Letters to the editor

November 26, 2010
Issue 

Morning Star clarification

We were pleased to see Green Left Weekly’s reprint from the Morning Star of Jeff Sawtell's review of the Made in Dagenham film (GLW #860).

Just one quibble. You have expanded Jeff's reference to the Morning Star to the “Communist Party of Britain’s newspaper, Morning Star”, which is inaccurate.

For the record, since 1945, the Morning Star and its forerunner, the Daily Worker, have been owned by a readers' co-operative, the People's Press Printing Society Ltd (PPPS).

Readers, supporters and labour movement organisations are entitled to buy shares in the co-op and to attend the PPPS annual general meeting, held in sections over a weekend in London, Glasgow, Cardiff, Birmingham and Leeds, where a committee of management is elected and an annual report is discussed and approved.

In recent years, as part of the Morning Star strategy of broadening its appeal and improving its service to the movement, a number of national trade unions have bought shares in the PPPS, each appointing a representative to the management committee.

Shareholders understand the ongoing political relationship with the Communist Party of Britain and approve the paper's political stance, which is based broadly on the party's programme, Britain's Road to Socialism.

All of this is open and transparent, which is why any suggestion that the Morning Star remains in some way the property of the party would be unhelpful.

GLW readers may like to check out the new, improved and expanded Morning Star daily on .

John Haylett
Political editor

Morning Star

Two disgraces in one

As Australian citizens in solidarity with East Timor, we object to our neighbour being used for cheap political gain.

As people who believe in human rights, we object to people, whose right it is to be treated properly because they are escaping persecution, treated like convicts; worse than convicts, because they have no release date. No wonder they go mad. We would too.

We object to these two disgraces being rolled into one with PM Julia Gillard’s noxious “East Timor Solution”.

It is as if she wants to draw attention both to Labor’s, for the most part, shameful record on East Timor, and Labor’s completely rotten record on asylum seekers, since 1992, when [then immigration minister] Gerry Hand introduced the policy of locking up innocent people fleeing persecution.

When is this going to stop? For how long will we allow our governments to enact policies that are barely veiled racism, as we see in the Northern Territory, where the Racial Discrimination Act had to be suspended to pass racist legislation on Aboriginal communities?

When will it stop?

Stephen Langford
Secretary, Australian East Timor Association NSW

Comments

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