KitNotes

… or, a report back from the Feminist Fightback conference. In short, it was a unmitigating sucess.

Over 210 people registered for the conference at SOAS, more than the organisers expected. Which is always good. The opening pleanary, featuring women involved in stuggles from Iran and Zimbabwe, firmly placed the conference on an internationalist and anti-imperialist basis.

Sessions ran on a variety of topics, from sexual expression to LGBT liberation. I atteneded the Transliberation session in the morning. Trans trade unionist Joanna Rowland-Stuart was supposed to lead the meeting off, however she was not able to make it, so one of her collegues lead off, as well as a member of the NUS LGBT committee (who’s name escapes me). Unfortunatly, since issues of Trans-liberation are continually overlooked by the Left, it was a fairly quiet meeting, but interesting (and nessicary) nonetheless.
The meeting on Women As Workers, with Maria Exall, an executive member of the CWU union and a black woman PCS activist (who’s name ALSO escapes me - argh!) which explored women’s struggle in the workplace. It is still depressing to hear that women are still being looked down upon for entering the workplace, especially in male-dominated industries like telecommunications and the rail industry.

I missed the next two sessions; I somehow ended up doing a stint on registration - I can’t remember how.

The mens’ meeting I chaired was unique in that for a mens’ session, there were more women than men in attendence, which thwarted my plans for a session of Maoist self-denunication, but it was still a very good meeting, hearing not just from men but also from women about their experiences. The main point - that women shouldn’t have to bring issues of women’s liberation to men, and that men should play a pro-active role in women’s liberation - just like how white activists should not have to wait for black activists to raise issues of black liberation - is an important point.

The closing pleanary, featuring Cathy Nugent (Solidarity editor), Carolyn Leckie (Scottish Socialist Party MSP) and Sofie Buckland (ENS Women and NUS Executive).

Photos - coming soon!

Click.

Clare Short has resigned as a Labour MP and will sit as an independent for the remainder of this parliament.

Ms Short has already said she will quit as an MP at the next general election.

In a letter to Labour’s chief whip, the Birmingham Ladywood MP accuses Tony Blair of telling “half-truths and deceits to get us to war in Iraq”.

The former Cabinet minister also accused the government of being “arrogant and error prone” and repeated her call for a hung parliament.

Ms Short told BBC News 24 that it took her a week to write the letter: “It was a very sad, big thing for me”.

She said she decided to resign the whip because she could “not go on being rebuked every week”.

From Dave Osler:

Clare Short and the Labour Party seem likely to part company, well, er … shortly, so to speak. So there will be no harm done if I break a confidence I have been sitting on for a couple of years.

I did know Clare a little while I worked for Tribune. Indeed, one of the main television news broadcasts accompanied the story of her ‘ashamed of Labour’ outburst with decade-old footage of her and yours truly chatting while entering Conway Hall.

But I have known her younger sister Eileen rather longer, ever since she was in the Militant Tendency back in the eighties.

The last time I ran in to Eileen was at Paul Foot’s funeral back in 2004, where I learned that had gotten involved in Respect and thereafter had joined the SWP.

And one of the off-the-cuff remarks she made to me was: ‘Things are so bad, nobody in my family even votes Labour anymore.’

Little wonder that Clare is stepping down as a Labour MP, I suppose. Meanwhile, the Birmingham Post speculates that she could soon be signing up with the Lib Dems.

My emphasis.  

I once met Clare Short whilst working in the Westminster village. She seemed a bit shakey then in interviews about her support for Labour.

My question: Why has it taken so long, eh?

Courtesy of Guido. The title of this blog entry - “Suffragettes died for this?” - sums it up neatly.

Of course, if you want to have a serious discussion about women in politics, socialist feminism, and other such more important things (and not a shoe shop in sight) then don’t forget that Feminist Fightback is this Saturday, 12pm, at SOAS.

See you there!

According to BBC News:

Ruth Kelly has rejected claims that the government is “demonising” Muslims, after reports it is to ask universities to spy on student suspects.

The communities secretary said many groups understood the need to work in a new way to “face up to” the threat.

She urged council chiefs to help battle extremism - saying it was an issue for all communities, not just Muslims.

But she denied reports universities would be urged to spy on individual students suspected of extremism.

A report in the Guardian newspaper said lecturers and staff would be asked to watch Muslim students suspected of involvement in extremism - and report them to Special Branch.

“I don’t recognise the way in which that work has been portrayed,” she told BBC Radio 4’s World At One programme.

“This is not about picking on individual students or even spying on them, it’s about sensible monitoring of activities to make sure individual students on campuses are protected.”

But Ms Kelly said that the guidelines were still being worked out, in discussion with universities, and it was important to “strike the right balance”.

It followed comments from University and College lecturers’ union joint leader Paul Mackney, that they were concerned about being “sucked into a kind of anti-Islamic McCarthyism”.

So, hang on; if we’re all up for this ‘combatting extremism’ lark (whatever that is when it’s at home) by keeping an eye on people who consort with ultra-religious sects which preach a strict doctrine of adherence to a holy book, and is intolerent towards gay people and oppresses women…

… shouldn’t we be keeping an eye on Ruth Kelly?

Iain Dale (in a comment in the below post on Sion Simon) claims that the pockets funding his 18DoughtyStreet TV project (the phase ‘Playing Murdoch’ irresistably springs to mind) are “sewed shut”.

This is somewhat interesting. From what I see, 18DS seems to have rather high production values - a fairly swish looking set, free video cameras to it’s ‘reporters’ across the UK, a rather nice website, etc. Now, since it is an internet TV station (and thus doesn’t pay carrage fees to the likes of Sky, NTL etc) it doesn’t have the obscenly high overheads of other TV stations. But setting up a TV operation, no matter it’s scope, is always going to take cash - and lots of it.

As I said before, 18DoughtyStreet will not seek to make a profit. There is no obvious way to the casual observer that they could ever make a profit from their business model. There aren’t even any Google ads - a common method of small websites to recouperate their costs. KitNotes doesn’t have adverts for two reasons - firstly, it is an anti-capitalist, socialist blog, and it would be very, very strange ideologically, to say the least, if I did put ads on here. Secondly, I value the editorial independence being ad-free brings. This blog costs me a mere £7 per month in hosting fees - a cost I feel I can bear.

No doubt Iain et al at 18DS feel the same. No crime there, I’m sure you’ll agree. But the difference between 18DS and KitNotes is that this operation only costs the aforementioned £7pm. 18DS are setting up a TV station, which requires a huge amount of start-up capital, as well as on-going costs.

Dale, the proprieter of Politicos Bookshop, could probably have stumped up the cash himself - the guy’s running the biggest bookshop in Westminster, after all. Indeed, there are a whole plethora of rich Tories out there, of that I’m sure, who would have been more than happy to bankroll the launch of 18DS. Because bankrolling media outlets is nothing new in modern politics - just take a look at the Progess magazine, the organ of people who (laughably) refer to themselves as ‘Labour’s progressives’ and how they were funded by Lord Sainsbury. I’m sure Tories aren’t averse to the same tatics.

However, Dale is pleading poverty. Well, to me and to KitNotes readers anyway. And I’m sure that Dale, as a steely-headed businessman himself, would adhere to the principle of shared risk; if the station goes under (and it is a real risk), then he wouldn’t have lost everything he’s invested.

18DS is, officially, run by Doughty Media Ltd. Again, nothing wrong or out of order in this at all (limited liability comes into it’s own when you’re being sued for libel - just ask Private Eye). However, there are very little details on their file at Companies House. The direct link is here, but they do forbid access in between Midnight-7am GMT/BST, so here is the copy and paste…

Name & Registered Office:
DOUGHTY MEDIA LIMITED
18 DOUGHTY STREET
LONDON
WC1N 2PL
Company No. 05897923

Status: Active
Date of Incorporation: 07/08/2006

Country of Origin: United Kingdom
 
Company Type: Private Limited Company
Nature of Business (SIC(03)):
None Supplied
 
Accounting Reference Date: 31/08
Last Accounts Made Up To:  (NO ACCOUNTS FILED)
Next Accounts Due: 07/06/2008
Last Return Made Up To:
Next Return Due: 04/09/2007
 
Previous Names: No previous name information has been recorded over the last 20 years.
 
Branch Details 
There are no branches associated with this company.
 
Oversea Company Info 
There are no Oversea Details associated with this company. 

So - no accounts filed, and they haven’t even told Companies House what they’re up to (I’d have thought that the SIC(03) would have been 9220, for ‘Radio and television activities’ or something similar).

This point is this; there is no such thing as a truly independent media. Every media outlet exists to push a particular viewpoint (and to make a profit in most cases). KitNotes aims to push a third-camp socialist perspective (as well as my Hardy Jokes). 18DS obviously exists to push a conservative (if not a Conservative) viewpoint - the ‘Left field’ show being just a sop to the idea of ‘balance’ if anything - in what it claims is a sea of ’liberal media’.

That idea is just nonsense. ITV, Sky, BBC, etc are all owned and controlled by the very people that Dale et al are probably very chummy with and share a dram o’Whiskey down the golf club. They already have the media in their pocket - the only reason why they’re not on the telly all the time is because nobody would watch it.

Dale, despite his public protestations to the contarary, also knows this too. So, just what exactly is the gig here? A good clue as to the meaning behind it would lie in it’s backers, and to what they want out of it.

Iain - open the books.

EDIT: Iain says he’s going to come back on the points I’ve raised. If he does, I promise to publish them here (unless he requests otherwise). However, I’d like to make a few things clear (totally unpromted, by the way).

a) I originally said this:

Because bankrolling media outlets is nothing new in modern politics - just take a look at the Progess magazine, the organ of people who (laughably) refer to themselves as ‘Labour’s progressives’ and how they were funded by Lord Sainsbury. I’m sure Tories aren’t averse to the same tatics.

Reading back on it, it can seem that I’m suggesting something dodgy is going on. I’m not. The whole ‘Progress’ thing has been covered by proper journalists (see Greg Palast: “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy” - the “Lobbygate” chapter) but…

b) I don’t want people to think that Iain’s doing anything wrong or improper at all. He isn’t. I’ve never said that he has, but I just want to make that clear.

c) The last three paragraphs where I said he hypes up ‘citizen’ journalism and bemoans liberal media. He hasn’t expressly said this, however, his ‘collegue’ Guido Fawkes certainly has:

Tonight sees the launch of www.18doughtystreet.com the media monopoly breaking internet TV channel fronted by Iain Dale and Tim Montgomerie (among others).

and…

The blogosphere’s attack on the old media doesn’t stop there

…just to point out two examples.