Exposure of McGuinness
and the subsequent letters for/against the Socialist Party
.
McGuinness labelled a ‘scrooge’
By Billy Foley Irish News 20th December 2000
EDUCATION Minister Martin McGuinness will today be labelled ‘Scrooge Employer Of The Year’.
Mr McGuinness is set to receive the dubious award from the End Low Pay Campaign.
The campaign, which was set up by the Socialist Party, claims the education minister "refuses to pay term-time workers any money to cover school holiday periods".
The minister has become embroiled in a long-running pay dispute between thousands of classroom assistants, school secretaries and technicians and their employers, the five education boards.
The staff have gone unpaid during school holidays since social security entitlements ended last summer – and have asked boards to step in and fill the gap.
An education department spokesman said the minister would like to see an end to the dispute, but the matter must be resolved by school staff and their employers.
The spokesman said: "The minister, like everyone else, would like to see a resolution so that all concerned can concentrate on what matters most – providing the best education we can for our children.
"The issues must be resolved between the employers and the staff representatives. Neither the minister nor the department has any place in this."
End Low Pay Campaign spokesman Terry McDonagh said there were many candidates for the most miserly employer of the year award.
"However, Martin McGuinness has come out top of our list of Scrooge employers because he is paying term time staff nothing at all for the Christmas period," Mr McDonagh said.
"We fully support the campaign by term-time workers for payments for holiday periods in line with other school staff.
"The only reason this issue has not been resolved is because of the refusal of Mr McGuinness’s department to make the necessary funds available."
Dec. 27th 2000
McGuinness is Scrooge only in Fantasy Socialist dreamland
ON two consecutive days recently the Irish News reported on criticism of the Minister for Education Martin McGuinness over the issue of term-time workers.
Had this attack come from the trade unions representing the workers, one would have attached some credibility to it ... or from the term-time workers themselves.
But, no! This attack – including a so-called award for Scrooge of the Year – came from the so-called Socialist Party.
Many will have wondered who exactly the Socialist Party is?
Is this the Irish Socialist Party, the British Socialist Party, the World Socialist Party or the Lisburn Road ‘Let’s play at being revolutionaries for six months before we go to Queen’s (Che Lives)’ Socialist Party.
Perhaps the ‘Socialist Party’ rejects electoral politics as a bourgeois liberal farce; but, for those of us who base some measurement of political credibility on proven electoral support, dare I ask how many elected representatives this so-called Socialist Party has?
How many MPs?
How many MLAs?
How many local government councillors?
Perhaps a more pertinent question would be – how many members?
The reality is that the so-called Socialist Party is the fantasy of some tiny faction intent on attacking Sinn Fein for ‘selling out the revolution’; while Martin McGuinness and his colleagues engage in the business of real politics, pursuing and delivering radical change.
I am confident that – given his proven commitment to equality and justice – the term-time workers, victimised under a previous (British) administration, will secure a better deal with Martin McGuinness as education minister than they would have with any of the other parties in the assembly.
So my message is one of support for both the term-time workers and for the present minister for education in the expectation that a real and acceptable settlement to this dispute will be achieved soon.
Leave the divisive, negative and pointless name calling to those who engage in divisive, negative and pointless politics – the comic-book revolutionaries of the Fantasy Socialist Party.
THERESA McCOMB
Belfast 12
Dec. 29th 2000
How out of touch with reality is Sinn Fein?
THERESA McComb’s letter defending Sinn Fein’s Stormont education minister (December 27) is indicative of how out of touch with political reality Sinn Fein doublethink has become.
Theresa McComb begins by attacking "the so-called Socialist Party" whom she goes on to ridicule as champagne socialists who have no electoral support.
She describes the Socialist Party as "the fantasy of some tiny faction intent on attacking Sinn Fein, while Martin McGuinness and his colleagues engage in the business of real politics, pursuing and delivering radical change".
The only real change that Sinn Fein has achieved has been to declare areas under its control as one-party statelets.
Anybody who criticises their despotism is dealt with summarily – either murdered as Joseph O’Connor was, or driven out of their homes, like Anthony McIntyre and his family have been.
Meanwhile, such Sinn Fein strongholds in west Belfast are starting to resemble third world disaster zones: the joyriding terror, vicious and murderous attacks on anybody who criticises the Adams clique, disastrous public health problems (the Whiterock Road, for example, looks like the aftermath of the crash landing of a Boeing 747 filled with domestic rubbish), spiralling crime, widespread alcoholism – the list goes on and on.
There is always the threat of death or of smashed limbs for anybody who tries to speak out.
Sinn Fein’s secret murder squads attack people free from interference from the RUC and make sure that nobody else will speak out, never mind get elected in their zones.
Sinn Fein has certainly sold out the revolution but they have gone beyond being merely bourgeois: they are a fully fledged fascist party that is shooting and beating its way to Westminster.
This attack on the Socialist Party is another example of Sinn Fein totalitarianism.
Theresa McComb’s letter is a measure of how far that party has gone to eradicate serious, critical thought among its members and supporters.
Amazingly, she states that "my message is one of support for both the term-time workers and for the present minister for education".
This meaningless sentence offers Sinn Fein members and supporters an easy way out of the problem of thinking for themselves and actually deciding on a clear policy regarding unacceptably low wages.
In democracies people decide upon positions and stick to them but in Sinn Fein matters of public policy get swept away by mindless spin because Sinn Fein doesn’t have any policies, except for the policy of maintaining control in its areas at any cost.
After indulging in quite a bit of name-calling herself, she concludes:
"Leave the divisive, negative and pointless name calling to those who engage in divisive, negative and pointless politics".
In other words, forget free speech and conform to the party orthodoxy.
Meanwhile the term-time workers, the Socialist Party or anybody else who desires a decent wage can keep suffering or get lost.
REPUBLICAN AND SOCIALIST, Derry
2nd January 2001
Socialists have every right to nominate ‘Scrooge’
THERESA McComb (December 27) seems to think that the Sinn Fein education minister is beyond all criticism.
The Socialist Party, which has taken up the plight of term-time employees and branded Mr McGuinness as ‘Scrooge of the Year’ has particularly upset her.
How dare these people criticise poor Martin, who is "delivering radical change".
Ms McComb snidely demands to know who are the Socialist Party and who do they represent anyway?
It seems that in her eyes only those who have been elected to public office can legitimately comment on the actions or lack of actions of a government minister.
That’s an interesting departure for a Sinn Fein supporter!
Is this now official Sinn Fein policy?
Anyway, I’ll be glad to help Ms McComb out.
The Socialist Party is the successor organisation to Militant Labour.
It organises throughout this island – just like Sinn Fein.
Its enthusiastic membership is made up of largely working class idealists.
It does not reject electoral politics, but has had more success in the Republic than here.
Like Sinn Fein, it has one TD – Joe Higgins, who represents Dublin West in Leinster House.
Mr Higgins is also a councillor in Fingal county council.
There may be other councillors, but if so, I am not aware of them.
Mr Higgins was suspended from the Dail a fortnight ago because he protested against a ruling that only the leaders of Fine Gael and the Labour Party could argue against the taoiseach’s proposals for Dail business.
Most parties in Leinster House speak for the corporate donors who line their pockets.
I’m not a socialist myself, but I admire the dedication of the Socialist Party for speaking out on bread and butter issues and their criticism of the perpetual four-party sectarian coalition which is part and parcel of the Good Friday agreement arrangements.
DAVID KERR, west Belfast
4th January 2001
Blinkered tribal allegiance will not normalise politics
I REFER to Theresa McComb’s letter entitled ‘McGuinness is Scrooge only in fantasy socialist dreamland’ (December 27).
Ms McComb seems to be in a fantasy land of her own.
Her summary of platitudes and cliches fails to address the facts.
The Socialist Party is the only party in Northern Ireland to have taken up the case of the term-time workers and supported them.
At the same time, Sinn Fein – while assuring the campaign of their support – said that the support of Martin McGuinness as minister for education was an entirely different matter.
Such a stance is remarkably similar to some of the actions of the SDLP, who assured students that they were in favour of the abolition of tuition fees and the return of a decent maintenance grant while, at the same time, Minister Sean Farren’s plans for the future of further and higher education bear no resemblance to what his party pledges in its manifesto.
It may interest Ms McComb to know that it was the Socialist Party TD, Joe Higgins, after topping the poll in Dublin West at the last general election, who successfully lobbied for the repeal of water charges for the people of Dublin.
Ms McComb’s attempts to portray anybody who holds left-wing views as middle class, foolish and out of touch with reality is not unusual in Northern Ireland.
Nor is her blind faith in Martin McGuinness and his party’s ability to deliver everything she has ever dreamed of.
It is only when such people let go of blinkered tribal allegiances that politics in Ireland can really begin to ‘normalise’.
UNELECTED MIDDLE-CLASS FANTASY DREAM WORLD STUDENT
Sinn Fein voters are facing ‘disappointment’
THERESA McCOMB (December 27 2000) takes issue with the End Low Pay Campaign and the Socialist Party for the decision to nominate Martin McGuinness as ‘Scrooge of the Year’.
The label, however, is still well placed – given Mr McGuinness’s refusal to grant term-time workers their claim to be paid for the three months of school holidays.
While assembly members were awarding themselves a pay rise, they were prepared to continue to treat some of their own employees as second-class citizens, paying them nothing at all for Christmas and other holidays.
Theresa’s comments about Martin McGuinness’s commitment to "equality and justice" have to be set against this fact.
Her claim that term-time workers will receive a better deal under Martin McGuinness than under the "previous (British) administration" sits uneasily alongside the fact that he has urged term-time workers to accept a "reasonable" offer of no extra money but their existing salary spread over 12 months instead of nine.
If a better deal is eventually won it will be because the term-time workers have maintained their struggle and are now prepared to ballot for industrial action.
Straying from the term-time issue, Theresa counterposes the "fantasy" politics of the Socialist Party to the work of Sinn Fein who "engage in the business of real politics, pursuing and delivering radical change".
After less than a year in government, it is already clear that – on social and economic matters – the two Sinn Fein ministers are delivering only more of the same.
To describe hospital closures, private financing of schools, and low pay, as "radical change" is the real fantasy here.
"Who is the Socialist Party?" asks Theresa.
"Does it reject electoral politics as a bourgeois liberal farce?"
It is hard to tell whether this is genuine ignorance or a crude attempt at smear and caricature.
The Socialist Party not only contests elections but is the only group on the socialist left to have a proven electoral base.
We have one TD – Joe Higgins of Dublin West – in the Dail and hope to improve on this in the next election.
We have council seats including one in the north, on Omagh council.
We are always wary about politicians who lecture us about ‘real politics’.
More often than not this cliche is used to justify those who abandon their programme as soon as they get their feet under ministerial desks.
Sinn Fein’s over-riding ambition seems to be to get into coalition governments north and south at all costs.
We believe that Sinn Fein’s voters – and members – will end up disappointed when they find that being a minority party in coalition with the parties of the establishment means only the same old right wing policies but with new faces to carry them through.
Instead of promoting the "fantasy" that there can be either justice or equality under capitalism the real need is to build support for socialist policies and socialist change.
Victory for the term-time workers would be a good start.
PETER HADDEN
Northern regional secretary, Socialist Party
Victoria Square, Belfast BT1
6th January 2001
Don’t expect Sinn Fein to support the workers
I HAVE been watching the wriggles of the minister of education, ‘Scrooge’ McGuinness, on the question of the term-time school workers.
Like all the rest, Mr McGuinness doesn’t appear to give a hoot as long as he gets his Ł70,000 a year and flashes the bucks from America.
Don’t expect a principled stance for the working class from Provisional Sinn Fein.
Those of us, who should have known better, remember that sinking feeling in our stomachs as they almost broke their necks to get into the partitionist Stormont.
POBLACHTANACH, Belfast
9th January 2001
McGuinness must think we’re all daft
MARTIN McGuinness must think the rest of us are daft.
Just before Christmas he spent a lot of time writing a lengthy letter to the Irish News explaining how he as minister for education could not intervene in the term-time workers dispute.
It was for the education boards alone to sort the matter out.
However, it’s not that long ago that he did interfere in board business and wasn’t slow to boast to the press about it.
But then that was to keep open two small Protestant schools in mid-Ulster.
Perhaps if all the term-time workers were of one persuasion he might go overboard to prove how nice he was to the other community by awarding a pay increase and improved conditions.
Those Sinn Fein boys are getting more like their ‘sticky’ forerunners everyday.
WATCHING, Co Derry
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