ladies and gentlemen, introducing...

photo Le Monde

the new government of France, under Prime Minister Ayrault (who?), looks like this, well, some of it does.  There are 34 ministers, 17 of them women.  Pretty good going, but Sarko's government looked like this at first, and it didn't last.  But hostilities have already kicked off.  Martine Aubry, who wanted to be prime minister and is not, has declined to be in government.  She remains first secretary of the party, and as such has control over selections and nominations for constituencies.  The parliamentary elections are on 10th and 17th June, so she has moved fast, putting one of her own in the constituency of the Somme and deselecting one of Hollande's most loyal lieutenants - and so it goes.  Constituencies in France do not have names but numbers - we live in Strasbourg constituency no. 1 - which has taken some getting used to.  Another difficulty for the parliamentary elections is that the Parti Socialiste is in partnership with the Greens, and so must deselect some of its candidates and replace them with Greens.  This is not going down well. Also, those appointed to government have been told that if they are candidates for parliament they will lose their ministerial jobs if defeated at the election - and there I was thinking that separation of powers was not properly understood in the UK. Sigh.

But people seem to be prepared to give Hollande a fair go, although without much enthusiasm.  That's pretty much how I feel too.

a few corrections

Adrian Windisch (nice bloke, shame about the politics) has had this to say, fisking mine as usual:

Now theres a phrase ("one of us") that can have dfferent meanings. If you are a Tory, LD (or Jane Griffiths) it has racist overtones.  I did not say the phrase itself was racist.  I said that used in the context it was it was a dog-whistle to racists - and also that the stated view of Mr Howarth of Public Impact Limited the Church ward electorate is indeed racist.  I have heard him and Mr Salter say so.

Reading Labour are defining it as "a resident, a family, someone being effected by the harsh cuts brought about by national government, a worker, a parent, a Labour member." That's what they say now, when challenged on their racist dog-whistle.
When I see someone being attacked I like to look at the facts for myself. Who has been attacked? In the last few years I even defended my General Election rival LD Daisy Benson .
I said at the time. 'In the past Reading Labour have said the Greens were linked with terrorists or another year they said we had links with the bnp. Again these attacks were so ridiculous that they did more damage to Labour, calling into question everything they said.' And following this Jane tries to link me to the Latvian Green Party, she seems a bit focused on WW2. "In Latvia they were overtly racist in government, promoting the expulsion of all Jews from Latvia." They were, and this was earlier this century, not at the time of WW2 - the rest of the Green movement did not disown them. If true this would make them the opposite of every Green Party I have heard of, and they should be removed from any link to the rest of us.
So yesterday I pointed out how the phrase 'born and bred' is not uncommon. Jane Griffiths says that two of my examples are 'black', which she thinks makes me wrong. I didn't say the examples were "black", that would have been meaningless.  I said the phrase was used, in two of the four examples given, as code for race.Actually that makes my case, it isn't a white supremecist code word if its in common usage by non white candidates.
Tory Cllr Isobell says Labour's behaviour was 'arrogant' and 'unjust'. Jane claims that Isobel says 'She also directly criticises Green Party chairperson Adrian Windisch for attempting to defend Labour, saying he has been taken for a fool.' Jane says 'She's right.' Actually Isobel says 'Unlike Adrian, they are not fooled.' Yes.  Read it again.  "Unlike...not fooled" means "was fooled".  English, dontcha know. So much for accuracy then. And this sort of 'untruth' gets repeated.
LD Orangepan says 'She is supported by Green Party stalwart (and former Battle ward resident)' Adrian Windisch. But when repeating this Jane says '(and Battle ward resident)'. I moved to Earley a couple of years ago. Perhaps Orangepan updated this when he realised his error and just didnt say he had done this That I think is what happened.  Actually Adrian I don't care where you live. Poor journalism in either case.

born and bred

Adrian Windisch, of the Reading Greens, has this to say about the row over Reading Labour's racist campaign in Church ward.  He cites four party websites, Conservative and LibDem, which use the phrase "born and bred" to describe their candidates.  He omits to mention that two of those, Twickenham and Peckham, use the phrase precisely to refer to race, and to indicate that the candidate they are promoting is black, without saying so.  The Greens are a party which does not exactly have an honourable record on race.  They are a Europe-wide movement, and have been in government in several countries.  In  Latvia they were overtly racist in government, promoting the expulsion of all Jews from Latvia (the SS had previously done a pretty good job of that).  Adrian Windisch's own heritage is I believe Baltic Jewish.  Why did his ancestors leave?

Even if the phrase "born and bred" was in widespread use in party literature promoting candidates in a neutral sense, to refer simply to the place the candidate comes from - and Mr Windisch's examples indicate that it is not - it has not been so used in Reading, and is not being so used in this election.  Labour's other leaflets are not using the phrase.  They chose to use it in Church ward because of who the Conservative incumbent councillor is.  And they, and we, know precisely why they did so.  No one has a monopoly on language.  But its use can kill.

Church ward in Reading has a Labour councillor.  He is called Paul Woodward.  He is not standing for election this year.  He should publicly distance himself from Reading Labour's racist leaflet.  That is the only honourable thing to do.