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'The Communist Party will put forward an alternative left-wing programme to New Labour policies of privatisation, a police state and imperialist war - policies with which Mr Michael is closely identified', Mr Griffiths told the party's Welsh Committee in Pontypridd at the weekend.

'Our manifesto will support workers taking action to defend public services, manufacturing jobs, wages, pensions and trade union rights. We need public ownership of gas, electricity and public transport to cut charges and plan for a low-carbon economy', he declared.

The Communist Party leader also attacked Mr Michael's political record.

'From nuclear disarmament to a Parliament for Wales, he has abandoned many of the principles and values on which he was first elected', Mr Griffiths pointed out.

In contrast to Mr Michael's position, which has embroiled him in controversy about his parliamentary allowances, the Communist prospective candidate insisted that MPs should receive no more than the average wage of a skilled worker, with minimal expenses.

NOTE:

The Welsh Communist Party had previously decided to contest the Caerffili constituency, rather than clash with another left-wing challenge in Cardiff South and Penarth. Now that it is clear there will not be an independent left candidate in Cardiff South and Penarth, Welsh Communists are reverting to their earlier preference to contest that seat.

The vote by the assembly’s 60 AMs triggered a process conceived in 2008 which will end in a referendum aimed at increased law-making powers for Wales.

The current morass of measures dictate that Welsh politicians must go cap-in-hand to Westminster for permission to enact the simplest policies to improve the lives of their constituents.

Backing for this trigger vote had been edged with doubts, uncertainties and provisos — despite all four parties swearing allegiance to a future Welsh legislative body with increased powers.

So it has been with most issues surrounding devolution before and since the wafer-thin majority in favour of its introduction 11 years ago.

While the vote was passed, there’s little doubt that the next steps will take a similarly timorous path towards a referendum which is likely to take place following assembly elections in May 2011.

And there are immediate hazards despite the recent “trigger” vote — not least that Welsh Secretary Peter Hain has 120 days to draft a piece of legislation specifying the question to be put in the referendum and the date it will take place.

Devolutionists in Wales will therefore have to remain vigilant. Timid leadership can spread a lack of confidence in the people — and in this case it could put further devolved power to the people in doubt.

A mountain to climb

An advert for applicants to manage the cafe at Hafod Eryri atop Snowdon’s 3,560ft peak proved a blessing for pun-makers. Any person wanting to take on this “top” job would need to be on “peak” form and would have a mountain to climb — the cafe’s opening last year was marred by complaints of lengthy queues and a litter-strewn environment.

Daily Telegraph restaurant critic Jasper Gerard said that the cafe served cup-a-soup and preheated sausage rolls and baps that left him “sick at the stomach.” He did not reveal what his butler thought.

Cafe owners the Snowdon Mountain Railway are up for the challenge, though, and are seeking to recruit “a manger to fulfil an exciting new role. Someone with the appropriate experience of managing in a busy catering environment.”

The Telegraph didn’t bother sending a correspondent during the four-year construction of the 300-square-metre building from materials brought up from the quarries of Blaenau Ffestiniog. Workers had to face winds of up to 150mph and temperatures which plummeted to -20°C. Some had to walk halfway down the mountain at the end of one working day because the train could not get to them.

The job advert mentioned that a number of staff stay overnight at the centre and that in the past they had helped to rescue people stranded on the mountain. It didn’t specify whether successful applicants would need to get the crampons on in between producing gourmet meals.

Into the 20th century?

Question: What European country the size of Wales boasts not a single mile of electrified railway? Answer: Wales.

This information accompanied a claim by Labour’s Welsh Secretary Peter Hain that ambitious plans to electrify the railway between London and Swansea announced by Gordon Brown last July at a cost of £1 billion could be scrapped under a Conservative government.

The Tories have raised questions about the affordability of the project, due for completion in 2017, at a time of curbs on public spending.

It’s all about general election shadow boxing, of course, with 2017 far enough away to ensure no-one notices whether the chicken comes home to roost.

Meanwhile at Chester, Crewe, Birmingham and Bristol passengers will have to wait on their way to Wales while the sleek — if cramped — Pendolinos are unhooked and the (t)rusty old diesels are hooked on as a prelude to trundling through the wonderful Welsh countryside.

By Roy Jones

(First published in the Morning Star 22.2.10)

Some 50 crucial harbour pilots and launch crew members voted for the 48-hour stoppage, which was due to begin at dawn today, in a fightback against bosses' attempts to raise the retirement age and cut their final-salary pension scheme.

But Justice Sweeney justified tearing up the workers' democratic ballot by claiming that Unite's notice of industrial action did not comply "properly" with the Tories' 1992 Trade Union and Labour Relations Act, insisting that "the balance of convenience" in the case was in favour of the employer.

Unite dockworkers' national secretary Brendan Gold retorted that the High Court was "intervening yet again to undermine our members' democratic decision to take industrial action."

"It is hugely frustrating going through the correct legal procedures to call this action, then to have the courts actively intervene in industrial disputes and block it," he declared.

The latest denial of workers' democratic rights came after judges banned walkouts by London busworkers in January and single-handedly overturned the overwhelming vote to strike by 40,000 BA workers just before Christmas.

University of Hertfordshire professor of industrial relations Gregor Gall explained that bosses had now won 13 court injunctions to stop workers striking over the last year.

He pointed out that there are many more "threats by employers to make applications for injunctions which can lead to unions standing down their actions."

Unite regional organiser Allan Card confirmed that the port workers had balloted "very strongly" in favour of taking industrial action, pointing out that the union had even offered to postpone the strike for 28 days to negotiate an end to the dispute.

"But that offer was turned down by the Port Authority," he said.

Mr Gold stressed that the pilots, who guide the massive oil and gas tankers that handle as much as 25 per cent of the country's petrol and gas supplies into one of Britain's largest ports for, would not be daunted by the court's intervention.

"Unite has now issued the employers with seven-days' notice that the pilots will stage a new 12-hour strike on February 23 and follow that with an overtime ban and a work to rule," he revealed.

Maritime workers RMT union leader Bob Crow added his condemnation of the judges "who are loading the anti-union laws even further in favour of the employers and throwing even more hurdles in front of union members seeking to take action to defend their working conditions.

"The arsenal of legal weapons ranged against workers by bosses seeking to wreck industrial action is growing by the day," he proclaimed.

by Paul Haste

(First published in the Morning Star 18.2.10)

Morning Star editorial

Once again, employers have used the courts against the Unite union to strangle legitimate industrial action at birth - to the great glee of the employers.

Last time it was the BA cabin crews who were kicked in the teeth by the courts. In December, British Airways was granted an interim injunction prohibiting Unite members from striking for 12 days over Christmas.

This time the employers were the Milford Haven Port Authority, which won a High Court bid to stop pilots and launch crew from walking out today. The victims were the pilots and crew members who are in dispute over drastic cuts to their pension scheme.

In both cases the union had conducted a ballot which resulted in a large majority for industrial action.

In both cases the union had done its level best to comply with the anti-union laws and follow the mandated procedures.

And in both cases the courts found technicalities to block industrial action - decisions which greatly favoured the employers.

In the Milford Haven case, Mr Justice Sweeney ruled that notices of industrial action issued by Unite for this week did not fully comply with the relevant legislation and issued a temporary injuction restraining the union from carrying out the strike threat.

This totally ignored the fact that a ballot had been fully and properly carried out and produced an overwhelming majority for action.

The right of workers to withdraw their labour had been totally over-ridden. And by what?

By a legal tactic which was not designed to be so used and is utterly inappropriate to an industrial dispute.

Temporary injunctions are designed to force companies and individuals to cease an activity which is due to come before the courts for determination so that further damage is not done prior to a full case hearing.

But industrial disputes matters are not a normal subject for the courts' consideration.

They are resolved by the normal process of industrial relations, which, the law recognises, may include action by workers to withdraw their labour.

Temporary injunctions have been used at least a dozen times over the last year to strikebreak and the matter rarely, if ever, became the subject of a full court hearing. Thus the use of a temporary injunction is, at the very least, an abuse of a law not originally intended to be used in that way.

The "balance of convenience" which Mr Justice Sweeney made such great play of yesterday is a term more readily applied to the loss suffered by firms which are contesting things such as patent infringements and could suffer damage to their trade if those infringements continued while awaiting a court hearing.

It is manifestly not appropriate to industrial action which is, by its very nature, designed to interfere with a firm's normal trading and force the company to the negotiating table.

Trade unions' liabilities for damages are limited in law expressly to protect their right to take action, although the anti-union laws, specifically the 1992 Trade Union and Labour Relations Consolidation Act, eroded those protections significantly. But these injunctions consider the effect of unions' actions without reference to any such protection. They are in direct conflict with the right of any person, unless they are a slave, to withdraw their labour when they see fit.

Such injunctions, while they do not form part of the Tory anti-union laws, are, when used in conjunction with them, a direct assault on the basic rights of working people everywhere.

They should be eliminated from any code of justice pretending to democratic antecedents.

The misuse of court injuctions is eroding rights that have been fought for over centuries and are workers' only protections. They, and the anti-union laws that are used in conjunction with them, must form a significant item on trade unions' agendas this year.

I would identify three cardinal principles as follows:

First, that Social Democracy will never mobilise and lead the working class to take state power as a class in order to abolish capitalism and construct socialism.

This is true because, Lenin argued, Social Democracy sought only to represent the workers within the confines of capitalism. Indeed, far from wishing to overthrow capitalism, the labour aristocracy—which promoted and staffed Social Democracy—identified its own interests with those of capitalism, with the imperialism which made possible the bribery, flattery and incorporation of the top layer of the working class.

It is worth noting here that Lenin believed this to be as much the case in Britain as in any other country, if not more so given the greater power, resources and sophistication of British imperialism. This assessment was not in any way modified by the fact that, in his time, the Labour Party had a unique structure among the world’s social-democratic parties, whereby two-thirds of all organised workers were in trade unions affiliated to the Labour Party, comprising 99 per cent of that party’s membership of 4.4 million1920. As Lenin explained to the Second Congress of the Communist International in August that year:

Of course, most of the Labour Party’s members are workingmen.

However, whether or not a party is really a political party of the workers does not depend solely upon a membership of workers but also upon the men that lead it, and the content of its actions and its political tactics. Only this latter determines whether we really have before us a political party of the proletariat. Regarded from this, the only correct, point of view, the Labour Party is a thoroughly bourgeois party, because, although made up of workers, it is led by reactionaries, and the worst kind of reactionaries at that, who act quite in the spirit of the bourgeoisie. It is an organisation of the bourgeoisie, which exists to systematically dupe the workers …

This is why Lenin rejected characterisations of the Labour Party as being the ‘political organisation of the trade union movement’, because it concealed an essential distinction between the social composition of its membership and the political and ideological character of the party’s policies, leadership and role in supporting capitalism and imperialism..

Has the first of Lenin’s principles stood the test of time?

In the nine decades since Lenin’s death, Social Democracy has not—neither in Britain nor anywhere else—led the working class to state power to replace capitalism with socialism. Labour, ‘Socialist’ and Social-Democratic parties have taken office from Britain to Australia and New Zealand, from Chile to Japan, in every country in Scandinavia and almost everywhere else in western Europe, from Jamaica to Malta and Israel.

With the heroic exception of Allende’s Popular Unity government, Social Democracy has never seriously threatened the existence of capitalism in those countries. In most cases, it has tried to manage it more humanely, or it has rescued capitalism or—as in eastern Europe since the early 1990s—it has helped to restore it. In major imperialist countries such as Britain, Germany, France and Spain, the social-democratic parties in office have largely defended the international interests of their own ruling class, sometimes brutally.

Lenin’s principled opposition to Social Democracy has been vindicated by the 20th century.

But is this the whole story?

Mass social-democratic parties are not immune from the conflicts and contradictions of the society in which they exist. Electoral politics and working class support and involvement help to reproduce the political class struggle within those parties. Of course, pro-working class and socialist ideas and demands can usually be contained, frustrated, undermined or marginalised when it counts, with the assistance of party constitutions, autocratic leadership, anti-democratic manoeuvring, the mass media, the electoral system, capitalist sabotage and the like.

But we have also seen social-democratic parties —invariably under electoral, popular or trade union pressure— shift to the left, their governments enacting reforms which challenge capitalist prerogatives, are far-reaching and which undoubtedly extend the immediate interests of the working class.

This is true, for example, of the Labour governments elected in 1945, 1974 and 1997. Yet in almost every case, the initial phase of advance has been halted and turned back, leading to division and eventually electoral defeat. The working class and popular movement has failed to provide the unity, direction and momentum necessary to overcome opposition from outside Social Democracy as well as from within.

But the predominance in practice of the struggle for reforms in Britain has both strengthened right-wing opportunism in the Labour Party and trade union movement, divorcing reforms from questions of working class state power and socialism, and provoked an ultra-leftist response which underestimates the need to fight for reforms altogether.

Yet formulating them, battling for them, implementing them and defending them are vital aspects of engaging, politicising and mobilising the working class and progressive movements. Such activities have won more workers to struggle and to socialism than any amount of abstract or purely revolutionary propaganda.

Has the Communist movement spent sufficient time and effort working out the relations between the struggle for reforms and the fight for state power, the methods and processes of transition from one stage to the other?

Which brings me to the second of Lenin’s principles.

The working class needs a strong Communist Party to play a leading role in uniting, mobilising and guiding the working class, the labour movement and the popular anti-monopoly alliance.

In the first instance, in a modern capitalist society, such a party can only be built by recruiting workers and young prospective workers to it, usually from within the most militant and/or politically conscious sections of the working class. This does not mean, of course, that recruits from other social classes are not welcome.

Lenin’s view was that militants and revolutionaries should join the Communist Party, even when they had significant differences with its policies. He also argued that Communists should consciously seek to win militant workers and revolutionaries to the party, despite those differences. Obviously, once inside, all party members would be bound equally by the requirements of democratic centralism.

In this respect, it should be noted that Lenin did not regard the ‘left-wing’ communists of his time, either in Britain or anywhere else, as the enemy, let alone as the main enemy. Their ideas may be mistaken, and even dangerous when ultra-leftists are in positions of influence in the working class or revolutionary movement. Although even here, we might remember that for all his sharp opposition to Trotsky’s potentially disastrous policies in relation to the trade unions and to peace with Germany, Lenin combated those policies politically and did not call for Trotsky’s expulsion from the Russian Communist Party.

Ultra-leftist errors and strategies have to be fought and corrected.
Ultra-leftists who have no base in the working class or progressive movements, or whose views or actions are so ultra-leftist as to assist the ruling class, can be disregarded at no cost to the Communist Party or left unity.

But the main enemy for Lenin continued to be imperialism, the capitalist class and—within the working class movement—the right wing, the treacherous leaders, the ‘agents of the bourgeoisie’.
Which brings me to Lenin’s third and—as with the previous two—inter-related principle in these matters.

A central strategic objective of the Party is to win a large section of the working class to revolutionary politics, including to the leading role of the Communist Party itself.

Since the early 1920s, we have learnt that this is a longer and more complex process than was once imagined. We have had to adapt our revolutionary ambitions and expectations to the unexpected adaptability and longevity of capitalism and Social Democracy. We have built alliances within the Labour Party and in the trade union and progressive movements in order to exercise influnce and—in some campaigns—leadership.

Lenin came down in favour of the Communist Party securing affiliation to the Labour Party, precisely because of the latter’s working class composition—although it has to be said that he did not regard it as a severe blow when the applications were rebuffed in 1920, 1921 and 1922.

Because of that organic link between the Labour Party and the trade unions, Labour—more than most social-democratic parties—has been an arena of class struggle, with socialist and even Marxist ideas having a basis for contesting those of Social Democracy, capitalism and imperialism.

But we are one decade into the 21st century. In recent years, the Labour Party has confirmed, in spades, that it is ‘led by reactionaries, and the worst kind of reactionaries at that, who act quite in the spirit of the bourgeoisie’. Indeed, our party went so far at its 48th congress in 2004 as to characterise New Labour as a ‘pro-imperialist, pro-monopoly and anti-working class trend’ which had hijacked the Labour Party and abandoned Social Democracy, because—unlike previous Labour Party leaderships—Blair and Brown & Co. did not in any way regard or conduct themselves as the parliamentary representatives of the working class, trying to improve its lot within monopoly capitalism through wealth redistribution, better public services and a mixed economy; expanding democratic liberties; trying to moderate imperialism’s tendency to war.

Does this mean winning trade unionists to revolutionary politics is no longer served by building and strengthening the Communist Party’s links to the Labour left in and the Labour-affiliated unions, or that Communist Party affiliation would serve no useful purpose? Of course not.

Despite the decline in trade union affiliation since 1979, and the collapse in individual membership since 1997, in terms of its class composition the Labour Party has not changed fundamentally. Affiliated trade union political levy-payers comprise 94 per cent of Labour’s ‘membership’ (broadly defined), more or less the same as in the 1980s and 1990s, and higher than the 80-90 per cent it has been at every other time since 1928.

Nevertheless, we should take account of some very significant changes that have occurred in the trade union movement and in its relationship with the Labour Party.

Firstly, the proportion of workers organised in trade unions has fallen from its peak of 55 per cent of all employees in 1979 to around 28 per cent today. Secondly, this decline in trade union density has been steeper in the private sector (down to 17 per cent) than in the public sector (down to 59 per cent) and it is the public sector that the biggest non-affiliated unions are to be found, notably in education and the civil service. Unions such as the PCS, NUT, EIS and UCU are also responsible for a bigger share of industrial action in the modern era than has been the case historically. Within the traditionally more industrial, affiliated and/or militant sections of the trade union movement, we have to note the near-disappearance of the once-mighty NUM, the disaffiliation of the RMT and the FBU, and the fact that the proportion of members paying the political levy in the biggest two unions is now down to 65 per cent in both UNITE and UNISON.

The significance of these figures is that there are substantial sections of the working class which are not organised into the trade union movement, and there are substantial sections of the trade union movement which are not affiliated to the Labour Party.

Therefore our party should not underestimate the importance of political work among unorganised or non-affiliated sections of the working class. The domiciled Communist Parties organising in Britain can play a valuable role in helping our party and the trade union movement reach unorganised and migrant workers.

So, what role should Communist electoral work and policy play in pursuit of the Leninist principles identified above, ie., exposing Social Democracy, building the Communist Party, uniting and mobilising the working class and winning it to revolutionary politics?

Lenin talked of the need for Communists to support the Labour Party leadership in parliamentary elections ‘in the same way as the rope supports a hanged man’. He did not do so because he thought of the Labour Party as the mass party of the working class, or as the political representatives of the trade union movement. Rather, it was necessary in order to help the Labour Party leadership expose themselves as imperialists and traitors in the eyes of their deluded working class supporters. Well, they have done this on each occasion after taking office, at least so far as many militant and politically conscious workers are concerned. But it would appear, unfortunately, that the necessary lessons have to be learnt anew in every generation, until a revolutionary breakthrough in political consciousness is made.
Moreover, there may be other reasons why a Labour victory is preferable to a Tory victory, which requires enough people voting Labour in enough constituencies to secure a parliamentary majority.

At the same time, Lenin was clear that elections should be used to expose Social Democracy, not to play down or overlook its treachery. And they provide favourable conditions in which to promote the Communist Party and its revolutionary perspectives, to the extent that—as he urged William Paul in 1920—if no arrangement could be made with Labour, ‘the Communist Party ought to contest as many seats as possible’.

If Communist electoral policy is also to reinforce its extra-parliamentary trade union and campaigning work to unite and mobilise the working class and win people to revolutionary politics, it cannot be confined to an alignment with the Labour Party left and the affiliated trade unions. This is even more the case when so much extra-parliamentary struggle engages forces beyond those sections. And where electoral campaigns can reflect class and popular struggle on the ground against pro-imperialist, pro-monopoly, anti-working class policies and candidates, the place of the Communist Party is surely in the former camp not the latter.

But whether Communists are supporting Labour, Communist or other left candidates, we should conduct that work in a Leninist way. That means going beyond the conventions of bourgeois politics, putting forward advanced policies in their revolutionary perspective, using bold and imaginative methods—developing electoral politics of a new, Communist type.

Robert Griffiths is general secretary of the Communist Partry and a member of the executive committee of the Welsh Communist Party

If you would like to receive regular issues of Red Alert, to keep pace with Welsh Communist Party activities and events, then e-mail your details to office@welshcommunists.org

Elections

Wales secretary – Rick Newnham
Chairperson – John Lent
Vice chairperson – Lorette Picand
Co-ordinators were also elected to cover the following areas:
Membership and Organisation
Peoples Charter
Industrial
Peace
Political Education
Morning Star & Party Literature
Cymdaithas Niclas & Eisteddfod

Statements

BOSCH

Welsh Communists today condemned the decision by Bosch to close their Miskin plant in favour of moving production to where they can get cheaper labour.

The executive committee, meeting in Pontypridd, urged unions and community groups to demand that the government starts making multinational companies accountable for their actions.

‘This closure is due to the greed of big business shareholders and has nothing to do with the recession. It shows how pathetic current government economic strategy is when big business can ride roughshod over its victims without recompense.

We are already paying for government irresponsibility in allowing the bankers a free reign’ declared Welsh Secretary Rick Newnham.

Haiti

The Welsh Communist Party expresses its solidarity with the Haitian people following the devastating earthquake that has wrecked havoc on an already impoverished nation.

The Welsh Communist Party recognises that the Haitian people need massive amounts of disaster relief in the short term, and supports the work of the Disaster Emergency Committee here in Britain, but in the long term the Haitian people need the USA and its international agencies to stop imposing policies that make them more vulnerable to natural disasters.

Trade and aid policies that force rural Haitians into cities where there is no safe housing for them and political policies that undermine or overthrow democratically elected governments that do try to provide safe housing and services in rural areas.

It is important to note that, while US politicians were making speeches about sending an aircraft carrier and thousands of marines to Haiti; a neighbouring developing country, Cuba, had its medical personnel already on the ground in Haiti converting their own accommodation facilities into two makeshift hospitals to take care of the sick and wounded. Cuba also wasted no time in sending further medical teams and supplies to its neighbour.

Haiti certainly needs overseas aid, but, above all, it needs its independence its own freely chosen political leader and an end to US-sponsored military coups.

For further details on the business cover in the Executive Committee meeting please e-mail office@welshcommunists.org

CPB's Election Statement

The Executive Committee of the CP meeting this weekend has issued the following statement on elections.

The Communist Party reiterates its view that a Labour victory would be preferable to a Tory victory. This means recommending a vote for Labour in the majority of constituencies, especially where the Labour candidate has a record of opposing imperialist war and privatisation, and supporting trade union and other democratic rights. We urge especially support and campaigning for those Labour prospective parliamentary candidates who have clearly identified themselves with progressive politics.

However, we welcome principled contests against those New Labour figures who have distinguished themselves as the worst advocates of privatization, war and neo-liberalism.

We confirm our willingness to explore the potential for achieving as much unity as possible on the left and in the labour movement in wider campaigning against neo-liberal policies.

Noting that the RMT executive has decided not to affiliate formally to any electoral coalition for the forthcoming general election, and that no other union has taken a formal position, the Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Britain, in reviewing its own electoral strategy, has determined not to participate in a formal electoral coalition.

The Communist Party, and its allies in UK-domiciled Communist and Workers’ Parties, perhaps with other forces, will contest as many constituencies as feasible in the general election, in order to project a clear left-wing alternative.

The Communist Party will continue to pursue its agreed wider objectives in terms of electoral and campaigning work, which include negotiations to prevent left candidates standing against each other wherever possible, and support for candidates who have gained a personal and significant local potential electoral following.

Additionally, the Communist Party seeks to work with a wide range of left and labour movement forces, inside and outside the Labour Party, to promote mass activity in defence of working people and for wider support for policies towards a left-wing policy programme.

Welsh Communist Party position

In the light of the above statement the Welsh Communist Party has outlined its intention to contest the following seats:

Alyn & Deeside
and
Caerphilly
consituencies

In order to expose the reactionary and imperialist policies of the incumbent new Labour MPs.

In addition the Welsh Party will enter into discussions with other Left wing forces to ensure to 'prevent left candidates standing against each other wherever possible, and support for candidates who have gained a personal and significant local potential electoral following'

For further information of the welsh Communist Party's electoral strategy e-mail office@welshcommunists.org

Mae'n 'grim' yma. Mae'r bwyd yn uffernol - tatws, moron, lunchoen meat a
greifi pob dydd, dwi'n dechrau colli pwysau'n barod. Dwi'n cael fy
nghloi yn fy nghell am 4 pob dydd, tydi hynny ddim yn ddrwg ond am y
ffaith bod yr awdurdodau yma wedi gwrthod imi fynd i'r llyfrgell ar ddau
achlysur "swyddogol" am ddim rheswm - mi ddudodd un screw fel esboniad
"where do you think you are the Hilton" *

Mae'r carcharorion eraill yn fois iawn-ish, ti'n gwybod yn syth i biedio
camu allan o lein neu mi fasa ti'n fwcd..

Mae'n dueddol o 'gicio-off' yma pob dydd rhyw ben, efo'r sgowsars yn
ceisio ennill goruchafiaeth ar grwpiau eraill o Fanceinion neu Leeds
a.y.b. Mae rhywun yn dueddol ar adegau fel hynny i lyncu poer a diolch i
dduw bod chi ddim yn cymysgu efo bois felly. **

Mi fyddai allan dydd Mawrth 8fed Rhagfyr .. peint yn y dafarn gyntaf
dwi'n gweld ym Mangor dwi'n meddwl

Yn gyffredinol mae pob bob dim yn iawn, dwi'n cadw fy ysbryd wrth
ail-ddarllen llythyrau dwi wedi dderbyn... ac edrych ar rhai o'r hogiau
sydd yma am 12 mlynedd wrth feddwl "waw, oleia mai dim ond wythnos arall
sydd gen i"

Tydi "Group 4" (y cwmni preifat sy'n rhedeg carchar Altcourse) ddim yn
poeni rhyw lawr am y carcharorion, ond ar ddiwedd y dydd be ti'n disgwyl
wrth gwmni preifat sy'n poeni mwy am elw na phobl.

Cymunedau Rhydd nid Farchnad Rydd

Osian

Letter from Osian in Prison

Just a word of thanks for all the support during the past months and for work in support of the cause.

It's grim here. The food is hell -potatoes, carrots, luncheon meat and gravy every day, I'm losing weight already. I get locked up in my cell at 4 every day, that's not bad except for the fact that the authorities here have refused permission for me to visit the library on two 'official' occasions for no reason - one screw's explanation was "where do you think you are, the Hilton?!

The other prisoners are OK-ish, you know at once not to get out of line or you'd be fucked.

It kicks off here sometime every day with the scousers trying to gain supremacy over other groups from Manchester or Leeds and so on. At such times you tend to swallow your spit and thank god you don't hang out with blokes like that.

I'll be out Tuesday 8th December...a pint in the first pub I'll see in
Bangor I think.

Generally everything's been Ok, I keep up my spirits by re-reading the letters I've received...and lookiong at the lads, the lads who'll be here for 12 years and thinking "ow,at east I've only got another week"

Group 4 (the private company which runs Altcourse prison) don't worry to much about the prisoners, and at the end of the day what do you expect from a private company that thinks profit is more important than prisoners.

Free Communities not Free Market.

Osian

Cofion,
Wil

O.N. Roedden nhw'n gofyn llawer am Nicolas y Glais, a phan soniais ei fod yn fardd penigamp, yn ddeintydd, yn gomiwnydd ac yn WEINIDOG YR EFENGYL mi gaswon nhw dipyn o soic ac am i mi ofyn i ti sut yr oedd yn gallu credu yn Nuw a bod yn gomiwnydd!! Help!!!!!

Greetings from Bangladesh

A brief word to let you know that they're absolutely delighted with the letters, the literature and especially the Welsh Communist Party shirts. Bishumoy, the doctor's brother wears his proudly EVERY DAY, his mother washes it and he wears it again next day. In a few days time I shall be attending meetings with them (i.e., communist comrades) when they'll be discussing the stuff sent them by their new brothers in Wales. I'll tell you more in the new year as I'll be returning just before Christmas. I'm off now with the doctor to meet more patients!

Regards

Wil

P.S. They asked many questions about Niclas y Glais and when I told them that he was an excellent poet, a dentist, a communist and A MINISTER OF RELIGION they had quite a shock and kept asking me how he could believe in God and still be a communist! Help!!!!