Bobbies in the Cemetery

Buckle up for a marathon episode during which the committee covers Lord Mayors, the Together Alliance, Lammy, Robbie, Aunty, Galloway, and are joined by special guest Abby to talk dumping Labour.

Further Reading:

• BBC Archive: 
  • Last Days on Grand Parade: youtube.com/watch?v=zgpK5YxqmDo
  • Blessed are the Tea Ladies: youtube.com/watch?v=ZOg08w8jyZU
  • The Office Christmas Party: youtube.com/watch?v=OxAzCyCY7Ms
• CWU Letter to Branches: Special Report — Labour Party Relationship: https://www.cwu.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/26LTB60.pdf
• Manchester South RMT Merch: https://manchester-south-rmt.teemill.com/

The Motion:

"Solidarity strikes should be legalised across companies in the same venture capital portfolio."

Submit your motions to the committee to wwww@utaw.tech, or on Instagram @utaw_uk.

Join our union UTAW.tech. Buy our merch UTAW.shop.

Transcript

Lord Mayoral Duties

SPEAKER_08 0:00

You're never gonna believe what's happening literally right now outside my window.

SPEAKER_05 0:03

What?

SPEAKER_08 0:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 0:11

What? Take a picture.

SPEAKER_08 0:12

The Lord Mayor is literally Lord Mayor of what? My borough. He's got the medallions on. I I once And there's a an attendant holding a tricorn hat.

SPEAKER_04 0:25

Oh my god. Are they doing the hear-yee hear ye?

SPEAKER_08 0:29

I think they're just doing a photo. This is incredible.

SPEAKER_04 0:32

Can you please take a picture? Oh I just smelt tequila on the all over the table. That's fine. Wrapped it up with my boyfriend's clean sock.

SPEAKER_08 0:43

Um not so clean anymore.

SPEAKER_04 0:45

No, I did work experience at like Newcastle City Council and when I was at school. Like, you know, when you had to do like work experience.

SPEAKER_05 0:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 0:54

Um, and I like the Lord Mayor like took me down to like the his chamber bit and was like, and like showed me the medallions.

SPEAKER_05 1:03

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 1:04

And he was like, um, like he took it off. No, he I think he was wearing it and he took it off the medallion, or like unclipped it from his necklace, and he was like, like gave it to me to hold. And then I was like, I guess I was like just really, really awkward, like 15-year-old or 14-year-old maybe. And I was holding it, and then there was like a a bit of silence where I like didn't know what to do. But it it looked like he wanted me to put it back on. So I was like, Oh, do you want me to put it back on? And he was like, No, no, just hand it to me. And it was like, oh, it's just one of the most it like makes me cringe every time I think about it. But he was given the vibes of like I'm the mayor, you need to put the badge back on me.

SPEAKER_08 1:42

I mean, not just the mayor, the lord mayor.

SPEAKER_04 1:45

The Lordman, yeah, the most important of the mayors.

SPEAKER_08 1:49

When you're ranking your mayors, Lord Mayor surely comes first. Um I put a picture of the Lord Mayor opening the thing in the chat.

SPEAKER_04 1:56

Um, amazing. Oh, he doesn't look as um as regal as you'd expect. No, because usually they have that like red.

SPEAKER_08 2:05

But the other guy is holding actually, I thought that was a tricorn hat, but now I'm zooming on the picture. It could be like a sort of um uh a decoration. It looks like a punnet of fruit.

SPEAKER_04 2:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 2:17

The uh previous Lord Mayor, not not that guy.

SPEAKER_04 2:20

What what is your borough?

SPEAKER_08 2:22

Westminster.

SPEAKER_04 2:23

Nice, that's a cute.

SPEAKER_08 2:24

I'll be bleeping that for op opsect purposes. I I've just found a picture of him like he looks much more regal and oh you of you've you've found you've you've found my Lord Mayor already. Oh wow.

SPEAKER_04 2:36

He's got cute teeth.

SPEAKER_08 2:37

He looks fantastic.

SPEAKER_04 2:39

No, he looks amazing. That's what the when I met when I went to the Lord Mayor's chamber, that's what he was dressed like.

SPEAKER_08 2:44

Traditionally they were red.

SPEAKER_04 2:45

Um see the big thing he's wearing, yeah. It like unclips itself, and that's what he I thought he was telling me to put back on.

SPEAKER_08 2:54

So our previous Lord Mayor of my uh UPSEC borough um used to live two flats down from me. She was really good. Um she was just like the out they basically I think what they were doing is like they they rotate the like outgoing councillors between the Labour and the Conservatives. So like one of the retiring councillors or whatever gets to be Lord Mayor for a year. Um I don't know if that's how all Lord Mayors work or that's just a um a Westminster thing. Um but so there was always like a big like Rolls-Royce parked outside. And for context, this particular block of flats is not the sort of place where you'd normally have a Rolls-Royce parked outside.

SPEAKER_04 3:34

Well so is that like the is that her work car? Was that her work car?

SPEAKER_08 3:38

I guess so. I mean there was like a chauffeur. Well me, probably. Um when I was in Did you watch Succession?

SPEAKER_05 3:54

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 3:55

Um I was getting my my uh broadcast beverage from my local Sainsbury's. Sainsbury's local as it happens. Um the the the boss of my local Sainsbury's looks exactly like Tom Woms Womsgans.

SPEAKER_04 4:08

He's my favourite character.

SPEAKER_08 4:09

Yeah. Um he looks like Tom Womsgans, but like um, you know, if everything went wrong. But um, but also like confusingly, my so uh my local Sainsbury's they all wear body cams, they've gone sort of like full ice magger. Um so he looks like he looks like ice magger Tom Womsgans.

SPEAKER_04 4:30

He's my he's the he's not only the best character, he's also the most attractive character.

SPEAKER_08 4:34

Yeah, would you like a nectar card, sir?

SPEAKER_04 4:38

Does he sound like it's like it's quite like well spoken?

SPEAKER_08 4:41

No, he speaks like this. He looks like Tom Womsgans, but he talks like he talks like he's from Yorkshire.

SPEAKER_04 4:51

Oh my god, right. You you've got a cat. Have you ever seen those cat treats that are like a lollipop?

SPEAKER_08 4:58

No.

SPEAKER_04 4:59

Okay, don't get them because I got given some for free and like gave one to my cat and accidentally didn't grab the stick and he ate the stick.

SPEAKER_08 5:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:09

And then I forgot about it because I was half asleep, and then yesterday he was sick and the whole stick came out.

SPEAKER_08 5:14

But now I'm like, I'm I'm like Is it like a cat pepperami? Because I've had cat pepperami before.

SPEAKER_04 5:20

No, it's like a lollipop. So it has like a lollipop stick that was like that long.

SPEAKER_05 5:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:25

Like, yeah, almost that long. But I'm worried it's like cut up his insides.

SPEAKER_05 5:31

Ooh.

SPEAKER_04 5:33

Yeah. Tell you can't right now, Shereen. I can see him.

SPEAKER_06 5:37

You can't see shit.

Together Alliance

SPEAKER_08 5:42

I can't. Oh shit, we haven't got a prelimin. I I can't say it preliminary topic.

SPEAKER_04 5:51

Well, why don't we um I was gonna say the march, but like it might not probably not gonna be out in time for the march, is it?

SPEAKER_08 5:58

Depends on how much edit there is to do. Also, uh I can't make the march, it's annoying.

SPEAKER_06 6:02

Why do you want to? Some of the stuff that the fucking SWP or Stand Up to Racism has been saying, it's upset. They're just like, oh yeah, we're just gonna do a march, and then we're like, okay, so what's your strategy for after that? And they're like, no, there is no afterwards, it's just the march. Like, what is the point?

SPEAKER_08 6:21

Yeah, I sometimes you just need to get people to like show up to a place and and walk from one place to another place with big signs and lots of people. Like that's that's important every now and again.

SPEAKER_04 6:31

Yeah, and I think it'll be good for us because there'll be people like it'll be the first time that I'm meeting loads of people that are coming.

SPEAKER_08 6:37

Yeah, it's mostly a net it's mostly a networking event.

SPEAKER_04 6:40

Yeah, I'm using it as a networking opportunity. Yeah. I think it'll be really cool like to just see other people from Utah. Like my favourite member Dan Holt's coming from Hull. No, Leeds, maybe. Dan Holt is coming. Yeah, he's coming from Leeds. Everyone's favorite.

SPEAKER_08 6:57

We should all turn up.

SPEAKER_04 6:58

Yeah, everyone's favourite Utah member.

SPEAKER_08 7:01

Yeah. That's going in the episode. I'll allow it.

SPEAKER_04 7:06

But we might what if we've outed him as like I said his second name as well.

SPEAKER_08 7:11

It's true. Confirmed union member. Hill.

SPEAKER_04 7:19

Membership number.

Apple Update

SPEAKER_08 7:20

Execute order. Issue execute order to member 1353613.

SPEAKER_06 7:28

When did we get an Apple update? Has that happened already?

SPEAKER_08 7:32

No. No, we're waiting. Uh what did we say was that?

SPEAKER_04 7:38

It's a long time, isn't it?

SPEAKER_08 7:40

Yeah, I actually have no idea. Um I thought you were drinking a glass of milk there for a second, which would be a um quite the change for the episode. Um Apple update, so um we are waiting for basically we've issued a bunch of complaints because they did Union Bust quite a lot. Yeah. Um but we spoke about that last episode. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_06 8:05

You didn't speak about like raising the complaints though.

SPEAKER_08 8:09

Yeah, I mean we we we we submitted basically every every every time they did union busts, which they did often, um we we we submitted a complaint about it, and now we've got quite a lot of complaints.

SPEAKER_06 8:20

Um how many are we talking?

SPEAKER_08 8:22

Oh we've got like four plus, you know. That's a lot.

SPEAKER_05 8:28

That is.

SPEAKER_08 8:29

So now each of those complaints needs to be heard and uh rectified. And that might result in uh a re a reballot or a um a hearing or um yeah, anything.

SPEAKER_04 8:43

So it's like there are I found it with three options. If it the complaint is not upheld, the ballot just is released like as normal. So therefore it you know, recognition can be won or lost based on just the ballot. It's upheld and they call a reballot and we'll never know what the original ballot was. Or they upheld the uphold the complaint and they and we um we're just granted recognition. So there's no world in which the complaint is upheld and the results oh ignore me.

SPEAKER_08 9:19

Basically the whole ballot's been done and they're they're like they know the result and they're sitting on the result and they can't tell us it until they've processed the the whole all these complaints. So that's really that's really annoying, but uh it's uh yeah. So we just have to wait.

SPEAKER_06 9:32

I hope it's the third option.

SPEAKER_04 9:35

I would like that the complaint was upheld and they released the results and we've won.

SPEAKER_06 9:42

Yeah, that's what I want.

SPEAKER_08 9:44

That would be the best option. I would I would like I would I would like us to have won in the first place and um also the complaints to be vindicated.

SPEAKER_06 9:55

So if the complaints are upheld, they have to re release the thing, or they just say like fuck it, you got recognition.

SPEAKER_04 10:03

That's one of the two options, yeah. So that like if it's upheld, they can call a re-ballot and they do not release the results, or they can uphold it, grant recognition, and release the results. So there is a situ there is a world in which like the ballot could have been lost, but we get recognition.

SPEAKER_05 10:22

And we know that, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 10:29

But it's an ongoing process, and I'm not talking about it.

SPEAKER_06 10:32

Okay, sorry. I feel like this is interesting.

SPEAKER_08 10:35

It's really interesting, it's so interesting. Uh it's very exciting. Um, it's nerve-wracking. I'm losing sleep over it.

SPEAKER_06 10:40

Are you losing hair though?

SPEAKER_08 10:42

I'm losing hair over it.

SPEAKER_04 10:45

Edmund, I just realized when did you get rid of your mustache?

SPEAKER_06 10:49

Wait, what?

SPEAKER_04 10:50

Remember when you had that mustache?

SPEAKER_06 10:52

No.

SPEAKER_04 10:55

We had a whole had a mustache. It's gone now.

SPEAKER_08 10:59

I it wasn't like last week or last month or something, I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 11:04

Okay, well, I've only just noticed.

SPEAKER_08 11:06

Um I've clearly not been making eye contact with me as we as we sit next to each other at our our our standing desks.

SPEAKER_06 11:14

Do you have standing desks?

SPEAKER_08 11:15

Yeah. This week we sat down mostly the week before we stood up and until we had lunch, and then we sat down.

SPEAKER_06 11:27

Do you actually do you feel like it helps you act better?

SPEAKER_08 11:30

No, not really. It's just an extra gizmo to play with. Um, you know, I've got my presets. I like to sit at a good 76 centimetre altitude. Um I like I like to stand to be honest, I it doesn't quite give me the the the standing altitude that I'd prefer. Um it's it's a few inches short, so I need a sort of elbow rest. I find myself slouching in the standing position um at my standing desk quite a lot. So it's not quite there yet. Um But it's yeah, it's good. At this table I'm at right now, um it's uh it's also not a uh it's uh neither a standing nor a seating height. If I stand up now, you'll notice that I get only a little bit higher up. No way, you look you look so much higher. If I go back to sitting down, the the delta between sitting and standing not that extreme. Because I've set it just for me. I feel like a custom a custom heighted sitting surface where I keep my work appliances. I've got lots of good work appliances. I've got this, I've got a like a shoe brush.

SPEAKER_04 12:39

Oh nice, you need that.

SPEAKER_08 12:40

Um I've got um longer shoe brush. Just longer shoe brush. Clothes brush, clothes brush. Clothes brush, that's it next to my shoe brush. Um oh I've got uh a wavy cat hand thing. Um and it's got uh it's got um uh a little it's got like a uh it's got a solar anus, it's got a um it it Oh is it like a j um a lucky cat?

SPEAKER_04 13:06

Um money cat.

SPEAKER_08 13:07

It's a lucky a lucky money cat that likes to uh sun its uh perineum um to get to get its and its power from.

SPEAKER_04 13:17

Yeah. Oh my cat just meowed as you said that.

Local Elections Update

SPEAKER_06 13:20

Um I've got pens, I've got chocolate. Um guess who came to Lewisham last week?

SPEAKER_08 13:26

Who came to Lewisham last week? Big Z.

SPEAKER_06 13:31

Najafarage. Big Lavi. Lamy?

SPEAKER_04 13:35

What's he in Lewisham for? To help them win. They should have said, stay out, David Lamy, don't come to Lewisham, we want to win.

SPEAKER_08 13:49

Here's a question, right? And it might just be because I'm following you on Instagram, so I see I look basically I feel like I feel like Lewisham is quite a hotly contested um no it is uh council for for the upcoming local elections. What why why is it why is there so much attention on Lewis on Lewisham?

SPEAKER_06 14:08

I I um I think it's just that it's an a Labour um council that's been Labour for like I think like 40 years or something, like it's a store wall. The people inside Lewisham, I feel like they're like super, super Labour. Like the the pension committee chair, if she has like there's pictures of like Tony Blair doing his like inaugural speech with her as a teenager in the background, and she works for Lamy now, like as his chief of staff. Um, so they're like proper, like connected, they're like proper, proper hardcore labor people, and um I just think that they want to protect this seat greatly. Uh I don't know why though, because they've they've actually invested a lot of money into it, like it's kind of terrifying.

SPEAKER_08 15:01

Yeah. Not your not your uh not your ward though, right?

SPEAKER_06 15:06

No, in my ward they've they're like picking up now as well. Like we're having like fucking uh 20 people going out like canvassing for Labour all the time. It's like absurd. Not 20 real people though, like all the counsellors.

SPEAKER_08 15:23

Well, I'll be coming to I'll be coming to campaign for the uh the People's Workers' Party. Wait, what's it called? What's the Galloway Party called? That one.

SPEAKER_04 15:31

Workers' Party of Britain.

SPEAKER_08 15:32

Workers' Party of Britain.

SPEAKER_06 15:37

Yeah, but I'm glad you noticed that though. Did you not see what Navarra said as well? Like this is just one of the places where Labour has just like decided to invest shitloads of money.

SPEAKER_05 15:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 15:47

What did what did Navarra say? I didn't see that. I think um, well, because we got two defections on Yeah. Oh, you saw that?

SPEAKER_04 15:54

I I just saw it because I just googled it. Oh wait, so what? The cat? No, I'm not sure. And defections. Yeah, I didn't see that, I didn't see that. I just saw it now because I just googled it.

SPEAKER_06 16:10

Yeah, we got two defections over the weekend. How do you not feel about defections?

SPEAKER_08 16:19

I love a good defection. I'm thinking you're defecting right now.

SPEAKER_04 16:23

So wait, where prospect? Or a different podcast.

SPEAKER_08 16:26

Prospect, no. Yeah, to a different podcast.

SPEAKER_06 16:33

I I'm actually not that keen on defection.

SPEAKER_08 16:36

I'm moving to Chapo next week.

SPEAKER_04 16:39

What what's that what's an alternative to a defection?

SPEAKER_06 16:43

I think I'd rather you stayed where you are. If I think have some loyalty go down with the ship, except like with these people in Lewisham, because I was against them. I was like, man, don't let don't let any labour in here, please. But in their defense, they have got very strong records on things like Palestine, and they're beloved in the community, and they're actually doing work and they've been in trouble for trying to do work. Um, so I had I have to give it to them. You're like, it's not like they stayed in labor and they didn't try to help.

SPEAKER_04 17:25

Yeah, because that that's that's like interesting. I never thought about that. Because, like, obviously, it's one thing elect uh defecting like a month before an election. That is probably yeah, like I'm I've seen the winning side and I want to keep my seat, which is also in some ways fair enough if you're doing good work. But like, if so, my MP is um Afsana Began. Begum. And like she's Labour, right? But I I think she's really good.

SPEAKER_06 17:49

She's very nice, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:50

Like she's I mean, she's done stuff for us as as a union, like for our branch. Um, so I would actually be like, I wouldn't, but I wouldn't vote for her now because she's a neighbor. So like I would be quite happy if she moved to like my new party, the Workers' Party of Britain, or or the Green Party would be fine for me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 18:14

Yeah, I mean, uh like obviously a lot of support for the uh Workers' Party of Great Britain. Um at the last election here, all of the candidates knocking on the doors, it was all about like it was all about like knife crime, antisocial behaviour. Like no one was talking about anything apart from apart from knife crime and antisocial behaviour, and it felt like the entire Labour platform was like, yeah, Bobby's on the beat. That's all everyone wants is Bobby's on the beat.

SPEAKER_04 18:41

Um but the work of the Bobby's on the beat in my area, it's like every street is police.

SPEAKER_08 18:47

Bobby's on the beat to me always sounds like um the Robbie Williams song um Bodies. Bodies in the Cemetery, Bobby's in the Bobby tree.

SPEAKER_04 19:01

That's such a beat box, uh Rootbox. That's a good a good deep cut Robbie Williams reference.

SPEAKER_08 19:06

No, it's the Root Box is great. Root box is in my mind it's the equivalent to like when David Bowie went jungle. Like David Bowie, David Bowie's really, really good criminally underrated uh drum and bass records. Um Little Wonder.

SPEAKER_04 19:21

It's Dylan goes electric for fans of take that.

SPEAKER_08 19:24

Yeah. Yeah, no, Root Box was a really important moment in the culture that's often underlooked, overlooked. Um, but yeah, no, the Workers' Party of Great Britain um in in my constituency, given that the Labour Party and the Greens all they wanted to talk about was Bobby's on the beat, the Workers' Party of Great Britain had like a sort of like Workers' Party Foxton mini that they were driving around in doing megaphone things out the window, which was fucking amazing. They were the only people who tried anything interesting, um, and they were everywhere. So um yeah, all I get in my local area is um like the uh Iranian nationalists doing a convoy outside the window. Um they've got they've got the the royal they've got the they've got the you know the Trad flag. Um and they do a convoy down my street um once a week. Um, you know, there's like 20 cars go past tooting their horns with their flags out. So I get them and and um our our workers' party of Great Britain.

SPEAKER_04 20:19

I'm triangulating your location based on those two facts, and and the Lord Mayor that I showed you earlier. So Edwin lives in a borough with a Lord Mayor, yeah. And the active workers' party of Great Britain.

SPEAKER_06 20:34

Someone like Where's my ward? Where is your ward? Yeah, that's true. We should f we should find him. Help us find him. Um, so to any members listening out there, if you want to help us find um Edwin, the patriarch, just um yeah, uh send us his location at the next podcast. We'd love to hear it.

SPEAKER_04 20:54

It's GeoGuetta, but if you send us a photo of Edwin through his um like bedroom window, you win.

SPEAKER_08 21:00

It's geo guess, but all I'm gonna do is tell you about uh like candidates over the years at like various local elections. You've got to triangulate from that.

SPEAKER_06 21:09

No, but if Nadia Whit, like I love Nadia Wittham. I think she's scared me to stick. She's if she wanted to come over, then I would have no issue with that. And I think the same with the socialists who came over from in Lewisham. I'm like, yeah, okay, fine, you got me, you're you're you're really there working. But I know that there's gonna be that one dickhead who's done like fucking West Streaming or whatever, and be like, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:34

Would you accept well you you're not, I guess, making the decision, but do you think can the Green Party ha what happens when you defect to another party? Do they decide, oh, we can have you in? Like if Nigel Farage was like, I'm actually gonna go Green Party.

SPEAKER_06 21:48

They have to actually go through like a vetting process. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:51

Okay, cool. Yeah, but I think West Streling could probably fail that, right? 'Cause he's in lots of ways like against Green Party policies.

SPEAKER_06 21:58

Yeah, but that's the thing. I don't know what the vetting process is. I don't know where the line is.

SPEAKER_04 22:04

I can't believe they didn't ask like you're not on the committee that decides the vetting process. I thought to me you're like just the whole Green Party. I I don't actually know anyone else at the Green Party. It's just me. It is just me.

Crack Crisis Update

SPEAKER_06 22:21

I'm making it seem like a bigger deal on social media, but it is just me.

SPEAKER_04 22:25

Do you want to see my new signs that I'm putting up in my building to pretend I've got CCTV?

SPEAKER_06 22:29

Oh that's cool. I'm full for that.

SPEAKER_04 22:34

Fake CCTV. Yeah, how much was that? 10 pounds. For two, I got two. There's like two of them. Is there like a lot of like shady shit happening? Um my building's been turned into a crack house. So and then on Saturday night at like 10 pm, somebody um managed to set fire to a door in the communal area, and then they turned off the fire alarm. But by that point I'd already called the fire brigade. So I'm trying to like put yeah, just like um the the building management's like really useless. So I said, Can you can I drill in some fake cameras? And he said yeah. So yeah, it's not really nice. And like sometimes we leave the house like in the morning and there's people like passed out in the hallway. So it's not ideal.

SPEAKER_06 23:24

That's awful. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:25

Someone's being cuckooed, I think. There's somebody in one of the flats is being cocooed.

SPEAKER_06 23:30

That's fucked up.

SPEAKER_04 23:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 23:34

Oh my god, that really sucks. Yeah. That is not where I thought this convo was going.

SPEAKER_04 23:39

No, yeah, it has actually got slightly better since the fire thing on Saturday because I think like they've realized how how like urgent the crisis is, but we'll see.

SPEAKER_06 23:50

But what if the crackheads are listening to www?

SPEAKER_04 23:55

Um if they are invite them in. I'll invite them. I'll invite them in. I'll give them support as long as they don't set fire to my house try and set fire to my house again. Um is crackheads PC? No.

SPEAKER_08 24:09

No.

SPEAKER_04 24:10

But I'll tell you something really funny. I I spoke to the the police like came around.

SPEAKER_08 24:15

They're experiencing crack.

SPEAKER_04 24:16

Yeah, people experiencing crack.

4dub.wav

SPEAKER_00 24:18

Um Yeah, the problems of sound are examined in order that audio equipment should function satisfactorily, and that the noises made by electrical appliances should not be too disturbing. It spans the globe like a superhighway. It is called internet.

SPEAKER_06 25:26

Hello, and welcome to the workers of the World Wide Web WWW. With us today, we have me, Serene, the chair. As per usual, I am um still in charge. No uprising. But um as well as me being in charge, we have our lovely Patriarch who is the technical leader of this. Don't laugh. I think it's for the best that you mute yourself. Uh uh Danny, tell us more.

SPEAKER_08 25:54

Hi. Uh I'm um I've got the word Patriot highlighted in the Google Doc, and I'm trying to strike through it and replace it with something else, but there's no strike through option in Google Doc, so I have to stick with my title. I would like a new title though, please.

SPEAKER_06 26:07

Yeah, I feel like we made Edwin just gross.

SPEAKER_08 26:10

I'd like to petition the committee for a change.

SPEAKER_06 26:13

I don't think until the AGM it's possible.

SPEAKER_08 26:15

Can I be the Ombudsman instead?

SPEAKER_04 26:18

That that's like uh an outside position, so you wouldn't be part of the part of the podcast if you did that.

SPEAKER_06 26:24

And that's like an all serene voice that we're hearing is our brilliant treasurer, Eleanor. So uh welcome back, Eleanor. You could continue.

SPEAKER_05 26:34

Hello.

SPEAKER_06 26:35

What? You were chatting so much a second ago, and now you're just like, oh hello. I've become shy. I've become really shy.

SPEAKER_08 26:42

I'm really shy as well. We're all really shy today, Shereen. You're gonna have to carry it for us.

SPEAKER_06 26:47

Yeah, but I'm drunk because I'm the only one who committed this week.

SPEAKER_04 26:52

Interesting. We'll note that down for future AGMs.

SPEAKER_08 26:56

Noted.

BBC Archive

SPEAKER_06 26:57

Oh my gosh. No, I was listening to the theme song when it was just playing, and I was just like, you need to do an actual rundown of like everything that's in the theme song. There's so much in that.

SPEAKER_04 27:08

Can you do like references for what the clips are?

SPEAKER_08 27:11

Obviously, all of the sound effects in the um theme tune uh uh uh royalty free and available on the Creative Commons, um, which is why I've been uh which is why I selected them separately from that. Um I have been spending a lot of time recently on the BBC Archive YouTube channel, um which is my favourite new thing. Um it's it's my new um it's my it's my it's my stories, my video nasties. Um every night I I I select it's it's great because it's got everything between eight minutes and forty-eight minutes, so you can you can choose something based on the duration you want. So yesterday I watched um like uh 1971 documentary about the office Christmas party.

SPEAKER_04 27:47

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_08 27:48

And the ladies in the office were like, Oh, let's do something fun this year, like uh um who's got the best legs in the office competition. Um, did that go?

SPEAKER_04 27:59

Where did that tradition go?

SPEAKER_08 28:00

Where did it go? I mean, that's honestly, if we did best legs on the podcast, that would be really fun. Um maybe we'll cue that up for a future episode. Um there was another really good one about like um uh like the the retiree, the residents in the in the uh Bournemouth hotels um uh who all really hated each other and wouldn't talk to each other.

SPEAKER_04 28:21

Um, because me and Edwin both found out that we both at quite similar times, as in like recently have become like obsessed with the UC Archive. And that was my entry drug, was the Bournemouth hotel resident.

SPEAKER_05 28:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:35

And they all are like better than each other.

SPEAKER_08 28:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:38

But they all think that.

SPEAKER_08 28:39

They're literally Victorians, um, and they sit at their own little tables and get served breakfast by a man in the Dicky bow.

SPEAKER_06 28:45

Um but they never speak to each other, they hate each other so much.

SPEAKER_04 28:49

There's like a bit there's a clip of them like at breakfast. There was there was a bit where they were talking together when they had that afternoon tea. But like at breakfast, there's just like individual older women and some older men on tables, like miles away from each other eating breakfast.

SPEAKER_08 29:02

There's like one older man who's not that old, like they're all like 99, and then there's one guy who's like in his 60s who's just like, yeah, I've sort of just given up and moved to the seaside.

SPEAKER_06 29:13

The one that I saw on the archive that I really loved was like when they were just they went to like loads of pubs and they spoke about like the introduction of like I think it was like drink driving limits, and people were like, Oh yeah, it will never work here. Yeah, I'm about to get behind the wheel.

SPEAKER_08 29:34

Yeah, yeah, there's a good one on the like the day they introduced seatbelts, like the day seatbelts became legally mandatory, and that there's just a report of stopping people going, Are you wearing a seatbelt?

SPEAKER_07 29:47

And they go, Oh, I suppose I'm not. I I better put it on then.

SPEAKER_04 29:50

Have you seen the one? Um, this is actually not BBC Archive, it's ITV archive, yeah. Where it's the day I think they call it Black Tot Day.

unknown 29:59

Right.

SPEAKER_04 29:59

It's ITNN that we're they call it Black Tot Day. So it was the day that they ended the Royal Navy rum ration, and the savers like the sailors like revolted, and they're all but you know, they used to get it was like a bottle a day or something. Like that was the ration, and they would always get through it, and there were all these like really drunk, they're all like round holding each other's arms, like holding each other up, and like they're just fuming. Imagine the thing going, you've got to watch that one's very good.

SPEAKER_08 30:27

And also if that was like the main benefit of your job is that you got a pint of a pint of rum like every day. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 30:37

I think it was it was in like a weird um measure that you wouldn't normally associate with like a liquid.

SPEAKER_08 30:42

A Jeroboam. A furlong, a fathom of rum. That'll be a fathom of rum for you. Um yeah, you're bet and you get your benefit taken away. They should have gone on strike.

SPEAKER_06 30:56

It's true, they should have gone on strike. I think that's uh that's a what is that? That's a contract. It's like an unwritten um I know what you mean.

SPEAKER_04 31:07

We've forgotten what that's called. Well, we teach this.

SPEAKER_08 31:10

It's not like we teach contract law to to union reps as part of our job. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:14

This is the port of employment law that I forget every time.

SPEAKER_08 31:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:17

Can you remind me, Edwin?

SPEAKER_08 31:18

Come to my class.

SPEAKER_04 31:19

It's no, because I've been to it multiple times and I still forget it. I know.

SPEAKER_08 31:22

In my mind, I was advertising this to our listening audience that they should come to my class. What all our listening audience should do is A, join our union and B uh, as an extension of that benefit, come to the class that um I teach once a month where I tell you about employment contracts that I can't remember the details of right now. What's the class called?

SPEAKER_04 31:39

No, no, what's it called? Oh, you're trying to advertise. I'm trying to just remember what this is called. The thing where you get given it and it's like an an implicit part of the contract, but it's not in the contract. Yeah. It's like an unit. It is an um like a customer practice. Yeah, customer practice. Uh that's what it's called. So the rum was an um customer practice, I guess.

SPEAKER_06 31:57

I thought it was like implied. I'm bad at feature.

SPEAKER_08 32:01

You can have an impl an implied term of a contract would often be like a customer practice.

SPEAKER_06 32:07

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:12

It got half a pint of rum two times a day, so it's a pint across the whole day.

SPEAKER_08 32:16

Half a pint of rum two times daily.

SPEAKER_04 32:19

Per sailor. Yep, per person, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 32:22

Per boat.

SPEAKER_04 32:23

Yep.

SPEAKER_08 32:23

Per pint.

SPEAKER_04 32:26

No, per person on each boat. But that there's actually like the oh again, Dr.

SPEAKER_06 32:32

Ellen, you're missing out. Oh, he was.

SPEAKER_04 32:34

I saw his face again, the cat. There's a pub quite near me that every year celebrates Good Friday. Um and it's rum related. Uh sorry, it's it's it's navy related, so yeah. But they always serve like sailor's rum on him.

SPEAKER_08 32:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:49

It starts at like 11 and it then the sailors like very quickly drunk.

SPEAKER_08 32:54

Is this the same pub with the buns?

SPEAKER_04 32:56

Yeah, it's called Bunday. Or or um yeah, I think it's called I call it Bunday, but I think that's that is the actual name of it.

SPEAKER_08 33:03

What what happens with the buns?

SPEAKER_04 33:04

So a hundred and a hundred or so years ago, yeah, the landl the landlady of the pub, or like this this is the so-called story, but I think it is true. Her son went on a Royal Navy trip. I don't know what you call it, when they go to work. He went to sea. Trip adjourned. I can't remember what they call it. He went to sea. Yeah, no, he was working for the Navy. He was it um, and he never came. Yeah, it's a business trip. He never he um never came home, and she he he was supposed to come back around Easter, I think, and she made him a hot cross bun, but he never came home, and then she did it every year, so she would bake him a bun and then keep it in the um the attic of the pub. Oh the you know, the upstairs yeah, attic. And then when like years later the pub was bought, was sold. I think she died and then the pub was sold. They found like you know, a bun from every year, and then they kind of made it a tradition. Yeah, so now they have like local members of the navy, and they do like poems in in memory of people who like have died at sea. It's actually really, really cool. And they like lift up um obviously the sailor uniform is like really smart, isn't it? So it was like looks really good. They lift him up and everyone goes, way, and he puts a bun above the bar. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_08 34:16

And they've got all the buns, the buns are all there. Still observed.

SPEAKER_04 34:20

So they write yeah, so they write like so on the cross, so it'll be like 2026 this year, and then they've got ones going all the way back, but they obviously like disintegrate, so there's not the full amount because they've just over time like dust has they've become dust. But there's some really cool if you Google like widow's son, that's why it's called the widow's son as well, because it she was a widow and she had a son. There's like loads of really cool pictures of it.

SPEAKER_06 34:45

Oh my goodness, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:47

It's actually it's next Friday, Bundes next Friday because it's a good Friday, next Friday.

SPEAKER_06 34:51

Wait, where is it? East London, Bowie, Bowie 3. Yeah, Bowie 3. Yeah, that's in a grime song. I don't remember which one. It's Wiley. Is it Wiley?

SPEAKER_04 35:03

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 35:04

Jesus.

SPEAKER_04 35:05

Bowie the home of grime.

SPEAKER_06 35:08

It kind of is.

SPEAKER_04 35:09

It it is, not kind of, Shereen.

SPEAKER_06 35:12

Yeah, I'm I'm just saying I'm from Lewisham, so I don't respect what you're doing. Don't respect you don't respect East London talent. Uh yeah, I don't respect um grime from from Bowie 3.

Self-Crit

SPEAKER_04 35:25

Wow. Maybe self-crit for next week. I I actually have a crit to read out, yeah. Um, which was sent in by mysterious listener Dave. I'll read it out. This isn't my this is from listener Dave, won't assume gender, although I do know who it is. And their name is not Dave. Um why are you snitching?

SPEAKER_08 35:48

She's not snitching, she's just saying it's not Dave. Oh, you've also muted yourself.

SPEAKER_04 35:57

Sorry, I accidentally muted myself. Okay, oh that maybe that was Dave. Who knows? Um, so I'll read out.

SPEAKER_08 36:03

Sabotage.

SPEAKER_04 36:04

And this is actually addressed to you, Shireen, as the chair. So to the honourable chair, I would like to take issue with something that was said in the last episode titled Salemated Dick Wind. Words were said to the effect that trots are fascists. I, as in Listener Dave, think this is unfair and inaccurate. So I request this letter be read to set the record straight. Number one, it's very clearly laid out, by the way, this letter. Number one, fascism is the reaction to systemic crisis by the capitalist class, especially in the face of socialist advances. Number two, the class basis of fascism is generally an alliance of big capitalists and small business owners who then mobilize the most backward of the working people. Number three, the aim of fascists is to stabilize capitalist rule at the expense of workers and oppressed minorities. It's not about being authorit authoritarian. That's just a tool. Um liberals and socialists can be authoritarian too. Number four, contemporary Trotskyists are socialists, just hope just are socialists, just hopeless, hopelessly misguided. Socialists are I've like lost, I've got to the fourth letter and I've lost the ability to actually read out loud. They're just hopelessly misguided in a number of ways that Lissa Dave will not bother going into. That being said, oh bit of poor language here. Fair warning. That being said, Leon Trotsky was a cunt and definitely had no problem working with Nazis and other fascists to destabilize the Soviet Union. This is documented in the historical record. So while I wholeheartedly support criticizing Trotsky mistake, for their various efforts and errors, I urge you to continue doing so. I think you shouldn't call them fascists as it will muddy the waters who the real enemies of the working cap people are. Brackets, it's capitalists and their fascist agents. Much love, listener Dave.

SPEAKER_06 38:12

Wowie, and thank you so much for this lovely letter, listener Dave. I don't think we're gonna be able to read it out, but um I'll bleep the whole thing out in the edit, don't worry.

SPEAKER_04 38:23

I think this I think listener Dave in a genuine obviously this was addressed at me. I don't actually remember saying that, but I trust that I did say that. And I wholeheartedly agree with this wholehearted so let that be on the record. The SWP are not fascists, they are rat bastards.

SPEAKER_05 38:44

Rat bastards.

SPEAKER_06 38:47

Yeah, I love that. I love that. Thank you so much, listener Dave, for um helping us understand how to properly insult the SWP.

SPEAKER_08 38:57

Um we'll have listener Dave on as a future guest on the podcast. Um He sounds like an interesting person. The only thing is that it when we do, we'll be revealing who Listener Dave is, so we'll have to tactically sprankle them in between other other guests.

SPEAKER_05 39:13

Um sprankle?

SPEAKER_08 39:15

Yeah, sounds like a sur, yeah. In Dutch, sparkling water is lightly sprangled, so that's how I say sprinkled.

SPEAKER_04 39:24

So actually we have sparkled.

SPEAKER_08 39:26

Yeah, they uh it's they have lightly sprangled. I think, from what I remember from looking at uh going to a spa in in in uh Rotterdam. Um I can also remember I can also remember one other sentence in Dutch which is each makalak.

SPEAKER_06 39:49

Pardon? This doesn't sound real. I I I find this hard to believe.

SPEAKER_08 39:56

Look it up, it's got like three it's got like three J's in it. Each makalak.

SPEAKER_06 40:00

I'm rolling this out of order as well.

SPEAKER_08 40:02

That's how you say enjoy your meal.

SPEAKER_04 40:04

It's like have you have you seen um like there's quite a lot of memes, isn't there, of like Dutch um like people writing in Dutch and it just looks like English, like it's kind of not. There's one which is um, I don't know, oh it's like so typical of me to just bring up a meme to communicate with, but there's like a German one and you know, people like take a picture of their hairline and they're like, Oh, is it over for me? And the German one is like so it's like a picture of his head and it's like is this over for me? And like it just I always think stuff like that just is so good for like I just find it so funny. Uh the relationship between the European languages will never be B O B A B O B O B O B O B A B O B O B O B A B O B O B A B. Whoa, she's been so Are you remixing her?

SPEAKER_08 40:55

You had a critical error.

Gamerz Zone

SPEAKER_04 40:57

It's not I had you know, I bought a brand new laptop a few months ago and it's so it crashes like Zoom quite a lot.

SPEAKER_06 41:07

That's upset. Get a refined.

SPEAKER_04 41:09

So Edwin might have to it's probably one of the many, many things I've done or did to it. Edwin needs to fix it for me.

SPEAKER_08 41:14

It's the job. As the Ombudsman, I take it up on myself to fix it.

SPEAKER_06 41:19

Pokemon.

SPEAKER_08 41:20

I'm adding it to the I'm adding it, I'll put it right next to the Nintendo DS in my uh office desk that I've I I disassembled and then haven't yet to put back together six months ago.

SPEAKER_06 41:29

Wait, did you crack Pokemon or did you buy it? No, we're not we're not going back to crack again, Edwin. Did you buy it or did you buy it?

SPEAKER_04 41:38

I bought Pokemon. Yeah, people experiencing Pokemon. Half the world is currently playing Pokemon Pocopia, and I am one of them. Pokopia.

unknown 41:48

Pokopia.

SPEAKER_04 41:49

It's very good. I should have put this in all of the business because if anyone wants to talk to me about Pokemon, Pocopia.

SPEAKER_08 41:56

I've started playing computer games again.

SPEAKER_04 41:58

Oh nice what works.

SPEAKER_08 42:06

Um my Steam Deck.

SPEAKER_04 42:08

That's a good one.

SPEAKER_08 42:09

It's really good.

SPEAKER_04 42:10

Is it the like the original one?

SPEAKER_08 42:12

Yeah, no, I because I I I I played them at the time and there was it was on the Steam sale, so I got the the fourth one again.

SPEAKER_04 42:18

Um have you got to the bit where he plays Crash Bandicoot?

SPEAKER_08 42:22

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's as far as I've got. I've I've played about 10 minutes, which is for me a lot of video games.

SPEAKER_06 42:27

Have I ever played Oh, sorry.

SPEAKER_07 42:30

Yeah, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_06 42:32

I'll uh you'll allow it. Thanks, Mr. Ok. No, no, after you, sir. Have I reviewed it? It's International Working Women's Month.

SPEAKER_08 42:43

I defer to you.

SPEAKER_06 42:44

Oh, thank you so much, Daddy. So, um have I reviewed you played this really fucking annoying game? It's called like pandemic.

SPEAKER_04 42:55

Oh yeah. Not there's a board game and there's like a video game.

SPEAKER_06 43:00

The video game version.

SPEAKER_04 43:02

I used to play that in the library at school. We used to play that when we were in IT.

SPEAKER_08 43:05

Is that the one where you like click? It's like risk, you click on a map and then you spread your disease. Yeah. Is that the one we're talking about? That's a really good game.

SPEAKER_04 43:11

Yeah, that's like one of my first favourite video games.

SPEAKER_08 43:16

There's a board game of that?

SPEAKER_04 43:17

I think it's originally a board game. I've got it on my iPad and I still I still play it. We're talking about different games. What are you talking about?

SPEAKER_08 43:24

Oh, I'm thinking of Plague Inc.

SPEAKER_04 43:27

Oh no, Pandemic is the board game. Plague Inc is the is the video game based on the board game.

SPEAKER_06 43:34

I'm thinking of the the game called Pandemic.

SPEAKER_08 43:38

Okay, tell us more.

SPEAKER_06 43:39

It's real. It's like so fucking hard. I can't get past day one. Like you have to do like all of this shit. Hold on, I'm I'm gonna get it.

SPEAKER_08 43:51

Is it I've just clicked on a thing that says play pandemic from your browser and it it the the cover looks like a sort of AI generated like poster for a season of ER. It's got like some.

SPEAKER_04 44:00

Someone's a doctor, someone's an army man. Army person and Army man. Um I'm talking about a man experiencing army.

SPEAKER_06 44:06

Do I not know the name of the game I'm talking about?

SPEAKER_04 44:09

I think it's Panda I think it is pandemic.

SPEAKER_06 44:11

No, because you're all these you're you're the doctor, right?

SPEAKER_04 44:14

Yeah, yeah. So we're we're talking about Plague Inc., which is based on the board game pandemic.

SPEAKER_08 44:18

It says play or learn. I'm clicking play. Oh, wait, it wants to know.

SPEAKER_04 44:22

Guys, we're doing a podcast right now. I don't think you should be playing video games.

SPEAKER_08 44:25

We'll do this on our Twitch afterwards.

SPEAKER_04 44:30

No, that's a really good idea.

SPEAKER_08 44:32

It is a really good idea. We are going to do it. Sorry, what's it about? It's about a pandemic. Great.

SPEAKER_06 44:37

No, it's fucking hard. And you have to go around and there's all these like really scary children. And the children are like, oh, don't go to that secret place. And there's like a guy, and you have to shoot him. And I can never like shoot him in time before he kills me. And then they're like, oh, the day's ended. And then I go back to the beginning of day one. Because you died. Yeah, because I fucking die every time.

SPEAKER_08 45:01

We are not looking at the same game right now.

SPEAKER_06 45:03

We're not. No. You're gonna have to send us it. We're gonna have to put it in the yeah, I'll get back to you on this one. Um, but if anyone knows how to get past day one in the game that I'm talking about, please do um get in touch urgently.

SPEAKER_04 45:19

Shereen, you know, for members of United Technologied Workers, our Discord has a gaming channel. Oh, it does a yeah, you could ask him now.

SPEAKER_06 45:28

Okay, don't educate me. I'm the education officer.

CWU-con

SPEAKER_04 45:32

Who do you think you are? So sorry, I'm really sorry. Okay, Shereen, I think your main segment, by the way.

SPEAKER_05 45:42

Segment.

SPEAKER_04 45:43

Segment time, and I think you've sufficiently become annoyed by pandemic that this might actually be a fiery segment.

SPEAKER_06 45:52

I actually really respect that I can't get past day one. Um, so basically, today we wanted to go through quite a few different topics. A lot has happened since we were last in touch. I know our last episode was one of the catch-up episodes, and we just wanted to catch you up on what's been happening in New Indian in Utah recently. There have been quite a few interesting bits of boobs happening. Um so, as you know, CW conference is coming up. So a lot of people submitted their motions, some of them are very interesting. I say some, I mean all. All of them are actually like very like I couldn't have written them, I wouldn't have had these brilliant thoughts in my um brain. I reserve that to people like these. But some of the things that we do have moving forwards that we agreed to are strike fund, uh strike fund. I know, right? And that's Duncan. And anytime you say Duncan's name, usually Eleanor will be like, Oh, I love Duncan.

SPEAKER_04 46:56

Why are you helping me? That is what I do, but I do love him. He's he's he's my favorite secretary of Utah.

SPEAKER_08 47:04

Duncan is the sec I'm just doing the voiceover for the for the listeners who at home who have don't know who we are. Duncan is the secretary of United Tech and Allied Workers branch of the CWU. CWU is a trade union. Utah is the branch that we're all in. Duncan is the secretary for us. There you go, listeners, you're caught up. You may proceed.

SPEAKER_06 47:26

Thank you so much. So, um, yeah, one the motion that Duncan put forward is a brilliant motion. He's asking that we set up a strike fund and it should be separate to different union funds, and it should be for the purpose of providing strike pay. Um yeah, I think that's pretty good. I don't really have any like questions on that.

SPEAKER_04 47:46

Um there's a there's another, sorry to interrupt, there's also another bit which says that like the last bit is like that we'll push to like work with other unions to have some kind of uh like cross-union strike fund, which is also really cool. So like maybe if like one union is on strike, for example, the bin workers, right? At the moment, they'd be on strike for a year. If other unions could in some way like support them, that would be really impactful.

SPEAKER_06 48:09

I think it would make such a yeah, it would make such a big difference to like whether or not people were willing to go on strike. Um, I think I think during the meeting, because um, yeah, sometimes I do go to the branch meetings. I'm a member of the branch. Um yeah, it was quite interesting people talking about like TUC and what benefit like TUC is, and whether we could be saying to TEC, you know, try and set up like a mutual strike fund. Um yeah, because I do think that people don't understand that sometimes workers are not being like paid at like either the rate that they're supposed to be paid at when they go on strike or at all. Like some people are just striking on principle and they're really not making money, and we do need to like back our back our comrades in that fight. Um, so yeah, really love that one from Dancan.

SPEAKER_04 49:08

Yeah, me too.

SPEAKER_06 49:09

Oh my gosh. Shut your face, whole hello.

SPEAKER_04 49:15

I also like that one. I voted for that one strongly, strong four. Me too. I actually did. Um, and I actually can't remember our third one. I wear second one. It was disaffiliation, though. I think that was our third one. Oh no.

SPEAKER_08 49:35

Oh, the second one was um uh uh uh 420 motion.

SPEAKER_04 49:44

Which one? No, no, that's for the TFS.

SPEAKER_08 49:46

No, no, it was both. It was it was it was it was one and then we and then also the other.

SPEAKER_04 49:51

But it didn't pass for the general conference. Yeah, yeah. It was like it was submitted, but it didn't pass. Only and it only didn't pass because we had so many other really like we had way too many really, really good motions that I think people voted to take that just a TFS.

SPEAKER_05 50:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:07

But Shereen, I think you've frozen. Oh no, you haven't you just standing really still?

SPEAKER_06 50:11

Yeah, I'm just being still. I'm reading through the the outfit.

CWU-con: Disaffiliation

SPEAKER_04 50:14

Yeah. But what what was the what was the third motion that we took to conference? Or we tried to take to conference. Disaffiliation. Was it disaffiliation?

SPEAKER_08 50:28

Yeah, yeah. It's the subject of this segment. Spoiler it, it's the it's the main it's the main topic of this episode.

SPEAKER_04 50:35

Listen to trying to talk about for like an hour. Yeah. Listen, disappearing.

SPEAKER_08 50:41

We spelled it wrong. Disaffiliation.

SPEAKER_06 50:44

Oh, we did do it. Uh poor, poor um standing members, but yeah. And no, because I think that yeah, I don't know why I was just really keen to talk. Oh, wait, no, I do know why. Yeah. The special report. So um, yeah, we did finally move forward with our disaffiliation motion, and um the branch voted that through, so that was amazing. Obviously, you know, our union gave over£400,000 in affiliation fees to the Labour Party in 2024. Um we're arguing that actually that money would be better spent if it was being used on the membership or um to kind of push the advances of the working class from outside of within the Labour Party. Um yeah, we're basically asking that that because the Labour Party no longer represents the interests of our members and the wider working class, that we should disaffiliate and our political fund should only go to political parties that support our union policies. Um yeah, I I I think it was a very strong motion. It was very good. Like we worked on it for a really long time, obviously. Do you remember when this first came up?

SPEAKER_04 52:06

Yeah, it's been months actually, and working with other branches as well. So it's been like quite like a very cross-CWU effort. But obviously, this motion was specifically for our tech uh United Tech and Allied Workers branch, but people involved in the motion were coordinating with people in other branches at the CWU.

SPEAKER_06 52:23

Yeah, and I think like actually 13 branches like submitted to disaffiliate. I think.

SPEAKER_04 52:29

Yeah, I think it was actually didn't we find out it was like 15?

SPEAKER_06 52:32

Yeah. Is that right? Yeah. It was a lot of people are just like, no, like let's disaffiliate. So um whether or not this is in response to how many emotions of disaffiliation they got, or whether this is just something that they that um our NEC wanted anyways. Um we did then receive this LTB, which spoke about a special report talking about the Labour Party relationship, but seemed a really co I'm sorry, I'm laughing so much because it uh Can I ask some questions to frame this so it makes sense to our listening audience?

SPEAKER_08 53:17

Right. Yeah, sure. Disaffiliation, we've we've we've used lots of words, we've used some in insider um lingo, but like oh they understand me. I know they love you.

SPEAKER_04 53:28

They they they I've heard disaffiliation more times in the last six months than like any other word in English.

SPEAKER_08 53:34

Like But here's the thing, okay. So question number one. So political parties, right, they they exist in the world and they are funded by things, right? So political parties are basically funded by um corporate donations, uh by individual small donors, or like your mum. Like your mum. Or um or or or or trade union affiliation, essentially. A th are the three kind of main sources of funding for for the political parties in the UK. Trade union affiliation basically being something that's exclusively uh part of the Labour Party, specifically. You're about to tell me that there's one more major th way that people are you're gonna tell me that one of the parties is just fracking, basically, like RuPaul.

SPEAKER_06 54:24

Oh my god, I can't believe that that's it that's absurd. That's why do you know that?

SPEAKER_08 54:29

Why is RuPaul cancelled?

SPEAKER_04 54:30

In the drag in the RuPaul's drag race community, it's well known, Sharia.

SPEAKER_08 54:33

I w I watched a lot of drag race.

SPEAKER_04 54:35

Um I didn't know that. I wanted to talk about this. But um He owns a fracking, like he he owe he has his land is used for fracking.

SPEAKER_06 54:43

Yeah, it's absurd. I can't I'm just surprised that Edwin knew this. Anyway, go on, go on, Daddy. Tell us.

SPEAKER_04 54:48

What you mean Lefty Lucy?

SPEAKER_08 54:50

Lefty Lucy is my drag name. Um it's my second drag name. My my my original drag name was um uh Ariola Grande, which I thought was really good.

SPEAKER_06 55:02

Oh, I love that.

SPEAKER_08 55:03

Um, but then I then Lefty Lucy um is I think is the is the new one. Um it's really good. So so you were gonna say there was uh like uh political party funding.

SPEAKER_06 55:13

And you were gonna say the additional funding is um states.

SPEAKER_07 55:20

States, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 55:21

So basically, you know, uh a lot of different states across the world will be like, I'm just gonna fund the party I want to win in England, which is kind of crazy. Um they're not technically allowed to do it, and they have to do it very secretly, but it does happen.

SPEAKER_08 55:37

And and also in the case of reform, um uh but this is breaking news. Boo boo boo. Um uh like uh cryptocurrency donations as well, which are I think being outlawed or something. I haven't really been.

SPEAKER_04 55:49

It was I think today it was so foreign donors. Yeah. And what was it today or yesterday? Like there's a complete ban on it as of today.

SPEAKER_08 55:59

So political parties get their money from lots of different places, and the Labour Party in the UK has a special relationship with it's it's it's uh the de facto political party of workers of the trade union movement, and it receives a substantial part of its funding from trade union affiliations. So trade unions pay uh you know a portion of their membership subs to the Labour Party, um and the Labour Party essentially acts as the well it should act at least as the political arm of workers and of of trade unions. Whether it does that or not, i i it doesn't do that, but that's the idea. Um and obviously under the current Labour Party under under Stama um lots of parties have been uh discussing withdrawing their affiliation or actually withdrawing their affiliation, so some unions already have voted to um withdraw uh their affiliation to the Labour Party, so to stop funding the Labour Party. Um that's where we're at, right? Which any we w who's who's already voted to stop funding?

SPEAKER_06 57:13

RMT left a long time ago.

SPEAKER_04 57:16

Um I always get unit unite and unison.

SPEAKER_08 57:27

Because all all trade unions have a jingle. Um it's unite, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04 57:34

The but the bin strikers are unite, right? Unite so Unite Unite have voted to like is it cut it by 50%, which is about 500.

SPEAKER_06 57:45

40% 40%.

SPEAKER_04 57:46

And they've done also done a really, really cool thing where like they've been fined in relation to the strikes that the bin workers have been doing, and then they've gone, oh, we don't care because we've just saved like half a million on this, and that's gone straight to it. That's like the coolest thing that union has done in a long time.

SPEAKER_08 58:05

Um hold on, there were two uh oh god, the thread. Um you said bin workers, um, and then I remembered that there's um an old Victorian song that goes, My old man's a dustman, he wears a dustman.

SPEAKER_04 58:22

He wears four black me trousers, and he lives in a canceled flat.

SPEAKER_08 58:25

Yeah, and um and because of that song, I once referred to a bin worker uh as a dustman. Um and then a flatmate said, What what what the fuck are you talking about? What's a dustman?

SPEAKER_04 58:39

Where's your flatmate from?

SPEAKER_08 58:40

Like are they this must this might have been 10 or 15 years ago. I mean, um I can't remember. I can't remember who it was, but someone had a problem with Dustman.

SPEAKER_04 58:50

Because I wonder if it's like regional, just just we don't people don't normally say dustbin anymore, do they?

SPEAKER_08 58:55

No, you say like bring back I bring back Dustman, bring back um uh Railway then. Um we'll come to that one.

SPEAKER_04 59:04

Last, I guess it's last year because it's they they would have reported on it this year. Like I did in the finance report, the first time in Labour's history that they have received more funding from private businesses than from workers.

SPEAKER_06 59:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 59:16

Which is like not surprising, is it? Like with the with the direction that they're going. Because usually like that they're they're following the money and the money is no longer coming. Well, no, that's not no, that's that makes it sound like I'm gonna about to argue for keep remaining affiliated.

unknown 59:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 59:31

You can see how they're being influenced away from like moral good, morally good work. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 59:39

So anyway, so we've got like um many, many reasons for uh trade unions and workers and people like us, uh union bureaucrats, um to want to disaffiliate from the Labour Party because they're they're they're they're shit, basically. Because mostly because of West Streeting. Um fourth member of the pod West Street. Um so we we yeah, we all went out of that shit. Um so this is why disaffiliation is a hot topic. Um I think I've caught the audience up to date.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:13

Yeah, basically. Um yeah, pretty much, and the branch voted in favour of this like a really long time ago, several months ago. Um, we've been working on the motion for a really long time. And we did submit the motion to conference before we heard back. And I'm gonna apologize to our listeners. I don't usually drink when I do this show, and I believe I've become quite strong. Nevertheless.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:46

No, it's important. This is this is the hit, this is one of the tenets of trade unionism. Like we're not gonna be. I don't understand that one. I'll have to think about it.

SPEAKER_08 1:01:12

Uh I was tying it back to Robbie Williams.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:15

Buddy's in the cemetery. Anyways, right, so we submitted our motion to disaffiliate, and it was returned, it was ruled out of order, it wasn't accepted, and there was a um special bulletin which came out um basically just explaining how things were gonna go for the general conference. And they basically stated CWU that you wouldn't be able to submit a motion to disaffiliate at this conference, and it's it was really shocking because very clearly, like a lot of people had already and were interested in doing so. It's been like a big topic in the union for a long time. What happened instead was that the NEC did a special report um into the relationship with Labour and they came to some conclusions, and they are allowing branches at conference to edit the special report. Now myself and some some other people, I guess like our branch is genuinely like in favor of like disaffiliation, were kind of not kind of, I I think we were royally pissed about this whole turn of events. I think we had maybe like a week or something to like resubmit or something like really stupid. It was a whole it was a kerfuffle, to be honest. I'm gonna be frank, it was a kerfuffle, a faff, a faff, yeah, a liability, yeah. Um and yeah, I don't I don't know, like, because I can't talk about the process that went behind this ruling, and I I don't think I'm like entitled to do so, but I I do think that the decision to make this change and the time in which like it was released, I think it was poor. I think I do think it was poor. I I I said at the time because oh listen, listeners, I don't know. Uh maybe we'll like reshare the like actual special report, but I was livid and I think like lots of people were were livid. I said at the time that I felt like people were trying to like subvert democracy within the union, or like someone I'm not gonna mention their name, someone specifically said that the union was union busting us. Someone, someone I was like, who's she talking about?

SPEAKER_04 1:03:50

I I do remember saying that it's it was some of the things in the special report are reminiscent of union busting. I actually can't remember which bits, but I do I remember being a little bit angry and saying that. Why am I like not able to remember anything that I've ever said in the past? And I other people always remember it, and I'm like, who said that? That's really funny.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:11

I was like, oh my god, that's a such a bar. Like, I can't believe you use that. I was like, Yeah, that's so true.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:18

Because I think there was a bit where it felt a bit like they were giving little little bits of like, oh, so this isn't how you can get democracy. You can't get democracy, you shouldn't need to get democracy by by forming a union. You can get democracy by just speaking to us, and then obviously this so that that's like I think my opinion of kind of how this disaffiliation thing's gone. Like, obviously, it should be able to go to democratic vote because our membership is many, many people, and I I can see that as you've described it just then, they've used a lot of the language of union last year.

SPEAKER_08 1:04:46

Like, yeah, don't do anything about it, just come and talk directly to us. Um, we hear that all the time from from companies when they're trying to stop us doing anything.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:54

Um I think to me, I saw this as like the company offering you like an employee forum, basically.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:01

Yeah, yeah. Well, you'll probably get into it because the special report has a bit at the end where it's like, we therefore propose to take the following steps, and like none of the steps are anything that I think will actually push Labour to to either work better for working people, because that is also like I mean, imagine if we s had the power to like stop Labour from like fucking over workers and like you know, lots the whole country. Um, but that's that isn't what's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_08 1:05:30

So to play devil's avocado, um so a lot I I mean a lot, I I strongly support uh disaffiliation and um I strongly hate the the current iteration of the Labour Party. Um but also at the same time I feel like you know, trade union affiliation with a political party I I I I I think there should be a political party of of of work. I think I think I think I think the con I think the Labour Party should exist and I think there should be an equivalent of that. And I I I think I think trade unions and and and workers should have um you know active representation in our um parliamentary structures, right? So I think there should be some kind of affiliation. I I think is basically w where my opinion is at. And I feel like you know, politic I I I think we should disaffiliate with the Labour Party in it in its current form, but then then what do we do next, right? Because that amount of funding that comes from each of the trade unions, right? That that in the in in i i if we disaffiliate from the Labour Party, that that pot of money isn't then going to another trade uh another political party, right? We're just not spending it anymore. Um and and and and once you stop, you know, once once you stop diverting the funding to a certain place, that that money will never exist again, right? It'll never it'll never come back because it will it'll end up going into other things. So so the huge amount of money that um that trade unions spend on political affiliation, once removed, it will be very, very difficult to to to bring back. And and and should, you know, in in the distant future, a thousand years from now, um uh another political party of Great Britain, you know, um take on take take take the role of the Labour Party, whether it's whether it's uh the the the Great Workers' Party of Great Britain or the Green Party or your party or or or or or or a better version of the Labour Party where they get their act together and have um uh you know uh a decent leader again, a sort of um John Prescott Jr. Um instead of John Prescott Jr.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:06

Um Yes, and here hi Janny Hi Janny's um what are they called, like the political child of John Prescott? Um Jones have children, I've just googled it.

SPEAKER_08 1:08:18

What was that really good documentary about John Prescott where you got to like hang out with him in his living room and it's great? Um was it a Louis Through or something like that? I can't remember.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:26

Um I digress. Well, can we put that in the in the notes? Because I think I think our listeners will be very interested.

SPEAKER_08 1:08:33

I think our listeners will be very interested. Um I mean it was probably a Louis Through or an episode of Ali G, and I can't remember at this point which which it was, but it was great. Um but okay, uh so like we we we we we should I I feel like we should give our funding to some sort of political party in in the long run. And if we withdraw the funding from the Labour Party now, that funding basically won't exist anymore. So we should divert it to another political party, but that that exactly where that political party so it puts us in a situation where should trade unions individually then pick where their funding goes? Should should should there be like should our union, should the CWU be deciding, okay, this year we're going to give our affiliation to uh you know insert political party of your choice here this year, and then you know, at our conference next year we'll divert our political far uh our political funding to another party the next year. And then and then you get into the issue, well, you know, do um union conferences where they'd vote on that sort of thing line up with things like general elections where there's going to be a you know a considerable need for um uh a cash injection for trade unions for for um sorry, not for trade unions, for political parties. So while I support disaffiliation uh I I I've realized that I've developed this sort of like um conservative fanaticism for logistics where um where I can see a lot of pitfalls of of immediately disaffiliating. That's so that's where I'm at with disaffiliation, is that while in principle I think we shouldn't support the Labour Party with all our hard-earned cash, I think we need a model of where that money goes before we disaffiliate.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:22

Oh, so like my it's not my whole opinion, but like something that I was thinking about last week is that there's obviously like political avenues are very different to what a trade union, what a trade union's main avenue is, which is like worker and mass power. And I think like being affiliated to the Labour Party, or it could it could actually be another party. Obviously, like you said, right? Labour was started by trade, like that was started by trade unions, it's like technically our party, but it has obviously diverted so much from that. Like it's lulling us into this sense of like, well, we have political power when actually no, we don't. Like we're not focusing on like creating mass worker power so that we can if we if we disaffiliate or we can we stay affiliated, and like by that I just mean purely money, we could be affiliated by not giving the money, but showing them like that we can we're part of the Labour Party, we we can encourage our members to be part of the Labour Party and get active. That should be enough for the Labour Party, like people power should be enough. Like, obviously, at this point, trade unions don't have the like membership across the country that they used to have, but we want them to do that, and it shouldn't be just that they that we give them our money, because that's not what trade unions are good at making money. It's not our trade unionism scale is not having large amounts of money that we can just spend on political parties to do anything, so like it and it's it's like yeah, kind of lulling a giving us a false sense of security. Like, yes, you've got the Employment Rights Act, um, and it is much better for Labour to be in power than oh, like generally than the Tories, right? Um, but we we're not in no way is that Labour affiliation really actually doing something good for members of our union and the working class as a whole.

SPEAKER_08 1:12:14

Okay, let's say all of the trade unions disaffiliators let's say there was a general election tomorrow, and also at the same time there was no, you know, that the the Labour Party was no longer financially viable because of disaffiliation, and and and then uh you know you've got uh reform in ascendancy and so without Labour Party existing, not that I would the Labour Party in its current form or support the Labour Party, but you'd be in a situation where essentially like the you you if if if the Labour Party was taken out of the equation, you've you've got like reform, the Conservatives, PLADS, um SNP and then to a smaller extent the Greens, and to a much, much smaller extent um the Workers' Party of Great Britain. Um and then to a smaller extent on that your party. Like it it it would do a I don't I don't want to say it would do damage to the left because I don't think the party of the left, but um it it like it it would it would do a lot of damage to resisting the rise of reform in the case of the election. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh almost like I've teed you up for a perfect response.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:30

Oh yeah, I mean this is like yeah, this is like my favorite argument. I love this. Yeah, thank you so much for teeing me up, Daddy. Um yeah, no, I I genuinely disagree. I I am of the complete opposite side of the spectrum from Daddy. While I appreciate his his his argument, I think they're very strong. I disagree with a blanket affiliation structure. I think it's very dangerous for the working class. I think that um I've forgotten what the point that you actually made was because we did take a short um editorial break in the middle of it. What was the point again?

SPEAKER_04 1:14:10

Where I was it's about the right the about how if disaffiliation would can like continue to or will support the far right.

SPEAKER_08 1:14:18

Yeah, would would disaffiliation like hand an electoral victory to reform?

SPEAKER_06 1:14:24

Well, I think that the fact is, and I I've said this before, I've said this many, many, many times, and like I'm gonna keep screaming it. We we as the trade union movement, we paid for the rise of the far right, we paid for what's happening right now. Like we gave Labour money for them to do a coup on Jeremy Corbyn, who we as trade unionists had already picked so they could do their coup. We paid money to Labour in our affiliation fees for them to then um deselect Joe Van, who was running against Nigel Farage. Remember? He was running against Nigel Farage and they pulled funding from him. They told him not to campaign in his area because basically they wanted Nigel Farage to win. And I think that they've been very clear about that.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:10

And it also like assumes that the way to fight the far right is polit is a put through a political avenue. Like I guess a bit what I said before. When clearly that the way to fight the far right is by I wasn't say re-education, but that sounds like quite Maoist, maybe too Maoist, but you know what I mean? Like it's by like community building and like and and stuff like that. So yeah, because like even if tomorrow Labour suddenly like were like, we're no longer gonna fight the Greens and Gordon and Denton by matching Farage's right-wing racist tactics, which is kind of what they did, right? Yeah, if they suddenly let you turned on that, it wouldn't suddenly mean that Labour were able to fight reform. Like we can only fight reform by like getting into communities and showing people that that their fight is with like billionaires and and lots of waste bosses. It's not the money that Labour it's not because Labour have won. They have won, and it hasn't stopped the rise of the far right.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:06

Yeah, it's true. And and like I think a lot of the unions right now are kind of like appealing to this whole like service structure that we as a brunch hate. We hate it, and and a lot of members right now um are disappointed with CW as a whole. They they don't feel like they're getting much value for their membership, and I do think that you could reinvest that money into building community amongst your your members so that your members are strong and secure. But we weren't even gonna talk about disaffiliation as it stands, we were gonna talk about the special report because we all know where we stand on disaffiliation. We all know that I'm correct. Daddy's daddy's off somewhere. Uh Eleanor is also correct, I think.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:04

Thank you.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:04

Daddy's hat's fallen off.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:06

Wait, that's something else, something that we haven't actually raised at all. Because what we're saying about makes it sound like everyone in trade unions are like resolutely left-wing. Oh, yeah, they're not. They are not. Like we we we have what I consider to be a problem of far right people within the CWU. So does the RMT, like, so does every union.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:26

So does every union, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:27

So like that this is a problem that we can fight like within our union. So there's actually like two, right? The the the problem with the far right is is in the house for us. Um so there is like, I guess, to to put go to the problem of the far rights in the podcast. But like what Edwin was saying about um, you know, the gap could be the vacuum could be filled. That is true, like with disaffiliation. If if the thing was, right, we we we can now vote every year for another party. There is nothing to say that, for example, our union, the CWU, would not by mass membership vote, decide to to ally with the the the with reform. I don't think I I don't think it would necessarily, because I don't think we have enough reform people in the union, but we do have a significant number.

unknown 1:18:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:13

And uh to be honest, I don't think the best way to stop people using their democratic right to vote for reform is is by blocking them and saying, look, you have to by force, you have to support Labour. Like if Labour's no longer representing the working class, that's on them and they should do better. And they it because they do have this safety, because they've always had this safety of having constant finance, no matter what they put out from the trade union movement, it has allowed them to move further away from what workers want. Like, as much as I really hate the fact that capital and business has been able to pay their way into politics and skew things, that they are getting a return for the money that they're giving. If they're not able to get the policies through that they want, their business will then move on to invest in someone else. Like Heathrow is moved and invested loads of money in reform because they want their third runway, they want the additional like runways. Um, and they know that if they give money to reform, they're gonna get that. We give money to Labour, and we should know in return we're gonna get safety for workers. Yeah, um, but we we're not getting that. So, in a sense, we're giving money and money and money, uh, and we're not seeing a return on that in value for our membership.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:36

And they will argue that the Employment Rights Act is that return, but it doesn't give enough protection. It's really good. Like, I'm glad it's there. It's amazing. It's more repealing stuff that was harmful to workers or trying to level a playing field that is is will remains to be unequal for workers. So we haven't got good enough protections yet from Labour for it to be worth any affiliation. Yeah, but we have had like damage to you know, people on visas, damage to etc., trans people. Um, but that's we have had that. We know we have had that.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:11

We've had damage to our money, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:13

Um yeah, from our union master in the country right now is labor. Yeah, the labor council in Birmingham.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:20

Yeah. You know, we we've even if we're talking about like how what happened to Palestine action and stuff, like they've really done significant harm to our most powerful weapon, our ability to fucking strike protest, to be out on the streets. Like it's insane that you would be like, Yeah, man, this is good funny for money, like they've done all this shit. They're like, the one thing, the the only thing, the most important thing that we can do as workers, striking, protesting, they've made it that much hard. They've done they went further. And you can hear my voice listeners. I I get livid over this because they went further than the Tories ever even imagined that they would be able to get away with.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:07

Yeah, that Thatcher's like heartying in her grave. You know, they say like rolling, like Thatcher's like great. My baby new labor has has really pulled through for me.

Ad Break: Manchester South RMT

SPEAKER_08 1:21:16

Ad break. So we do this thing on the uh podcast sometimes where we we we we beg people to sponsor the podcast, but no one does. So what we do is instead we just um um it's not that we sponsor other people, it's that we um give our um patronage to uh things that we think are good. And this week's thing that we think are good are um so basically we've been looking for like good trade union merch out there because we love trade union merch because our trade union merch is the best trade union merch. Um hashtag purchase our merch from our website. And um we were looking at the we were looking at some of the trade union merch um from from our favourite trade unions out there. Um we're looking at the RMT. Uh big up the RMT. Um unfortunately the RMT when you click on their merch website, the first thing that comes up is a t-shirt that's called uh GBR Into Being White t-shirt. Now unfortunately what I'm doing there is I'm placing the emphasis in the wrong place because I think it's in uh GBR Great British Rail into being, and it's got the wonderful that's actually contested by me because that's not their campaign, so we'll see. Right. So um obviously the the the the the brilliant uh um national rail logo um being brought back into usage by uh Mr. Starmer's Great British Rail.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:47

Um sidebar.

SPEAKER_08 1:22:50

Um I really like that when you um fly into um the UK into in if you fly into Stanford there's posters everywhere which they say they say welcome to great Britain. Like they've got this like slogan which is like Great Britain. Um so it says welcome to great. So I love welcome to great. But anyway, they've got GBR into being white t-shirt.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:12

Um so it is really it is don't be put off by the like racist name because it's a really cool t-shirt. Is it well it's still it's British Railway, isn't it? British what's it called? GBR, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:22

Great road.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:23

It's the same as the old British Rail logo.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:26

Oh listeners, I am actually a black woman and I can endorse the racism of this chat. Okay, yeah, I say it's okay. So that goes for all black people.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:36

It is okay to be white, actually. Agree.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:38

If anything, it's great.

SPEAKER_08 1:23:41

But this wasn't the point of the sponsor break. The point of the sponsor break is that um uh our favourite branch of the RMT, the South Manchester uh branch, have got really good merch.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:53

Um yes, I'm currently wearing a t-shirt now from the South Manchester Manchester RMT branch. Yeah, um they have a really, really cool one, which I think Edwin's got, which is um it says United We Bargain, divided we beg, which is really cool. Yeah, I love that. And would they also the so the reason I got into this branch is I met someone from from that branch last week. Um, and um she was wearing a t-shirt that said National Union of Railway Them. So it's like the old name for one of the unions that went into the RMT was the National Union of Railway Men. Railway men. Um now now it's and they and then they like the globe bit of their logo was the pride flag, which is really cool. I want to buy one, but it's not on their website.

SPEAKER_08 1:24:39

Yeah, so the point of the sponsor break is please, if anyone at South Manchester RMT, if you want to if you have any of those t-shirts left over, we would like those very much. And we've I'd say we talk about them on the podcast because we like them so much, but we've all we've already done that, so at this point you owe us.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:55

Yeah. Oh also, one last thing, their little like slogo, slogan slogan. Yeah, their little slogan is look cool while you dismantle capitalist rule, which is great.

SPEAKER_08 1:25:07

I also really like their their merch uh website because they've got wonderful merch, but like the entire merch website appears to be set in papyrus. It's one of those handwriting it's like in the handwriting font.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:18

If you Google South Man Manchester South RMT T Mill is the website, you'll find it, and you'll be able to see the papyrus for yourself.

SPEAKER_08 1:25:25

Font aside and other RMT merch websites aside, they've got really good stuff. Um, and we love the RMD and we love their merch, when it especially the South Manchester branch. Purchase their merch, ad break complete.

CWU-con: Special Report

SPEAKER_06 1:25:38

Do do do. Yeah, so we were just saying how um we weren't actually supposed to talk about disaffiliation and the merits for it. So we were just gonna talk about mainly the special report that the NEC did end up providing to us. But essentially this report came out, and I don't want to speak for the whole of the Utah, but I for one was royally pissed. Um, I wasn't the only one who was royally pissed. Quite a few people were like, What is this? And I think there were some really interesting points that were raised, um, which we're gonna go through with you, and we're gonna talk about what the conclusions of the NEC's special report actually ended up being. Okay, so the special report came out and it was into our relationship with the Labour Party, and basically the conclusions of the report are everything's great. Um, we got the ERA, which I like I can't fault the ERA. The ERA, you know, I can fault it, sure. I mean, yeah, but it is is like really important for us as workers, and it was obviously really hard work, but I will say also it was Corbin's Corbin who started this, it wasn't the current Labour government, so I don't think that we should be giving them the praise for the ERA.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:03

Um actually trade union started it, right?

SPEAKER_06 1:27:08

Yeah, Corbyn is a trade unionist, so yeah. So um it was him who who first brought it from us um and helped us bring this motion forward. Um not motion, but yeah. I think, yeah, basically, so the the conclusions, and there were four conclusions that came up. It was to call for a significant change in the direction of the Labour government, including its reorientation toward the interests of the working class people, and to use any and all means to achieve this change. I don't know what that means, but we'll come back to it. We're gonna reaffirm our twenty twenty one policy to abstain from paying any donations to the Central Party out. Outside of our affiliation fees and to only support politicians who support our members and trade unionism. And then to develop and implement a strategy to reinvigorate the wider trade union movement, both politically and industrially. This includes continuing our campaign to democratize the TUC and wider movement and introduce new measures to support innovative trade unionism, okay, and sectoral collective bargaining. Especially in the private sector. We'll work extensively with other trade unions who support these aims. And finally, to develop and implement an anti-racist and anti-fascist strategy that truly connects with working class people and presents a vision for the future for all. We're going to work extensively with other trade unions and community groups who support these aims. So those were the conclusions of the special report. Um ideally we'll be linking this in afterwards so you can read the whole thing yourself. It's only three pages. I think it's quite an interesting read. However, it reads to me like the Labour Party had written this report themselves. I am truly shocked by what the NEC put forward in its initial form, and and I want to preface this by saying, like, you are or we were allowed to make amendments to the report. Yeah. Um that's how we're able to like critique our relationship with the Labour Party going forward at this conference. So yeah, it's not like a finished deal, but I I think I was shocked that this was the first product, the product that they actually thought was acceptable to go out to members. And there are a few reasons why. I think like yeah, I don't I don't want to like go on a rant myself. So I I'd like I don't want to belabor this report. I'd love Eleanor to rant on my behalf because Eleanor was one of the people who who, as well as making the brilliant jab about how our trade union was union busting us, uh I think she had some concerns about the special report as well.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:35

Well, somebody brought up earlier, not on the podcast, about the issue of union discipline. And I was thinking about that when you just said the thing of like union busting. But like it's really important for us as members, along with our other members, to take part in a democratic process to change things about our union, right? And labor disaffiliation is one of those things. Saying that, like, I am one of those people who sometimes thinks like I don't think that everything should be voted on all the time. I mean, I do, but and it doesn't, it's not always so simple as that, right? And I mean that like from like a country perspective or whatever. Like sometimes you can't you can't kind of vote on every single thing that changes. Sometimes maybe you can in an ideal world, but not always. Like, we something that you didn't mention is that when the rule was then changed, or like kind of the process was changed, like no, we're no longer accepting disaffiliation motions to conference. Um, but you can seek to amend the special report. Obviously, we then as a branch said, right, well, our we're now proposing to change the report to say we will disaffiliate from the Labour Party, right? Which is like that obviously that's what's gonna happen because that's what we want. Um that was then ruled out of order, and the reason was that it seeks to change more than one rule, which I haven't looked into it a lot, but there is if you're very, very clever and good at reading rules, there is a rule that we think might be the rule that is used to to justify this, but no rule was specifically referred to in the in the decision to strike down the or um to rule out of order the special report change, it's not a motion. So that that's like the I guess the the latest thing in the frustrating list of things that that have kind of happened about this. Um but I don't have that much more to say about it other than it's it's like very disappointing.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:31

I think there are there are a lot of points in the special report that make me question how aligned the NEC is with like workers' issues, um, and what's going on on the ground floor of how members feel and just a general public sentiment as well. Um looking at actually yeah, go on.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:58

Oh god, because there was actually something else that was one of the things that I was a bit angry about when I first read the special report. There are parts in it that reference kind of unity within the left and maybe splitting within the left, and you know, it refers to like purity politics. And I am going to read between the lines, or maybe not even read that far between the lines, but I think this refers to people who are organizing for disaffiliation. It's it's accusing those people of being playing purity politics and splitting the left, and it says something. Let me try and find it again because I've I've lost the type. It says something about like, you know, not like not aligning with the working class, and I think it's trying to create a like middle class, woke middle class versus versus the working class narrative, which like doesn't exist. There was there is one working class and it's the workers. Um and that really annoyed me as well, as if like questioning questioning things within the left is anti-working class, um, not accepting that migration is a key issue, like it's also trying to put forward that migration is a key issue for the or is a main issue for the working class. When it isn't, our our the working class's issue is we haven't got any money, we're not getting paid well, and we're not gonna put like we're not seeing a fair share of the profits that we are making. It's not migration. And like I I also really resent that implication being made that that people like me, right, who who wanted to disaffiliate are like these woke splitters in the left. I'm not woke, I'll tell you tell you that for nothing. Being cancelled about I've been cancelled about 10 times on this podcast. So no, but I mean, yeah, whatever woke means. I think we're we're all woke or not, depending on who's trying to use that as an insult.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:46

Yeah, I mean, I I still like the word woke. I know it is an insult to a lot of people, but I I do think that I like it as well.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:54

I am woke, that was just a joke.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:56

No, no, no. We take it seriously, we take you on your word. We believe women here.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:00

No, not after last last week's I am woke. I'm woke.

SPEAKER_06 1:35:05

Come on, but I think there were a number of insinuations in in this special report that could not have been like I feel like Wes Streling would write this. I genuinely feel like Wes Streling would write this. He they they talk about how people are disillusioned with Labour and turning to reform, but they don't really offer an alternative except for Labor, I guess, like becoming something that's not woke. I'm confused. I think that they say, not I think I know they say there is no contradiction in having a planned migration strategy that protects wages and promotes a strong national economy, and also having a tolerant, diverse, and richly multicultural society.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:59

There is a contradiction between in any way allowing reforms talking points to become part of the left-wing that is entirely a contradiction, and and migration is not a dirty word.

SPEAKER_06 1:36:12

People move, they've always moved. People move from country to country, people move from town to town, people fucking move. The working class does not have a race, there is no race in the working class. This report is tailored specifically to pander to what they believe is the white working class and how the white working class, as people have been reporting, have concerns about migration. And as you just said, Eleanor, I don't think that the white working class or any working class, because there is only one working class, I don't think it's one of their main concerns. I think that one of their main concerns is whether or not they can feed their family.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:57

And I think and people can't now. This is the thing, people can't now, but we but we somehow have got involved in a conversation about migration, which is absurd for a trade union.

unknown 1:37:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:37:09

Like, why is a trade union arguing that migration is really important? And also something that I saw as really annoying was the omission of Palestine.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:21

Yeah. And trans, we also so that there are two, if I think like two big things that our branch and most people on the left care about, and directly di dislike Labour's policies on rights, trans rights, because if they'll come for trans people, they'll come for next, like me as a woman, then next will be all working guys, like and and Palestine, which is the same thing. If people they'll do it in Palestine, they'll do it here, or they'll do it next door, they'll do it. Like both, none neither of those issues were discussed, even though these are the main issues why, at least for us as a branch, that we oh two of the main issues, apart from the fact that like labor isn't standing for all working class people in this country. Yeah. And they're not doing anything about it. So it's it's just, and the other thing is we now reform is a big um threat for this country, right? Now it is a big threat. But what we've had is for the past however many years, acting as if that the far right have a louder voice than they do have. And like it's it's legitimizing and valid validating that that voice. And that's why we are now in this situation. We don't need to keep doing it. We can keep saying these people are like far-right extremists. If it makes people leave our union, then they should they should leave our union. But this is come where it comes back to, I guess, like the education thing. We're only going to reach those people and let them realize that they're going after the wrong people by speaking to them and not pandering to them, but speaking to them and and and letting them like vent their concerns, what they're actually concerns, which are we're not feeding our families or we're not feeding us myself, um, and then letting them understand that it's not migration that's the issue. And we're not that that isn't what the special report shows at all. It is saying migration is could be the issue.

SPEAKER_06 1:39:07

Yeah, it is saying migration could be the issue. It's saying that reform in itself is a threat. It does not acknowledge the contribution of the Labour Party to the rise of reform. And I don't think that like it's it's hard to like conceptualize when all of these things happened within time, but like Labour fully like made reform a thing. Reform was not a thing at all. They had like no members, they weren't a serious party, they were as serious as any of Nigel Faraji's previous parties, you know, they were nothing, and they were like fracturing, they were beefing with each other. It was all just nonsense at the beginning. But Labour kept saying, Oh, we need to stop them, and they gave them so much media attention that we've now got to the situation where we were. And I think like, not I think I know, you know, they they laid out their strategy for what they wanted to do. They wanted to be the lesser of two evils, but they wanted the evil to exist. So for you to say, like, oh, we gotta stop them by being them, but they it I think it's just like a poor, either a poor understanding of what's happening in the country, or you're being like willingly ignorant here.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:16

Yeah, or you actually believe that migration is a problem. Yeah, you do do share opinions with with I was gonna say UKIP with reform. Yeah, basically, you know, like talking about splitting the left, right? And you're talking about the infighting within reform, they already have two splinter parties, yeah. They have the like restore or whatever, and they have advanced, they already have that. That they're already they we could be going, God, these people are chaotic. But we're talking a lot about your party being chaotic, isn't it? It's true. These people are fighting about who can be the most racist, like that they're like, you're not allowing me to be racist enough, or they're getting kicked out of reform for finding out that they're like out and out racist and they're setting up their own party. Like that's what they're dealing with on the right. We don't need to in any way associate with that.

SPEAKER_06 1:41:01

We need to accept that these people are are are in in the trade union movement, and what have we done to make that to allow that to happen by not being strong unions, maybe by not fighting for what's yeah, we contributed to this, we haven't been building up solidarity with our workers. And even this, I and I do believe that special report is deliberately uh making the the points that you made. I think that the special report seeks to take advantage of an existing sentiment in members that the tech workers are not real workers, the tech workers are all rich, that none of them have problems, only the posties have problems. I feel like this is seeking to divide us, and it's classic union busting. That group doesn't actually have an issue, we have the issues, so that group shouldn't be leading the discussion on this. It's it's really quite shameful behavior coming from uh a union leadership. Um going over the points that they've come to, they're asking for again, like I said, a significant change in the direction of the Labour government. And I'm not sure how uh Daddy or our treasurer Eleanor feel, but I genuinely feel you know how I feel because I've just shut we don't know how Edwin feels because he's just been sitting there cheekily in the corner. Yeah, well, I don't know what what Edwin is up to, but yeah, I hope that he'll come and contribute because I don't think that there's anything that you can do to make a political party that is funded by businesses, and and right now, for the first time ever, as you mentioned earlier, Eleanor, Labour is being funded more by business interests than it is by trade unions, you know. So I don't know how, even with a change of leadership or a change of direction, it would ever be able to truly represent the working class if it's working on behalf of the businesses that we're trying to fight against. Daddy, your turn.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:14

We've actually got a special guest.

SPEAKER_08 1:43:17

Daddy's been trying to acquire a special guest all this time um on Discord. So I think I've not been listening to it.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:26

Edwin's been organizing against us. He thinks that having two women shouting at each other is not is not appropriate for a podcast. So he's brought another woman on the podcast.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:35

Yeah, three women shouting will fix this. Welcome. Hey everyone, how's everyone doing?

SPEAKER_04 1:43:42

Well, we've we have just been ripping apart the special report, which I'm sure you remember. Oh, introduce yourself if you're comfortable, you don't have to say your name.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:51

Hey everyone. No, I I I'm pretty public, I think. Uh I'm Abby, I'm the political officer for United Second Allied Workers. So uh I figure it would be nice to jump in, yeah. Thank you.

SPEAKER_08 1:44:04

So the issue is disaffiliation, and um that's what we've been talking about.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:09

So um No, we've been talking we but we've specifically been talking about the special report.

SPEAKER_08 1:44:13

The special report.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:14

And and the efforts to hamper dis disaffiliation within the CW.

SPEAKER_08 1:44:20

What do you think about that?

SPEAKER_03 1:44:23

This this this squares really nicely with my um my stated aim as political officer to recruit as many people as possible to the Labour Party.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:34

Um that's also an interesting thing that maybe a lot of members won't know. Oh, members and just general listeners.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:44

Yes. Um so as branches of the Communications Workers Union, it is part of the political officer's role to quote, recruit as many members as possible to the Labour Party, unquote. Um I like to think that I've done a good job in a few different areas of my role. Uh, but sometimes there are places where I just fall a little bit short. And this is one of them. As it turns out, when you start talking about policies um in an attempt to recruit people, it turns them off very quickly when it turns out that, you know, where streeting is responsible for indirectly. Um, you know what, directly, the removal of healthcare from a significant portion of society. Um and the consequences that come with that. Yeah. I know that there are groups that regularly sit outside his office with a list of uh names of people who he is, I would say, involved in the social murder of.

SPEAKER_05 1:45:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:50

Be careful about what I can and can't say, because obviously uh don't want to open ourselves up to libel.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:58

That that we have libeled ourselves many times.

SPEAKER_08 1:46:00

No, we're very libel.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:02

So you can protect yourself.

SPEAKER_06 1:46:03

Um sorry, listeners, if if you are confused about who our political officer was talking about, our political officer mentioned Wes Straling, and and there was a small uh mistake in there. Um but hopefully that clears up.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:19

It's I I remembered our libel safe goat, safe no safety protection. It's the Wes Streeling that we're talking about.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:32

Yeah. Oh, okay. Wes Streling.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:35

Yeah, different, different, different man, different man.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:38

Um Wesley Streling uh kills transgender children.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 1:46:43

True.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:45

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:46

Um, yeah, no, unfortunately. Um, you know, and under his uh desire to hold back medical science uh 30 odd years. He's not done the best for himself. I actually notice um in the special report, we do occasionally mention just like LGBT people. Um I think there's a plus on it. There there is, in fact, a whole plus. And I think it is mentioned a whole once with no caveats. Yeah. So I do like to bring up sometimes um that some of these politicians have the same, if not more, blood on their hands than the Conservative Party. And you notice this with actually a lot of different legislation that Labour have moved forward with. Some of it is just a continuation of Conservative Party policy, like the political decision to start putting up consultancies on whether or not we fund different healthcare. Obviously, uh Wes Streling uh has put in um an attempt to get rid of ADHD medication on the NHS. He's put in a review that is supposed to be fudged in such a way that it gives you a nice excuse. Of course, the results have come back, and as with any fair assessment, everyone has gone, actually, you're wrong. ADHD is in by no means un overdiagnosed. In fact, it's quite underdiagnosed in the United Kingdom. So, you know, we're we're having a fun time with this. I think the thing with the special report is there's only so much that you can put in before it starts becoming like a 20-page manifesto. So I don't necessarily blame them for missing these things out, but I like to chuck them in.

SPEAKER_04 1:48:37

But they did when they're talking about placing the blame on migrants, multiculturalism, women's rights, people with disabilities, and LGBT plus people. That's that's the way that that's the wording that they've used. They're talking about reform, not Labour.

SPEAKER_06 1:48:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:48:49

This is so when the C this special report from the CWU took mentions attacks on those people, they're saying that it's uh reform. And so we should continue supporting the Labour Party.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:59

So it does. And it says lay and it says that the only problem is Labour's inability to connect with working class people and take real action on the economy. I I would one of the things, yeah. No, sorry, go on.

SPEAKER_06 1:49:14

I was just gonna ask our political officer. As someone who is a political officer, was this written by Labour? Was this written by Labour? You have the inside gos, I know you do.

SPEAKER_03 1:49:27

The problem do you know what the problem is I don't, because we keep um we keep missing the opportunity to have catch-ups with the rest of the political officers. Um, and that's not by my choice, so but um I am you know, I would say with pretty good certainty this is written by either a member of the Labour Party or it gets to the cutting room floor where Labour Party members are having a little bit of a say on this. I notice this is quite a common thing, and it goes back to. um like I think it was a long time ago where I think it was Wes Streling talking about working class haircuts and this it's it's this idea that um you you know these people are you know these people are the political class fundamentally um but they come in and they want to appear as working class so they'll build up this myth of socially regressive white working class men usually is what their idea of working class means and obviously huge swathes of the working class are going to be white men a large number of them are going to have some socially conservative views but what always gets missed when working class gets trotted out is that working class people are all of us. We're not just this weird socially conservative idea of the ideal reform voter. Yeah because like you know we all work for a living none of us are landlords none of us own the means of production we're all working class even if people think that they might be cast out because they are queer because they are disabled because they are you know for some reason it goes down like racial lines as well people are like oh you you have to be this narrow definition of working class and it is like the white man's stock like striker on the docks that kind of thing and I just it frustrates me the way that we try and appeal to working class sensibility as if it's a monolith.

SPEAKER_06 1:51:38

Yeah but I don't think that that was a mistake though I feel like it was very intentional like the invention of the white working class it that wasn't always a thing that people would be saying like we turned it into a time and I feel like it's one thing that trade unions did not do enough to push back on and I yeah this special report is not pushing back on that in any way shape or form.

SPEAKER_04 1:52:03

It is encouraging that did you read Ash Sarkar's new ish book which I can't remember the name of um sh there's a bit in that it's actually the first thing I've ever read from Ash Sarkar but I actually I did quite enjoy it. The first thing I've ever read it it what's it called it's called like cancel cultural or something like that. She but she talks about like the how where that like turn that term or like conscious thing it's called minority rule.

SPEAKER_08 1:52:32

Just Google that um but she talks about how that you google that your both of your hands were in the air the entire time it loaded it loaded I took my hands off and it loaded and I can see it below Zoom.

SPEAKER_04 1:52:44

So and it talks about how like yeah the white the idea of like the white working class came about and it's obviously that only the last couple of decades and actually it wasn't yeah like it and it's been used like it started off with I guess what I've never read Owen Jones right but the the Chav thing that he talks about we call it Chava in Newcastle and then it was originally like um Vicky Pollard it was being used against it and then it was like reclaimed but it was reclaimed by basically New Labour who are now using it and reform are now using it to like beat down members of the working class or the wider the actual working class.

SPEAKER_03 1:53:18

Very much so but what I will say is I used to for a brief period for my sins I did sociology A levels. I had a very very good sociology teacher who kind of put everyone onto class analysis properly you know not just the way that the AQA book would like have you read through. And he did bring up actually a very long time ago this whole thing about white working class disaffected young boys actually is you know they they do have it worse in schools in education and that then goes into worse life prospects. The problem that is that people have taken the sociological research and they've just run away so far from the core point to a point where they're just like it it's almost as if they've twisted it into boys will be boys, you know, like this idea of the white working class disaffected male is now all going to go vote reform. But again it's a convenient myth that they're using and I think that this is for the Labour right to go and push people further right along their agenda. When they don't really want the party to win they want their politics to win.

SPEAKER_04 1:54:30

Yeah. It's divided it's like divide and rule it's like thatchet that thing of um like we're not win we're not trying to win just elections we're winning like the hearts and mind or the soul we're not trying to change the country we're trying to change the soul and like that's what they're doing by trying to like consolidate an idea of the working class and the special report it's our union that we all are part of and that we we work hard for um is doing that to us.

SPEAKER_06 1:55:01

Which is like so again to bring up Eleanor who is just a brilliant wordsmith and it's probably the same thing you've quoted like 10 times. Yeah because it's true it is the like it is completely correct. And I think what we're seeing right now is and what we were seeing then it was a it was a backlash against people progressing but the backlash is not genuinely worker led. The backlash is top down so I think like what we saw was like a lot of like classic institutions that were for white elites places like Oxford started doing scholarships for people of color who were underrepresented you know you had like lots of a D I a DI initiatives that were coming up and this was the backlash of the elite against that they started saying oh well what about actually the white working class you know that they're they're really being disenfranchised and right now I think we're living in a period where actually things were moving forward for a lot of people including like members of the LGBT and the elites and I and I shouldn't say the elites because I I should really point to like a specific person but it is the people who have always been in charge of the country it's no one new it's not Nigel Farage suddenly like it's the same people the people who have always been funding politics the people who've always been driving the direction of the country are pushing back against a change to the rules that they established. They don't like it they're like fuck it let's just go back to how things used to be but yeah I don't know if I'm allowed to say this I I I would argue as well at this point yeah I'm I'm just gonna chat also um political officer Abby um I am drunk I've been drinking this time I've had one whole drink which means I am lit I have been waived I I'm not really a drinker so lightweight Shereen is here but um wait what what what point was I actually gonna make I was gonna say something quite insightful I think it was really good whatever you were gonna say. Yeah you said am I allowed to say this yeah am I allowed to say this I I do think that like state actors have a significant influence on the country in a way that has been very negative in a way that has been extremely negative um um but what they are arguing for is kind of a continuation of policies that were brought in after like uh during and around the time of like World War II and stuff like that and before that.

SPEAKER_03 1:57:56

Like well I mean a lot of state actor behaviours come on from the Cold War that ensued afterwards. Yeah. I mean I talked to a lot of my more conspiratorial minded friends some of my work colleagues um particularly ones who are sort of well read around the Cold War and that sort of spy game that's been going on for generations at this point. And it's you know it's not uncommon to see another article come in about Russian interference in elections and attempts to politically destabilize places. What we've seen obviously we talk about Russia rarely talk about the US's interventions into our politics I mean it's becoming fairly obvious now because reform don't like to you know be quiet when it comes to where they get all of their funding from they're now starting to boast that they are the most funded party in the United Kingdom and it sort of proves the point doesn't it that they've got all the money but we kind of have the people decide it. For the for those who don't know I live in Wales so we've uh we've had a lovely time um particularly around the Cafilli elections uh kicking out a bunch of English tofts who have come in with ungodly amounts of money to campaign um someone sprayed uh now fuck off home on reform HQ um sort of shutters and that was fantastic but I just seen an article in uh it was in December that there was a nine million pound single donation from a cryptocurrency investor to form and you can see how it shapes their policies as well and for all my sins I have gone through and actually read some of their policies.

SPEAKER_04 1:59:46

Well you have to otherwise you can't comment no exactly God help me it's a cognito hazard sometimes but this is the world that we're in well not maybe not with the crypto thing anymore but we talked about that as well right they've they've specifically brought in the crypto ban on donations and like reform are gonna spin that I mean it's not it is true right reform are gonna be like this was specifically done to stop us. And it was that it's true but it's also to stop anyone from doing it because it just happens to be that other ones doing it.

SPEAKER_06 2:00:21

And I I think that other countries like yeah like what Abby was saying like people always talk about Russia is interfering with us and um blah blah blah but like other countries want our country to be unstable. They genuinely will pay for our country to have like the craziest people in there like that that they they'll pay for like these far right groups to be divisive to make sure that we never unite and that we're never like able to like see the I wanted to say the wood for the works but I don't think that's a real thing.

SPEAKER_03 2:00:55

The wood for the trees the wood for fucking hell I'm drunk the wood for the wet I don't know I got ambushed out of nowhere to come on here if I knew ahead of time and I would have made myself a drink I would have joined in.

SPEAKER_04 2:01:10

You don't want to be like Sharine don't do it.

SPEAKER_06 2:01:12

Yeah you know absolutely oh my husband is here I'm sorry oh I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm not I have to answer the front door but you have a conversation about the special report also we have to be finished soon.

The Motion

SPEAKER_08 2:01:31

I know we've gone on for so long and also we've not come to any conclusions and we've rambled for a really long time that the special that trade union democracy should stand. And that trade union democracy should stand and that there's a Welsh cryptocurrency conspiracy against the trade union movement. I think we're pretty clear on that.

SPEAKER_04 2:01:54

Should we um should we uh should we do our motion and then and then we can stop doing this actually quite kind of related kind of motion is solidarity strike we believe solidarity strikes should be legalized across companies in the same venture capital portfolio how can anyone disagree with this I someone should though yeah we don't do a very good job at um devil's avocado on these where did this motion come from I can't remember we've had it for weeks but the background of this right is obviously solidarity strikes are are illegal yeah so like I can't go on strike with my union because with like the bin workers right you used to be able to do that but now you can't it has to be like a dispute relating to my terms and conditions. But say say I can't think of a company where there's I guess like a Black Rock BlackRock owns like you know half of tech or whatever. She means Crispy creams or like Black P Black Rock is a significant investor. And then that other one that I've always forget the name of there's like there is a few like big actors big investment actors. So like say somebody at Meta went on strike and then somebody at TikTok who also has like the same venture capital backing in in some ways could go on strike with them. That's what this motion is saying although solidarity strikes are illegal.

SPEAKER_08 2:03:24

Solidarity strikes are illegal but they should specifically be legalized if um a a bad actor let's say uh George Soros um is invested in in in both your organisation and the organization that's going on strike yes um I think I think total war I I I really have nothing to add on this I it's it's a really good motion um this is the thing we always end up with a motion that we just learned I know they're all great I'll throw an avocado in there yeah um I I to me this is a workaround of of a general strike and um I think it's disingenuous to label it as under the same venture capital um portfolio because as we all know BlackRock is invested in everything.

SPEAKER_06 2:04:11

What you are asking for is for us to be able to do a general strike as much as I as a person may agree I as an avocado think that we shouldn't be shutting down the country over someone's small grievance that's avocado strongly held avocado there.

SPEAKER_03 2:04:32

I don't know what a venture capital portfolio is I think it's like when like um uh George Soros invests in your company and then um yeah also another one that is what I thought it was as someone who has unfortunately worked in finance yes it's usually it's the it's usually tied up in the in the Democrat Party as far as I'm concerned um it's connected to Pizzagate in some way um fantastic but yeah it's the um just a collection of I don't want to say goods because that's a very economic way of saying it but a a collection of brands and businesses that are kind of billed under one tab by a venture capital group usually what they'll have what will happen is they'll either buy the whole thing outright and then slowly start shelling the company to quote unquote make it more profitable. That's not what they do at all but that's for a different that's for a different day. And then the other one is obviously um investing in it to get major stake or to get voting stake and then to try and change the way that that company works in the interest of a different goal.

SPEAKER_05 2:05:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 2:05:48

We should do our own podcast Dragons den we could have our own regga reggae reggae sauce that we um we we have Utah jam.

SPEAKER_04 2:05:58

I think we can go far with Utah jam yeah I was gonna make pasties for the march on Saturday but I can't I'm too tired now. I can't be fucking off I I saw in my calendar that I'd blocked out an hour tomorrow and I was like oh there's no way I'm doing it you've blocked out an hour to make Utah pasties.

SPEAKER_08 2:06:13

No you can't be fucking off.

SPEAKER_04 2:06:14

Well it was at 6pm so it's not like it's outside of the working day but yes I did.

SPEAKER_03 2:06:19

Yeah I'm trying to think of the We could have Utah pasties like Utah Greg's I'm trying to think of the most labour together sort of counterpoint I can for the Solidarity strikes. Center really struggling because I'm sat here like I know what kind of things that they're gonna come out with but it's all just the same stuff that gets repeated again and again you know it's like we we can argue against it by like distracting from it you know so it's not very um you know what we're doing is we're putting people out of work when they're going on strike but then that's why we have our strike fund.

SPEAKER_06 2:06:57

If we're lucky and uh it's true though if if we do do a general strike then maybe more um black and brown people will have to come into the country to fill those roles. And we want to prevent that we want to stop that if anything that would be moving the country in the wrong direction further to where it's going right now and we need to reverse that. So uh if anything for the sake of keeping our country white and great and pure into being white into to keep it great we should uh we should be responsible and not allow for general strikes.

SPEAKER_04 2:07:40

Yeah and it's I remembered where I put this motion today it's a hundred years of the general strike this year.

SPEAKER_03 2:07:45

The 1926 general strike obviously so it sounds like we're all going against this one so this is a no no no no yeah no in our desperate attempts to play devil's advocate we have actually come up four brown avocados against the general strike good work everyone motion motion uh falls motion falls motion deny did we actually fall the motion no we can't fall it's passing I'm overruled they always pass it's rubbish yeah well I'll get I'll get like someone racist to submit a motion yeah we should get the right wing of the union to just fucking write us a motion so we can see well you know we were talking about getting proper representation across the entirety of the union's political aims so I am thinking about standing as the Reform UK representative for United and we will fund you to do that we're happy to do like I myself will put money in no no actually you missed this but we have all recently joined the workers party of Great Britain. Yeah so you could consider you could consider joining the WCGB I'm gonna go join yet another party that has said explicitly that they want to go and exterminate me publicly hard to miss them I think I think it's for the best otherwise you know with immigration the way it is I think it's for the best that we start removing people's rights to life.

SPEAKER_08 2:09:22

Yes we'll get Galloway on pretending to be a cat or whatever.

SPEAKER_04 2:09:26

I think he would be happy to come on this I'm not joking. You think we could get he's he's no platformed like everywhere we we are offering to platform him.

SPEAKER_03 2:09:34

If we could get catboy George Galloway on this I will turn up with absolutely zero notice.

SPEAKER_08 2:09:42

I'll be Rulilenska the number of listeners we get to this podcast will go from like the tens to the the the hundreds if we get Galloway on we need to think about it has to be catboy George Galloway has to be cat boy Galloway