Indy appeal: help the SSP storm Oxford: Colin Fox is SSP raise £50k to set to take on the UK elite in finance our campaign the heart of Oxford University • see page 2 • see page 10 £1 • issue 437 • 2nd –15th May 2014 facebook.com/scottishsocialistvoice British Unionist myth exploded by Richie Venton, SSP national workplace INDEPENDENorgaCniser E WORKERS celebrating so - cialism and internationalism on May Day events will doubtless be subjected to the annual ritual of Labour politicians making nause - ating declarations of their undy - ing devotion to the working class, BOOST TO international solidarity and so - cialism. These chancers don’t even blush as they make speeches that totally contradict what they practice all the rest of the year. They fail to explain how intro - ducing what became the Bedroom WORKERS’ Tax under a Labour government – and Labour’s refusal to pledge its abolition for a clear six months after it was imposed – helped the cause of workers’ unity. Track record SOLIDARITY They won’t be highlighting Labour’s track record of retain - ing the most vicious anti-union laws in Europe – with Tony Blair boasting about it! – for their en - tire 13 years in government. They won’t want us to recall that it was a Labour government that dragged us into bloody im - perialist wars as they prattle plat - itudes about internationalism. SACK LABOUR AND THE TORIES: more cuts, austerity and unjust wars await if we vote No PHOTO: Craig Maclean • Continued on page 8 facebook.com/ScottishSocialistVoice @ssv_voice FINANCE APPEAL by Jim McVicar, SSP National Treasurer THE SCOTTISH Socialist Cash vital to fuel indy fight Party has registered with the to be seen to be impartial. The CBI dependently as the SSP we have Our independence campaign Electoral Commission as a Yes is an arch-supporter of the Tories, received a positive response to appeal fund has a target of campaigner for the independence who since the days of Thatcher our campaign work and canvass - £50,000 and though still in its in - referendum in September. have supported brutal anti-trade ing and have received requests fancy, has received donations The SSP, since it was formed, union laws. Yet when it comes to from all over Scotland for SSP from every corner of Scotland and has supported Scottish independ - the CBI supporting the unionist campaign material. although £50,000 is a massive ence and has campaigned within campaign, no mention of a ballot The SSP, unlike the Tory and amount of money for the SSP to the pro-independence movement is made or the legitimacy of them Labour joint-unionist campaign, raise, I am confident that we will for an independent socialist Scot - supporting the No camp. have no friends in big business to achieve our target with your con - land as a way of lifting working The pro-independence cam - bankroll our campaign. tinuing support. people out of the misery that pro- paign have been out on the streets We rely solely on the money we That’s why I’m appealing to you market governments have brought throughout Scotland, with street raise from our members, friends through the pages of the Voice to to all our lives. stalls, public activity, public and supporters to finance our cam - make a pledge or donation to the In an independent Scotland, meetings and door to door can - paign, and every penny we receive independence appeal fund today. working class people will be better vassing and whether as part of to help promote our socialist vision See below for details of how to off and Westminster-led Tory gov - Yes Scotland, RIC or working in - of Scotland is much appreciated. donate. Thanks for your support. ernments in Scotland will be con - signed to the dustbin of history. HOW TO DONATE TO THE SSP INDY APPEAL The past week has seen the • Donate via your local SSP branch • Paypal: [email protected] bosses union, the CBI, registering • Send a cheque to ‘SSP Independence Appeal If you want to help with the appeal fund, or if to support the unionist No cam - Fund’ and return to Jim McVicar, SSP National you need any more details, contact Jim McVicar paign, but within hours many of Treasurer, Suite 307, 93 Hope St, Glasgow G2 6LD on 07810205747 or email: its members were up in arms, say - • Text 07810205747 with your pledge amount and [email protected] ing they had not been consulted email address if you have one • Bank transfer: SSP Appeal Fund Account, Co-op However you choose to pledge, please text Jim and were withdrawing their CBI Bank, Sort Code 08-92-99 / Account No. 65094637 the details so we can keep track of all donations. membership as they felt they had Fighting for a fair and equitable media which benefits journalists, journalism and Civic Society May Day greetings from NUJ Scotland Paul Holleran National organiser James Doherty Chair, Scottish Executive Council 2 • Scottish Socialist Voice • issue 437 EDITORIAL by Ken Ferguson JUST A few weeks ago in Labour’s Scottish ‘red turn’ turns Perth’s imposing Concert Hall on the banks of the Tay, Scot - blue for Miliband’s squeezed middle tish Labour’s low profile leader appeal to floating voters now Johann Lamont announced the BLUE ROMANCE : Labour’s called the “squeezed middle” to launch of ‘Red Labour’ which, Johann Lamont and Ed win the key English seats we were assured, would out - Miliband – in bed with the Tories needed for Westminster power. flank the social democratic For Scotland the brutal reality SNP on the left. is that in this game even if they It was to be a class act and wanted to be “Red” London was duly written up by the would veto it as the politics of largely tame pro-unionist politi - so called “blue Labour”, fo - cal scribes as a return to Labour cused on middle England, values and posing a major largely discounts their views. problem for Salmond and, by That’s why Miliband’s jaunt to extension, the Yes camp. Less Glasgow with his aptly named gullible activists and writers re - shadow cabinet hardly raised a called that Ms Lamont has been ripple in a Scottish public who busily trashing the key Labour increasingly see through the achievements and reforms in spin to the Tory tinged reality of line with traditional Labour val - parliamentary Labour Party Her heartless views could today’s Labour Party. ues such as free prescriptions with one eye on their own com - have come from the pages of as a “something for nothing” so - fortable life styles simply adds Dickens or indeed almost any Credibility gap ciety. As the old saying has it if insult to injury. From now on Tory leader from Stanley Bald - Nothing more illustrates this it seems to good to be true it any calls for a boost to the pal - win through Norman Tebbit to credibility gap than the deploy - probably is and so it proved. try benefits grudgingly allowed Iain Duncan Smith. However in ment of so called “big guns” the sick, disabled and unem - its logic it flows directly from the Gordon Brown, the grumpy, dis - Vile policy ployed will be met with the call techniques of spin and so mally failed ex-Prime Minster The delegates has barely got of the guardian’s of the rich called “triangulation” which long and the Union Jack-wrapped home from the spin-managed “there is no money!” replaced working class politics ex-Celtic chairman and incorri - Perth “conference” before Truly Labour has voted with in the one time Peoples Party. gible warmonger Lord Reid of Labour MPs – with a few hon - this one measure for a return to It was begun by Neil Kinnock Cardowan, as supposed No ourable exceptions – voted with the oppression of the poor and who abandoned the miners in campaign vote winners. the supposedly hated Tories to unemployed that spawned the their strike, refined by Blair and Both are dinosaurs peddling cap welfare spending. At a hated means test and imposed culminated with the news that an increasingly discredited anti- stroke this vile policy, tailored to forced labour during the hungry the Miliband team have hired – independence doom message. appeal to the mythical strivers 1930s. Now we have Labour for mega bucks – key Obama On May Day, better to heed not the victims of bankers’ employment shadow Rachel spin doctor David Axelrod. the famous words of Burns greed now termed skivers, de - Reeves writing in the genteel All this is driven by Labour who marked their card la - stroys the basis of Labour’s columns of The Guardian that desperation – in the teeth of belling them a “Parcel of proudest achievement the wel - under Labour the long-term un - Tory crowing about the econ - rogues in a nation” and redou - fare state. That this was done employed would not be able to omy and the rise of UKIP in ble or efforts for independence by the whipped sheep of the “linger on benefits”. England – to craft policies to and socialism. WORKING FOR A BE TTER Fill in this formJ and osend iit tno: Sc ottishh Sociealist P aSrty, SuSite 37P 0, 4th Floor, Central Chambers, 93 Hope St, Glasgow G2 6LD. Or phone: SCOTLAND 07810205747. Or join the SSP online: scottishsocialistparty.org/join-us g I would like to join the Scottish Socialist Party YesPCS extends May Day greetings to Civil g I would like more info on the Scottish Socialist Party Servants everywhere. Name........................................................................................ We’d also like to invite you all to our public Address......................................................................................