Audio - interviews from Hyde Park anti war rally

"An employee of the Morning Star tells us about how the UK's only socialist daily differs from the corporate rags or the vioice-piece of the SWP"

You just identified yourself as a sectarian.

Hold on. The Socialist Worker Party (which is a polital party) produces the paper Socialist Worker and you now suggest that it is wrong to say that the paper is the voice piece of the SWP?

It's quite normally for people to refer to the Telegraph as the Torygraph even though there is no direct connection between the conservative party and the newspaper.

With the Socialst Worker there is an undisputed connection, the SWP write, edit and print the paper!

So, what's wrong with saying that. That fact does make the Socialist Worker significant different from most other newspaper including the Morning Star which apparently is run as a co-operative.

I don't think it useful for you to go around shouting 'troll' over one line that annoys you amoung a whole bunch of useful stuf.

But they're completely different! 'Socialist Worker' is the paper of the Socialist Workers Party, produced and sold by them and reflecting their views, whereas the 'Morning Star' is the paper of, er, the Communist Party, produced and sold by them and reflecting their views.

So obviously anti-authoritarians should boycott the first and buy the second. Especially since the CP are willing to defend the workers' paradise of North Korea whereas SWP whinge on about supposed brutality and human rights abuses, honestly they are so fascist!

A bit harsh on the CP to suggest they back the North Korean dictatorship.. it's not quite that simple (so I'm told!) But just on a factual point, yes, the Morning Star is the CP paper in just the same way as SW is the SWP paper.

In all fairness neither is a secret - both papers carry a clear 'Where We Stand' bit which is completely up-front about their allegiance. In many ways I actually prefer that sort of up-front stance to 'impartial' papers who are heavily influenced by unacknowledged relationships.

In essence I don't think any source or report can be 100% 'objective' as even the words you choose to use affect the meaning - so better in many ways for the bias to be visible. Which is not an excuse for just making stuff up, but then no-one suggests MS or SW do that.

Ok, not that I am either defending the Morning Star or attacking the Socialist Worker but here is some 'History' taken from the Morning Star website... (see  http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index2.php/free/history to put quote in context)

They don't hide that fact that the paper was the organ of the Communist Party, "Originally published as the Daily Worker, the paper was launched as the organ of the Communist Party of Great Britain."

"Over the next 15 years it fought its way into the consciousness of trade unionists and progressives throughout the land, always fighting for the cause of working people and battling against an Establishment which moved heaven and earth to extinguish it"

"It survived crippling court cases and the imprisonment of staff, harassment and even censorship by the police. It survived a 12-year boycott (1930-1942) by wholesalers, during which the paper's readers delivered the paper to newsagents. It outlived an 18-month ban (1940-41) by a vindictive Home Secretary, Herbert Morrison, which was only called off after a grass-roots protest movement involving millions of people."

Now we get to the important bit, the bit that DOES make it different from the Socialist Worker, "At the end of the second world war in 1945, the Communist Party of Great Britain realised that the paper had a far wider importance than simply being the journal of the party and, in the September of that year, the People's Press Printing Society was established as an independent co-operative to publish the paper."

"Shares were sold at £1 each and, up and down the country, tens of thousands of trade unionists, Labour and Communist party members, trades councils and union branches and regions bought into the paper. Those shareholders realised that, for the working class, there was little that was more important than to have a daily voice against the forces of imperialism, capitalism, oppression and exploitation, a voice to counteract the diet of lies and distortions fed to the public by capitalism's toady press."

Further more, during the Falklands 'war', the CPGB (having given control to the People's Press Printing Society, the co-operative which publishes the Morning Star) tried to wrestle control back! This involved kicking members of the co-op out of the party and culminated 1983 in a resolution trying to assert a 'special relationship' between the party and the paper.

The paper remain in the hands of the PPPS and their elected committee, "not to be dictated to by a faction who wanted to be more equal than the others". Apparently the CPGB made several further overtures about forming a "friendly relationship" but were rebuffed.

The leadership of the CPGB continued to attack the Morning Star during the miners strike, which seems to raise further significant doubt about your claim that the star is the 'voice piece' of the party! Finally since the CPGB that launched the paper doesn't even exist any more, it is difficult to see how they can now be said to own, write, edit and print the paper.

You can read more about it from  http://www.communist-party.org.uk/index.php?file=history&his=chapter8.txt

Personally I feel it quite amazing that the paper has survived and it clearly does so now only with the support of the trade unions and it's readers. No doubt this has a major effect on the editorial line.

"In many ways, the struggle for socialism has become more complex and, in response, the paper has cast its net wide. As a forum for debate in the left, it has no parallel, as a voice for the working class it has no peer. Be it on environmental issues, human rights, trade union struggles, national or international politics, the Morning Star is there to inform, to publicise and to advocate."

Personally the few times I have read the paper I have been fairly impressed. I admite I have read it often, just free times that I can remember. But compared to the tone of what I've read in the odd Socialist Worker I've pulled out of the stacks left in the bins after a march, it is really quite obvious how different the two are.

Its sectarian because it 'reports' that some CPer thinks their paper is different to the SWP's paper because the latter is just a mouthpiece for the SWP, as if it is news. Its not news its sectarian ranting. And it has been identified as such.

I fear we may be boring the pants off everyone, but just to wrap up:

The old Communist Party split into factions in the 1980s as you rightly say - but one of those factions continues to this day as the Communist Party of Britain (CPB) and it's them that write, publish and sell the Morning Star.

That's why it's on their website, see?
 http://www.communist-party.org.uk

Now it may well be you prefer the CPB/MS style and/or politics to the SWP/SW. Up to you innit? But just factually, they are both papers that belong to parties.

As it goes I actually think they're _both_ pretty good sources of news and views:

Socialist Worker:  http://www.socialistworker.co.uk
Morning Star:  http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk

(Minor final point: Bit daft this is coming across as CPB vs SWP - actually right now they're close allies, effectively jointly leading the Stop the War Coalition:  http://www.stopwar.org.uk)

From the "Draft Constitution by Hizb ut-Tahrir" from their website

 http://www.hizb-ut-tahrir.info/english/constitution.htm

"Those who are guilty of apostasy (murtadd) from Islam are to be executed according to the rule of apostasy, provided they have by themselves renounced Islam. If they are born as non-Muslims, i.e., if they are the sons of apostates, then they are treated as non-Muslims"

"Muslims are entitled to establish political parties to question the rulers and to access the positions of ruling through the Ummah on condition that the parties are based on the ‘Aqeedah of Islam and their adopted rules are aHkaam shar’iyyah; the establishment of such a party does not require a license by the State. Any party not established on the basis of Islam is prohibited."

"Sovereignty belongs to the divine law (shara’) and not to the people."

"Segregation of the sexes is fundamental, they should not meet together except for a need that the shar’ allows or for a purpose the shar’ allows men and women to meet for, such as trading or pilgrimage (Hajj)."

"Women are not allowed to take charge of ruling, thus women cannot hold the positions of Khaleefah mu’aawin, waali, ‘aamil nor to practice any actions of ruling. She is not allowed to be a chief judge, a judge in maHkaamat ul-MuDHalim nor ameer of Jihad."

"The old Communist Party split into factions in the 1980s as you rightly say - but one of those factions continues to this day as the Communist Party of Britain (CPB) and it's them that write, publish and sell the Morning Star."

Um, no actually. I, plus my three full-time and one part-time reporters write the home news section of the Star - none of us are Party Members, and I would describe myself as hard left libertarian. Same goes for the foreign desk, subs desk, sport and features.

Our editor is in the CPB, but so what? And the co-operative that owns us is run by a management committee of which a minority are also in the CPB.

The bottom line is that we are a very Broad Church, rather like IMC but with less nutters and trolls thanks to the lack of open publishing. We would have gone under long ago if we were some dreary "party line" newspaper. We are not.

We publish news of interest to anyone who believes in socialism (of whatever variety), the trade union/labour movement (I've a lot of time for anarcho-syndicalist unions, for my part), the peace and Green movements, the anti-globalisation movement (we loved the G8 protesters), equal rights, Civil Liberties (yes indeed!) and the fight against sexism, racism, homophobia, Islamophobia et al. Even the Labour left.

We happily publish features by such diverse opinonaries as George Galloway, Ken Livingstone, CND leader Kate Hudson, and Green MEP Caroline Lucas (many more besides, but you get the idea).

A lot of CPB members help us sell the paper at demos, but we are also found in newsagents, unlike party-owned left papers - and frankly, if more people of different credos helped us out (not being in the pocket of millionaires we need all we can get) then they would be one voice amongst many...

Just as the Mail is a right wing newspaper with no official party connection, so we are a left wing newspaper, etc etc.

Sorry, sermon over. It just pisses me off when I see those who believe in change fighting the stale old sectarian battles of 20 years ago when we should all be fighting the common foe.

Yep, that's right they're over there - they are easy to spot; they have all the money and power.

We do NOT support North Korea, we are fully aware of what a Bad Man Stalin was but why any of this should stop us arguing for a fairer world is beyond me. That's what Blair would love to happen.

Thanks for hearing me out. I''m off now to murder some kulaks. (JOKE, by the way.)

Hi Daniel - no offence intended to you or your comrades and ta for clarification.

As I tried to say in my last comment I never meant to turn this into a row: I find both 'Socialist Worker' and 'Morning Star' are good, accurate, sympathetic news sources.

And as I say the SWP and CPB are close allies in the Stop the War Coalition, good for them.
 http://www.stopwar.org.uk

But in fairness this was all in response to the main article slagging off SW as a way of bigging up MS - so really that was where it went all Life-Of-Brian!

Shall we make up and be comrades? With Blair & Brown declaring New Labour 'renewed' and 80-year-old dissenters arrested under the Terrorism Act I agree we have bigger fish to fry!

 http://www.morningstar-online.co.uk
 http://www.socialistworker.co.uk

Sorry, got link wrong, not on purpose honest!

Morning Star:  http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk
Socialist Worker:  http://www.socialistworker.co.uk