Johnny Rotten is an arsehole. He betrayed his punk roots long ago and is now nothing more than a sad old man flogging things and selling his soul for kudos from capitalism. He recently said:

I showed what I can do with butter, right?  Eighty-five percent increase in sales. I’m very proud of them Country Life ads. They were funny and clever and classy like the Toblerone ads I grew up with. But no one’s come in for me with anything else. Like … Red Stripe lager! I drink lakes of this stuff. Why haven’t I been signed up for something like that? Or Marlboro fags? It amazes me that people don’t get the opportunity of me. I sell.

But he’s also revealed that he’s not just a capitalist fuckpig, he’s thick as a plank and racist at that.

Rotten was asked by Palestinian campaign groups not to perform in Israel, as part of a cultural boycott – the campaigners say cultural collaboration boosts Israel’s image on the international stage, and that refusing to participate in cultural exchange, artists and cultural institutions globally can send a clear message to Israel that their occupation and discrimination against Palestinians is unacceptable.

Surely such a politicised and aware person as Johnny Rotten would, even if he disagreed with the boycott, respond to the requests on a political level?

Nah. He has “absolutely one rule, right? Until I see an Arab country, a Muslim country, with a democracy, I won’t understand how anyone can have a problem with how they’re treated.”

Woah woah woah woah woah…! So, Johnny is acknowledging that the Palestinian people are treated like shit, and he just doesn’t care? And since when did ordinary Palestinians become responsible for the actions of everyone in the world who shares their religion? This is like saying that everyone of German descent deserves to be put into concentration camps just because of the actions of the Third Reich.

And, when he says that Muslims aren’t capable of democracy, he’s implying that Israel is a democracy, yeah? Despite removing Arab members of parliament for being too representative of the views of their constituents?

What a dick.

When faced with people slightly more reasonable than Rotten, the Palestinian campaigners’ requests to musicians have had some degree of success in the past, with artists such as Gil Scott-Heron, the Pixies, Massive Attack and Elvis Costello pulling out of scheduled gigs in Israel in order to show their support for the Palestinian struggle.

Interestingly, if internet hilarity merchants hadn’t hijacked Justin Beiber and voted for him to send his world tour to North Korea, Israel would have won the wee boy singer for their own. Is Israel suffering an epidemic of Bieber Fever? Or was Israel’s campaign orchestrated by zionists in the same way North Korea’s was orchestrated by online pranksters? One thing’s clear – the cultural boycott is definitely shaking things up and getting people to take notice of Israel’s appalling human rights record.

Could asylum seekers BE any more fabulous?!?

Not only do they manage to escape their own countries after fleeing terrible persecution, they manage to make a new life for themselves here despite the British government persecuting them just as much – as well as managing to royally piss off the right wing press on an almost daily basis.

The Daily Express are terribly upset about asylum seekers over-running our country, eating our children, etc etc, and it’s recently got a whole lot worse – you can now get asylum if you’re gay (claim the Express). A judge said “they must be free to go to Kylie concerts and drink multi-coloured cocktails” (claim the Express).

Wow. BULL SHIT ALERT.

Let’s go through the facts one by one for the sake of the Daily Express writers, shall we?

1. An asylum seeker is someone SEEKING ASYLUM FROM PERSECUTION.

2. Some people are PERSECUTED BECAUSE OF THEIR SEXUALITY.

3. THEREFORE, yes, some people will need to be granted asylum BECAUSE THEY ARE GAY.

4. Asylum seekers live on a MAXIMUM of £33.50 a week – often less, and often paid in food vouchers instead of money. Going to a Kylie concert and drinking a single cocktail would leave an asylum seeker starving for the rest of the month.

This whole fuss has come about because of a recent ruling that fear of persecution over sexuality is valid grounds for claiming asylum. This ruling came after two men, from Cameroon and Iran, were initially refused asylum and threatened with being sent back to countries where they would face imprisonment, torture or execution. They were told to just suck it up, go home and BE DISCREET.

What the Daily Express think of gay asylum seekers.

Maybe the Daily Express haven’t noticed, but being gay isn’t about listening to cheesy music,and having a keen eye for fashion and interior design. If you’re going to face torture for liking sugary cocktails and pint-sized Australian singers, it would be annoying, but not that difficult to get around. If you’re going to be tortured for who you are and who you love, it’s kind of a different story.

It’s really great news that the Home Office now has an official policy of accepting people’s asylum claims based on their sexuality – however this doesn’t change their reputation for branding people’s legitimate stories of oppression as lies, or just ignoring their own policy and detaining and deporting people regardless (like when they said they would no longer detain children).

As socialists, we believe that the world belongs to all of us – Cameron, Clegg and the Daily Express have no business deciding who should or shouldn’t be allowed to come and live in Scotland.

Say it loud, say it clear – refugees are welcome here!

New figures have been revealed showing that women will bear the brunt of the ConDem coalition’s budget cuts.

As Tory Minister Bob Neill said a few weeks ago, ‘Those in greatest need ultimately bear the burden of paying off the debt.’

Shadow Welfare Secretary Yvette Cooper said:

“Women are bearing nearly three-quarters of the Tory-Liberal plans, while men are bearing just a quarter. This is despite the fact that women’s income and wealth is still considerably lower than men’s.
Even more significant, this doesn’t include the impact of public spending cuts. As women make up more of the public sector workforce they will be more heavily hit by the public sector pay freeze and the projected 600,000 net public sector job losses… Women are more affected by the cuts in things like housing benefit, cuts in upratings to the additional pension, public sector pensions or attendance allowances, and they benefit less than men from the increases in the income tax allowances.”

A gender audit of the budget showed that more than 70% of the revenue raised from direct tax and benefit changes is to come from female taxpayers. The analysis looks at a net total of £8bn raised by 2014-15 through direct tax and benefit measures. It includes the effects of raising the personal tax allowance, the increase in capital gains tax, the freezing of benefits and the changes to pensions. Of the income to be raised by the recent budget, men will pay £2.2bn while women will pay £5.8bn.

It is well known in Britain that women are already more affected by poverty than men – government statistics show that almost half of all women have total individual incomes of less than £100 a week, compared with less than a fifth of men.

Instead of millionaire families like the Camerons, the Cleggs, and indeed Cooper and her husband Ed Balls – it’s going to be poor families and single mothers that are going to pay for the crisis in capitalism.

It’s also important to note, though, that this study hasn’t come out of a sudden commitment to women’s rights or fighting poverty by Cooper and the Labour Party, but it is an opportunistic move to make the Tories and Lib Dems look bad, and to trick us all into thinking that things would be better if only we had a Labour government – which, of course, they wouldn’t. Labour were just as committed to making cuts, and ANY cuts will always impact those at the bottom of society first – and that means disproportionately affecting women. If Yvette Cooper really gave a shit about women in poverty, she wouldn’t be in the Labour party.

The racist Scottish Defence League took a trip to Kilmarnock this morning and were met with fierce opposition from local people and anti-fascists from across Scotland.

Although the SDL claim to be protesting against Islamic extremism and in support of free speech, their past record shows that they’re nothing but a bunch of racists and hooligans.

The SDL planned to assemble at the Rabbie Burns statue at Kilmarnock Cross at 11am and then march across town to spread their message of hate and intolerance.

Anti-racists occupied the space from 10am to ensure that the SDL didn’t get a foot in the door. There was a heavy police presence who pushed us into a small area of Kilmarnock Cross and didn’t allow us freedom of movement. We heard from various sources that the SDL had been herded into a nearby alley. A few of our number managed to break off and sneak away for a look, by following the sound of their vile chanting. As we approached we saw that the small number of SDL protesters were entirely surrounded and outnumbered by police.

At the SDL events in Glasgow and Edinburgh at this stage in the day, due to pressure from huge numbers of anti-fascists, the police stopped the SDL from having freedom of the streets and prevented them from their spouting racist abuse, by keeping them in one location and then removing them in buses.

This was not the case in Kilmarnock, however. Despite the SDL seeming quite happy to stand where they were and shout horrible things whilst waving Union Jacks, the police approached the group and told them that they would facilitate their “peaceful” demonstration, had identified and were happy with where the SDL wanted to go, and then invited them to march to Kilmarnock Cross.

Separated by only a few metres and a couple of lines of stony faced cops, the SDL shouted anti-Muslim slogans and made violent and threatening gestures at the assembled group of anti-racists, whilst we told them what we thought of them (and reminded them that even their own organiser thinks they’re all “wankstains”).

This went on for around 30-40 minutes – far longer than the SDL have ever been given free reign before. The SDL were eventually escorted away from the town centre. Rather than bothering to protect the people of Kilmarnock from the racist scum, the police instead focused all of their efforts on preventing us from pursuing the SDL. They were ultimately unsuccessful, as a small group of anti-fascists broke free and ran through multiple police lines to maintain a presence outside the hotel that the SDL had ended up in.

When we approached the hotel, a huge number of police officers swarmed around us and tried to pack us tightly into a small space on the pavement and didn’t allow us to move. The sun was blazing hot and we were stranded without food or water as the police desperately tried to persuade us to abandon our outpost and join the tokenistic rally in favour of multi-culturalism, organised by local trade union and political bureaucrats, that was being held near by.

Some of those anti-fascists who hadn’t managed to run past the police lines had been herded into the rally in park, where they discovered around 35 people nonchalantly lying in the sun, without even any speakers or political message being espoused. The speaker and the singer that were booked had both neglected to attend. One councillor made a half-arsed attempt at a speech and waffled a wee bit about how multi-culturalism is good. (Aye, that’s all well and good, but how come you’re too feart to say that racism is bad?) Whilst the fascists were being given free reign to roam the streets of Kilmarnock, the smug folk in the park were patting themselves on the back and talking about organising dancers and singers for a pro-multi-cultural event two months away in August.

Some anti-racist campaigners, frustrated at the lack of action, called on the people at the park to join the others outside the hotel in taking action against the fascists. Six polis on bikes immediately sped towards the group attempting to make their way to the hotel and LIED to their faces, telling them that the SDL were absolutely not in that hotel on that street. A couple of undeterred demonstrators pressed on, followed by the cops on bikes, only to be denied access to the street by more cops. Errr… but if the SDL aren’t there, as your colleagues claimed, how come we’re not allowed down this street? Confronted by their own lies, the police then attempted to intimidate the protesters and demanded their names and all of their personal details.

We continually faced harassment from both the police and the few SDL members who dared to show their faces outside of the hotel to attempt to goad us. After it became clear that the SDL were being allowed to leave the hotel in small groups unescorted by the police, we attempted to follow them down the street to ensure that they were contained and not posing a threat to local people. The police reacted forcefully and physically prevented us from moving. After a heated argument they realised that if the SDL were being allowed to disperse and go home, then they would have to allow us to the same.

As we walked down the street, we saw that a group of unaccompanised fascists had walked right past a few of the protesters that they had been threatening earlier on that day, as the police continue to hassle and harass us. It was potentially a very dangerous situation, that thankfully passed without violence from the racists. Understandably, we were a little shaken up and pissed off at the way the police failed to protect peaceful protestors from potentially violent thugs.

We were talking amongst ourselves about the scandalous behaviour of the cops, when one of our number said something about a “fat jolly policeman”. He was immediately grabbed by the arm and pushed against a wall and told:

“If you say anything else, it’ll be the last thing you say today. Do you understand me?”

When the shocked protestor failed to answer immediately, the cop pushed him further the wall and repeated the questions, whilst his colleagues tried to block anyone else from seeing what was going on.

The police turned their video camera on the protestor and pressured and intimidated him into providing them with his personal details, whilst refusing to answer any of his questions. After being asked multiple times if he was being threatened, arrested, detained… the police said that he was required to give his details because he was a suspect. A suspect of what, exactly? They refused to say until they had been asked a dozen times, and it was clear that the rest of us were not going to leave – they then claimed he was suspected of breach of the peace. Pfft. The police forcefully pushed the rest of us away, in order to better intimidate the lone protester, despite the fact that he had been nothing but respectful – even apologising to the police, saying: “I’m very sorry if I caused any offense to you in the heat of the moment.”

It was a beautiful sunny day in Kilmarnock, there was great participation by local people and we had a degree of success – the fascists’ attempt to spread their message of hate was drowned out by our songs, and we certainly showed them that they were not welcome in Kilmarnock.

There are some things that could have made the day a lot better -  if there had been more protestors willing to confront the SDL, and if the police had stop trying to restrict us whilst the fascists do what they wanted, for example.

No doubt the SDL will proclaim today as a success,  but to the vast majority of the people of Kilmarnock, they came across as nothing but a bunch of pathetic racist thugs.

One thing’s for certain, it was a confidence booster for the SDL, and they’ll be back.

What are you gonnae do about it? Wherever they rear their ugly head, we need to be there to let them know that their racist rhetoric is not welcome in Scotland.

Not now, not ever.

A. Because women in Scotland are still paid less than men.

A new study marking the 40th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act has found that women earn an average 12% less than their male colleagues.

Full-time female workers earned, on average, £113 a week less than men.

The gap for part-time workers was even greater, with women receiving on average 32% less than men.

The study by the Equality and Human Rights Commission found some women earning up to 55% less than male workers in equivalent jobs.

And let’s just repeat that first part again: this is 40 years since the Equal Pay Act was passed.

Thanks to the ever reliable Daily Mail, we have learnt of a terrifying new trend sweeping Britain’s young people by storm. Imported from the USA, it’s the latest craze… ditch your pokemon cards, kids, there’s a new cool status symbol in town – pouring booze in your eye.

Even as drunken student antics go, it was, by any stretch of the imagination, a disturbing scene. Surrounded by cheering rugby players, applauded by fellow members of the university netball team, 19-year-old Melissa Fontaine tipped back her head and giggled as fellow drinkers in the Students’ Union bar pulled apart her eyelids and allowed them to pour a shot of vodka into her left eye.

‘Vodka eyeballing’, as it is known in student circles, is the latest drinking craze to sweep through Britain’s universities.

Now, let’s get one thing straight before we begin – people getting really fucked and trying to do so through orifices other than their mouths is not a new thing. A quick straw poll among the SSY members at hand shows that all but one of us had heard of or seen people putting shots of vodka in their eye – fucking years ago. As the Daily Mail themselves mention, it was even featured in the film Kevin and Perry Go Large which was released ten years ago. And if the Daily Mail think drinking through your eye is bad, they must not have met anyone who’s doused a tampon in vodka and stuck it up their arse – or at least anyone that’s admitted to it.

Their story is based on a exclusive interview with Melissa, one victim of the eyeballing trend – but there’s a shocking twist in Melissa’s tale…

It would be easy, of course, to dismiss Melissa as nothing more than a silly ‘ladette’. But it is hard to reconcile that stereotype with the young woman she is today, fresh out of university in London with a first-class English degree, the privately-educated daughter of financiers, and an aspiring writer.

In short she is not the kind of young woman who might naturally be associated with Britain’s spiralling binge-drinking youth culture.

The rugby players were the worst, but because of feminism, you’re expected, as a woman, to keep up with them. The guys set a precedent and you have to follow. That’s what drives the whole ladette culture. Women believing they have to be equal in every single way.

First off, some good news: there are rumours going round that not a single person in the town of Motherwell voted for the Tories. Not one. People of Motherwell, we salute you!

And confirmation of what we already knew last night: there is a hung parliament. The Tories now have no chance of getting a majority.  Does this still mean Prime Minister Cameron The Evil Robot? Only time will tell.

…but unfortunately, all that’s “above” is an empty space.

A candidate in Chingford and Woodford Green (that’s in England) has changed his or her name to None Of The Above, and is standing as an independent.

Unfortunately, due to the way the ballot paper is laid out – alphabetically by surname – Mr/Ms Above will appear at the very top of the ballot paper, meaning all of the other candidates are below None Of The Above.  D’oh!

David Cameron was delayed in voting for himself this morning, as security had to remove two men from the roof of his polling station. They were swigging from a champagne bottle, dressed as posh wanks like Cameron, and hung a banner saying

BRITONS, KNOW YOUR PLACE.
VOTE ETON – VOTE TORY.

Specialist police in mountaineering gear were required to remove the protestors.