We
are now two days away from the election. I know I have said this
before but I will say it again. In my seven decades this is the most
important general election since my first. That was in 1945 with the
election of the Atlee Labour government which saw the setting up of
the NHS.
In that election my only voice was as a wailing baby. My
only actions at the other end of my body. For the first time in my
life I am actively involved in what has become a vital struggle to
return this country to a semblance of civilisation. We are not
talking about a social revolution, but the attempt by a Corbyn-led
Labour Party to place the UK alongside the social and economic
policies of the Scandinavian countries.
This election is not about Brexit. It is not about the idiocy of Boris Johnson. It is quite literally about life and death. I am
alive today because the NHS has been there to save me. Please watch this short video and
read ’Nail Your Flag to the Mast’. Then join me on Thursday and
Vote for a Labour government. It is the ‘last chance’ election.
ENEMY
OF THE STATE Boris Johnson warns voters Jeremy Corbyn is a national
security risk who will bow down to Britain’s enemies. THE SUN
BRITONS
FURIOUS at Corbyn’s OAP tax attack. “Stick Your Hikes where the
Sun Don’t Shine.” DAILY EXPRESS
JEREMY
CORBYN FORCED to deny he wants to get rid of MI5 after Boris Johnson
called him a security risk. THE DAILY MAIL
JEREMY
CORBYN IS ASHAMED OF BRITAIN. He’d leave our defences in the hands
of a chaotic committee. THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
All four headlines from one day, 2 December 2019. If
the billionaire Press have persuaded you to believe and act on
these words all our futures will be very bleak. Fortunately we are now
able to communicate with each other on social media and scrape away
the frost from the corporate media window.
I
have met many politicians over my seven decades, but have never
empathised with any of them, never joined their parties or knocked on
doors for them. Until now. In next week’s election we have a
manifesto worth fighting for.
I
have personal reasons for this. First of all the experiences of
my son when faced with cuts to his disability benefits. See here,
here and here
and
my own health crises and direct experience of the need for our free
NHS. See here, here and here
If
Brexit is the most important issue for you, above and beyond child
poverty, foodbanks, the rise in homelessness, zero-hours contracts,
low pay and low pensions, social benefit cuts, climate extinction, the NHS, peace
not war, anti-racism….add your own list here, then read this
Finally
the massive lie that is being used to persuade us that we should not
elect a Corbyn-led Labour government. - that he is a racist and
anti-semite. If he is then so was Albert Einstein. Read here, here, here and here
Six
months ago I wrote that we are on a winning run. Today it seems
the bookies agree with me.No
more Tweedle Dees and Tweedle Dums. On 12 December the choice is
stark and will decide all our futures
None
of us struggle alone or without support. Although I blog on my own website,
I have been published by The London Economic, The Peoples News, Stop
the War, International Times
and
regularly by The
Peoples Campaign for Corbyn; run defiantly and with a commitment few
of us could manage, by banner maker Alice Kilroy.
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1967:
Enoch
Powell, Tory MP and Minister of Health in the 1960s Macmillan government. At the height of controversy over his ‘rivers of blood’
speech – he was the Farage of his day - he made the mistake of
trying to give a speech at Essex University.
I was
part of the posse who escorted him to his car. Both he and us
conducted this exercise in
mutually
contemptuous
silence.
1970:
George
Brown, Labour MP and Foreign Secretary in the Wilson government. At
a general
election rally in Colchester Town Hall I
joined others to heckle Brown about the Vietnam war. Not a man
able to contain his anger, he stepped down from the stage and took
a swipe at me. The following day the Sun
had a photo of his assault on their front page with the headline, “Up
and At ‘Em George” Meanwhile I ducked down
to avoid his blows and those of National Front thugs who had arrived
at the scene.
1996:
Tony
Blair was guest speaker at the Piccadilly Hotel in London
for a music awards lunch. I was there as co-founder of the charity
War Child. He
was introduced to me by his PA, Anji Hunter (who went
on to
become
Director of Communications at BP and then Director of External
Affairs for Anglo American Oil).
I tried to tell
him about the return of fascism to SE Europe. Anji pushed her
clipboard into
my chest and led the wretched man out of the room.
1997: As director of the about-to-be-opened Pavarotti
Music Centre in Mostar, Bosnia Herzegovina, I was tasked with inviting the town’s two mayors to its opening. (One
small town, two mayors, a mini-Berlin!). When I arrived at the
office of the Croatian mayor, Ivan Prskalo, his sound system was tuned to the Spice Girls. Things got
off to a bad start when he said he felt offended to be invited to
an event in his own town by
an Englishman.
I wanted to say
that people didn’t normally bomb their own towns, but kept
quiet.
In
polite chit-chat I mentioned that my former wife was Croatian. The
Bosniak mayor, Safet
Oručević, then
arrived
for the meeting and Prskalo turned to him and said cheefully, “David
Wilson looks young for his years because he married a Croat", to
which I replied, “No it’s because I divorced one.”
1999:
Michael
Howard, leader
of the Tory Party, 2003 – 2005 and Minister
in Margaret Thatcher’s government,
turned up at the Pavarotti
Music Centre. He was introduced to me and I asked him what he was
doing. He replied, “Meeting local politicians”. I replied,”Why?”,
to which he answered, “Fact-finding dear chap.” I laughed and
said, “You
know as well as I do that you
won’t get any facts from politicians.” He turned to his minder
and asked “Can
we move on to my next meeting?”
2006:
Peter
Mandelson, Labour MP, close advisor to Tony Blair and the Dominic
Cummings
of his day,
was exiting Westminster Cathedral after Blair
had given one of his ‘faith’ lectures. I had been helping
organise the Stop the War demonstration outside and
we persuaded people to turn up with musical instruments, pots and
pans etc to ‘rough musik’ Blair. The historian E.
P. Thompson described this as using
raucous
“music” and street theatre, to
mock
those
“who offended against community norms.” I
had cow bells which I rang in his ear as he crossed Victoria Street,
while
repeating the two words, “You murderer.” He should have left from
the back of the building with his boss.
2018:
Jeremy Corbyn: As my MP he visited me at Barts Hospital when I was
trying to overcome heart / stroke problems following an operation ( I
am now OK and stll here thanks to the NHS.). No entourage, no
photographers. A simple act of kindness. When he was speaking
recently outside the Whittington
Hospital he saw me standing in the crowd and raised his right hand
over his heart. I nodded a ‘yes’ to his signalled question about
my health.
A
simple man in the best meaning of that word. Not
something that can be said of any of the others. JC4PM
In
2010 Defend the Whittington Coalition (DWC) was set up to stop the
closure of the Accident and Emergency, Intensive Care, Maternity and
Paediatric departments at the Whittington Hospital, North London. The
closures were stopped. Success
In
2013 the DWC campaigned to stop the sell-off of half the hospital,
including maternity services. The sell-off was stopped. Success.
More
recently Whittington Hospital was told by the government to sell
off land and buildings. The Whittington Board offered Ryhurst, a
subsidiary of Grenfell ‘refurbishment’ contractors, Rydon, the contract to
manage this project. Following another DWC campaign the hospital
withdrew the offer. Success.
BUT
… Rydon is now suing the hospital for breach of contract. If
succesful this will result in the hospital having to pay a fine, from
our health monies, to this company. The fight continues - support the
Defend Whittington Campaign at Royal Courts of Justice on 9 December.
Throughout
these campaigns local MP, Jeremy Corbyn, has played an active and
vital role.
On
Friday 29 Nov 2019, and in the middle of his busy election campaign,
he arrived outside the hospital as part of his continued support.
Jeremy Corbyn with Ben Gelblum of The London Economic
If
you live in North London join with the DWC and defend this hospital.
Wherever you live join local campaigns in defence of your hospital
and oppose cuts and privatisation of our National Health Service. And
for your future health vote Labour on 12 December.
The
DWC banner was made by the indomitable Alice Kilroy, who despite serious illness, was there to support her
local hospital.
On
my way to the hospital for the rally
a
woman passed by and asked if I was a Labour party member. When I said
'yes' she proceeded to rant about the 'Jews' 'sabotaging' Labour's
election chances. I attempted to explain the distinction
between 'Judaism' and 'Zionism' Not easily done on a cold November
morning when she was heading for her hospital appointment.
When I got
home I read that the Israeli President had joined the UK Chief Rabbi
in attacking Jeremy in the name of the UK Jewish 'community'. This is
where Zionism takes us. In attempting to stop a socialist government
which would recognise Palestine, Zionists increase anti-semitism. The
Israeli state is everything to
them
so I doubt they worry about that. I do as do Labour-voting
Jews. One of these is Shirley Franklin, Chair of DWC and, like Alice Kilroy and Jeremy Corbyn, an indomitable fighter for the NHS. I am proud to stand alongside them in this struggle.
JC with Shirley Franklin, Chair of DWC and Paul Mackney, ex-Gen Sec of NATFHE, today UCU
The
Chief Rabbi says Jeremy Corbyn ‘is not fit for high office’, but
Boris Johnson is. A Tory says I am a Tory and it’s news?
Arthur
Miller’s play, The
Crucible,
takes
place in 1692 during the Salem witch trials. The play tells the story
of a group of young hysterical
women
who falsely accuse other villagers of witchcraft. The
play
was written as an allegory during
the
McCarthy years
and the House of Un-American Activities trials
in
the 1950s.
To be accused of being a member of the Communist Party then
ensured
that
jobs,
reputations
and,
for some, their
lives, were
lost.
It
mattered little whether the accusations
were
true or not. It
mattered even less that membership of the CP at that time was
evidence of radical
political
consciousness and not criminal inclination.
In
the UK today the accusation of anti-semitism
is being used against
those
who are
not
anti-semitic.
Most
of those
accused have
spent
their lives fighting anti-semitism and racism.
Heading
the list of
the “guilty” is
Jeremy Corbyn,
many
Jews and anti-racists. It
is surprising
that
the
self-imposed
media
inquisition
has
not yet used
the words,
paraphrased
from
the McCarthy hearings,
“Are you now, or have you ever been, anti-semitic?”
Our
Salem trials
are
an attempt
to
prevent
Jeremy Corbyn from becoming Prime Minister and to
cow
the rest of us into silence about Boris Johnson’s
racism and the real anti-semitism that has always been at the heart
of the British
political
Establishment.
On
26 November
2019
the
Daily
Mail
declared that Jeremy Corbyn ‘dodged apologising over Labour’s
ant-semitism crisis.’ That is their
version of, ‘Are you now or have you ever been….’ This statement is rich coming
from a newspaper which, under ownership of
the same family that
owned it eighty years ago, supported Hitler and Mussolini. Corbyn
has not apologised because
he has nothing to apologise
for.
My
anti-fascism was born when I discovered photos of Bergen-Belsen
concentration camp inmates in my
father’s
desk. He was
one of the
first Allied medics to
enter
the camp when
it was
liberated.
It
haunted him for the rest of his life, as
it also
haunted me. Seeing
those walking skeletons was my
political awakening which later
led
me
to be beaten up by Nazi thugs from the British Movement when
selling Peace
News.
Corbyn has a similar history—his mother fought
alongside other Socialists
and Jews at the 1936
Battle
of Cable Street.
It
is an insult to
anti-fascists
to bring false
accusations into
this election. As
Arthur Miller wrote in The
Crucible,
“now
the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and
common vengeance writes the law!”
We
have to take away the
keys
from those children.
The following are articles I have written about anti-semitism and a short video of Miriam Margolyes speaking truth about Israel
My father in RAMC uniform at the time he went to Bergen-Belsen
