The Popular Front for the Liberation of the C.P.S.A

Spring is in the air and not just for Alex Salmond and the Scottish nationalists who won a stomping victory in the May elections. The Tory vote held in gilded south. South of the border Labour did reasonably well in the council polls and strengthened their grip on the Welsh Assembly and Lunity almost swept the board on the NEC. Even Dave Vincent has got something to crow about as he is no longer bottom of the pile of also-rans.

But elections are also about losers and they were two-a-penny this week starting with George Galloway and the Liberal Democrats right down to 4TM and the Independent Left.

None of the factions bothered to run a campaign and the turnout was roughly the same as last year. The grandees relied on their well-oiled machine to trundle out the votes of their activists and those of the PCS Democrats and Socialist Wankers who cling to their coat-tails to keep their NEC seats. The Independent Left, still nominally headed by Charlie MacDonald and John Baloney, have been bereft of any serious leadership following the retirement of Rod Bacon and it showed. No IL candidates made the cut, or were even close.

4TM fared little better. Their non-campaign, which had been left in the capable hands of Rob Bryson and Howard Fuller, relied entirely on the election addresses and increasingly cranky missives from Fullershit, invariably about Israel . The outcome was predictable. 4TM struggled to retain its core vote. Bryson was knocked off due to Departmental limitations and they're now down to just Di Breen, Lynda Frankland-Barber (called up because Steve Comer's taken an early bath) and Jake Wilde to fight their corner on the NEC. And as the turnout is roughly the same as last year, we can already predict next year's results.

Howie may be a figure of fun for the likes of McInally & Co but he still managed to get up Hugh Lanning's nose with an open letter asking Hugo in what capacity did he take part in a Palestinian conference that was held in sunny California last month. As you may know Lanning is the Chair of the British Palestine Solidarity Campaign which PCS supports. But the convention was organised by Al Awda, an American Palestinian movement which is not a trade union nor is PCS affiliated to it. Fuller, who doesn't approve of Al Awda, wants to know who paid for the trip and whether Lanning went on paid union leave. While we can presume that Lanning went and spoke at the conference on behalf of the group he chairs and that they or Al Awda picked up the tab for his flight and expenses we cannot be sure because the fat pompous git has refused to answer Fuller's letter. We can equally presume that Huge wrote his own CV for the Al Awda beano as it reads thus:

Hugh Lanning is Deputy General Secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, one of the 'big five' trade unions in Britain. Hugh was reelected to this position in 2009 for five more years. He has special responsibility for negotiations with the Cabinet Office on jobs, pensions and all personnel management issues, and represents the Public and Commercial Services Union in the Council of Civil Service Unions. Hugh also covers equality, international, disputes and line manages the majority of bargaining units. Hugh is Chair of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and headed a PSC trade union delegation to Palestine in 2008. He was instrumental in the landmark decision taken by the British Trade Union Congress to support a boycott campaign of settlements goods.

Not bad for someone who spends so little time in this country on PCS business. Now, run that bit about negotiating on jobs and pensions past me again. Thanks, now we know which useless git to blame. Oh, and someone ought to tell him that he was instrumental in abolishing the CCSU.

Old hands will recall that during the bad old days of the Ramsbladder regime every letter to a senior officer of the union was answered. Sure it was often not to their liking and in Barry's case it was larded with Glaswegian wit that some felt bordered on common abuse. Nevertheless they got an answer and so should Howie.

Fuller did get this curious response from Steve Comer which read:

Howard

There is a time and a place for these debates - PCS Conference in Bournemouth next month. Would you please remove my e-mail address from your mailing list with immediate effect.

Steve Comer

Apart from avoiding the substance of Fuller's letter poor old Comer seems to be under the impression that we are meeting Bournemouth. He's clearly suffering from amnesia which probably explains why he didn't tell his PCS Democrat and grandee colleagues to take his name off the NEC nomination list because he was leaving the service on 30th April.

While the special one lorded it in California two weeks ago, the rest of us will have to put up with the usual Brighton and this year's jaunt promises to be as mediocre as all the others over the past ten years. The perennial line of the former Mendicants now called the Socialist Party will be pushed throughout the week at group and national conference with little opposition from what's left of the Independent Left or 4TM.

The only 4TM motions on the order paper are from Hubert Gieschen who's still fighting the Cold War regardless of the fact that the Soviet Union collapsed twenty years ago. No one will understand what Gieschen's talking about and his motions – calling for a protest against the cuts agenda in Cuba and for affiliation to the Burma Campaign UK – are a sad indication of what 4TM sees as its priorities these days.

Never mind, Labour MP John McDonnell will entertain the troops at main conference along with Len McCluskey, the general secretary of Unite – the first time a real biggie has turned up to our annual bash. And we are promised the usual fringe events most of us avoid like the plague.

Few would quibble with the grandees' call for the restoration of the public services, a call for national but unspecified industrial action to defend jobs, a broader appeal to our great and glorious movement to build maximum unity against the cuts. But what exactly can PCS do? Very little if the feeble response to the sacking of senior union reps in the Home Office is anything to go by.

The cuts that have already taken place were reflected in this year's ballot and there's plenty more where they came from but delegates cocooned in the Brighton Centre will discuss and adopt proposals that look good on paper but will come to nothing because they don't reflect the reality on the ground.

Self-deception has always been a problem for activists – only this week I bumped into a Liberal-Democrat (no it was not Steve Comer!) who believes that their disastrous performance in the recent elections would, in fact, enable them to better rein in the Tory majority in the Coalition Government. Things can only get better he claimed. Believe me, they're gonna get worse, much worse…

The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.

Niccolo Machiavelli

WRINKLIES

You are probably wondering why Old Git Sir Woy D'Lewis continues to infest the hallowed halls of ADC, despite having retired from active service 10 years ago. That's because he's down as an observer on ARMs (Associated and Retired Members) dosh. Now they want delegate status with their grey votes. Motion A127 (buried) seeks to address this oversight by PCS. Be prepared for an onslaught of dodderers seeking to have the motion heard in the guillotined motions section.

But I digress, Marek (well, the missive was issued on his behalf) seems under the impression that the Gweat Sir Woy was nominated for an elected PCS position this year, and accordingly sent out the letter and acceptance forms to him. We're fairly certain that there is only one Roy Lewis with his associate membership number living at his address. They really ought to check these things at HQ or he'll be standing for Gen Sec next!
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CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL MY FRIENDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE 1940's, 50's, 60's and early 70's!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us and lived in houses made of asbestos. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese, raw egg products, loads of bacon and processed meat, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes or cervical cancer.

Then after that trauma, our baby cots were covered with bright coloured lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets or shoes, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.

Take away food was limited to fish and chips, no pizza shops, McDonalds , KFC, Subway, Nandos, Chinese, or Indian.

Even though all the shops closed at 6.00pm and didn't open on Sundays, somehow we didn't starve to death!

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.

We could collect old drink bottles and cash them in at the corner store and buy  Toffees, Gobstoppers, Bubble Gum and some bangers to blow up frogs with. We ate fairy cakes, white bread and real butter and drank soft drinks with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because......

WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of old prams and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. We built tree houses and dens and played in river beds with matchbox cars.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo Wii , X-boxes, no video games at all, no 999 channels on SKY, no video/dvd  films,  no mobile phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms..........WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

Only girls had pierced ears!

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

You could only buy Easter Eggs and Hot Cross Buns at Easter time...we ate strawberries only in July and August, and they tasted like they should.

We were given air guns and catapults for our 10th birthdays.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!

Mum didn't have to go to work to help dad make ends meet!

RUGBY and CRICKET had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Getting into the team was based on MERIT.  

Our teachers used to hit us with canes and gym shoes and bully's always ruled the playground at school.

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

Our parents didn't invent stupid names for their kids like 'Kiora' and 'Blade' and 'Ridge' and 'Vanilla'

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL !

And YOU are one of them! CONGRATULATIONS!

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good.

And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were.

PS -The big type is because your eyes are not too good at your age anymore.

Now I have to make this bigger because your eyes just got used to the big print. Damn!

I'll see you guys and gals at Brighton where you'll be buying our 2011 T shirt and this year's special merchandise, Memorial Matchbooks which includes our eagle motif on the obverse along with the Battlegroup name, to help defray our humungous print costs for your daily bulletin. T shirts are priced at a very reasonable £12 (all sizes catered for), matchbooks at a throwaway £1.50 per pack.This does not absolve your obligation to unload your silver and preferably banknotes, in our direction. Cheques made payable to PFLCPSA and Scottish currency accepted. The hat is always hungry!