Derek Simpson is a disgrace

The picture says it all. A trade union leader grown flabby on a union expense account with his arms around two 'glamour' models from the right-wing (not to say anti-union) Daily Star to promote the most xenophobic take on the wildcat strikes over oil refinery jobs.

Simpson is the joint general secretary of Unite, the union formed from the recent merger of Amicus and the Transport and General Workers Union. He's also a key union ally of Gordon Brown, which perhaps makes his support for “British jobs for British workers” unsurprising, since Brown was the originator of the phrase in recent political discourse.

The wildcat strikers who have taken up the slogan have provoked much debate in the lefty blogosphere, including over the actual level of racism among strikers, but when Brown makes a promise like that and it rings so hollow, its not surprising that some of them seek to throw it back at the Prime Minister. Its certainly no more reactionary in their mouths than it is in his.

Nevertheless, there are people involved in the strikes that have tried to steer them away from nationalism and towards a demand for transborder workers' rights and decent terms and conditions for all. Not so Derek Simpson it seems. But the problems with Simpson don't end with his embrace of reactionary nationalism and sexism.

Simpson's leadership of Unite (Amicus section) has seen the union supporting a new third runway at Heathrow despite the implications for climate change and an expansion of nuclear power. Union leaders have to defend their members, but responsible progressive ones should be arguing for expansion in green industries, not dirty and dangerous ones. The union also strongly supported Tony Blair when he forced the Serious Fraud Office to drop its investigation into arms exporter BAE Systems amid pressure from Saudi Arabia to do so.

Now Simpson has been forced into a leadership contest he was trying to avoid. The strange terms of the merger between the T&G and Amicus led to a situation where Simpson was able to try and stay in power for eight years without being re-elected – until someone brought a legal challenge that is. Now that person, Jerry Hicks, is a candidate against Simpson, on a platform of democratic grassroots organising, environmental responsibility and internationalism. Simpson meanwhile has been accused of using official union publications to argue the case for a vote for himself. Being a member of the T&G section of Unite I won't be able to vote, but for the sake of the union's future I really hope that Jerry Hicks wins.

Review: The trouble with aid

Below is my brief review of Jonathan Glennie's 'The Trouble with Aid' for the February issue of Peace News. I hadn't seen Peace News for a while when I was asked to write this review. The last time I saw it, in 2006, I was less than impressed. A feature article about Venezuela, for instance, spent much time regretting Chavez's military background and virtually failed to mention the social advances that had taken place under his Presidency.

Looking at the December/January issue online, Peace News now seems more relevant and useful, even if its constituency must remain small. Clearly Milan Rai's editorship of the paper has improved it, and I'm happy to make a small contribution in the form of this review.

The Trouble with Aid: Why Less Could Mean More for Africa Jonathan Glennie, Zed, 2008.

This isn't a book about humanitarian relief, or really about the aid delivered by aid agencies at all. Instead its about the much bigger sums which rich country governments contribute to African infrastructure, governance and welfare systems on a regular basis. Most African countries receive more than 10 per cent of their GDP in aid, and a few, like Sierra Leone and Burundi, receive more than 30 per cent.

Aid received on this scale has an enormous impact, but not necessarily a good one Glennie argues. For a start, governments who are dependent on aid like this end up being more accountable to donors than to the people they are supposed to represent. And when those donors insist on economic policies like privatisation or the lowering of import taxes, aid dependence undermines not just democracy, but development too.

Glennie isn't opposed to aid, but calls himself an aid 'realist'. He makes a convincing case that there's lots rich countries could do to help reduce global poverty that would be far more effective than aid is even in the best scenarios. Like closing down tax havens that deny poor countries tax revenue for instance. Instead they promise aid increases because its easy, its buys influence among recipient countries and it presents no challenge at all to Northern corporations.

This is an accessible and tightly argued book which makes a refreshing change to both the uncritical calls for 'more aid' from some development charities, and from the neoconservative assumptions of last year's best-selling development book 'The Bottom Billion' by former World Bank economist Paul Collier. What Glennie is arguing for is a global justice agenda, and in that he's bang on target.

Our friends in the South

The latest issue of Red Pepper is just out and carries my article about social movements in the global South ('Our friends in the South', Red Pepper Feb/Mar 09). It was written partly to accompany an event which is happening in London on 28 February, 6 Billion Ways. The event is a kind of Social Forum lite, with speakers including Social Forum stalwarts like Trevor Ngwane (from South Africa's Anti-privatisation Forum) and Susan George. There's a huge range of discussions and workshops for a single day event, especially one which is free. Its organised by some of the more radical and social movement-orientated UK NGOs, and you can register for it here.

The article meanwhile surveys just a few of the coalitions of social movements in non-rich world in order to make a tentative argument that social movements have a better critique of the global system than many of the charities that are our primary connections to the 'developing world'. They also have better solutions too, like food sovereignty. In dealing with the fallout from the financial crisis as activists, we need better connections with such social movements.

The article is not available online yet, and its a bit long to post here. Besides, I should probably encourage people to buy Red Pepper, which also has some other interesting stuff, including analysis of the youth revolt in Greece and some very quickly turned around coverage of Palestine issues after the assault on Gaza. There's also an excellent piece by Sue Branford about the Landless Workers' Movement in Brazil as an accompanying article to mine.

If anyone gets round to reading it, I'd welcome comments on it here.

UPDATE: My article has now been put up online: Our friends in the South