Today, Glasgow students visited young Labour conference in order to tell Aaron Porter what a crap job he’s doing as NUS president. Having been sacrificed to us by his Labour bosses so they could clear the door of the clearly terrifying mob, Aaron was kettled by us. Much screaming of “I don’t expect to be filmed!” and “I don’t want to be hit!” followed (nobody was hitting him, and he in fact broke someone’s camera. PROPERTY VANDAL!) until he did a total comedy run away.
He is currently MIA on Glasgow Uni campus, and even Labour can’t find him/aren’t looking for him. His twitter is silent. WHERE ARE YOU AARON PORTER? Stay tuned to porterwatch on twitter!
Aaron Teleporter, shortly before running away. The security guard in the back thought it was hillarious.
More details, including a reconstruction of Aaron Porter’s terrifying ordeal, to come later.
Over here at the Free Hetherington we’ve got one decommissioned riot helmet from the polis, but one day we might have to follow the example of Egyptian protesters and make our own ingenious designs from whatever’s lying around. Here’s a few of the best; I look on them with envy.
Yer man here is not only demonstrating an admirable commitment to recycling, but his helmet (obviously) embodies the kind of pro-democracy, pro-environment dialectic that we need to pursue.
Proof that childhood play prepares you for a range of activities, including bringing down a government.
Not only is this going to be a total bastard to smash through, it’s also incredibly jaunty.
As far as I’m concerned, if you don’t support people who wear home made Rebel Alliance helmets, you’re just a dick.
Porter perfects his 'Mullaband' contemplative face for the future.
Mind when the media took it upon themselves to decide that Diana was “the people’s princess” even though she had just as little to do with us untitled scum as the rest of them? Well, Aaron Porter would do well to remember that just because the media treat you like you’re King of the Students doesn’t make it so.
NUS has been basically an irrelevance for many students for a long time now, with the closest a lot of us get to them being flashing an NUS extra card in a shop. Others (including me) attend institutions where the student population has repeatedly rejected having NUS organise on campus, because they’re basically useless to us and in some cases would actually be detrimental to student organisation, as well as food and drink prices in unions. Given that, perhaps it was inevitable that when a real crisis happened, the NUS would be no help at all.
In his tenure as NUS president, Porter has abandoned the idea of free education and proposed a graduate tax, attacked those who occupied Millbank as a “tiny minority” who apparently weren’t ‘real’ students (whatever that means), and then, in a desperate attempt to claw back some credibility and power after the movement ran away from him, was forced into a humiliating admission of “spineless dithering” on his part. I’d propose that that statement was the most truthful and relevant thing Porter’s said during this entire attack on students all across the UK, because the latest move from NUS has again been to push for lobbying of MPs, and to reject the UK wide demo on vote day in favour of their own candlelit vigil by the Thames. Oh, and we should all spend the day lobbying our MPs instead to tell them just how mistaken they are about fees increases.
There’s two problems here. First, the idea of lobbying, with specific reference to the NUS call to lobby Lib Dem MPs. The thing about this approach is that it largely depends on the belief that MPs simply haven’t thought through the consequences that fee rises and cuts will have for young people who’re seeking education. The idea of free education has been under attack for years, with further attacks on the idea that the arts are worth studying at all, and thinly disguised snobbery towards any institution that’s not an ’ancient’ university. These attacks don’t come out of politicians being misguided, it’s part of a concerted agenda to privatise education, delimit what is worthy of study (and what is worth studying is what’s immediately valuable to UK capitalism) and further turn educational institutions into cash machines that are basically closed to people without money, much like the US. This isn’t some mistake, it’s a mission. There might well be a significant number of MPs who will vote against this week’s bill, due to personal convictions or political expediency, but the amount of them who will truly believe that education should be free at the point of demand and genuinely accessible, and who wont buy into the limiting of what people can study, will unfortunately be much smaller.
So, given that it’s not just about one bill, and not just about some Lib Dem betrayal (many of us aren’t surprised at all, because a generally social democratic, pro capitalist party like them were always going to run into a bit of cognitive dissonance when they actually got power, and were never going to take long to drop the policies that appeal to young people and students) then it’s more than fair to say that lobbying MPs is not going to solve this. This is a long term fight to stop education cuts, and to preserve the rights of people who aren’t of the upper classes to get an education without jumping through scholarship hoops, so this repeated rejection of big demos and focus on lobbying days that NUS champion just isn’t going to cut it as a strategy.
Some people find it perplexing that an organisation called the National Union of Students can be so utterly out of tune with the way the wind’s blowing among the people they wish to represent. However, we need to take into account that an NUS position is a classic career move for those who want a job in politics, particularly people who are dying to become a Labour MP. Aaron Porter stood as an independent for the NUS presidency, but is in fact a Labour member. After talking to Porter on the Daily Politics Show, Andrew Neil probably got it dead on when he said “I think I was talking to a future MP there!”. If Porter wants a career as an MP, he’s going to have to play the game and avoid rattling any cages, and that basically rules out doing anything that will actually make any difference, or make people feel a sense of cohesion, power and optimism.
So, we get useless shite like a candelit vigil, an idea which has unfortunately spread to some individual student representative councils, for example Glasgow uni’s. Candelit vigils are usually held to mourn something that’s already happened, or something happening that is outside of our power to change because we are removed from it. That is not the case here, and apart from anything else, asking people to stand quietly and hold a fuckin candle while this vote happens is a great way to demotivate everyone. I wont be trekking to Edinburgh to melt a bit of wax, and I doubt the NUS demo will pull many folk away from Parliament Square either, no matter how many pleas they put out.
Porter is guilty of a massive dereliction of duty as a student representative, and I’ve outlined why. He has no interest in following the wishes of most students across the UK, because it doesn’t fit his political and personal interests. The campaign against cuts and fees has officially run away from NUS, and they’ve nobody to blame but themselves. Students of all stripes, and future students too, don’t want a king, they want a voice, and unfortunately from Porter’s point of view, they’ve found it themselves.
We’ll have a proper report in the fullness of time, but we can confirm that among the intrepid adventurers who breached Snake Mountain today in London was at least one SSY crusader.
A good hour of my time has now been taken up by giggling while imagining the inevitable outraged conversation that will be the soundtrack to someone scraping this off.
While not quite topping the post title we shamelessly stole from someone on twitter, the runner up award in our Quote of the Riot competition goes to the BBC, for informing us that “this shows no sign of clearing, a drum and bass soundsystem has just arrived”.
I hear from my super sleekit pals in the meedjuh that Ruth Black, the Glasgow councillor and manager of the Glasgow LGBT centre who I just finished writing about, has been expelled from the Labour Party! Deary me. I guess there might be some truth in some of those accusations after all…? Perhaps a website update is in order, Castro webmaster.
ETA: Well, the party have suspended her and Gordon Matheson has withdrawn the Labour whip from her; in the world of murky Labour politics that’s as good as a straight expulsion. In other news, a stunning victory as SSY scoop The Herald on their own exclusive. Yaaaaas!
Unfortunately, as expected, Glasgow is about to lose its LGBT centre for the second time in less than two years due to the immediate withdrawal of the centre’s £50,000 grant. As much as Labour will want to put this down to one bad apple (and let’s be clear that this loss of another LGBT centre must be laid squarely at Ruth Black’s feet) this never would have happened without good old cronyism. And what exactly have they allowed to happen? Well, pretty much all the awful shit we detailed yesterday, but since this wee internal investigation is over we can stop being so coy and break out the juicier details.
- The centre’s management (ie Ruth Black) are under investigation by HMRC because despite deducting it from employee pay they have paid no tax or NI over for seven months. Naughty naughty! And also totally tragically hillarious from someone who has spent a lot of time over the past few years trying to convince everyone of what a good socialist she is. If the employees’ NI credits aren’t made up then they can lose pension and benefit entitlements. Fantastic. Well done Ruth!
- Part of the £50,000 grant for the council was used to buy a private car for someone.
- Huge phone bills have been run up and charged to the centre and stupid amounts of money have been paid to a Perth games machine company without any profits being declared.
- Ruth Black employed her partner’s son which is totally contrary to council grant rules. OOPS!
- The Centre has had its building insurance withdrawn because of non payment of premiums. OOOOOOOPS!
- Ruth Black has been operating the centre with no public or employee liability insurance. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPS!
Ruth comes up with another brilliant money saving idea
However, good old Ruth has promised that the centre will continue to trade without the council grant. Do I really have to spell out why that is a totally stupid idea that is never, ever going to happen? Ruth has managed to get the centre into £45,000 of debt, but has only received £20,000 of the council grant and wont be getting any more. That’s called being insolvent Ruth, and we aren’t even taking into account your eventual bill from HMRC and the fact that you’re trading illegally without proper liability insurance. Apart from that, does anyone in the Glasgow LGBT community want this woman in charge after the uncovering of this mess? My guess is no. You have to wonder what the hell Ruth’s actually been doing at the centre apart from skimming money off the top and making a shitload of phonecalls. I suppose the answer to that is nothing. Perhaps someone should have explained to her that saving money for yourself and saving money for the centre are two different things, and that things like insurance and paying for your beer are really not expenses that you can neglect.
No matter what Ruth Black says, the Castro centre is finished. Well fucking done Ruth for ruining Glasgow’s second LGBT centre after the first one closed in other mysterious circumstances, and congratulations for beating the last one by having your spectacular flaming failure before the centre’s even been open for a year! Ruth Black should never be in any kind of position of authority in the Glasgow LGBT community again, and here’s hoping that this debacle helps encourage folk to take charge and demand the LGBT centre that they want, instead of the centre that the council want.
Maybe Ruth will want to follow her good pal Steven’s example and make a rapid exit for a holiday in the sun where she can get away from nasty rumour mongering bastards like us. Might I suggest the Cayman Islands? I think it’d be right up Ruth’s street.
Before you jet off though Ruth, fancy explaining what the hell you’ve been doing with the centre, and where the stolen tax and national insurance is?
Check your 'Purcell & Black' for irregularities and residue every month when you're in the shower.
Ah, Steven Purcell. Him leaving Glasgow City Council has been like one of those horribly awkward and protracted breakups that ends up sucking in a whole social circle, and you know the basic story of what happened but you get the feeling there’s more to it. Gradually, ever more horrible, cringeworthy and sometimes fucking funny details just keep leaking out. Of course, situations like that are gifts for gossipy petty folk who can’t get enough of delighting in the right people’s misery, and us folk at Leftfield are no exception. So it was with no small amount of schadenfreude that we learned that the Castro Centre, the new incarnation of the Glasgow LGBT centre which was forced to close down with debts of £300,000 looks like it’s about to close as well, because of *drumroll* big debts and possible massive corruption.
Please understand, it’s not the fact that Glasgow is possibly about to lose its only dedicated LGBT community centre for the second time that’s causing this glee. The fact that it may close again is a frankly ridiculous and outrageous situation. However, a large amount of disturbing evidence has emerged from various sources that suggests that not only has SolidarityLabour councillor Ruth Black (who ran the last LGBT centre and left her post just months before the centre was forced to close with crippling debts) only managed to find herself back in charge due to good old Purcell brand ‘irregularities’, but also that the centre is being run poorly and downright dishonestly.
When the LGBT centre first closed, people were understandably angry and upset. Groups lost a meeting place they’d had for years, and this was of particular concern to support organisations like Crosslynx Glasgow (a trans support group) who had very real concerns about finding a venue where they’d feel (and be) safe. As well as this, groups received virtually no notice that the centre was about to go under, and faced a frantic scrabble to find a new venue in order to stop a loss of momentum and members. As if that all wasn’t frustrating enough, what actually happened to the LGBT centre is still shrouded in mystery; all we really know for sure is that when it closed it was £300,000 in debt and that there were angry refutations of any suggestion of irregularity or incompetence in management posted to the GLGBT website before it was taken down for good. Also, there were whisperings in the papers that Ruth Black had essentially run it into the ground, but the stock response was she had left her job months before the closure and so had nothing to do with it. Which is a pretty pish counterargument, but oh well! Maybe, we hoped, Glasgow would have an LGBT centre again soon, and it would be better run and hopefully be a fun, useful and supportive place for LGBT folk to hang about. However, what actually happened was that Glasgow Labour cronyism did what it does best; ignored what was best for the people a service is meant to, you know, serve, and instead just did what was best for their councillors.
When two babies were bitten in their house by a fox the other day, I wondered why the media were going so absolutely baws oot crazy about it, and made a quiet wee joke to myself that foxes were going to be the Daily Mail’s new target. Lo and behold, the campaign begins! It’s taken me about three attempts to actually start writing this post, because I’m a pretty sensible person and I can’t stop pissing myself at the Daily Fail article in question; it’s genuinely one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a long time, and I can’t help wishing that I’d written it as a satire piece for Letfield.
For those that can’t be bothered clicking the link, the article is a kind of hideous mash up of Countryside Alliance rhetoric and the Daily Mail’s own special brand of moral crusading; it would seem that, for them, foxes are the new terrorists. According to the ‘journalist’ who wrote this, Rory Knight Bruce, there’s a concerted PR campaign to give foxes a false cuddly image, which unites animal rights activists and Roald Dahl in a fiendish conspiracy to make children think foxes are their friends. Presumably the foxes made a generous contribution to Dahl’s estate so that it would be easy for them to find vulnerable children whose faces they can rip off.
A few years back, I was walking home and I saw a red fox just outside my house. I stopped downwind of it and crouched down to watch it a wee while, because I’ve always been an obsessive fan of animals. There was another girl coming from the opposite direction, and she had a pretty different reaction. She saw the fox, froze, and then ran screaming away from it. I laughed at the time, but apparently the mail considers that a measured reaction to these clearly evil and vicious little bastards.
They interview a completely unbiased trapper who makes his living shooting foxes, and surprisingly enough he says anyone who views them as essentially benign is “living in cloud cuckoo land” and then goes on to list a number of domestic animals that have supposedly been lost to fox attacks. Did anyone really need this wanker to give them the news that foxes like to eat small furry animals that have probably been left outside? He also totally overstates the incidence of foxes attacking dogs and cats. Foxes tend to be not much bigger than your average cat, and much smaller than the dogs most people have. Also, a lot of small dogs such as terriers have been bred for killing ‘vermin’ and would easily beat a fox in a fight. It would seem though that it’s the eating of a koi carp that cost £1500 that really offends Trapper Wank. Those damn foxes have no respect for private property! What are they, animals?! No doubt they raised the money to bribe Roald Dahl and the pro-fox sophists by selling the expensive koi meat down Brick Lane.
The mail then goes on to give us the shocking news that foxes mark their territory by pissing and shitting! You know, unlike nearly every other animal to walk the planet. What dirty wee bastards! See if you’re THAT bothered about foxes coming in your garden for a shit and your chickens are actually being taken by them, then there are a couple of things you can do. You need to get a handy male friend and ask him to piss all over your garden instead. Oh, and dig your fucking coop fence in, you stupid noob.
A fox lets out a groan of satisfaction after taking a huge dump on the Daily Mail editor's head.
Of course, it’s not just that fox shit is clearly disgusting, oh no, we have to remember that these dangerous animals can give us diseases as well! The Daily Mail informs us that fox shit can carry Toxascaris, a variety of parasitic roundworm. We’re also given the scary statistic that there are around one hundred new cases of Toxascaris a year in humans! If you know anything about statistics, medicine or not being a chump, then you should be pissing yourself right now, because one hundred cases a year is nothing. It’s the same as the number of cases of the very rare Q Fever, an infection that usually turns up in people who work closely with animals. Of course, the mail doesn’t tell you that, and they also don’t tell you that domestic dogs and cats also carry Toxascaris.
Hillariously, the mail also mentions a few foxes who, in the course of their natural chewing behaviour, developed a taste for brake fluid and started biting through the cables on cars, and it’s almost like the writer thinks there was some kind of malicious intent behind it. However, this shouldn’t really surprise us given that he spends a couple of paragraphs whining about how nasty foxes have been to him and his family. One vixen, who he tried to rescue from a collapsed earth, had the temerity to bite him! Why, who could imagine a frightened and cornered wild animal biting a person who touched them? Any animal worker will tell you that being bitten is part of the job when you get close to wildlife.
He also tells us that he believes two of his family terriers were killed by foxes. One through mange (because dogs never, ever get mange without the help of a fox) and one due to a “characteristically vicious assault”, which suggests to me that he didn’t actually see the fox killing his dog. Quite apart from that, if his dog was killed by a fox, it’s very likely that the terrier (as I’ve already said, they have hunting and killing in their genes) started the fight.
And then there’s the big issue. Rory cites two instances of foxes attacking children to boost his campaign against their brushy reign of terror. What he doesn’t tell you is that these two cases are pretty much the only two in a fucking age. The BBC felt the need to do a measured evaluation of how often foxes attack people, and I can save you the bother of going to look it up. The answer is (drumroll) almost never, you foaming at the mouth mail reading chumps.
From all this easily debunked nonsense, Rory reaches “the inescapable conclusion that the urban fox is a pest that needs to be controlled.” Well I’ll tell you what, following his logic (disease, bite rates etc.) then clearly we need to shoot all the domestic dogs and cats in the UK, and probably all the small furry pets too, because they bite people a hell of a lot more than foxes do. SSY demands that we start to eliminate this dangerous menace NOW, and we further posit that any objections to this plan are just lily livered liberal nonsense that does not recognise the fact that humans are clearly superior to other animals, and have a right to destroy any part of the natural world that inconveniences them in any way.
That waxy sheen becomes self-aware and begins to eat half of Cameron's face.
Just when you thought you had enough reasons to set The Sun on fire, they go and give you another one! Most of the complaints I’ve seen about this one run along the lines of “Oh, how dare they compare Cameron to a REAL CHANGE like Obama!” and sure, I can go along with that to some degree. I mean there’s nothing special about some viciously posh Eton boy getting to run the UK; there was something special about the USA electing its first black president.
The worst thing about this though? It’s the cloying, smarmy, up their own arse quality that it’s got. Come on peons, we’ve got some stolen famous graphic design! Just do what you’re told and vote Tory! Resistance is futile! We have our own Obama now! 100% fake change, now with added Tory Bastardry.
In a last ditch attempt to impress voters, Nigel Farrage prepares to swallow his own fist.
Anybody who will take pleasure in seeing UKIP leader Nigel Farrage getting the pish utterly ripped out of him will enjoy the latest episode of Have I Got News For You. Watch it here, and make sure to stay tuned for a classic Kilroy clip and details of UKIP’s new super sexy line of dressing gowns.
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