Someone has sent me details of the wonderful Barnsby Blog for which I am very grateful. George is an 88-year old socialist who used to publish a quarterly George Barnsby Working Class Library
and Free Communist Bookshop which is a splendid resource, particularly for people looking for information about socialist history in the Black Country.
The blog itself can be difficult reading because of the large typeface and the formatting which looks as if it has been clipped from a word processor somehow, but it is a cracking read. I particularly liked this piece in George’s blog entry No. 232 about an exchange with his MP, Rob Marris:
This kindness follows a request from a petulant Marris that I never
correspond with him again. This I gave a raspberry to because he happens to
be my MP and I can write to him as often as I like. The fact that he
supported from the beginning and continues to this day to support Blair’s
illegal and unwinnable war in Iraq thus jeopardising his chances of
retaining his seat at the next general election has been further cause for
hostility between us.
But at my advanced age of 88 years, I now have a number of Tory friends,
so there is not much point in not being friends with Rob. So I offer him an
olive branch. He knows my website and can use it or not as he likes. But he
once wrote telling me what a decent chap he thought I was. He is an
exemplary constituency (MP) and quite a likeable bloke. So shall we bury the
hatchet and I’ll send him a copy of my soldier’s paper Red Front, calling
for a second front in 1942 both to relieve the suffering Russians and to
stop Hitler conquering the wheatlands and oil of the Soviet Union?
He called for a second front in 1942 in order to help the Russians?
He and his ilk would have condemned our badly out numbered and under prepared army to total destruction.
Perhaps he should also consider that a large western front was destroyed in 1940 while his beloved Soviet Union was allied to Hitler.
The constant Russian demands for a second front was an act of hypocricy on an unprecedented scale.
Richard, perhaps you would like to direct your comments to George’s blog… the exchange could be interesting.