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Class War issue 78: Editorial
According to Tony Blair, the Class War is dead (where have we heard that before?). Mr Blair is a public school educated barrister, married to one of the country's top QCs and is leader of Britain's largest political party. As discussed in the previous editorial, it is one of the first tasks of every British Prime Minister to declare the Class War as over. Clearly, rumours of its demise have been greatly exaggerated! On the day Blair made his remarks to the Labour Party conference in Bournemouth, the Countryside Alliance, an organisation bankrolled by, amongst others, the Duke of Westminster and Prince Charles, marched through Bournemouth. Such disputes between different sections of the ruling class present new opportunities and new possibilities for class struggle in this country. Whilst researching working class history for the Class War 2000 calendar, we were struck that throughout this century, and indeed this millennium, the working class has fought, fought and fought again against its oppressors. As we enter the new millennium, we'll be fighting our oppressors in many different spheres, but one overriding factor remains - Them and us. Mr Blair's warm words cannot change that.
Since J18, the radical movement in the UK has been swamped with fresh interest. Unfortunately, not all of this interest has been genuine. Indeed, organisations as diverse as Class War, Reclaim The Streets and Corporate Watch have come under the media microscope. Elsewhere in this paper, we list the greatest media lies (so far) about J18. One of the greatest porkies came courtesy of MI5's favourite newspaper, the Sunday Times, who alleged that rioters had been paid £30 and had been provided with a packed lunch to stop the city on June the 18th. Mark Macaskill has been particularly eager to do the state's bidding and denigrate those who took part in the Carnival Against Capitalism. Rupert Murdoch must be proud of him. Although Macaskill failed in his attempt to infiltrate his office tea boy into Class War, we are sure ourselves and similar organisations will experience such unwanted attention in the future. The question people should ask is not simply, "Who?", but "Why?". Why did the Sunday Times attempt so vigorously to smear Arthur Scargill during the miners' strike? Why did the Sunday Times attempt to smear ITV's "Death On The Rock" documentary about the SAS, and why are the Sunday Times and other newspapers so keen to smear today's radical movement? 99% of journalists would believe anything the police told them. 99.9% of journalists would believe anything the security services told them. Our task is not to work with the 1% of decent journalists out there, our task is to build the literature of the radical movement and replace the Establishment's media. We like a challenge.
Recently, Britain has gone spy mad, with a silly old bag from Bexley Heath exposed as a Soviet spy, amongst others. In this country, the Channel 4 presenter John Snow is the only British journalist who has been brave enough to come out and admit that he was approached to come and work for the security services. He turned them down. Whilst the activities of Britons who spied for the evil empire of the Soviet Union are to be despised, we can't help feeling that there are more spies to be found in Fleet Street than Bexley Heath or Hull University.
Back to issue 78 contents
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