by middle class people in authority all the time, when i use to be a "communist" i would always be ptronised and they would say "i use to be well into that but then i grew out of it". I realise that it will happen over and over again and as you said something similar with regard to disabled rights, "on the issue of class strugle struggle it must be led by the working class, but if middle class people can be usefull then use them but it must be led by the working class.
I am not from mersyside i am from sheffield. Although i empathise with you with regards to the StWC group, i have been pushing for direct action etc... against the imperialist interest that are making proifits from iraq.
regards

Thanks for your appraisal Kai. I feel that in many ways, and here I am basically saying what you have just said, it is important to be positive even in a bad situation, rather than let the negativity of any negative situation, be that racism, class oppression, economic oppression etc, win the day. He or she who remains positive and optimistic will win the day. And, as well as class struggles for social justice, economic justice etc, when we as individuals challenge on a very personal basis the limits others have set for us(and the limits we have set for ourselves)the world begins to change by default.

We still have a society, although it is slowly going, in Britain that is dominated by individuals, who, on having had wealth and privilege all their lives, see it as a natural right to expect more of the same throughout life. When we challenge this, when we as working class people, black people, poor people, asian people, women, council estate people, anyone in anyway genuinely poor and disenfranchised challenge this arrogant and superior assumption that those who have everything and every advantage should then go on to command more of the same, even in just talking about it, we start to change things. There is a conspiracy of silence in this country; and because people are often beaten into silence and submission, the inference is that we all somehow 'agree' with the vile and detestable injustices that have been part of British society really since the beginnings of capitalism. It's not that I am even against capitalism per se, we all want to get on and make something of ourselves, it is just that those who have abundantly often try to stop anyone else getting on too. This is where all the hypocrisy and double-standards begin. As well as ideology, we need reality too; most working class are politicised, but many working class people just want what the middle classes have; a better life, bigger income, more security etc. I think what is important, and for those of us genuine about social change and social justice, we are honest about our needs and wants too. As we talked about class, another problem I perceived with the left is that to be a genuine 'lefty' or a genuine socialist you must either be poor and 'real' or so middle class and wealthy that you are definitely not in it 'for the money'. The problem with this is that, again, there are two strands, the wealthy and the poor, that can never see eye to eye and one polarises in disgust against the other. The comfortable fear the rants and the radicalness of the poor lefties, and the poor detest the softness and 'ivory tower' liberalness of the well-to-do lefties. AND, spending so much time manoeuvring against each other, AND both sides try to get more working/middle class depending which side they are on. AND, those who do not want to tackle the obvious and glaring topic NOBODY wants to talk about i.e. the class and wealth differences of people supposedly on the same side, this eventually transposes itself into factionalism and "I'm a Marxist/Leninist" and "I'm a Leninist/Marxist" and "I'm more real than you two, I'm an Anarcho/Syndicalist" and so on and so on!!! These are self-negating arguments, and seem to end up with individuals more obsessed with making sure their political credentials are 'PC' enough or correct enough, and to hell with social justice and social change! And, because many lefties seem to be privileged and middle class, it plays right up their street. SO, you have a middle-class talking shop, nothing changes, and a few well-to-do people's guilt are assuaged till next time. It is all a load of bollocks, to be honest! Sometimes I think it is politics that is the problem! When we look at the real issues, and what they are really all about i.e. the deeply unequal distribution of resources in the world's 4th wealthiest country, we might all stand back from politics and engage in real debate. The issue is always going to be that those group of people over there have more than these people here; and then comes the justification for that inequality i.e. racism, classism, religious differences, etc etc. What ALL prejudice boils down to, when you really look at it head on, is that one person is making a qualitative judgement about another person, and no one has that right to make such a judgement. That qualitative decision boils down to: "I am better than that person because....." etc. And because that decision is made, then there is the justification for all the evil of the world. That evil and injustice that infests Britain as much as it does the rest of the world.

I am not telling you something you probably haven't pondered on yourself at great length, but I think sometimes if we are to interest people in challenging injustice, we should be prepared to debate at great length, and at great depth, so that issues can be dissected and so there is more genuine common ground for more people to see the justice of such radicalism. That IT IS based on sound commonsense, and that we are not all mad ranting politicos but real people in the real world!

Thanks for the post Kai.

translator

You said:
"Stalin tortured people, he had death camps, secret police and alot of other brutal policies. We need to accept that."

You accept it, because Britain called him 'uncle Joe' when under his leadership he was pushing the Nazi's back to Berlin. I don't *accept* black propaganda by capitalist agents in the west.

William Hearst travelled to meet Hitler and was met as a guest and friend. Hearst was a wealthy American newspaper proprietor and his newspapers carried numerous articles against socialism, against the Soviet Union and especially Stalin, Hearst also tried to use his newspapers for overt Nazi propaganda purposes. Hearst's sensationalist newspapers were filled with 'revelations' about the terrible happenings in the USSR - murders, genocide, slavery, luxury for the rulers and starvations for the people, all these were the big news items almost every day in his mass circulation newspapers. The material was provided to Hearst by the Gestapo, Nazi Germany's political police. You yourself have swallowed and the perpetuate lies against the USSR, it's no wonder we've never had socialism in Britain because we're so brainwashed by right writers in the media and press.

You've even perpetuated lies and slander against Arthur Scargill. As the Nazi Propaganda boss Goebals said if you repeat a lie enough it becomes accepted as the truth. That's what Public Relations is, that's what Spin-doctoring is.

You said:
"Is it not reditribution to charge those students that are going to the big universities and will in the future earn far more than the average person more than say someone not going to university?"

And they are charged, they'll pay back in the tax system. If they become 'yuppie' stock brokers in the City of London under a progressive tax system then they'd pay back more tax.

You said:
"I think the big difference with my position on top-up-fees"

Your position is right in there with the Blairites and with the Tories who first mooted bringing in Tuition. So by default you support a government who you've taken to the streets to oppose their four wars, so you support this rotten government one moment and the next you oppose it, lack of consistency really ain't it?

I wonder how many Blair MP were out protesting against the Vietnam war and have now voted for introduction of tuition fees and the now increased 'top up fees'. That working class traitor Lorna Fitzsimmon, Rochdale MP, benefitted from grants and no tuitions fees under a Tory government in the late 1980's to study at Leeds Uni' then became Labour Party's NUS president. I know her, she also betrayed disable campaigners within NUS who were trying to raise the issue of disability at conference, I offered them some support suggested a tactic and they used it, but they were discouraged by Lorna Fitzsimmons before she even became NUS president. A consistent traitor all the way.

You said:
"i consider university education a privilege, the is because the personal gain is far more than the collective gain and so i think that the individual should contribute."

Education shouldn't a be a privilege for the wealthy, it's certainly not a privilege for the wealthy minority in socialist countries like Cuba for example. While education comes down to your ability to pay (or not in the case of working class students) it's not open for all, thus even under this rotten 'capitalist' system you reaffirm Labour party policy that it all comes down to ability to pay.

You said:
"I would much prefer more money to help kids finish their college courses (through expanding the EMA schemes)and i would prefer alot of new money into pre-school care and youth provision. I know we are a "rich" country but i must admit that we cannot afford everything - yet."

Your arguments are pretty lame and lack consistency. You admit Britain is a rich country, which it is and somehow you say "admit that we cannot afford everything - yet", but you and I know that Blair's government afforded four wars against public opinion, Sierra Leon, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq. Labour government can afford to pay itself itself a higher wage rise than the Fire Officers in 2002.

You said:
"We have to choose priorities and i do not consider students a priority." If you don't consider students a priority why are you bothering wasting your time posting to a threat that is opposing 'top up fees'.

Well if Higher Education is going to become the exclusive domain of the wealthy and comfortable off middle class then you're political point view is going increase inequality as more middle class get a degree and take all the best jobs, jobs that people like me can't even work my way into.

You said:
"On the hitler thing, as someone who has studied nazi germany abit, hitler was a "national socialist" he belied in volkermeinschaft".

So I was right when I said you were being sarcastic. Why am I bothering you're so addled. National Socialism wasn't fucking socialism, the Nazi's beat up communists and socialist and put many in concentration camps, something that is often forgotten. Oh and you'll be telling me Tony Blair's a socialist next, he's no such thing, the Labour Party is not a socialist party either, neither has been (to quote Tony Been), it only had the potential to be with the inclusion of 'Clause Four', it's also not a working class party again it never has been.

You said:
"If you read the book "battle of stalingrad" you would find out that there were no "goodies" or "baddies".

Well the Battle of Stalingrad was a turning point in the war, goodies or baddies? Hitler's Nazis were baddies and the Soviet Union's red army were the 'goodies', they pushed the Nazi's back to Berlin. There was a recent Timewatch programme on BBC2, a former Nazi Panzer tank driver Henri Mettalman ended up waking up to the reality of his extreme facist beliefs which were indoctrinated through the Hitler Youth (that was compulsory for most youth) and realised the Nazi's weren't invincible and ended up admiring the Soviets and became a socialist in this country.

You said:
"As a working class person i get patronised by middle class people in authority all the time, when i use to be a "communist" i would always be ptronised and they would say "i use to be well into that but then i grew out of it".

*All working class people get* "patronised by middle class people in authority all time". If you were a communist you've certainly become anti-communist, look at your consistently of argument it's plain wonky.

You said:
"I realise that it will happen over and over again and as you said something similar with regard to disabled rights, "on the issue of class strugle struggle it must be led by the working class, but if middle class people can be usefull then use them but it must be led by the working class."

Yeah but intelligent working class, people who can see through anti-working class propaganda and are prepared to defend principled leaders whose reputation is attacked by the capitalist media and press.

You said:
"I am not from mersyside i am from sheffield. Although i empathise with you with regards to the StWC group, i have been pushing for direct action etc... against the imperialist interest that are making proifits from iraq.
regards"...

I'm very much into direct action not nicey-nicey trying to influence already rotten Labour MPs and councillors. I just wish you'd gain a clearer and consistent view.

You've condemned Arthur Scargill and I've defended him with quotes from the rotten 'Daily Mirror', a pro-Blair paper, You've condemned Stalin the guy under whose leadership the Russian people defeated the most powerful military force on the planet at that time 'Nazi Germany', without the Soviet Union under the leadership of Stalin Nazi Germany would have been unstoppable.

I don't know how you can say were a 'communist', what kind? You so easily swallow anti-communist and anti-socialist propaganda and re-propagate it.

We disagree because although i have a class conscience i am not a marxist. I am vaguely a socialist although as explained in earlier comments being a socialist doesnt mean much today - and i recognise that. I am not stuck to the rose tinted spectacles of old labour strugles and i am not stuck to the dogmatic idea of state control. Many marxists argue that it is not possible to have a working class concsience and not be a marxist.
If you looked at my comment titled "classic left" that basicly explains some of my main problems with marxism. Ironicly the answer for most marxist groups when pushed is to spring back to the old doctrine. The harder the push the further back the left go.