Black Day for the Black List

Some good news for a change. I look forward to seeing these big name building firms getting soaked by black listed workers for their disgusting employment practices. From the BBC:

Company sold workers' secret data

The information watchdog has shut down a company which it says sold workers' confidential data, including union activities, to building firms.

A raid on The Consulting Association in Droitwich, Worcs, revealed a serious breach of the Data Protection Act, the Information Commissioner's Office said.

The ICO said a secret system was run for over 15 years enabling employers to unlawfully vet job applicants.

Action is being considered against more than 40 firms who used the service.

Past and present customers included Taylor Woodrow, Laing O'Rourke and Balfour Beatty, the ICO added.

The Consulting Association's owner would also be prosecuted, it said.

"He should have been notified, registered with our office and he wasn't and that's a criminal offence and that's a clear prosecution," said deputy information commissioner David Smith.

The information commissioner will need to look into this further to see whether these practices are more widespread and take the appropriate action. "The construction companies that were his customers, we have to investigate and find out just what their involvement is. "But what we're looking to do there is issue enforcement proceedings against those that were involved and that'll put them essentially on notice that if they get involved in this illegal trade again, then they will face prosecution."

Business Secretary Lord Mandelson said he was "sorry the practices have taken place" and welcomed the intervention of the information commissioner.

"He will need to look into this further to see whether these practices are more widespread and take the appropriate action, as he's already done in this case," the minister added.

'Trouble stirrer'

Not only was the database held without the workers' consent, but the existence of it was repeatedly denied.

Following the raid on 23 February, investigators discovered that The Consulting Association's database contained the details of some 3,213 workers, the ICO said.

Data included information concerning personal relationships, trade union activity and employment history, it added.

Comments included "lazy and a trouble stirrer", "Ex shop steward. Definite problems. No Go" and "Communist Party".

Employers paid £3,000 as an annual fee, and £2.20 for individual details, the ICO said.

Invoices to construction firms for up to £7,500 were also seized during the raid.

The ICO said it had served an Enforcement Notice ordering The Consulting Association's owner to stop using the system, and expected the company to cease trading by the end of the week.

It added that the owner had failed to notify the ICO as a data controller.

Mr Smith said: "Trading people's personal details in this way is unlawful and we are determined to stamp out this type of activity."

Alan Ritchie, general secretary of building workers union UCATT, said: "Take one of the issues that we have in the construction industry: we have just under two people killed every week through bad health and safety practices and if a whistleblower then raises these issues, then obviously he has found his name on this list.

"He has never had the chance to challenge it.

"He has never been able to turn around and say, 'You are classing me as lazy. How can that be?'"

RMT and the European Elections

The prospect of the RMT launching a nation-wide European election bid from the left is certainly an exciting one, and has already generated some discussion and speculation. The report below from Pete McLaren is of last weekend's CNWP steering committee meeting that went out on the Indie SA discussion list. Needless to say the process is far from finished, so readers and comrades ought to keep that in mind.

I want you to be the amongst first to hear some potentially quite exciting information.

It was announced at the CNWP Steering Committee on Sunday that the RMT are putting up the money to stand TU/left "lists" in every Euro constituency. Their main reason is to ensure left opposition to the BNP. They invited the Socialist Party, Communist Party and a handful of left Trade unionists to a meeting last weekend to announce this. They presented a list of their 10 key demands, which concentrate on rejection of the Lisbon Treaty, opposing racism and fascism, opposing privatisation, opposing EU militarism, restoring democracy to EU states (whatever that means), defending manufacturing and keeping Britain out of the eurozone. I know the SP have asked for an 11th point on internationalism, partly to counteract the largely anti EU stance of the RMT.

The RMT are calling this a platform for the election, not the start of a new party, and that whatever regional organisations are put in place, that will all end the day after the Euro Elections. However, the initiative is independent and trade union based, and we could keep the momentum going after June 4th even if the RMT will not not do so.

The SP have asked for the group organising this initiative to be broadened, and this was backed by the CNWP today, along with general support for the project as an independent TU challenge. As I understand it, the RMT organising group has already agreed to support Rallies or Public Meetings in every region. The RMT are discussing media publicity.

I suspect that this will be a left anti EU TU programme, and I suspect there will be a lack of democracy about how candidates are selected and the manifesto agreed - but I could be wrong. The registered party name is "No2EU-Yes2Democracy", which I think could send out the wrong message - the very word "socialism" should have been included, for a start. The politics behind this was described today as 'Trade Unions against the EU constitution' , with some left politics against privatisation added.

CNWP Steering Committee members, whilst welcoming the initiative, were critical of its probable programme and its concentration on the EU, and the lack of democracy so far.

There is even an idea at present that anyone elected under this banner would not take up their seats - this is already being challenged within the group around the RMT.

This is an evolving process, and hopefully there will be changes, with some democracy and accountability, and a more progressive programme. But, in any case, I do think the initiative offers real possibilities. There will be a momentum created in every region, with the left working together and structures may well appear on a regional basis. These do not have to disappear after the elections just because the RMT leadership wants them to. The initiative could become a step towards a new left party. The Rallies could be used to push that whole process forward.

As long as the politics are within the 80/90% we can all agree upon, I think this could open up real opportunities. I may be wrong. I had no idea this was coming, although those at the the LULC will remember that Rob Griffiths did say that the CPB was discussing with others the possibility of standing a TU/left list in two constituencies. I guess this is what he was referring to. It has now multiplied!

The Socialist Alliance will get regular updates from the SP and CNWP on further developments, so I will keep you informed.

Interesting times, maybe!

In Unity

Pete

Photo by Marc Vallée

Official: Conservatives Love Porn

I've always thought conservatives are a bunch of wankers. Here's the proof.

Porn in the USA: Conservatives are biggest consumers

Americans may paint themselves in increasingly bright shades of red and blue, but new research finds one thing that varies little across the nation: the liking for online pornography.

A new nationwide study (pdf) of anonymised credit-card receipts from a major online adult entertainment provider finds little variation in consumption between states.

"When it comes to adult entertainment, it seems people are more the same than different," says Benjamin Edelman at Harvard Business School.

However, there are some trends to be seen in the data. Those states that do consume the most porn tend to be more conservative and religious than states with lower levels of consumption, the study finds.

"Some of the people who are most outraged turn out to be consumers of the very things they claimed to be outraged by," Edelman says.

More here.

The Shape of Things to Come?

Future dystopias of overcrowded hive cities and post-apocalyptic wastelands could accurately anticipate the world to come, according to the latest issue of the New Scientist. Its feature, How to survive the coming century makes very grim reading indeed. Forget the climate change deniers, the real debates are around how bad it's going to get and what we can do about it.

In this article, the appropriately-named Gaia Vince reports that the IPCC predicts a global increase in temperature somewhere between 2°C and 6.4°C this century. As Peter Cox puts it, "climatologists tend to fall into two camps: there are the cautious ones who say we need to cut emissions and won't even think about high global temperatures; and there are the ones who tell us to run for the hills because we're all doomed. I prefer a middle ground. We have to accept that changes are inevitable and start to adapt now." So what would a mid-range increase - say 4°C entail?

Well, the world would look something like this - a planet where rain forests and productive agricultural land is choked out by advancing desert, coastal regions disappear beneath the waves, glaciers and ice caps shrink and vanish, and perhaps most destructively, the growth of two uninhabitable dry belts in presently densely populated regions.

The flip side of increased warming is that cold regions to the north and the south will become temperate and capable of sustaining large human populations. But how large depends on a number of things. First is the speed and depth of the changes to come - James Lovelock thinks "the number remaining at the end of the century will probably be a billion or less." Others are more hopeful, but this depends on the second key factor: social change. While governments around the world promote anaemic green washing, or prominent environmental celebrities like Al Gore blame a lack of political will for the paucity of radical action, Vince argues that dealing with the crisis means to "rethink our society not along geopolitical lines but in terms of resource distribution".

Winding the clock forward 90 years and working with a projected global population of nine billion, Vince is sure these numbers can be accommodated if everyone receives 20 square metres of space (this would, according to my very dodgy maths, require 4.5 million square kilometres - about half the size of Canada), which in turn demands packed high rise cities towards the poles to free as much land as possible for agriculture. Food production would have to be more seasonal and move away from thirsty crops. The remaining land will be too precious for large scale cattle grazing, so say goodbye to your beef burgers. And the oceans would likely suffer a massive crash of fish and other sea life thanks to increasing acidification. Biodiversity would plummet with many species eking out an existence in zoos or gene banks.

But this will also be a world of huge engineering projects. The uninhabited and uninhabitable wastes of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Australia might become home to a global belt of solar cell arrays. This in combination with nuclear, wind, wave, and geothermal power could supply the energy-hungry cities of the north and south.

Vince's thought experiment is in many ways the best possible outcome. She herself admits the massive stores of carbon and methane locked up in the world's forests, tundra, and ocean floors will either have or be in the process of escaping into the atmosphere. The temperature would not remain a static 4°C above present levels - they would climb further. Plus the world she describes is premised on global-scale planning. What character this planning would be is left open. But the scale required of juggling mass population transfers, building new metropolitan centres, constructing energy gathering facilities and so on can only be possible in a social system where at the most the market plays a marginal role. Whether this society is bureaucratic/technocratic and ruled by the descendants of today's bourgeoisie, or socialist, depends on how the class struggle plays out in the intervening years. If socialism inherits this battered planet then we are best placed to cope with the damage. If not the chaos and social dislocation of Vince's scenario would be without parallel in history. Mass migration, starvation, wars ... it almost doesn't bear thinking about.

It's a good job this is only speculative but it is speculation solidly based on contemporary climate science. Our species will survive, but whether it will be in the billions or the millions depends on the class battles of the next few decades. The stakes could be that high, comrades.

Overcoming Blogger's Block

It's annoying. Plenty of stuff going on in the world is begging to be commented on. There's a couple of posts bubbling under about "theoretical issues". But can I write? Nope.

It's strange. Sometimes the crap can't flow out of my fingers fast enough, even if there's nothing going on. I don't know. How do you overcome that sense of ennui that settles upon you when you get into your blogging interface? Do you just write any old crap? Do you procrastinate? (A bit of a problem if blogging is your preferred means of procrastination). Does a blog about blogger's block jump start your engine? Can Twitter and Facebook unplug your creative juices - when they're not giving you cancer?

It would be interesting to hear what strategies other comrades employ to keep the block at bay.

Staythorpe Power Station Protest

After watching the clip of construction workers protesting about the bosses' refusal to employ local labour, no doubt some will write these workers off as "racist morons". But as far as I'm concerned this underlines the need for the left to be involved, or would it be better that chauvinist ideas are left to fester unhindered?

Background to the protest can be read here and here. There's an interesting report and discussion at Socialist Unity too.

Building the Socialist Party

The second session in the Socialist Party's West Midlands regional conference dealt with building our party into an effective weapon for our class. The lead off here fell to G, the full timer responsible for our region. He opened with noting how 2009 has proven a very busy year for the party. Branches have hit the ground running after the Christmas break, responding to picket lines, protests, occupations and demonstrations, all signifying a massive upswing in activity by pissed off workers and students. This doesn't necessarily mean socialist ideas will appear attractive from the off, especially as the neoliberal boom and collapse of Stalinism continue to exert an ideological hangover - but when workers enter into struggles in large numbers that is the best environment for the party's growth.

It cannot be denied that the boom years were difficult for socialists in general and the SP in particular. It was a struggle to hold the organisation together when the entire labour movement was in retreat and struggles were relatively few and far between. But even then the party remained rooted in the working class and proved capable of winning first-past-the-post council elections. But the challenge for our members now is to adapt, of shaking off some of the habits of the slow period and be ready to make the most of new political opportunities.

There are now grounds to be more optimistic about recruiting to the party but here, G thought, there is room for us to be bolder. Getting more people into the party requires more energy and more time being set aside for chasing up contacts for discussions, and it needs to be the collective responsibility of all branches and not just a few grizzled recruiting veterans. Likewise it is everyone's task to strive to develop rounded out self-organising activists through more educationals, developing campaigning skills, hosting more cadre schools and increase guest visits to other branches, because if the experience of the Lindsey oil refinery strike tells us one thing, it's that a single member can make a very significant difference.

G also set out new subscription targets for The Socialist and a new figure for our monthly members' subs.

In the discussion a Birmingham comrade told how the branch had been transformed by its development of youth work, which has enabled it to build at all of the city's universities, hold a regular series of public meetings and crucially make interventions into the local car industry. A comrade from Shropshire outlined the difficulties of operating in one of England's largest inland counties, especially when members are scattered right across it but has found that regular contact and a programme of common activity - here around public meetings and the CNWP - have helped cement the organisation and attract a steady stream of recruits.

A Stoke comrade spoke about our branch activities around Gaza in conjunction with Keele Socialist Students and how the Youth Fight for Jobs campaign has hit a nerve among workers of all ages on our regular street stalls. Another Potteries comrade discussed our local success in producing cadres, but who've had the unfortunate tendency to end up leaving Stoke and doing the business for other branches. He also allowed himself a moment to hark back to the 80s when Militant had 13 full timers in the West Midlands alone, before stressing the need to increase the circulation of our paper.

After a few more contributions Peter Taaffe quickly came in to say he will be pleased to report back our region's progress to the national office. Echoing earlier speakers he thought the movement against Israeli aggression in Gaza was extremely significant because students tend to be a barometer - he likened them to the light cavalry who move into action before the heavy battalions of the working class.

Wrapping the session up G paid tribute to comrades who have recently passed away before outlining additional tasks. He argued we have a special responsibility to ensure we win over women, BME and LGBT workers and make sure the party not only welcomes them but facilitates their development into the cadres of tomorrow - if the party is to be a rounded-out organisation it cannot be otherwise. But in conclusion he thought we can be proud of what we have achieved, which is a solid foundation to build the effective socialist combat party the situation demands.

After ending the meeting in the traditional way (with the proper lyrics, of course) comrades repaired to the bar for another kind of socialist party.

Ever since becoming a party member I have attended many West Midlands educationals and aggregates, but what I found particularly heartening were the large numbers of new faces in the audience and the fact new branches are being founded and refounded. The Socialist Party is a left force whose time has come again. If you're not a member now you ought to think seriously about getting involved.

West Mids Socialist Party Conference

Last Saturday the Socialist Party in the West Midlands held its first regional conference for very many years, reflecting our success in rebuilding the party. Members from right across the region gathered to discuss our position in the labour movement, our areas of work, strategic priorities, and elect our first properly constituted regional committee since the days of Militant. But the first part of the day was given over to a discussion of the new political period and was led off by our visiting speaker, SP general secretary Peter Taaffe.

He began with the observation that no one in the party has seen a crisis like the one we're living through and so in many ways we are in uncharted waters. But two things we can be sure of are there will be no quick fix to end it, and that it doesn't sound the death knell of capitalism - that will only come when the working class takes power and begins building a socialist society. For Taaffe the crisis also confirmed the arguments and perspectives of the party in the recent pass. But this brings us no joy because it is our class who are already bearing the brunt of the crisis, and especially so in the West Midlands. Here one in five are employed by the car industry, directly and indirectly. The price exacted by the downturn here is the loss of approximately 1,000 jobs a day and a 60 per cent drop in car production in the last month.

What is unique about the crisis is the speed of its spread. In the great depression it took a couple of years for the Wall Street crash to work its way properly through to Western Europe. But deregulated capital plus instantaneous communication has brought home the changed circumstances almost overnight to every corner of the globe. The contagion that began in the finance sector infected the real economy without pausing, effectively leaving economies awash with commodities without purchasers. But more problematic is not the obscenity of general surplus at the time of general want, but rather the "overproduction" of workers and the middle class. Just as the system no longer requires the services of masses of skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled labour, so it will not spare the lawyers, surveyors, architects, consultants, and so on. Therefore even at this stage, which is still the early days of the crisis, the recession is impacting on vast numbers drawn from a variety of layers.

Among the ruling class there is a palpable sense of unease. In Britain it looks increasingly like the government are running out of options to the point that printing money, now euphemistically termed "quantitative easing" is being considered as a means of jump starting inflation to avoid a deflationary spiral. Amazingly this measure, which will cut into the ability to buy back the goods, is likely to worsen the underconsumptionist tendencies responsible for the credit crunch in the first place.

Regards the working class in Britain it is unfortunate that our class has never entered a generalised crisis like this so politically disarmed. The gap between what is happening and consciousness has never been wider, and it falls to socialists to close that gap. There is pent up rage and anger out among our class but the traditional means of expressing it positively have shriveled up. Some still have illusions in the market to fix things, some are in denial, others have battened down the hatches and hope to ride the crisis out, but a minority are aware of what it means. This is the context our party must intervene in and seek to address all these layers.

Coming to a conclusion, the comrade remarked that capitalism is in a new era. Whatever happens the system will be more regulated. There will be more planning and state intervention in the economy, and will likely to continue to be the case when the crisis is passed and a new phase of growth begins. But this era is also a new one for socialist politics and offers us new opportunities for getting our message across. For example, demands around opening the books, increasing wages to stimulate demand, socialisation (i.e. nationalisation + democratisation) will resonate more now than has previously been the case. But the SP must build urgently - the actions in Iceland, Ireland, Greece, Eastern Europe and Guadeloupe, and the wildcat strikes here are harbingers of what is to come.

Opening to the floor, one Birmingham comrade told us about the job centre she works in. Numbers claiming Job Seekers' Allowance at her office have jumped 11,500 since last January. 500 more people are coming onto the benefit than leaving it and only a handful every week are contacting the office to say they have secured a job. There's also a clear bias in new jobs toward part time work. For example, her local Woolworths has reopened as a Poundland - but every single vacancy is part time. Despite that, there were 40 applicants for each job. Likewise when a Tesco Express opened nearby creating 12 part time posts, there were 300 applications. There are also stories of firms charging prospective employees to follow up their references. If there is one positive from all this misery, it is that Daily Mail readers coming into the job centre for the first are shocked to see the office is not the profligate paradise the paper paints it.

A Coventry comrade pointed to the bourgeois press and their "rediscovery" of Marx, which for him was evidence of how rattled they are. In his workplace he too is coming across more people verging on home repossession. Cases of workers who were formerly on £1,500-£2,000/month dropping down to just £400 are increasingly common. For organised workers their first port of call for guidance might be their union, but generally speaking there's very little leadership from this quarter. Unison for example have launched a 'stand up for local government' campaign - but this is not about defending members jobs now, but fending off the further attacks we can expect from the Tories!

Discussing the much vaunted apprenticeship scheme, another Brum branch stalwart mocked BT's declared intent to take on 300 apprentices by pointing out that when he started at the firm 31 years previous, they took on that many in London alone. A further difference between the 30s depression and today is that then there were real left political alternatives available. But now, with the burial of reformist ideas by New Labour, we're in a position where we can counter pose our socialist ideas directly to those of our masters. A Stoke comrade noted the stunning effect the recession has had on layers of workers but also how quickly consciousness can change. The protests against Israel's war on Gaza, for example, acted as a lightning rod of discontent. Also the wildcat strikes demonstrate how quickly class anger can erupt. Another Cov comrade highlighted the cheek of the Tories criticising Labour for giving bankers a free hand - this coming from the party that deregulated the City!

A former ward CLP chair said we should not underestimate the impact on mental health and the pressure it will put on GP services and health care institutions. Even before the downturn provisions were woefully inadequate. Rob Windsor, Coventry SP councillor said there had been a 30 per cent rise in people seeking help from the city's social services department. There are now 18 people sleeping rough in the town centre, up from three or four this time last year. The queue for council housing - now standing at 20,000 - is aggravated by a chronic shortage, thanks mainly to the council previously demolishing a lot of its public housing stock. Another comrade, who works for a housing association, said the numbers of people turning up and breaking down has become all too common. But also the association is being approached by developers desperate to get rid of their unsold stock - it turns out that not only are many of them unsuitable (because they were slung up quick to make fast money at the height of the boom) but also some are having to pay security firms to guard the properties to prevent fittings from being stolen!

Replying to these and other points made in the discussion he said that housing is a crucial issue right now and will become even more explosive as the recession persists. With an estimated half a million homes standing idle occupations similar to the actions of the pre and post-war squatters' movement are increasingly likely. He also noted that despite the capitalists and their governments being worried about spiralling state spending, plenty of real money remains in tax havens. Here the rich and super rich have salted away an estimated $11.5 trillion. And lastly, he called for all members to build on the work of key Marxist thinkers and leaders to prepare ourselves for the challenge confronting us.

In all the discussion demonstrated an appreciation of the changed political circumstances (see British Perspectives 2009 for more) of our work as well as our determination to do our best to steer the course of class struggle in a positive direction. The particular nuts and bolts of this were dealt in the organisational session of the conference and will be discussed in the next post.

House Price Madness

From 1887 to 1990 Cliff Vale pottery (pictured) churned out ceramics for Twyfords. But having outlived its usefulness this grand Victorian building was abandoned to the rats and the junkies.

Fast forward 15 years work began on the site at the height of the housing bubble. As the pottery complex is situated right next to the Trent and Mersey canal with views over the well-tended Hanley cemetery, Lock 38 was going to be as des-res as it gets in Stoke-on-Trent. The developers certainly thought so. When their flats came on to the market in late 06/early 07 the one bedroom properties began at £99,000.

But what a difference an economic downturn can make. When the arse fell out of the market the prices were slashed to £59,000 for first time buyers, with a sweetener that the developer will pay the mortgage for a year. That's quite reasonable given the silly price they started off at. But then as I sailed past them on Saturday morning I noticed they had been dropped again, to £35k! And now, looking at the development's website, I see they're advertised to FTBs at £30,000!! Talk about spiraling negative equity for the poor buggers who bought at the height of the boom!

If I had a spare £30 grand and was an unscrupulous buy-to-let landlord type I may well be tempted. But are the prices likely to go down further? What's the state of the rental market?

According to the government's communities website, the numbers applying for statutory homeless status (defined as households facing an imminent loss of their home, or individuals and families who sleep rough) have been falling since the second quarter of 2005 to the latest data, which covers the third quarter of 2008. With repossessions rising and an economic nightmare threatening to throw hundreds of thousands more out of work, it is reasonable to expect the overall downward trend will be arrested and reversed. Thousands will experience the misery of homelessness.

And yet tens of thousands of empty properties like those of Lock 38 exist for which buyers cannot be found. If throwing people out of their homes while there is a glut of available housing isn't a damning indictment of the capitalist system, I don't know what is.

An Audience with Ken Loach

I don't know what the the advantages of awarding honorary degrees, but I'm glad Keele granted one to radical film maker Ken Loach on Friday because it meant he did an open Q&A afterwards. And luckily I was there with notebook and pen at the ready.

As you can imagine he spent an hour answering pretty much everything that could be asked, so these are very much the edited highlights. The first questioner asked about his approach to casting and whether using "normal" people as opposed to professionals ever caused him problems? Loach replied that the bottom line has to be credibility - actors must be convincing in a particular role. As far as he was concerned if this is your aim you cannot have a working class woman played by the likes of Julia Roberts. This means a very long casting process as Loach typically sees people seven or eight times before making a decision. But by the end of it they have been "professionalised" by the process and are no greater risk than any other actor.

The next question moved to his famous forum scenes, such as the debates in Land and Freedom and The Wind that Shook the Barley. Loach set out to bring the critical issues of the Spanish civil war out into the open, particularly the struggle between the Stalinists and mainstream republicans who wanted to prioritise the military struggle against Franco and leave the social revolution until afterwards versus the position of other lefts that saw the revolution and the war against the fascists as interrelated processes. A similar intent lay behind the production of Wind, which is an interpretation of the Irish struggle for independence as a revolution. Here for Loach the movement was particularly difficult for the British ruling class because in their eyes Ireland was a home nation, a core component of the Empire, and not a colony. Loach confessed to stretching history "a bit" to include discussion of Connolly's republican socialism, and also showed how imperialism can accommodate an independence movement. In his opinion the struggle more or less changed the flag because it fell under bourgeois hegemony and so, post-independence, it was business as usual as far as British capitalism was then concerned.

Turning to the state of cinema Loach said it could be the same as any other medium and should be as varied as imagination. But it is thoroughly commodified and exclusionary. Because of Hollywood's dominance, US films and US-funded films are produced with the American market in mind. As a result its output tends to resemble more a store full of airport novels than a public library. To illustrate this dominance in the UK, Loach's previous film, It's a Free World sold around 40 copies to British cinemas. But across the channel where Hollywood's grip is far less secure, French cinemas purchased 370 copies.

Loach also gave us a quick preview of Looking for Eric, which is due out this summer. It follows the descent into depression by Eric, a Man Utd-obsessed postman. Then one night he smokes a spliff and Eric Cantona appears and starts giving him advice. Kitchen sink meets magical realism?

Lastly it wouldn't be complete if Loach wasn't asked about his politics. Given the current situation, he was asked if he thought revolution was back on the agenda. His answer took us back to the late 60s. Then, Loach said, it felt as though it was around the corner or a couple of years away at the most. But now, while that hope is gone our situation is approaching something of an end game. Not because capitalism looks like it's about to be swept away, but due to the environmental crisis. In his opinion the planet cannot sustain a system premised on endless, reckless economic growth, and the idea 'the beast' could behave responsibly defies belief. So what happens next? His answer to the mainly young audience was simply "over to you".