Surviving the Climate Crisis

 

An important work entitled “The Future We Choose - surviving the climate crisis" has recently been published by Manilla Press. It is written by Christiana Figueres the former UN Executive Secretary for Climate Change and Tom Rivett-Carnac who was senior political strategist for the Paris Agreement.

Unfortunately, the style of writing (especially for the first half of the book) is somewhat convoluted and might be off-putting for many. But it is a work which needs to be persevered with, for it provides solid proposals on the type of avenues we need to pursue to guarantee the future of humanity.

As a taster, I give below very brief summaries of ten forms of action it presses that need to be widely pursued to protect the future of mankind. These are covered in separate sections in the second half of the book.

1. Move to the development of onshore wind turbines in place of fossil fuels.
2. Remove 80% of our cars from the roads and what remain should be electric forms of transport.
3. Defend the truth. Scientists generally agree that Global Warming is extremely dangerous.
4. Eliminate waste – reduce, reuse and recycle. Move beyond the mindset of
   consumption and ownership.
5. Undertake an energy audit of your home and reduce your air flights, especially if you live in a wealthy country.
6. Reforest the earth. In addressing climate change few actions are more urgent.
7. Linear GDP growth can no longer be the priority. More stuff does not mean a better life. Invest instead in a clean economy.
   8. We can use technology responsibly, delivering emission reductions. It is now possible to completely redesign our central energy grids.
   9. We need to build gender equality. Women often have a leadership style that is essential to responding to the climate crisis.
   10. Most important of all, we all need to involve ourselves in democratic politics to end operations in which corporate interests have captured the operations of our political systems. 
   
   Added 25 April - This could be a key development - click here. 
   Added 26 April - Also click here.
   Again 26 April - For virus deaths per thousand of national populations. The top nine nations are all European with the UK in fifth place, although it has no record for such total deaths in care homes and the like. So its real position could be higher and worse. Click here.
   May 9 - Click here. 
    

In Memory of Joe Ashton

I am very sorry to hear about the death of Joe Ashton the former Labour MP for Bassetlaw. Although he served longer as an MP than I did we were both MPs together over a shared period of 14 years from 1987 to 2001, during which time I got to know and admire his work.  In his memory, I re-produce below a report of a fine Discussion Meeting which I arranged for him to address in Dronfield back in January 2009.  

Joe, The Shop Steward For Former MPs

First, Joe in full flight. Then, Christine Smith (Chair, Dronfield Labour Party), Joe Ashton and me.




























The photos are from our latest discussion meeting, which was addressed by Joe Ashton. He has always been a popular speaker in Dronfield, having in the past addressed a local May Day Rally and a packed public meeting. It was no surprise that he doubled the average size of our attendance.

Joe was the MP for Bassetlaw in North Nottinghamshire for over 32 years. After he left the Commons, he helped to establish the Association of Former Members of Parliament gaining a positive response to his initiative from Michael Martin, the Speaker of the Commons as well as from many of his past colleagues.

A survey of former MPs was conducted on behalf of the Association by the School of Politics and International Studies at Leeds University where 343 members of the Association were issued with a questionnaire. Copies of the Leeds University report which was published in October 2007 were circulated at our meeting. As were copies of the Associations magazine "Order! Order!".

Although some MPs (as I did) announced their retirement well in advance and prepared to move into either retirement or a fresh career, others faced the trauma of losing their jobs in the glare of often adverse publicity. This can occur contrary to expectations, with a former MP often then having immediately to start from scratch to build a fresh life.

Whilst in our current era of the credit crunch and major job-losses, people may not see MPs to be a special case; Joe is keen that a body should be maintained which can seek to further ex-MPs' concerns and draw upon their past experiences. The average shelf life of an MP on the parliamentary benches is only 8 years, so the rapid turn over is likely to involve many hidden problems. On top of this, former MPs have developed interests and areas of expertise that should not just be thrown to one side.

Joe was christened as the MPs' shop steward during his time as an MP. It is, therefore, entirely appropriate that he should continue that role during his own retirement on behalf of his fellow former MPs.

As would be expected, the bulk of the time at our Dronfield discussion meetings is taken up with debating our speaker's presentation. However as Joe was well known to everyone as a former columnist, author, playwright, frontbencher and Sheffield Wednesday supporter; the discussions were bound to go well beyond the initial scope of his presentation. But as with all worthwhile discussion meetings, people left buzzing and continued their own discussions in groups. Which is exactly what discussion meetings are supposed to be about.

Labour and Life Long Learning

   In a speech to the Association of Colleges on 14 November 2017 Jeremy Corbyn said "Just as Nye Bevan created the National Health Service in the aftermath of World War 2, the next Labour Government will create a National Education Service. We will offer cradle to the grave education that is free at the point of use."  This was a huge and massively important commitment which Labour now needs to retain and develop for the future. When achieved it will help to transform and improve our society massively. Providing us with a seriously minded society (yet one that is more happy and fulfilled) and which uses its developing understandings to ensure that our political system will be fully democratized and meet the needs and requirements of masses in our society who are currently in depressed and deprived circumstances.
   The establishment of an appropriate system of Lifelong Learning will, however, be much more complex than setting up the NHS was. For generally a person (or their relatives and friends) will be aware whether they are in need of help from a doctor, ambulance or hospital services. Determining when someone is in need of forms of adult learning facilities (and whom they should approach) will require a more complex range of life-time openings.
   The Labour Party Manifesto at the recent General Election included a section which briefly spelt out Labour's intended direction of travel on the matter of Lifelong Learning. See the items entitled "Further Education and Lifelong Learning" which appear on pages 40 and 41, click here.

   Unfortunately, this was not an issue which was able to obtain much coverage during the General Election period itself. This was partly due to failings by the media, but it also arose from the fact that Labour's own work in shaping its approach was only reaching fruition when the election was on top of us.
 
   A "Lifelong Learning Commission" co-chaired by Estelle Morris and Dave Ward only issued its Interim Report in July 2019. It was then only able to come up with its final 85 page report containing more detailed  recommendations as we moved into the dissolution of parliament for electoral purposes in November. Click here.   A summary of its 16 major recommendations appear on pages 58 and 59 of the report.

I will now confine myself to what has been my own specific interests in forms of adult learning, which is just the tip of the iceberg.
 
  My own commitment towards forms of lifelong learning developed after some of my early failures via school education and from later experiences starting from the time when I undertook my National Service as an 18 to 20 year old. My involvement with forms of lifelong learning being mainly restricted to the areas of politics, economics, industrial relations and philosophy. Labour's proposals go well beyond these matters. But I will now restrict myself to my own experiences.
  As an only child, I came from a solid coal mining background. My father and his five brothers all came to work at the same local pit and his only sister married a local miner. Only my Uncle Arthur finally moved away and joined the RAF. My mother's two brothers also started work in the pit, one then moving  into nursing. My mother and one of her three sisters also married coal miners. This meant that I had the advantage of being brought up in a tightly mining environment with close social bonds.
  But my shortcomings at Primary School were centered around extreme shyness and a serious inability at spelling. So I failed the then 11 plus exam and went to a Secondary Modern School and not a Grammar School. Then I had never read a book from cover to cover until at 12 a teacher took our class into the school library and made us borrow and read a book. I read John Buchan's "Mr Standfast" and was hooked. I later made it to Grammar School via an "occasional admissions" exam. But I was no success there when it came to the "O level" exams at 16, failing the key subjects of English Language and Maths. But in a post war period shaped by the Attlee Government there were lifelong job opportunities and I made it as a Railway Clerk. By then I was regularly into purchasing books such as H.G. Well's "Short History of the World" and visiting the local library, where my mother also borrowed serious novels.
   A key step in my own form of lifelong learning started when I undertook my National Service via an RAF Movements Unit at Basra, linking in with Iraqi State Railways. I was shocked by the harsh living and working conditions I saw many Iraqi people experiencing
   Then there was a book shop I visited in Basra which sold Rational Press Association books which challenged what had been my Methodist background. There were other books to buy and I also ordered works by writers such as G.B. Shaw, GDH Cole, James Joyce (recommended by a corporal), a volume of Shakespeare's plays and Tolstoy's "War and Peace".
   The man who ran the shop said that he had been stopped from my ordering Karl Marx's "Das Capital" when he checked the matter out with the local chief of police. But I also obtained the "New Statesman" weekly on rice paper, plus "Reynolds News" and the "Observer" which came by sea and were then two weeks old.
   I was finally demobbed at 20 in the midst of political turmoil around the British invasion of the Suez Canal and the Russian invasion of Hungary. It was a politically stimulating period. My initial avenue for expressing my developing political views were letters to the local press. Then a year after my demob I joined a body stimulated by GDH Cole called the International Society for Socialist Studies and even heard him addressed them. I also joined the Labour Party and after a few months became a local branch secretary and arranged for the meetings to rush through business each second month and then have a speaker and a discussion. A local Fabian Society was then founded at near bye Peterlee and I became their Secretary. I was into the dialectics of political debate.
   I then attended a Fabian Summer School held at Ruskin College in Oxford where I discovered that the College itself was for people like me, who had an interest in subjects such as Politics and Economics but no relevant "A" level qualifications as a pathway into such studies. I later made it into Ruskin College via references (one from Manny Shinwell my MP), writing an essay for them and attending an interview. My fees and living allowance being met by the Durham County Council. After 2 years full-time study, this led me to obtain an Oxford University Diploma in Economics and Political Science which enabled me to get a place at Hull University where I gained a degree in Politics and Philosophy.
    But that was only a leg up to my fuller involvement with Lifelong Learning. For from 1966 to 1987 I was a tutor in the Sheffield University Extramural Department (later called the Division of Continuing Education) taking Day Release Classes for Trade Unionists from areas such as the Coal, Steel and Railway industries plus classes for shop stewards. I mainly taught Politics, Industrial Relations and Student Skills. Numbers of my students also moved on to full time study at Adult Education Colleges, including Ruskin. Others became more fully involved in their Trade Unions and in areas such as Local Government.


        1983 Derbyshire Miners Day-Release Class

   Then my Department established an Access Course mainly providing openings into Sheffield University for adults without formal qualifications. I taught classes on Philosophy and then acted as Course Director. Those who successfully made it to full-time University Studies at Sheffield via our classes ended up generally with above average degree results.
   Then when I became an MP in 1987 three of my fellow Labour colleagues were former Yorkshire Miners whom I had taught on Industrial Day Release Classes and another Labour MP from that background had been a fellow student with me when I was at Ruskin. Dennis Skinner had also attended our Derbyshire Miners classes, then Ruskin. He was a day release student with us the year I arrived in Sheffield, but I was then teaching a different Derbyshire Miners Class.
   Although I studied and taught politics for 21 years before becoming an MP and then took many classes down to parliament on day trips, my parliamentary activity was also a huge learning curve. Not only was the range of parliamentary activity widespread, but constituents came forward with a complex range of problems which needed to be tackled. Luckily I soon learnt that if an issue was new to me, the first place of call to find out about a topic was the research staff in the Commons Library. For Conservative Government Ministers (at the best) would only answer the specific questions I asked them. Whilst a researcher would know that I was new to a topic and would explain what I really needed to know and pursue. The loss of their services are the main thing I have missed since retiring from the Commons in 2005.
  As an MP lifelong leaning was an issue I pursued, but circumstances dictated that this had to be in a  defensive capacity. Thatcherism struck at the work of Adult Education Colleges such as Ruskin and also ended payments of student fees. Next even Tony Blair (with my full opposition) removed University allowances for students for living purposes, thus adding further to their borrowing costs. These matters still need to be tackled.
   When I finally retired from parliament in 2005 I returned to an old habit of setting up monthly discussion meetings. This time as Political Education Officer for my local branch of the Labour Party in Dronfield where I have now lived for 50 years. I only passed on that commitment last year, but I still keenly participate in the group's discussions. In fact this item on Lifelong Learning arises because Bob Heath a former Sheffield University Extramural colleague of mine (whom I initially studied with at Ruskin College and then Hull University) discussed this very issue with us at our last meeting. Click here.   John Halstead who involves himself in both ILP activities and our local discussion group, being a further colleague from my Extramural days. He works closely with the Society for the Study of Labour History.  
   Then three other sources feed my attempts at my own form of continuing adult learning. First, I continue to read works in my areas of interest. Having found hardly any scope for fiction since I first turned up at Ruskin in 1960. Secondly, I scan the Internet for serious forms of information relevant to my interests - whilst seeking to avoid those comment boxes where people just fart at each other about politics. Then also there is the ILP.  Under the influence of Keir Hardie it was founded in 1893 and helped shape the Labour Party. But in experiencing a departure by Labour from its basic values, it set out on its own in 1932. It finally returned to the fold in 1975 changing its name to Independent Labour Publications. I then joined and participated with them in a wide range of Labour movement discourse.  

  Whilst I am for the forms of adult learning which I have stressed, Labour's recent publication correctly goes way beyond these matters, showing the wide number of areas where varying forms of Life Long Learning are very deeply needed. The whole issue should not just be an add on to Labour Policy, but needs to be at its heart.     
        
   
  
 
   

Natascha Gets It Wrong Again

On 28 June the following item appeared in the Times newspaper from Natascha Engel the former MP for NE Derbyshire and former Shale Gas Commissioner. I then give my criticisms of her stance.         
Net-zero carbon target is reckless and unrealistic

natascha engel

As Theresa May takes to the G20 stage in Japan to urge her fellow leaders to follow the UK’s moral leadership on climate change, she should hope that their parting gift is, politely, to ignore her.

As impressive as the target of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 sounds, other countries will recognise the capacity it has to destroy UK plc for generations to come. The lack of scrutiny of what would be the most expensive and socially disruptive public policy since the Second World War is truly remarkable.

The announcement and cross-party self-congratulations last week were short on any ideas about how we get there and who picks up the tab. The chancellor has estimated that the cost would be more than £1 trillion. That’s £1,000 every second for the next 30 years.

That may please our international competitors but it’s unlikely to be a domestic vote winner. Given that the UK contributes just 1 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, it’s also unlikely to have any effect on climate change.

The problem with putting targets into law is that no amount of legislating can make magic happen. In fact, we have seen too often how setting a target distracts us from what we are trying to achieve and results only in the time-honoured massaging of statistics.

Recently the Department for Business published the impressive fact that in 2018 “total UK greenhouse gas emissions were 43.5 per cent lower than in 1990”. This sounds remarkably like we are on track (or very nearly) to meet the 100 per cent target.

A few days later, the Department for Environment published a less selective statistic which included the UK’s consumption emissions. These include, for example, the carbon emitted in the steel we now import from China after Redcar was closed (at a cost of more than 2,000 jobs) and our doubled coal imports from Russia, with a fivefold higher carbon footprint compared with coal mined in the UK. Added together, our actual carbon reductions since 1997 are 3.4 per cent.

So our carbon emissions over the past 20 years have dropped by less than 5 per cent — and we think we can reduce them by 100 per cent in the next 30 years?

About 80 per cent of the world’s energy use still comes from oil, coal and gas. If we want global emissions to fall we need to decarbonise, to capture and store carbon dioxide. Developing the technology and making it pay is what other countries might buy from us. Meaningless targets and virtue signalling, on the other hand, will simply be ignored.

Natascha Engel was the UK’s first commissioner for shale gas.

Natascha ignores the fact that the UK is in a key position to seek to lead the world in moving away from the considerable dangers of greenhouse gas emissions. And thus be able to press other nations (especially via international institutions) into following our proposed pattern. We can lead by example.

We have (a) a huge coast line for our size which experiences masses of tidal waves, (b) with numerous running rivers down to the sea, (c) persistent winds which are growing due to the results of the world's gas emissions and (d) periods of record sunshine. Under modern technology we are in a position to expand considerably on our use of such power sources.

In terms of greenhouse gas emissions we are, in fact, in 17th position out of the world's 187 nations. If we take a lead in removing greenhouse emissions, we begin to be in a key position to influence developments in much large nations such China, the USA, India and Russia who because of their sizes are currently responsible for 53.6% of the world's harmful emissions.

We can take a lead towards climate change (1) by example (2) by doing our bit (3) in working on and with other nations to extend our objectives and (4) using pressures inside international institutions.

We can't just sit back and do nothing if we wish to save the planet. One item would be to drop the idea of fracking.

6th October :  Just Discovered, Natascha new job from 2 months ago - see here. 
What she seemingly covers - see here.
Then there is all this about her - click here.

9th October : More on Natascha's fracking failures - see here.

 

6th November 2021 : Wide coverage on Natascha -  https://www.desmog.com/natascha-engel/ 

To What Extent Does Labour Have A Problem Of Antisemitism ?

                                                                                                                                                                       In my blog of 27 March (two items below this one) I put forward the case for people pursuing the "dialectics of debate" over political issues. For in a serious discussion which goes beyond mere point scoring, sometimes a third position can be reached which is more satisfactory and deeper than the initial two opposing sides to a case. Yet it can be more than just a compromise between two conflicting approaches. And will provide a deeper understanding.

This is an approach which I feel is essential for the current labour movement, but is seldom pursued. Instead people are too often given to sloganising from their own political perspectives rather than engaging in serious discussion and debate. This often leads to people making dramatic claims for their different stances, without giving due weight to other considerations.

An issue which would benefit from the form of detailed and comradely debate which I advocate is the matter of whether there is a significant and worrying problem of strands of antisemitism within the Labour Party - and if so how this can best be tackled.  It is (hopefully) within the spirit of the dialectics of debate that I will now test out aspects of a detailed and researched document by Prof Alan Johnson which claims that antisemitism in the Labour Party is indeed a major and serious problem.

He has produced a 105 page document to support his claims, to which are then added no less than 302 references many of which can be looked into by using the internet links which he is generous in supplying. I know of no more detailed and fully researched publication on the issue. Even though it is from one side of the case only. His work (as shown on the cover above) is entitled "Institutionally Antisemitic : Contemporary Left Antisemitism and the Crisis in the British Labour Party". It is a Fantham publication which can be found here.

It is a serious contribution, but I feel that it can nevertheless be questioned in numbers of areas and that some of its sources actually point in directions which the author does not share.

He presents no less than 134 examples of claimed antisemitic practices. Yet 12 of these in one section relate to left-wing avenues outside of the Labour Party, such as the Morning Star. So these are rather being used as quilt by association. Then some others show that the Labour Party has not really been guilty of ignoring the issue. For 43 items deal with people who have experienced suspensions from membership over the matter. These include 18 who were later re-admitted, 17 who seemingly remained suspended at his time of writing, 3 who resigned, 3 expelled and two barred as Council Candidates.

The remaining 79 examples are more complicated to summarize. Some are already in the public domain. These include Jeremy Corbyn's well known position over a wall mural, Tom Watson's non-detailed claim that he knows of 50 cases, Luciana Berger's generalized claims which due to her subsequent departure from the Labour Party may mean that these will never be fully presented nor examined, plus Margaret Hodge's claim to have sent an unpublished dossier to the police. Many such examples tend to be difficult to fully cash into.

Although Johnson points to antisemitic positions which have been taken place within the Labour Party dating back to remarks by Keir Hardie, he concentrates more on claimed recent developments. In drawing his conclusion he is especially critical of the role of Corbyn and of those close to him. For instance, Andrew Murray is highlighted. He only joined the Labour Party at the end of 2016 after 40 years as a Communist and was seconded by UNITE to Labour HQ for the 2017 General Election. Corbyn's links with Murray developed  especially from the latter being a Chair of the "Stop The War Coalition" which opposed the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Corbyn was fully active via that body. 

As both Johnson and myself eventually came to clash with Corbyn and others on developments around this matter, I will now deal with our concerns. For they may still shape Johnson's current feelings about Corbyn. Whilst I initially participated with "Labour Against The War" who were a wing of the Stop the War Coalition and I joined in the mass demonstration that was held in London, both Johnson and myself later came to be highly critical of the line the Coalition took following the actual invasion of Iraq. For me, circumstances dramatically altered once the invasion had taken place. Whilst many of the practices of UK and USA operations in Iraq needed strong criticism (along with the fact that they were there at all), it was clear that the armies were not going to be pressed into upping sticks and leaving.  Circumstances alter cases. So both Johnson and myself felt that it was then necessary to press for feasible improvements in the internal conditions in Iraq. A key group who obtained our backing (and that of the TUC) was the quickly established Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU).

The leader of the IFTU was Hadi Salah. On a visit to this country to build up practical support for their efforts he met with the TUC and I had the privilege to chair a meeting he addressed in the Commons. Later he returned to Iraq. Along with some other IFTU activists he was then murdered by reactionary Iraqis.

Johnson along with Abullah Muhsin then wrote a fine TUC publication entitled "Hadi Never Died : Hadi Salah and the Iraqi Trade Unions" - for Hadi's ideas lived on. Numbers of our Trade Unions supplied the IFTU with practical support. Earlier Muhsin had been an underground opponent of Sadam Hussain and had escaped from Iraq immediately upon voting against him in a rigged election for President. In this country Johnson, Muhsin and myself where amongst those who participated in a body called "Labour Friends of Iraq"  and supported the IFTU's development. Then on a visit to Iraq in 2006, I was presented with a prized possession - a certificate of honoury membership of the IFTU. It was in recognition of the supportive work of "Labour Friends of Iraq".

Unfortunately, the Stop the War Coalition (with Corbyn) did not see how circumstances and needs had changed after Iraq was invaded. They came up with the impractical and dangerous demand that "any methods possible" should be used to remove the occupying forces. This was just not effectively going to happen and was a harmful approach. Instead support and assistance for progressive elements in Iraq (and those working with them) was then the priority. Such was the line taken by Labour Friends of Iraq for whom I was a Joint President and which Mushin and Johnson had links with. As part of the dispute I placed an appropriate Early Day Motion on the Commons Order Paper, but Corbyn put down a hard line amendment in support of the Coalition's stance. (See here, you may need to click into the amendment at the close.)

In fact when Jeremy stood for the leadership of the Labour Party, I never voted for him (sending in a spoilt ballot paper on the second vote). There were other grounds for my actions, but when it came to the Arab world I felt that his judgment was often suspect. Although Johnson and myself have both been critical of many aspects of Isreali policy and have looked towards a two state solution to assist Palestinians, we both felt that in his own approach to such matters Corbyn had worked too closely and uncritically with bodies such as Hamas.

But Johnson and I part company in seeing Corbyn as being basically soft on antisemitism. I spent 18 years as an MP in the Socialist Campaign Group alongside Corbyn and although the situation in the Middle East provided scope for discussion, I never heard him (nor Ken Livingstone whom I shared an office with for a period) express antisemitic ideas. For instance, Corbyn fully and strongly condemned serious antisemitic actions such as the killing of 25 Jewish people and the injury of over 300 at two Istanbul synagogues in 2003. He did not choose just to ignore such hateful events. See here. 

 I also feel that in becoming leader, Corbyn has seen the need to to be much less cavalier about the avenues he uses on a whole host of issues, including tackling the plight of the Palestinian people. It is one thing having a regular go on issues in the Commons from the back benches for 32 years before he became leader and also tub thumping from public platforms. Suddenly to jump straight into the position of leader of the opposition is a massively different ball game. Corbyn had never before then seriously sort for even the most junior of Labour Government or opposition post.  The methods he now uses to further Palestinian rights need to be crafted to fit his new stance. He is in a stronger position to aid his cause, but has to work through the reality of where he now stands and try to hold the Parliamentary Labour Party together around his approach. He is now seeking to do this on some other issues. Such an approach can also help to clear away what some see as the remnants of elements of antisemitism in the Labour Party.

Labour's collective attitude to the Palestine-Israel situation needs to draw from moves which happened in Northern Ireland to achieve (the still imperfect yet dramatic) move to peace and reconciliation between Protestant and Catholic communities. Such an approach requires us to press for collective and humane developments across the boards.

A matter which concerns me from Johnson's side of the case is his stress on the use of the 13 point International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism. As a rough guide the definition can, of course, have its uses. But it must not be handled in such a way that someone can just argue gleefully "we have got you on item x".  It is only when you look at the wider context in which a person's remarks are made that you can work out how relevant an HRA point is to their general stance.

I feel that a dictionary style definition of antisemitism is enough for the basis of our use of the term. My Concise Oxford Dictionary defines an antisemite as "a person hostile to or prejudiced against Jews". Then Wittgenstein (the break-through philosopher of language analysis) pointed out that the meaningful uses (especially of judgmental words) each have their own family resemblance. This means that most of us using and understanding a dictionary definition of antisemitism and also acting carefully should be able reasonably to judge whether someone is saying something that is antisemitic or not. So whilst a list of 13 examples of forms of antisemitism by the HRA may have its uses in showing the depth of the use of a term, it may not even cover every possibility. Whilst the weight of a lengthy list can over egg its useage.  It is the context, stress, depth and use of a term which relates to its meaning in a specific context. On the danger that a 13 point list may even come to miss out on a particular instance, no lengthy list can cater for every possibility of the way a word can legitimately be used. Innovations of legitimate usuage are always possible. Discourse can be both creative and informative. Yet we should still be able to judge if a usage is legitimate or not. Words are not just restricted for use for those with encylopedic check lists.

We all need to be free to employ normal language. It is not just for specialists. If someone points out that the way we have spoken could have antisemitic implications for some reason, then most of us would readjust what we have said to overcome any such danger. For with such refinements we should not be frightened to discuss Jewish issues or the activities of the State of Isreal. For we are otherwise in danger of avoiding subjects which should be solidly part of the dialectics of debate. Without discussions (which can avoid extremes) we avoid important avenues of understanding which we can arrive at via the dialectics of debate - although such debates tend to have no end.  This is all needed as much on the issue of anti-semitism as for almost on any other issue related to politics.

It is 62 years since I first joined the Labour Party where Manny Shinwell was my local MP and was of Jewish decent.  In all that time I have never (face to face) come across anti-semitic utterances in a Labour Party context. Some of this could arise from the fact my Labour Party activity at grass roots level has been in constituencies with no significant Jewish populations and I have not then heard an anti-semitic remark or concerns arising out of coversations.

In fact the only time I have came across such an anti-semitic comment face to face was in a South Yorkshire Miners Day Release Class which I was teaching. The adult student making the offensive comment was immediately challenged by another miner who had a Jewish wife. But there was no great ranchor between the two as everyone in the class were friendly with each other. Without my hammering the person responsible for the offensive remark, I encouraged a debate on the issue. Then although the person who had made the offensive remark never completely back-tracked, we finally all left for a coffee break and did the normal intermingling.  Perhaps openness and comradeship can help overcome such divisions. The person who made the offensive comment never repeated it again in our later meetings. And he was a good solid student on other issues.

Tackling antisemitism within a non antisemitic organisation should be possible via the dialectics of debate. The more Labour engages in internal debate and in the shaping of its overall policies, the easier it should be to transcend any pockets of antisemitism. But it does require people debating with each other. Some of this can be done via the internet if we move beyond its regular uses for point scoring. But the beauty of meeting and socialising is that debate can take place amongst comrades who can look into each others eyes.

I have an admiration for Alan Johnson's considerable efforts on the antisemitism issue (which we can all delve into), but I feel that his evidence and his general stance can be checked out and do not properly establish that Labour under Corbyn has become more antisemitic than during the years prior to his leadership. It seems to me to have usually been a slender problem. Any current problems which can be unearthed should, of course, be tackled. Yet (except in extreme cases) a sensitive approach might work and pull offenders away from such influences.  For the dialectics of debate can help overcome many remaining problems. It is a technique we should push for. Whilst there is always the backstop of discipline and expulsions for persistent and deep cases.      

Added 28 May.  Today the Equality and Human Rights Commission has announced that it is carrying out an enquiry into the issue of antisemitism in the Labour Party. Its terms of reference state

"The Commission suspects that The Labour Party (‘the Party’) may have itself, and/or through its employees and/or agents, committed unlawful acts in relation to its members and/or applicants for membership and/or associates."

See the Commission's full terms of reference here.  

Added 21 July . See this lengthy Wikipedia item entitled "Anti-semitism in the UK Labour Party"  which at its close provides connections to no less than 439 items, one of which is Prof Alan Johnson's publication which I deal with above. Link here.   

Then there is also today's "Labour launches anti-Semitism guide to party members". Link here.

Added 3 August. See this telling article Link here.