AUTHOR: Redaspie DATE: Friday, June 30, 2006 ----- BODY:

Just read a pretty shocking and astonishing story in today's online version of The Guardian. The Post Office is about to close down six crown post office branches (that is the main branches as opposed to the much more common and smaller sub-post offices) and then reopen them as counters run by WH Smith. I can only assume that they will be located inside the WH Smith stores themselves. What is clear, however, is that they will be operated and owned by WH Smith - a privately owned corporation - and not the Post Office. In other words, this is a case of 'blatant privatisation' as the press release of the Communication Workers' Union states.

The argument against privatisation itself is to me a very clear one. Public services such as the Post Office are just that - they are public services, and not profit making companies. They have a public service ethos different from the cutthroat world of private 'enterprise'. And this is because they are owned and controlled by democratically elected governments, meaning that decisions taken about how they are run are ultimately subject to veto by the citizens of the country, in an election. It's by no means a perfect system of course, and I would prefer to see a system based on direct workers' control of the Post Office and other public services, but a million times better than the alternative of having it controlled by unelected shareholders with dollar signs in their eyes who would decide to jack the prices up to increase their profits.

There is, however, another and more important argument. The plans involve the closure of six branches and the loss of 120 jobs. We are told that the Post Office management is talking in terms of 'voluntary redundancies' and that the sacked staff will be able to apply for jobs behind the shiny new WH Smith post office counters! How nice of them. They fling over 100 people into the cold and then state that they can apply for the new WH Smith jobs (but no guarantee they'll get the jobs, or that there will be anywhere as many new posts available as there were in the old PO branches. I suspect there won't be).

Fortunately, there is a real possibility for a concerted fightback here. There has recently been a ballot by staff over whether to accept a measly pay offer by the Post Office of 2.4% (a below inflation pay offer and therefore in effect a pay cut) which resulted in 91% voting to reject it. The CWU are stating that if a better offer is not made it could "eventually lead to an industrial action ballot and dispute". I'm hoping that that the announcement of the deal with WH Smith, coming on top of the rubbish pay offer, will generate sufficient anger amongst members to create a real demand for action. It's vital to stop this kind of piecemeal privatisation, and I hope that there are enough militants in the Post Office to be able to mobilise the members for a fightback, even if the union leaders are not keen.

Oh and before I clock off, we've had two parliamentary by-elections in the UK, and they have been interesting results. We've had a slew of opinion polls suggesting that not only was Labour on the slide (something that we've known about for yonks) but that the Tories under their new leader David Cameron was recovering some credibility and was actually ahead. Further, we were being told that the Liberal Democrats were also in trouble. In other words, we were back to the usual two-party game. Well, no actually - not the case at all. The first result, in Wales (Bleunew Gwent I think the seat was called) was a safe Labour seat for years until an independent ex-Labour candidate called Peter Laws won it at the last election. He then died, and one of his ex-Labour colleagues has retained the seat on behalf of a new group of Laws' supporters called The People's Voice. That wasn't a surprise to be honest, although the margin of victory - around 2,000 votes or 9% - was much more solid than had been predicted. If you go to the excellent Political Betting.com site they actually predicted Labour would narrowly regain the seat.

The big surprise was the by-election in the safe Tory seat of Bromley & Chislehurst, where the Tories came within an inch of being beaten by the Liberal Democrats, who had ended up in third place at the general election last year. Labour slumped from second to fourth, with the far right UK Independence Party coming third and getting 8%. So the story of both elections is no, we are emphatically not back to politics as usual. Labour is in trouble, but the Tories are also still in a hole, and substantial numbers of votes are drifting from Labour to third and even fourth parties, a phenomenon that has been going on for a while and shows no sign of stopping. The voters remain disillusioned with mainstream politics, and there is a real gap into which a genuine radical voice could step in. And at that point I will point a finger towards the Respect website.

Here by the way are the complete results for both seats, cadged from BBC News:

BLAENAU GWENT
Dai Davies, Ind: 12,543 (- 7,962 from 2005)
Owen Smith, Labour: 10,059 (- 1,325)
Steffan Lewis, Plaid Cymru: 1,755 (+ 912)
Amy Kitcher, Liberal Democrat: 1,477 (- 4)
Margrit Williams, Conservative: 1,013 (+ 197)
Alan Hope, Official Monster Raving Loony Party: 318
Turnout: 50.5%

BROMLEY & CHISLEHURST
Bob Neill, Conservative: 11,621 (- 11,962 from 2005)
Ben Abbotts, Liberal Democrat: 10,988 (+ 1,620)
Nigel Farage, UKIP: 2,347(+ 872)
Rachel Reeves, Labour: 1,925 (- 8,316)
Ann Garrett, Green: 811(- 659)
Paul Winnett, National Front: 476
John Hemming-Clarke, Independent: 442
Steven Uncles, English Democrats: 212
John Cartwright, Monster Raving Looney Party: 132
Nick Hadziannis, Independent: 65
Anne Belsey, Money Reform Party: 33
Turnout: 40.5% (64.9%)

-------- COMMENT-AUTHOR: Redaspie COMMENT-DATE:1:15 PM COMMENT-BODY:That's certainly a good point - and actually a fairly obvious one that I hadn't spotted! Incidentally, Wales seems to have a plethora of parties to the left of Labour, with Law's group, the Forward Wales group and also of course RESPECT. Interestingly, only Laws' bunch, who are purely a local manifestation, are the ones doing best electorally! -------- COMMENT-AUTHOR: Kodos COMMENT-DATE:3:03 PM COMMENT-BODY:er, Redaspie how's about 16 councilers in tower hamlets (2 have joined the swp) three in newham, two more in preston and one in birmingham elected with over 5o% of the vote?
I think RESPECT has had a very good two years... -------- COMMENT-AUTHOR: morbo COMMENT-DATE:11:02 PM COMMENT-BODY:I think he means in wales, where respect is pretty dire at the mo. -------- COMMENT-AUTHOR: Redaspie COMMENT-DATE:8:32 AM COMMENT-BODY:Yes I did mean in Wales. Just for clarification. Respect are doing *very* well in england at present as everyone knows. --------