Letter to The Argus, sent 31 March 2010
There’s lots of justifiable anger about greedy MPs (Letter, 31 March). There’s just one candidate in the Brighton general election who won’t be claiming an MPs full pay packet, or expenses- other than a second class season ticket from Brighton-to Victoria. That’s me. Fighting Brighton Kemptown as parliamentary candidate for TUSC, the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition. Our candidates- around 50 standing in different cities on socialist policies- are standing as `A Workers’ MP on a Worker’s wage’. If elected, I’ll be taking only the average wage of a skilled worker in Brighton.
And yes, I am happy to sit in Bartholomews Square, outside Brighton Town Hall, (inside if/ when wet) every Saturday afternoon from 12 till1, in a Town Hall meeting, to explain my votes and actions as trade unionist and socialist coalition MP- not New Labour, not, LibDem, not Tory- for Brighton Kemptown. And to show publicly all my expenses- my train and bus tickets! It’s a job and a privilege.
We’re not in it for the gravy train, we’re in it to make sure the gravy- it’s the workers that produce it after all!- flows to the workers, and doesn’t get creamed off by greedy fatcats and on the make politicians. We’re in it to protect workers’ jobs and conditions, and to protect and improve them. Not like New Labour/ LibDems and Tories, all three big business parties promising to decimate public services, attack trade unions, and chop out thousands of public sector jobs- teachers, care assistants, social workers, police, nurses.
That’s why much of our campaign in recent weeks in Brighton has been supporting workers in struggle- PCS strikers, college lecturers (UCU) strikers, and other groups of workers battling bullying bosses (like the Unite union trying to protect their pay and conditions at BA). Have a look at our blogspot, www.brightontusc.blogspot.com to see the focus of our campaign.
I’m not in this election to make money. I want to get elected to speak for the people. Many will not vote in this election because they see all politicians as the same.
By standing as a "workers' MP on a worker's wage", I am offering the chance to vote for something different, a real alternative. An alternative to stop the cuts, improve public services, to fight for working people!"
Dave Hill
Trade Unionist and Socialist Parliamentary Candidate for Brighton Kemptown
Wednesday 31 March 2010
Monday 29 March 2010
Dave's Dozen Education Demands: Open letter from Dave Hill, Professor of Education and TUSC (Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition) parliamentary candidate for Brighton Kemptown to the parents and teachers of Brighton Kemptown
Open letter from Dave Hill, Professor of Education and TUSC (Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition) parliamentary candidate for Brighton Kemptown to the parents and teachers of Brighton Kemptown
30 March 2010
Dave Hill is Professor of Critical Education Policy and Equality Studies. He is one of the foremost writers on education and equality in Britain today. His latest book, of 17 published, is Equality in the Primary School: Promoting good practice across the curriculum, (Continuum Books). (Google Dave’s dozens of publications).
He has spent his lifetime as a teacher in `challenging’ primary and secondary schools and in teacher `training’ and in universities trying to tackle inequalities in schooling- inequalities that result in millions of working class children having far less educational opportunities- and subsequently, usually lower paid jobs- than the children of richer parents, especially the 7% who go to private schools- and snap up most of the highest paid, elite, jobs.
Dave comes from a working class family brought up in some poverty, for example on free School Meals (like a million others!) in St. Martins’ St., off the Lewes Rd., Brighton. He went to Westlain Grammar School, his brothers to secondary modern schools, such as Queens Park and Moulscoomb. Dave’s children went to local state schools. The inequalities Dave has witnessed- and lived- as a child, and as a teacher and socialist political activist, have led him to spending his life fighting for greater equality in education and society., and against racism, sexism and against homophobia.
Dave says `it is incredible .. actually it is only too believable… that in Britain today, the richest section of society have 17 years of healthy life more than the least well-off in society. The minimum wage should be raised by 50%. How can people- decent hard working people like some in my own family, live on take-home pay of less than £200 a week! And there should be a maximum wage, too! Nobody, banker, boss, or buy-out bully, should be on more than £250,000 a year- not when there are 4 million children living in poverty! I was once one of them. I was helped by the welfare state. We need our public services. We need to improve them, not cut them, not attack them’.
`All three parties, New Labour, LibDem, Tory, dance to the music of big business. All are promising cuts. Whatever they say, those cuts will hit schools, children, and the quality of education in our state schools. Already we are seeing staff cuts and course closures in universities up and down the country. In Brighton, for example, both Brighton and Sussex Universities are promising to cut out the nurseries. Brighton Uni is proposing to cut its Adult Ed art courses. Vandalism! Cutting popular and widely used public services!’
And don’t believe cuts are necessary. The’yre not! Cutting the Trident nuclear submarine replacement programme, bringing troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq, stopping the Identity Card programme, and even some collecting the £120 billion in taxes unpaid by the rich… yes, £120 billion!...would mean cuts are not necessary at all! But you won’t hear that from the other parties, just from Socialists, like the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition.
Dave’s dozen point education manifesto is:
1. Cut class sizes (they are currently some of the largest in the rich world- much larger than in private schools for example). According to OECD research Britain is 23rd out of 30 developed countries in terms of large class size. Other countries such as Finland have a maximum class size of 20. Finland is widely seen as providing an extremely high quality of education. For a maximum class size of 20 by 2020 in both primary and secondary schools!’
2. Abolish league tables and abolish SATS (some external testing is necessary, but SATS often restrict teaching to `teaching to the test’, result in undue stress (and an increase in bedwetting, compared to the pre-SATS era, for example).
3. Restore local democratic control of `Academies’. They should be run by the democratically elected local councils, and keep to national pay and conditions agreements. Why should rich businessmen and women take control of any of our schools? Let’s keep the added investment- but it’s the government that pays for that added investment anyhow! Our schools and the children in them are not for sale!
4. Private profiteering out of our schools! Bring back the education services hived off to private profiteers back into either national or local private ownership! These include Ofsted, Student grants, school meals, cleaning and caretaking.
5. Free, nutritious, balanced school meals for every child to combat poor diets, obesity, and… yes… for some children… hunger!
6. Restore free adult education classes in pastime and leisure studies as well as in vocational training/ studies and Restore free funded residential centres and Youth Centres/ Youth clubs for our children so they can widen their experiences of life in safe circumstances and enhance their education beyond the confines of the home or city.
7. For a fully Comprehensive Secondary School system, so that each school has a broad social class mix and mix of ability and attainment levels. For the integration of Private schools into the state education system- so that the goodies of the private school system are shared amongst all pupils/ students. All schools to be under democratic locally elected local council control. No to Private Schools. No to religious groups running schools. No to big business / private capital running our schools and children!
8. Free up the curriculum so there can be more creativity and cross-subject/ disciplinary work. Encourage Critical Thinking across the curriculum. Encourage children to `reach for the stars- and to work for a society that lets that happen- a fairer society with much more equal chances, pay packets and power.
9. Proper recognition of all school workers, and no compulsory redundancies. For teachers, secretarial and support staff, teaching assistants, school meals supervisory assistants, caretaking staff, there should be workplace democratic regular school forums in every school. Regarding jobs (for example the threatened job cuts at Sussex University- and the `inevitable’ job cuts in every? school after the election- no compulsory redundancies- any restructuring to be conditional on agreement with the unions. As with point 12 below, where there are falling pupil numbers, this should be used to cut pupil teacher ratios, not teachers’ jobs!
10. Setting up of school councils – o encourage democratic understanding, citizenship, social responsibility, and a welcoming and valuing of `student/ pupil voice’.
11. Ensuring that schools are anti-racist, anti-sexist and anti-homophobic- making sure schools encourage equality, welcome different home and group cultures.. As part of this, anti-bullying practices in every school must be fully implemented, to combat bullying of all sorts, including racism, sexism, homophobia, and bullying based on disabilities. And this should be not just in anti-bullying policies, but also be part of the curriculum too!.
12. A good, local school for every child. No school closures! “Surplus places” should actually mean lower class sizes! And increased community use of school facilities.
Dave says-
`in my jobs, firstly as a teacher, and now as a Professor of Education I have been round hundreds of schools. Many of them are brilliant. Schools in the poorest areas, schools in better off areas! Brilliant. But, with better funding, smaller class sizes, an end to competition between schools (if every school is a good local school) and with more professional judgement being allowed for teachers- then I look forward to a time when all state schools match the class sizes and results of the currently more lavishly funded private schools’.
Vote Dave Hill- the Education Candidate in Brighton Kemptown
Vote Dave Hill- The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) candidate
30 March 2010
Dave Hill is Professor of Critical Education Policy and Equality Studies. He is one of the foremost writers on education and equality in Britain today. His latest book, of 17 published, is Equality in the Primary School: Promoting good practice across the curriculum, (Continuum Books). (Google Dave’s dozens of publications
He has spent his lifetime as a teacher in `challenging’ primary and secondary schools and in teacher `training’ and in universities trying to tackle inequalities in schooling- inequalities that result in millions of working class children having far less educational opportunities- and subsequently, usually lower paid jobs- than the children of richer parents, especially the 7% who go to private schools- and snap up most of the highest paid, elite, jobs.
Dave comes from a working class family brought up in some poverty, for example on free School Meals (like a million others!) in St. Martins’ St., off the Lewes Rd., Brighton. He went to Westlain Grammar School, his brothers to secondary modern schools, such as Queens Park and Moulscoomb. Dave’s children went to local state schools. The inequalities Dave has witnessed- and lived- as a child, and as a teacher and socialist political activist, have led him to spending his life fighting for greater equality in education and society., and against racism, sexism and against homophobia.
Dave says `it is incredible .. actually it is only too believable… that in Britain today, the richest section of society have 17 years of healthy life more than the least well-off in society. The minimum wage should be raised by 50%. How can people- decent hard working people like some in my own family, live on take-home pay of less than £200 a week! And there should be a maximum wage, too! Nobody, banker, boss, or buy-out bully, should be on more than £250,000 a year- not when there are 4 million children living in poverty! I was once one of them. I was helped by the welfare state. We need our public services. We need to improve them, not cut them, not attack them’.
`All three parties, New Labour, LibDem, Tory, dance to the music of big business. All are promising cuts. Whatever they say, those cuts will hit schools, children, and the quality of education in our state schools. Already we are seeing staff cuts and course closures in universities up and down the country. In Brighton, for example, both Brighton and Sussex Universities are promising to cut out the nurseries. Brighton Uni is proposing to cut its Adult Ed art courses. Vandalism! Cutting popular and widely used public services!’
And don’t believe cuts are necessary. The’yre not! Cutting the Trident nuclear submarine replacement programme, bringing troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq, stopping the Identity Card programme, and even some collecting the £120 billion in taxes unpaid by the rich… yes, £120 billion!...would mean cuts are not necessary at all! But you won’t hear that from the other parties, just from Socialists, like the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition.
Dave’s dozen point education manifesto is:
1. Cut class sizes (they are currently some of the largest in the rich world- much larger than in private schools for example). According to OECD research Britain is 23rd out of 30 developed countries in terms of large class size. Other countries such as Finland have a maximum class size of 20. Finland is widely seen as providing an extremely high quality of education. For a maximum class size of 20 by 2020 in both primary and secondary schools!’
2. Abolish league tables and abolish SATS (some external testing is necessary, but SATS often restrict teaching to `teaching to the test’, result in undue stress (and an increase in bedwetting, compared to the pre-SATS era, for example).
3. Restore local democratic control of `Academies’. They should be run by the democratically elected local councils, and keep to national pay and conditions agreements. Why should rich businessmen and women take control of any of our schools? Let’s keep the added investment- but it’s the government that pays for that added investment anyhow! Our schools and the children in them are not for sale!
4. Private profiteering out of our schools! Bring back the education services hived off to private profiteers back into either national or local private ownership! These include Ofsted, Student grants, school meals, cleaning and caretaking.
5. Free, nutritious, balanced school meals for every child to combat poor diets, obesity, and… yes… for some children… hunger!
6. Restore free adult education classes in pastime and leisure studies as well as in vocational training/ studies and Restore free funded residential centres and Youth Centres/ Youth clubs for our children so they can widen their experiences of life in safe circumstances and enhance their education beyond the confines of the home or city.
7. For a fully Comprehensive Secondary School system, so that each school has a broad social class mix and mix of ability and attainment levels. For the integration of Private schools into the state education system- so that the goodies of the private school system are shared amongst all pupils/ students. All schools to be under democratic locally elected local council control. No to Private Schools. No to religious groups running schools. No to big business / private capital running our schools and children!
8. Free up the curriculum so there can be more creativity and cross-subject/ disciplinary work. Encourage Critical Thinking across the curriculum. Encourage children to `reach for the stars- and to work for a society that lets that happen- a fairer society with much more equal chances, pay packets and power.
9. Proper recognition of all school workers, and no compulsory redundancies. For teachers, secretarial and support staff, teaching assistants, school meals supervisory assistants, caretaking staff, there should be workplace democratic regular school forums in every school. Regarding jobs (for example the threatened job cuts at Sussex University- and the `inevitable’ job cuts in every? school after the election- no compulsory redundancies- any restructuring to be conditional on agreement with the unions. As with point 12 below, where there are falling pupil numbers, this should be used to cut pupil teacher ratios, not teachers’ jobs!
10. Setting up of school councils – o encourage democratic understanding, citizenship, social responsibility, and a welcoming and valuing of `student/ pupil voice’.
11. Ensuring that schools are anti-racist, anti-sexist and anti-homophobic- making sure schools encourage equality, welcome different home and group cultures.. As part of this, anti-bullying practices in every school must be fully implemented, to combat bullying of all sorts, including racism, sexism, homophobia, and bullying based on disabilities. And this should be not just in anti-bullying policies, but also be part of the curriculum too!.
12. A good, local school for every child. No school closures! “Surplus places” should actually mean lower class sizes! And increased community use of school facilities.
Dave says-
`in my jobs, firstly as a teacher, and now as a Professor of Education I have been round hundreds of schools. Many of them are brilliant. Schools in the poorest areas, schools in better off areas! Brilliant. But, with better funding, smaller class sizes, an end to competition between schools (if every school is a good local school) and with more professional judgement being allowed for teachers- then I look forward to a time when all state schools match the class sizes and results of the currently more lavishly funded private schools’.
Vote Dave Hill- the Education Candidate in Brighton Kemptown
Vote Dave Hill- The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) candidate
Reply from a TUSC supporter, Dave Bangs, to the Greens over TUSC standing for election in Brighton Kemptown
Recently a Green councillor in Brighton questioned the right of TUSC to stand against the Greens in Brighton Kemptown, implying that the Greens had sole rights to the radical vote in Brighton Kemptown. We don't agree! here, below, is a detailed reply to The Greens in Brighton Kemptown, by Dave Bangs, a long-time socialist activist in Brighton in, for example, the Defend Council Housing Campaign. Dave is a supporter od TUSC and a member of Respect and of Socialist Resistance. SR, together with the regional RMT union and various national union leaders and local Brighton union activists, together with the Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party and other Left groups are all suporting TUSC, the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition.
Here is what Dave Bangs has to say about TUSC and the Greens
From Dave Bangs
29 March 2010
TUSC (The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition) and the Greens in Brighton Kemptown
Hi
You raise important points. Here’s a personal response to your piece (on the Hove Republic blog) from a local Respect member and strong TUSC supporter.
You say that TUSC policies merely replicate Green Party policies and imply that we should stand aside in Kemp Town for your candidate.
The Labour Party, too, though, had exemplary socialist policies written into its constitution (“for the nationalisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange…”etc) and sometimes into its manifestos (such as in 1983). In practice, though, it was a party that red-baited, broke strikes and attacked trade union power, imposed austerity cuts, abstained from key struggles (like the miners’ strike), and supported wars and imperialism world-wide at all the crucial turning points in the class struggle.
I feel pretty strongly about that because I was a Labour Party activist for twenty years.
There are other even better examples of the difference between words and deeds on the anti-capitalist left. The old communist parties had paper positions of detailed support for formal democracy where they ruled in the Stalinist states, and a propaganda of democracy around the world, yet their practice was as different from their policies as chalk is from cheese.
My own experience of the Green Party is very much coloured by my involvement in the last two years of the exhausting five year local campaign against council housing privatization. During this struggle the Green Party position was one of total abstention from the Defend Council Housing campaign, mixed with low level hostility. (I well remember local Green Party leadership accusations that DCH was an SWP front, for instance). Your Party, indeed, supported the ‘ALMO’ option, which is a half way step towards full privatisation via the privatization of council housing management.
The Greens took this position whilst describing themselves as the anti-privatisation party…
If it hadn’t been for the praiseworthy participation by Rachel Fryer in one of our final leafletting sessions leading up to the tenants ballot I would have given the Greens zero out of 100 for their efforts. To be sure, the Party did produce a pre-ballot mass leaflet calling for a ‘no’ vote, but the leaflet was so ambivalent and confused that DCH had to veto participating in its distribution.
I think that many progressive Green (and Labour) councillors never read the small print of the deal (so to speak) when they agreed to stand for their councils. The deal plainly says that if you want to be an effective class leader and tribune as a councillor you have to be prepared to take illegal action on behalf of your people, such as voting for deficit budgets, supporting illegal strike actions, risking surcharge and disqualification from office, prison, and sustained abuse from the mass media.
The times we live in mean that we will not be able to defend our people and advance green solutions to the crisis of nature and its systems UNLESS we are prepared to go to those lengths.
The Poplar councillors stood up to all those attacks in the early 1920’s. So did the Clay Cross councillors after the 1973 Housing Act, and so did the Militant leadership of Liverpool Council in 1984/5.
And actually, at that time, Dave Hill (the Brighton Kemptown TUSC candidate in the 2010 general election) led the East Sussex Labour councillors in joining the Labour Groups in Liverpool and Lambeth in their `deficit budget' strategy, refusing to accept the Thatcher cuts. If only every Labour council and group of councillors had! If only Labour had councillors like that now!
Lansbury and his fellow Labour and communist councillors in Poplar in the 1920’s were driven off to Pentonville and Holloway, where they continued to run their council from their prison cells, whilst a brass band of tenants and workers from Poplar serenaded them from below the prison walls… They won most of their demands.
Many of the Clay Cross councillors and their supporters in other areas were surcharged. Frank Dobson (my old MP for Kings Cross) was still paying his surcharge years later.
Derek Hatton was vilified and slandered and abandoned by many in the Labour Party and on the rest of the left for his leadership of Liverpool Council, but none of the charges directed at him stuck.
George Galloway was slandered repeatedly after his anti-war and pro-Palestine break from the Labour Party, and the slanders were believed by many on the left, and may be still, though there is not a shred of evidence for them.
I don’t see those kinds of principled stances in the Green Party. I see local Parties participating in coalitions with the main neo-liberal parties and voting for privatisations and service cuts. Abroad, I see Green Parties which are no different from other pro-capitalist parties, and which support imperialist wars and austerity.
Locally I see this opportunism in the local Party, which (to use an example close to my heart) just voted for a version of the Core Strategy which contained contingency policies for building on urban fringe Downland that should have been included in the National Park, and for park and ride options which environmentalists have denounced.
Pete West, I am told, was the only Green councillor who voted against this opportunism and warned the rest of the Green Group that their vote would come back and haunt them.
I hope it does.
I don’t believe that the Green Party has earned the right to assume the hegemonic leadership of the Brighton left which your stance, Sven, implies. I am an ecosocialist and my own organization (Socialist Resistance) is an ecosocialist organization. I feel that both TUSC and Respect better represent our views than the Green Party, even in their present local left stance.
We are going through a period of political recomposition of the left, with a number of initiatives having local support around the country. In the Green Party I can see that the Green Left of Derek Wall and Sean Thompson and its local members are doing grand work. It will take time for these different strands to come together in a new party of the working class, but it is very important that none of these initiatives assume that they have a right to a monopoly of left representation.
It is only very recently, with the deals between Manchester and Birmingham Respect and Green Parties, that the Greens have shifted a little bit from their head-banging refusal to negotiate appropriate representation for other left initiatives with local credibility at the head of the bill in local elections, but the Greens are still standing against Respect candidates such as George Galloway and Abjol Miah who have a realistic chance of being elected. Hardly non-sectarian!
Your piece seems too close for comfort to those old Green politics of ‘we will stand against you whoever you are if you are not in our Party’…
Dave Bangs
Here is what Dave Bangs has to say about TUSC and the Greens
From Dave Bangs
29 March 2010
TUSC (The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition) and the Greens in Brighton Kemptown
Hi
You raise important points. Here’s a personal response to your piece (on the Hove Republic blog) from a local Respect member and strong TUSC supporter.
You say that TUSC policies merely replicate Green Party policies and imply that we should stand aside in Kemp Town for your candidate.
The Labour Party, too, though, had exemplary socialist policies written into its constitution (“for the nationalisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange…”etc) and sometimes into its manifestos (such as in 1983). In practice, though, it was a party that red-baited, broke strikes and attacked trade union power, imposed austerity cuts, abstained from key struggles (like the miners’ strike), and supported wars and imperialism world-wide at all the crucial turning points in the class struggle.
I feel pretty strongly about that because I was a Labour Party activist for twenty years.
There are other even better examples of the difference between words and deeds on the anti-capitalist left. The old communist parties had paper positions of detailed support for formal democracy where they ruled in the Stalinist states, and a propaganda of democracy around the world, yet their practice was as different from their policies as chalk is from cheese.
My own experience of the Green Party is very much coloured by my involvement in the last two years of the exhausting five year local campaign against council housing privatization. During this struggle the Green Party position was one of total abstention from the Defend Council Housing campaign, mixed with low level hostility. (I well remember local Green Party leadership accusations that DCH was an SWP front, for instance). Your Party, indeed, supported the ‘ALMO’ option, which is a half way step towards full privatisation via the privatization of council housing management.
The Greens took this position whilst describing themselves as the anti-privatisation party…
If it hadn’t been for the praiseworthy participation by Rachel Fryer in one of our final leafletting sessions leading up to the tenants ballot I would have given the Greens zero out of 100 for their efforts. To be sure, the Party did produce a pre-ballot mass leaflet calling for a ‘no’ vote, but the leaflet was so ambivalent and confused that DCH had to veto participating in its distribution.
I think that many progressive Green (and Labour) councillors never read the small print of the deal (so to speak) when they agreed to stand for their councils. The deal plainly says that if you want to be an effective class leader and tribune as a councillor you have to be prepared to take illegal action on behalf of your people, such as voting for deficit budgets, supporting illegal strike actions, risking surcharge and disqualification from office, prison, and sustained abuse from the mass media.
The times we live in mean that we will not be able to defend our people and advance green solutions to the crisis of nature and its systems UNLESS we are prepared to go to those lengths.
The Poplar councillors stood up to all those attacks in the early 1920’s. So did the Clay Cross councillors after the 1973 Housing Act, and so did the Militant leadership of Liverpool Council in 1984/5.
And actually, at that time, Dave Hill (the Brighton Kemptown TUSC candidate in the 2010 general election) led the East Sussex Labour councillors in joining the Labour Groups in Liverpool and Lambeth in their `deficit budget' strategy, refusing to accept the Thatcher cuts. If only every Labour council and group of councillors had! If only Labour had councillors like that now!
Lansbury and his fellow Labour and communist councillors in Poplar in the 1920’s were driven off to Pentonville and Holloway, where they continued to run their council from their prison cells, whilst a brass band of tenants and workers from Poplar serenaded them from below the prison walls… They won most of their demands.
Many of the Clay Cross councillors and their supporters in other areas were surcharged. Frank Dobson (my old MP for Kings Cross) was still paying his surcharge years later.
Derek Hatton was vilified and slandered and abandoned by many in the Labour Party and on the rest of the left for his leadership of Liverpool Council, but none of the charges directed at him stuck.
George Galloway was slandered repeatedly after his anti-war and pro-Palestine break from the Labour Party, and the slanders were believed by many on the left, and may be still, though there is not a shred of evidence for them.
I don’t see those kinds of principled stances in the Green Party. I see local Parties participating in coalitions with the main neo-liberal parties and voting for privatisations and service cuts. Abroad, I see Green Parties which are no different from other pro-capitalist parties, and which support imperialist wars and austerity.
Locally I see this opportunism in the local Party, which (to use an example close to my heart) just voted for a version of the Core Strategy which contained contingency policies for building on urban fringe Downland that should have been included in the National Park, and for park and ride options which environmentalists have denounced.
Pete West, I am told, was the only Green councillor who voted against this opportunism and warned the rest of the Green Group that their vote would come back and haunt them.
I hope it does.
I don’t believe that the Green Party has earned the right to assume the hegemonic leadership of the Brighton left which your stance, Sven, implies. I am an ecosocialist and my own organization (Socialist Resistance) is an ecosocialist organization. I feel that both TUSC and Respect better represent our views than the Green Party, even in their present local left stance.
We are going through a period of political recomposition of the left, with a number of initiatives having local support around the country. In the Green Party I can see that the Green Left of Derek Wall and Sean Thompson and its local members are doing grand work. It will take time for these different strands to come together in a new party of the working class, but it is very important that none of these initiatives assume that they have a right to a monopoly of left representation.
It is only very recently, with the deals between Manchester and Birmingham Respect and Green Parties, that the Greens have shifted a little bit from their head-banging refusal to negotiate appropriate representation for other left initiatives with local credibility at the head of the bill in local elections, but the Greens are still standing against Respect candidates such as George Galloway and Abjol Miah who have a realistic chance of being elected. Hardly non-sectarian!
Your piece seems too close for comfort to those old Green politics of ‘we will stand against you whoever you are if you are not in our Party’…
Dave Bangs
Friday 26 March 2010
PCS Picket Line, Edward Street Brighton Employment Office - Strike Day Weds 24 March
Good, strong PCS picket line... around 30 pickets at the two entances. Striking to protect their work and retirement conditions.
Dave Hill, TUSC parliamentary candidate for Brighton Kemptown, showing solidarity with the strikers.
Dave said, ` you are justifiably standing up for your rights and conditions of work and your retirement packages. The three big business parties, New Labour, Liberal Democrats and Tories all want workers to pay for the current economic crisis. Why should the workers pay for the crisis? If there are strikes and pickets and demonstartions like this one, every time there is an attack on workers' pay and conditions, then, united, the trade union and labour movement can stop these cuts!'
Tuesday 23 March 2010
PRESS RELEASE: DAVE HILL TO STAND FOR PARLIAMENT FOR BRIGHTON KEMPTOWN FOR THE TRADE UNIONIST AND SOCIALIST COALITION (TUSC)
23 March10
dave.hill35@btopenworld.com
• The Brighton TUSC blogspot is at http://brightontusc.blogspot.com/
• The Brighton TUSC Facebook is at http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=328024422940&ref=nf
There is a Wikipedia entry on Dave Hill (Dave Hll Professor) at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Hill_(professor)
Dave Hill’s speech to the Brighton march and rally for jobs and public services (6 March, 600 people there) is on Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozMQeyMUfxE (part one) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOAI-gRH4lk (part two)
`I am a socialist and a trade unionist (in UCU, the lecturers’ union). I was Labour- twice I stood for Parliament for Labour, and led the Labour Councillors in East Sussex. But I’m not New Labour. I left Labour in 2005- it just doesn’t represent my class, the working class any more! I oppose the Iraq and Afghan wars, oppose making working people pay for the economic crisis that the fat cats- the supa-rich-caused. I want better public services- not cuts! And, if elected, I will take only the average Brighton worker’s wage! I am standing as a Workers’ MP on a Workers’ wage. And I’m happy to sit in Bartholemews Square , outside Brighton Town Hall (inside if wet!) the first Saturday of every month to account for every penny of my expenses- which will be minimal- the first Saturday of every month as part of a Town Hall/ Bartholemews Square Open to all Meeting- to account for my voting record, any expenses- and to listen to the people- and explain the policies of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition. We are in this to win! And to represent working people! ’
Dave says `Have a look at the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition policies! They are brilliant! Particularly retaining the minimum wage, renationalising services such as the railways, and capping fat cat pay. I am standing for TUSC in Brighton Kemptown to work for a radical redistribution of wealth and power and income to those of us who create the wealth and the profits- the working class’
`Why should working people, pensioners, students and the unemployed pay the price for an economic crisis not of our making? Why are the main parties and the bosses piling the burden of cuts and job losses on our shoulders when they continue to rake in thousands in expenses, millions in bonuses and billions in tax evasion and privatisations?’
`The amount of money lost to the government through tax avoidance or uncollected tax exceeds £120 billion, according to a report by Richard Murphy from the Tax Justice Network. That figure alone would plug nearly all the money that has been borrowed to bail out the banks. Cancel the Trident nuclear sub replacement programme and the Identity card programme- and- bob’s yer uncle- no need at all for any cuts in wages, jobs or public services whatsoever! In fact, if we tax the riches 1%, `the masters and mistresses of the universe- the fat cats who rake in millions, if we tax then at the same rates as in the 1970s- we can have a massive housebuilding and house energy conservation programme, free nutritious school meals for all, and free higher education’.
`Why should working people, both here and in the poorer world, have to pay for the disaster of climate change, which threatens to roast or drown whole regions and island states? We demand measures that protect us from this disaster of capitalism: - free public transport and an end to the dominance of the private car and air transport; a huge programme of green job creation; an end to polluting and planet damaging sectors; an end to fuel poverty; and massive reductions in fossil fuel usage.’
`This country is the sixth richest in the world! It is also one of the most unequal, and unhappy. The rich are paying half as much tax as 40 years ago, the poor are paying twice as much. That’s not fair, is it!’
`Tax the Rich, Increase the minimum wage, Set a maximum wage, Defend and Create jobs, Defend and Improve public services like the NHS. Vote Dave Hill, the Trade Unionist and Socialist parliamentary candidate for Brighton Kemptown!’
`TUSC is standing in this election to offer ordinary people a positive alternative to the unnecessary savage cuts lined up by the other parties. Vote TUSC, get involved, get justice.’
1. (My) experiences of inequality- and my life as a teacher professor and trade union rep since have resulted in a fierce hatred of inequalities in society, in life expectancy, education, pay, incomes, power and wealth. That’s why I’m standing as parliamentary candidate for Brighton Kemptown for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC). To protect and improve the standards of our public services, to fight for a more equal economy and society and education system.
Dave Hill Letter in The Argus, 5 March, 2010
Online at http://www.theargus.co.uk/yourargus/letters/5044989.The_grammar_school_system_perpetuated_the_class_divide/
2. Naomi Loomes The Argus 5 May 2009 described Dave as
`working class activist Dave Hill, a political icon in the city in the 1970s and 1980s’
Online at http://no2eusoutheast.blogspot.com/2009/05/former-brighton-councillor-to-run-for.html
3. Dave has spoken at student and UCU (lecturers’ union) rallies at Sussex University. He said
`Sussex University students are leading the way nationally in acting to stop the cuts. Now Sussex University UCU, together with Leeds University UCU, have both voted to take strike action to stop the cuts. UCU estimates that over the next 3 years 15,000 jobs at universities and colleges across the country are under threat- not just lecturers, but porters, secretaries, admin staff, cleaners- all sorts of workers- faced with job cuts unless there is solidarity in opposing them! Students and Workers, Unite and Fight!' Dave supported calls for an inquiry into the actions of management in suspending `the Sussex Six' students who were among those who staged an occupation of university admin buildings. He also called for an inquiry into the actions of management in calling in the riot police, with dogs and batons, to disperse the students at that occupation. Management had pretended there was a hostage situation! Despite students inviting staff to leave!. Unacceptable provocation by management! Stop the Cuts!
Online at http://www.brightontusc.blogspot.com/
Dave Hill is a former Labour Party councillor for Brighton Borough Council and East Sussex County Council, and led the Labour councillors in East Sussex, against the Thatcherite cuts in jobs and services- cuts that Con Lib and Lab all promise to carry out today!
He is also a former Labour Party Parliamentary candidate in Brighton (he fought Brighton Pavilion in 1979 and 1987, and fought in last year’s (2009) Euroelections as the No2EU-YestoDemocracy (the socialist and trade unionist campaign) as lead candidate for SouthEast England.
As Labour Group Leader for East Sussex County Council he organised and led the largest peace-time political demonstration in the history of Lewes with a march and rally of 3,000 protesters as part of the Campaign Against the Cuts. This was at the time of Thatcher’s Conservative government cuts in public spending and restrictions on local government.
Dave was brought up in Brighton in a working class family from the East End of London. He was brought up in the back streets of Brighton, St. Martins St, off the Lewes Rd. He went to the local Westlain Grammar school. His brothers left school at 15, having both gone to under-funded secondary schools. This difference in provision, this educational segregation between sheep and goats at the age of 11 (with the 11-plus exam) left Dave with a passionate hatred of inequality, and a determination to fight for his class- the working class.
He is a graduate of the University of Sussex, has taught at a number of the region's colleges and became a Professor of Education Policy. He has written and edited many books and articles on social class, economic and social justice, socialism and education.
He now teaches at Middlesex University. He is a long-time active trade unionist for the lecturers union, having been a branch representative / shop steward for a decade and also regional chair.
Dave left the Labour Party over its policies in Iraq and Afghanistan, and its pro-big business policies which have resulted in the rich getting richer, and the poor getting poorer. He is vehemently opposed to the privatisation and marketisation of schools and of hospitals.
The TUSC campaign in Brighton Kemptown is supported by various trade unionists, such as the local, regional and national RMT union, members and activists of other trade unions such as PCS, Unison, Unite, UCU, plus socialist groups such as The Socialist Party, Socialist Resistance, the Socialist Workers party, members of the Brighton and Hove Trades Council, and Defend Council Housing.
Dave says `My hope is that trade unions and socialist parties working, with `Old Labour’ supporters fed up with new Labour, working together in TUSC will lead to the creation of a mass workers’ party to the left of Labour, with socialist policies and trade union support’.
Or the Brighton TUSC blogspot at http://www.brightontusc.blogspot.com/
See also the Brighton Kemptown TUSC leaflet
Thanks
Dave Hill, Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition parliamentary candidate for Brighton Kemptown
dave.hill35@btopenworld.com
For lots of quotes and pics, see
• The Brighton TUSC blogspot is at http://brightontusc.blogspot.com/
• The Brighton TUSC Facebook is at http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=328024422940&ref=nf
There is a Wikipedia entry on Dave Hill (Dave Hll Professor) at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Hill_(professor)
Dave Hill’s speech to the Brighton march and rally for jobs and public services (6 March, 600 people there) is on Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozMQeyMUfxE (part one) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOAI-gRH4lk (part two)
Dave Hill: Why I am standing: Quotes
`I am a socialist and a trade unionist (in UCU, the lecturers’ union). I was Labour- twice I stood for Parliament for Labour, and led the Labour Councillors in East Sussex. But I’m not New Labour. I left Labour in 2005- it just doesn’t represent my class, the working class any more! I oppose the Iraq and Afghan wars, oppose making working people pay for the economic crisis that the fat cats- the supa-rich-caused. I want better public services- not cuts! And, if elected, I will take only the average Brighton worker’s wage! I am standing as a Workers’ MP on a Workers’ wage. And I’m happy to sit in Bartholemews Square , outside Brighton Town Hall (inside if wet!) the first Saturday of every month to account for every penny of my expenses- which will be minimal- the first Saturday of every month as part of a Town Hall/ Bartholemews Square Open to all Meeting- to account for my voting record, any expenses- and to listen to the people- and explain the policies of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition. We are in this to win! And to represent working people! ’
Dave says `Have a look at the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition policies! They are brilliant! Particularly retaining the minimum wage, renationalising services such as the railways, and capping fat cat pay. I am standing for TUSC in Brighton Kemptown to work for a radical redistribution of wealth and power and income to those of us who create the wealth and the profits- the working class’
`Why should working people, pensioners, students and the unemployed pay the price for an economic crisis not of our making? Why are the main parties and the bosses piling the burden of cuts and job losses on our shoulders when they continue to rake in thousands in expenses, millions in bonuses and billions in tax evasion and privatisations?’
`The amount of money lost to the government through tax avoidance or uncollected tax exceeds £120 billion, according to a report by Richard Murphy from the Tax Justice Network. That figure alone would plug nearly all the money that has been borrowed to bail out the banks. Cancel the Trident nuclear sub replacement programme and the Identity card programme- and- bob’s yer uncle- no need at all for any cuts in wages, jobs or public services whatsoever! In fact, if we tax the riches 1%, `the masters and mistresses of the universe- the fat cats who rake in millions, if we tax then at the same rates as in the 1970s- we can have a massive housebuilding and house energy conservation programme, free nutritious school meals for all, and free higher education’.
`Why should working people, both here and in the poorer world, have to pay for the disaster of climate change, which threatens to roast or drown whole regions and island states? We demand measures that protect us from this disaster of capitalism: - free public transport and an end to the dominance of the private car and air transport; a huge programme of green job creation; an end to polluting and planet damaging sectors; an end to fuel poverty; and massive reductions in fossil fuel usage.’
`This country is the sixth richest in the world! It is also one of the most unequal, and unhappy. The rich are paying half as much tax as 40 years ago, the poor are paying twice as much. That’s not fair, is it!’
`Tax the Rich, Increase the minimum wage, Set a maximum wage, Defend and Create jobs, Defend and Improve public services like the NHS. Vote Dave Hill, the Trade Unionist and Socialist parliamentary candidate for Brighton Kemptown!’
`TUSC is standing in this election to offer ordinary people a positive alternative to the unnecessary savage cuts lined up by the other parties. Vote TUSC, get involved, get justice.’
Dave Hill quotes
1. (My) experiences of inequality- and my life as a teacher professor and trade union rep since have resulted in a fierce hatred of inequalities in society, in life expectancy, education, pay, incomes, power and wealth. That’s why I’m standing as parliamentary candidate for Brighton Kemptown for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC). To protect and improve the standards of our public services, to fight for a more equal economy and society and education system.
Dave Hill Letter in The Argus, 5 March, 2010
Online at http://www.theargus.co.uk/yourargus/letters/5044989.The_grammar_school_system_perpetuated_the_class_divide/
2. Naomi Loomes The Argus 5 May 2009 described Dave as
`working class activist Dave Hill, a political icon in the city in the 1970s and 1980s’
Online at http://no2eusoutheast.blogspot.com/2009/05/former-brighton-councillor-to-run-for.html
3. Dave has spoken at student and UCU (lecturers’ union) rallies at Sussex University. He said
`Sussex University students are leading the way nationally in acting to stop the cuts. Now Sussex University UCU, together with Leeds University UCU, have both voted to take strike action to stop the cuts. UCU estimates that over the next 3 years 15,000 jobs at universities and colleges across the country are under threat- not just lecturers, but porters, secretaries, admin staff, cleaners- all sorts of workers- faced with job cuts unless there is solidarity in opposing them! Students and Workers, Unite and Fight!' Dave supported calls for an inquiry into the actions of management in suspending `the Sussex Six' students who were among those who staged an occupation of university admin buildings. He also called for an inquiry into the actions of management in calling in the riot police, with dogs and batons, to disperse the students at that occupation. Management had pretended there was a hostage situation! Despite students inviting staff to leave!. Unacceptable provocation by management! Stop the Cuts!
Online at http://www.brightontusc.blogspot.com/
Dave Hill: The Candidate
Dave Hill is a former Labour Party councillor for Brighton Borough Council and East Sussex County Council, and led the Labour councillors in East Sussex, against the Thatcherite cuts in jobs and services- cuts that Con Lib and Lab all promise to carry out today!
He is also a former Labour Party Parliamentary candidate in Brighton (he fought Brighton Pavilion in 1979 and 1987, and fought in last year’s (2009) Euroelections as the No2EU-YestoDemocracy (the socialist and trade unionist campaign) as lead candidate for SouthEast England.
As Labour Group Leader for East Sussex County Council he organised and led the largest peace-time political demonstration in the history of Lewes with a march and rally of 3,000 protesters as part of the Campaign Against the Cuts. This was at the time of Thatcher’s Conservative government cuts in public spending and restrictions on local government.
Dave was brought up in Brighton in a working class family from the East End of London. He was brought up in the back streets of Brighton, St. Martins St, off the Lewes Rd. He went to the local Westlain Grammar school. His brothers left school at 15, having both gone to under-funded secondary schools. This difference in provision, this educational segregation between sheep and goats at the age of 11 (with the 11-plus exam) left Dave with a passionate hatred of inequality, and a determination to fight for his class- the working class.
He is a graduate of the University of Sussex, has taught at a number of the region's colleges and became a Professor of Education Policy. He has written and edited many books and articles on social class, economic and social justice, socialism and education.
He now teaches at Middlesex University. He is a long-time active trade unionist for the lecturers union, having been a branch representative / shop steward for a decade and also regional chair.
Dave left the Labour Party over its policies in Iraq and Afghanistan, and its pro-big business policies which have resulted in the rich getting richer, and the poor getting poorer. He is vehemently opposed to the privatisation and marketisation of schools and of hospitals.
The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) in Brighton Kemptown: Who we are
The TUSC campaign in Brighton Kemptown is supported by various trade unionists, such as the local, regional and national RMT union, members and activists of other trade unions such as PCS, Unison, Unite, UCU, plus socialist groups such as The Socialist Party, Socialist Resistance, the Socialist Workers party, members of the Brighton and Hove Trades Council, and Defend Council Housing.
Dave says `My hope is that trade unions and socialist parties working, with `Old Labour’ supporters fed up with new Labour, working together in TUSC will lead to the creation of a mass workers’ party to the left of Labour, with socialist policies and trade union support’.
What TUSC stands for- our policies
Please see either the national websiste at http://www.tusc.org.uk/Or the Brighton TUSC blogspot at http://www.brightontusc.blogspot.com/
See also the Brighton Kemptown TUSC leaflet
Thanks
Dave Hill, Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition parliamentary candidate for Brighton Kemptown
Monday 22 March 2010
Dave Hill speech to the Brighton march for jobs and rally online on Youtube
to see the speech, google dave hill kemptown youtube. It's there, in two parts
photos of the various rally speakers are in a post below.
Videos of the speeches of Bob Crow, leader of the RMT union, Hannah Sell, deputy general secretary of the Socialist Party, Dave Hill, TUSC parliamentary candidate for Brighton Kemptown will be posted soon.
Pics of the launch meeting are below, including pics of speakers Kevin Dale, PCS union striker, and Jonathan Collier, one of the `Sussex Six' students suspended by Sussex University management for taking part in the occupation of the admin building as part of the Stop the Cuts campaign. The meeting was chaired by Greg Hewitt of the RMT (Rail, Maritime and Transport) union.
More pics are at the Brighton TUSC Facebook page.
photos of the various rally speakers are in a post below.
Videos of the speeches of Bob Crow, leader of the RMT union, Hannah Sell, deputy general secretary of the Socialist Party, Dave Hill, TUSC parliamentary candidate for Brighton Kemptown will be posted soon.
Pics of the launch meeting are below, including pics of speakers Kevin Dale, PCS union striker, and Jonathan Collier, one of the `Sussex Six' students suspended by Sussex University management for taking part in the occupation of the admin building as part of the Stop the Cuts campaign. The meeting was chaired by Greg Hewitt of the RMT (Rail, Maritime and Transport) union.
More pics are at the Brighton TUSC Facebook page.
Friday 19 March 2010
Thursday 18 March 2010
Thurs 19 March- Today's strike and picket line of UCU union members and supporters (students, other union reps and activists)
Excellent picket lines at the University of Sussex this morning- strong support by UCU members, by shop stewards and reps and activists of other unions- and by students- SP, SWP, StC (Stop the Cuts campaign)
Management has been criticised by Senate, by the University of Susses Students' Union (at a packed meeting yesterday- around a thousand at the meeting- couldn't all get in ti the meeting hall!.. passed a motion of no-confidence in the Uni Management... quite right too
If there is another UCU strike, hopefully the other main campus unions can also officially join in, UNITE and UNISON... their jobs of course are also affected.. 115 jobs including 53 lecturers and the rest are support/ student welfare etc staff.
Victory to the Strikers! keep Open the University Creche! An end to macho-management! No compulsory redundancies! Stop the Cuts!
I'll post some pics from this morning's picket line shortly
Dave Hill
Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition Parliamentary candidate for Brighton Kemptown
Management has been criticised by Senate, by the University of Susses Students' Union (at a packed meeting yesterday- around a thousand at the meeting- couldn't all get in ti the meeting hall!.. passed a motion of no-confidence in the Uni Management... quite right too
If there is another UCU strike, hopefully the other main campus unions can also officially join in, UNITE and UNISON... their jobs of course are also affected.. 115 jobs including 53 lecturers and the rest are support/ student welfare etc staff.
Victory to the Strikers! keep Open the University Creche! An end to macho-management! No compulsory redundancies! Stop the Cuts!
I'll post some pics from this morning's picket line shortly
Dave Hill
Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition Parliamentary candidate for Brighton Kemptown
Wednesday 17 March 2010
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Sussex University UCU union pre-strike rally Weds 17 March- support by lecturers and students. Sally Hunt (UCU leader) and Dave Hill address the rally
Sussex University lecturers' union UCU voted by a large majority recently to go on strike against management's threatened 116 job cuts. Today's rally was attended by a hundred or so lecturers supported by a hundred or so Stop the Cuts students campaigners. Speakers included Sally Hunt, general secretary of the UCU union, Dave Hill, UCU activist and parliamentary candidate for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition for Brighton Kemptown, plus other speakers giving solidarity- including Tom Hickey, chair of the Brighton University UCU branch, and Tom EWills, Sussex University Students Union president.
Dave Hill said `Sussex University students are leading the way nationally in acting to stop the cuts. Now Sussex University UCU, together with Leeds University UCU, have both voted to take strike action to stop the cuts. UCU estimates that over the next 3 years 15,000 jobs at universities and colleges across the country are under threat- not just lecturers, but porters, secretaries, admin staff, cleaners- all sorts of workers- faced with job cuts unless there is solidarity in opposing them! Students and Woekers, Unite and Fight!' Dave supported calls for an inquiry into the actions of management in suspending `the Sussex Six' students who were among those who staged an occupatuion of university admin buildings. He also called for an inquiry into the actions of management in calling in the riot police, with dogs and batons, to dispers the students at that occupation. Management had pretended there was hostage situation! Despite students inviting staff to leave!. Unacceptable provocation by management! Stop the Cuts!
Dave Hill said `Sussex University students are leading the way nationally in acting to stop the cuts. Now Sussex University UCU, together with Leeds University UCU, have both voted to take strike action to stop the cuts. UCU estimates that over the next 3 years 15,000 jobs at universities and colleges across the country are under threat- not just lecturers, but porters, secretaries, admin staff, cleaners- all sorts of workers- faced with job cuts unless there is solidarity in opposing them! Students and Woekers, Unite and Fight!' Dave supported calls for an inquiry into the actions of management in suspending `the Sussex Six' students who were among those who staged an occupatuion of university admin buildings. He also called for an inquiry into the actions of management in calling in the riot police, with dogs and batons, to dispers the students at that occupation. Management had pretended there was hostage situation! Despite students inviting staff to leave!. Unacceptable provocation by management! Stop the Cuts!
Friday 12 March 2010
Sunday 7 March 2010
Brighton marches for jobs- Saturday 6th March
Photos below from saturday's March For Jobs
Dave Hill says:
"This was the best attended Brighton and Hove Trades Union Council march for 20 years! The reason? Massive cuts in jobs and services promised by New Labour, Conservative and Liberal parties. Socialists say- tax the rich, nationalise not privatise, raise the national minimum wage to half the average national wage- to £12,000 a year. And vote for socialist candidates in the general election."
Full report on the Brighton TUC site
Dave Hill says:
"This was the best attended Brighton and Hove Trades Union Council march for 20 years! The reason? Massive cuts in jobs and services promised by New Labour, Conservative and Liberal parties. Socialists say- tax the rich, nationalise not privatise, raise the national minimum wage to half the average national wage- to £12,000 a year. And vote for socialist candidates in the general election."
Full report on the Brighton TUC site
Poster
Banners
Dave on the march
On the march
Save our Nurseries
On the march
Defend Phoenix Nursery
Students and Workers Unite!
The youngest protestor
Attila The Stockbroker
Bill North Brighton TUC General Secretary
Dave Hill
Tony Greenstein, Brighton Unemployed Workers Centre
The Grammar School system perpetuated the class divide
This letter from Dave appeared in The Argus- 5th March 2010
Len Goldman is right to criticise selective education (Letters, February 27).
Some, especially in the Tory party, want to bring back grammar schools. Tell that to the millions who got a second-rate education, second-rate funding, second-rate libraries and less qualified teachers in secondary schools compared with the lucky 20% who got into grammar school.
Yes, I was lucky, passing the 11-plus and getting a first-rate education at Westlain Grammar School, encouraged to reach for the stars, study until the age of 21, and set professional ambitions. I went on to become a university professor of education: not the lifestyle of a banker or billionaire, but very comfortable.
Not so for millions who were separated out for a second-rate education system – like my twin brother, who went to Queens Park and Moulsecoomb Secondary Schools.
Most working class kids in the 1960s were ejected at age 15 into factory, shop and building site work. Nothing wrong with that work, but manual workers, then as now, get far less in pay, pensions and benefits than the more highly qualified. Of course, both sets of workers – manual and professional – then and now get paid a tiny fraction compared to the ruling class, “the masters of the universe”, mostly educated at private schools, inheriting and passing on privilege.
Those experiences of inequality – and my life as a teacher professor and trade union rep since – have given me a fierce hatred of inequalities in society, in life expectancy, education, pay, incomes, power and wealth.
That’s why I’m standing as parliamentary candidate for Brighton Kemptown for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) – to protect and improve the standards of our public services, to fight for a more equal economy and society and education system.
There were lots of good things about the 1950s and 1960s. Reproducing the class structure by divisive education – expecting lots from the few and expecting little of the many – wasn’t one of them.
Professor Dave Hill
Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC)
Parliamentary candidate for Brighton Kemptown
Cumberland Road, Brighton
Len Goldman is right to criticise selective education (Letters, February 27).
Some, especially in the Tory party, want to bring back grammar schools. Tell that to the millions who got a second-rate education, second-rate funding, second-rate libraries and less qualified teachers in secondary schools compared with the lucky 20% who got into grammar school.
Yes, I was lucky, passing the 11-plus and getting a first-rate education at Westlain Grammar School, encouraged to reach for the stars, study until the age of 21, and set professional ambitions. I went on to become a university professor of education: not the lifestyle of a banker or billionaire, but very comfortable.
Not so for millions who were separated out for a second-rate education system – like my twin brother, who went to Queens Park and Moulsecoomb Secondary Schools.
Most working class kids in the 1960s were ejected at age 15 into factory, shop and building site work. Nothing wrong with that work, but manual workers, then as now, get far less in pay, pensions and benefits than the more highly qualified. Of course, both sets of workers – manual and professional – then and now get paid a tiny fraction compared to the ruling class, “the masters of the universe”, mostly educated at private schools, inheriting and passing on privilege.
Those experiences of inequality – and my life as a teacher professor and trade union rep since – have given me a fierce hatred of inequalities in society, in life expectancy, education, pay, incomes, power and wealth.
That’s why I’m standing as parliamentary candidate for Brighton Kemptown for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) – to protect and improve the standards of our public services, to fight for a more equal economy and society and education system.
There were lots of good things about the 1950s and 1960s. Reproducing the class structure by divisive education – expecting lots from the few and expecting little of the many – wasn’t one of them.
Professor Dave Hill
Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC)
Parliamentary candidate for Brighton Kemptown
Cumberland Road, Brighton
Friday 5 March 2010
URGENT Stop the fascists marching in London FRIDAY 5th MARCH
Dave Hill has a long history of fighting against facism, from being the Brighton local authority laison officer of the Anti-Nazi League to marching against the National Front to writing books on equality, to speaking at the TUC national conference of Trades Councils last year on racism and the Nazi BNP
Dave says 'stop the racists and fascists! Protest against the EDL in London this Friday 5 March- The EDL should not be allowed to march through London. Join the Unite Against Fascism protest to show these racists and fascists that they are not welcome'.
THE EDL HAVE EVERY INTENTION OF BEING PROVOCATIVE. THEY ARE THE ONES WHO ATTACK INNOCENT PEOPLE AND HURL RACIST ABUSE. MANY OF THEIR SUPPORTERS AND LEADERS ARE BNP MEMBERS. DO NOT BE FOOLED.
THE WAY TO BAN FASCISTS IS THROUGH MASS ACTION PREVENTING THEM FROM MARCHING. THAT IS THE LESSON OF CABLE STREET, LEWISHAM AND HARROW.
THE UAF HAS NEVER AGREED TO STATE BANS AND SUPPORTS NO PLATFORM FOR FASCISTS. THIS CAN ONLY BE IMPLEMENTED BY MOBILISING MASS ACTION TO STOP THE FASCISTS MARCHING. THE ONLY WAY TO PROTECT THE COMMUNITY FROM FASCIST ATTACKS IS TO PREVENT FASCISTS FROM MARCHING IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Assemble 11am, Friday 5 March Houses of Parliament, London
For more information please call 020 7801 2782
The English Defence League (EDL) will be marching in London on Friday 5 March in support of the far right Dutch MP Geert Wilders who is visiting the House of Lords to whip up hatred against Muslims. The EDL pretends to be a 'peaceful' group opposed to 'Muslim extremism'. In reality it is nothing of the sort. It is a gang of racist thugs and hooligans with links to the Nazi BNP. EDL thugs spread fear and terror when they rampaged through Luton and Stoke recently. They smashed cars, attacked shops, chanted "BNP! BNP!" and assaulted Asians. When some locals tried to stop them they were called 'race traitors' and attacked. The EDL should not be allowed to march through London.
Join the Unite Against Fascism protest to show these racists and fascists that they are not welcome here. Meet Friday 5 March at 11am outside the Houses of Parliament.
“Celebrate and defend multicultural London”
Unite Against Fascism counter protest against the EDL
Friday 5 March, 11am, Outside Houses of Parliament
Unite Against Fascism has called a peaceful protest against the English Defence League's (EDL) march in London. EDL protests around the country have led to violence and disturbances, including physical attacks on police officers and locals in Stoke-on-Trent earlier this year. London is a proud multicultural city and will not tolerate a return to the days when racists, such as the Nazi National Front and the BNP, could parade around threatening black, Asian, Muslim communities and others.
Ken Livingstone, Unite Against Fascism Chair said:
“The EDL is attempting to stir up violence and unrest across the country. Its so called ‘protest’ in Stoke-on-Trent in January was quite simply a fascist riot, where even police officers were attacked. London is a multicultural city and the majority of Londoners say multiculturalism is one of the best things about London. The EDL’s sole purpose is to whip up violence, hatred, racism, Islamophobia. Therefore it is not in the public interest to allow this march to proceed and we call on the Home Secretary and the police to ban this march.”
Dr Muhammud Abdul Bari, Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain said:
"The EDL has organised a series of anti-Muslim 'protests' across the country, that have led to violent attacks on Muslims, other communities and even the police in some cases. The EDL must not be allowed to march through multicultural London. We call on the Home Secretary and the police to ban this march."
Billy Hayes, Communication Workers Union General Secretary said:
“The EDL is a racist conspiracy. The Home Secretary should ban this march, to prevent the promotion of criminal intent and violence against Muslims.”
Anas Altikriti, Spokesperson for British Muslim Initiative said:
"Geert Wilders' second visit to the UK in which he is likely to spout his racist and xenophobic rhetoric, marked by a a march called by the fascist English Defence League, is utterly disgraceful. This is not a matter of free speech or free expression, but rather of incitement. Wilders and the EDL's attacks on Islam and Muslims go virtually unchallenged due to the lack of appreciation as to how profound the real impact is on the streets of every city and town throughout the country. We are at a juncture; either we take heed of the lessons of our recent past, or we obliviously proceed towards a bleak future blighted by racism, isolationism, hatred and violence."
Sabby Dhalu, Unite Against Fascism Joint Secretary said:
“One of the most disturbing consequences of the election of BNP MEPs to the European Parliament last year, is that it has emboldened fascist organisations like the EDL to organise overtly anti-Muslim street demonstrations. The EDL is an embryonic fascist pogrom movement and its sole purpose is to stir up violence, racial and religious hatred. Surely the priority for the police and other authorities is to protect the majority of people in society who abhor what the EDL stand for. This march represents a clear threat to freedom, safety, security and public order and must be banned.”
Weyman Bennett, Unite Against Fascism Joint Secretary said:
"The EDL are racists and give support to the Nazi BNP. We need to come together to make sure that they don't get to whip up race hate on our streets. Let us unite to stop the Nazis and racists."
Dave says 'stop the racists and fascists! Protest against the EDL in London this Friday 5 March- The EDL should not be allowed to march through London. Join the Unite Against Fascism protest to show these racists and fascists that they are not welcome'.
THE EDL HAVE EVERY INTENTION OF BEING PROVOCATIVE. THEY ARE THE ONES WHO ATTACK INNOCENT PEOPLE AND HURL RACIST ABUSE. MANY OF THEIR SUPPORTERS AND LEADERS ARE BNP MEMBERS. DO NOT BE FOOLED.
THE WAY TO BAN FASCISTS IS THROUGH MASS ACTION PREVENTING THEM FROM MARCHING. THAT IS THE LESSON OF CABLE STREET, LEWISHAM AND HARROW.
THE UAF HAS NEVER AGREED TO STATE BANS AND SUPPORTS NO PLATFORM FOR FASCISTS. THIS CAN ONLY BE IMPLEMENTED BY MOBILISING MASS ACTION TO STOP THE FASCISTS MARCHING. THE ONLY WAY TO PROTECT THE COMMUNITY FROM FASCIST ATTACKS IS TO PREVENT FASCISTS FROM MARCHING IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Assemble 11am, Friday 5 March Houses of Parliament, London
For more information please call 020 7801 2782
The English Defence League (EDL) will be marching in London on Friday 5 March in support of the far right Dutch MP Geert Wilders who is visiting the House of Lords to whip up hatred against Muslims. The EDL pretends to be a 'peaceful' group opposed to 'Muslim extremism'. In reality it is nothing of the sort. It is a gang of racist thugs and hooligans with links to the Nazi BNP. EDL thugs spread fear and terror when they rampaged through Luton and Stoke recently. They smashed cars, attacked shops, chanted "BNP! BNP!" and assaulted Asians. When some locals tried to stop them they were called 'race traitors' and attacked. The EDL should not be allowed to march through London.
Join the Unite Against Fascism protest to show these racists and fascists that they are not welcome here. Meet Friday 5 March at 11am outside the Houses of Parliament.
“Celebrate and defend multicultural London”
Unite Against Fascism counter protest against the EDL
Friday 5 March, 11am, Outside Houses of Parliament
Unite Against Fascism has called a peaceful protest against the English Defence League's (EDL) march in London. EDL protests around the country have led to violence and disturbances, including physical attacks on police officers and locals in Stoke-on-Trent earlier this year. London is a proud multicultural city and will not tolerate a return to the days when racists, such as the Nazi National Front and the BNP, could parade around threatening black, Asian, Muslim communities and others.
Ken Livingstone, Unite Against Fascism Chair said:
“The EDL is attempting to stir up violence and unrest across the country. Its so called ‘protest’ in Stoke-on-Trent in January was quite simply a fascist riot, where even police officers were attacked. London is a multicultural city and the majority of Londoners say multiculturalism is one of the best things about London. The EDL’s sole purpose is to whip up violence, hatred, racism, Islamophobia. Therefore it is not in the public interest to allow this march to proceed and we call on the Home Secretary and the police to ban this march.”
Dr Muhammud Abdul Bari, Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain said:
"The EDL has organised a series of anti-Muslim 'protests' across the country, that have led to violent attacks on Muslims, other communities and even the police in some cases. The EDL must not be allowed to march through multicultural London. We call on the Home Secretary and the police to ban this march."
Billy Hayes, Communication Workers Union General Secretary said:
“The EDL is a racist conspiracy. The Home Secretary should ban this march, to prevent the promotion of criminal intent and violence against Muslims.”
Anas Altikriti, Spokesperson for British Muslim Initiative said:
"Geert Wilders' second visit to the UK in which he is likely to spout his racist and xenophobic rhetoric, marked by a a march called by the fascist English Defence League, is utterly disgraceful. This is not a matter of free speech or free expression, but rather of incitement. Wilders and the EDL's attacks on Islam and Muslims go virtually unchallenged due to the lack of appreciation as to how profound the real impact is on the streets of every city and town throughout the country. We are at a juncture; either we take heed of the lessons of our recent past, or we obliviously proceed towards a bleak future blighted by racism, isolationism, hatred and violence."
Sabby Dhalu, Unite Against Fascism Joint Secretary said:
“One of the most disturbing consequences of the election of BNP MEPs to the European Parliament last year, is that it has emboldened fascist organisations like the EDL to organise overtly anti-Muslim street demonstrations. The EDL is an embryonic fascist pogrom movement and its sole purpose is to stir up violence, racial and religious hatred. Surely the priority for the police and other authorities is to protect the majority of people in society who abhor what the EDL stand for. This march represents a clear threat to freedom, safety, security and public order and must be banned.”
Weyman Bennett, Unite Against Fascism Joint Secretary said:
"The EDL are racists and give support to the Nazi BNP. We need to come together to make sure that they don't get to whip up race hate on our streets. Let us unite to stop the Nazis and racists."
Wednesday 3 March 2010
Dave Hill- your TUSC candidate- a fighter for the working class
Dave Hill is a former Labour Party councillor for Brighton Borough Council and East Sussex County Council, and led the Labour councillors in East Sussex, against the Thatcherite cuts in jobs and services- cuts that Con Lib and Lab all promise to carry out today!
He is also a former Labour Party Parliamentary candidate in Brighton.
As Labour Group Leader for East Sussex County Council he organised and led the largest peace-time political demonstration in the history of Lewes with a march and rally of 3,000 protesters as part of the Campaign Against the Cuts. This was at the time of Thatcher’s Conservative government cuts in public spending and restrictions on local government.
Dave was brought up in Brighton in a working class family from the East End of London. He was brought up in the back streets of Brighton, St. Martins St, off the Lewes Rd. He went to the local Westlain Grammar school. His brothers left school at 15, having both gone to under-funded secondary schools. This difference in provision, this educational segregation between sheep and goats at the age of 11 (with the 11-plus exam) left Dave with a passionate hatred of inequality, and a determination to fight for his class- the working class.
He is a graduate of the University of Sussex, has taught at a number of the region's colleges and became a Professor of Education Policy. He has written and edited many books and articles on social class, economic and social justice, socialism and education.
He now teaches at Middlesex University. He is a long-time active trade unionist for the lecturers union, having been a branch representative / shop steward for a decade and also regional chair.
Dave left the Labour Party over its policies in Iraq and Afghanistan, and its pro-big business policies which have resulted in the rich getting richer, and the poor getting poorer.
He is vehemently opposed to the privatisation and marketisation of schools and of hospitals.
Dave says “Have a look at the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition policies! They are brilliant! Particularly retaining the minimum wage, renationalising services such as the railways, and capping fat cat pay. I am standing for TUSC in Brighton Kemptown to work for a radical redistribution of wealth and power and income to those of us who create the wealth and the profits- the working class”
Dave is a member of Socialist Resistance and a supporter of the Campaign for a New Workers’ Party.
He is also a former Labour Party Parliamentary candidate in Brighton.
As Labour Group Leader for East Sussex County Council he organised and led the largest peace-time political demonstration in the history of Lewes with a march and rally of 3,000 protesters as part of the Campaign Against the Cuts. This was at the time of Thatcher’s Conservative government cuts in public spending and restrictions on local government.
Dave was brought up in Brighton in a working class family from the East End of London. He was brought up in the back streets of Brighton, St. Martins St, off the Lewes Rd. He went to the local Westlain Grammar school. His brothers left school at 15, having both gone to under-funded secondary schools. This difference in provision, this educational segregation between sheep and goats at the age of 11 (with the 11-plus exam) left Dave with a passionate hatred of inequality, and a determination to fight for his class- the working class.
He is a graduate of the University of Sussex, has taught at a number of the region's colleges and became a Professor of Education Policy. He has written and edited many books and articles on social class, economic and social justice, socialism and education.
He now teaches at Middlesex University. He is a long-time active trade unionist for the lecturers union, having been a branch representative / shop steward for a decade and also regional chair.
Dave left the Labour Party over its policies in Iraq and Afghanistan, and its pro-big business policies which have resulted in the rich getting richer, and the poor getting poorer.
He is vehemently opposed to the privatisation and marketisation of schools and of hospitals.
Dave says “Have a look at the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition policies! They are brilliant! Particularly retaining the minimum wage, renationalising services such as the railways, and capping fat cat pay. I am standing for TUSC in Brighton Kemptown to work for a radical redistribution of wealth and power and income to those of us who create the wealth and the profits- the working class”
Dave is a member of Socialist Resistance and a supporter of the Campaign for a New Workers’ Party.
Some pictures of Dave Hill on campaigns in recent years
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Dave was a platform speaker at the national TUC conference of Trades (Union) Councils in Eastbourne. The conference focussed on anti-racism
2009 Brighton March for Gaza
Brighton Pensions Demonstration (March 2006)
Anti-Academies 'Fat Cat' protest, 2005
Michael Foot- Labour's last socialist leader
A socialist committed to the working class, to equality, to anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-homophobia and to redistributing power, wealth and income to working people and our families.
New Labour is very different. A pro-capitalist party. It may have done lots of good things (Sure Start, the Minimum Wage, more investment in schools and the National Health Service for example)... but... buried beneath New Labour is subservience to the City, Big Business and Capitalism... resulting in low taxes for the rich, a higher tax burden for the poor, and greater inequality.
That's why I'm standing for election as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC)... to stand up for the (blue collar and the white collar) working class.
Tax the Rich! Increase the Minimum Wage! Restore Trade Union Rights! Renationalise public services such as the railways, gas, water and electricity!
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