Shaun Doherty (October SR) raises important questions concerning the Supreme Court judgement that the government (the executive) acted unlawfully in proroguing (suspending) parliament (the legislature) for five weeks.
First, he claims the ruling “plays into [Boris] Johnson’s narrative”. Would we rather then that the Supreme Court had found for the government instead? Wouldn’t that have further convinced Johnson that he was untouchable?
I was mystified and indeed a little upset at how my letter responding to Martin Empson’s excellent article in July/August SR “Are there too many people on the planet” was so badly misread by Megan James (Feedback, October SR).
She writes, “Mike Mcgrath repeats Malthus’s mistake in asserting that the cause of climate change is the number of people alive.”
Fred Lindop is right to say that the 9-week London and Liverpool dockers’ strikes preceding their march supporting Enoch Powell in April 1968 following his “rivers of blood” speech had been over the “decasualisation” of dock labour rather than containerisation (Feedback, October 2019). Nor was it over housing as Dave Lyddon claims in his letter in the September issue.
I’d like to add a couple of points to Dave Lyddon’s response to Sabby Sagall’s article in July/August edition of SR.
Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam’s withdrawal of the Extradition Bill is a victory. And the protestors’ four other outstanding demands are entirely achievable within the framework of “One Country Two Systems” (OCTS) political agreement between Britain and China that governs Hong Kong.
Mike McGrath (Feedback, September SR) repeats Malthus’s mistake in asserting that the cause of climate change is the number of people alive.
There is a direct link between increasing greenhouse gas emission and increasing industrial production due to the use of fossil fuels. However it is perfectly possible to decarbonise all production in a completely renewable economy which could support far more people without creating greenhouse gases in significant quantities.
Martin Empson (“Are there too many people on the planet?” July/August SR) skewers the argument effectively that poor people are to blame for climate change. But avoids the more difficult question, “How many people can the planet sustain?” Our current 7 billion are consuming the planet’s resources faster than they can be replenished: “humanity is currently using nature 1.75 times faster than our planet’s ecosystems can regenerate” (Global Footprint Network, July 2019). That is natural resources that can regenerate.
I agree with Sabby Sagall’s sentiment that the “greater the confidence among workers, the greater the potential for unity against racism” (July/August SR). But his account of the highs and lows of London dockers is wrong in important respects.
As Fred Lindop has clearly shown (in a 2001 article), the main concern of those dockers who demonstrated their racist sentiments in April 1968 was over housing, not employment opportunities (the left has missed a trick in not organising more around housing).
Sue Caldwell (“Gender, Sport and Capitalism”, July/August SR) has helpfully drawn attention to discriminatory behaviour by the bureaucrats of international athletics, as well as questioning the fairness of some legal behaviours (such as the use of oxygen tents by athletes).
Bethan Turner’s excellent article (“We don’t do well in times of reaction”, July/August SR) focused on the frightening increase in attacks on LGBTQ+ people and explained how LGBTQ+ rights are being cynically used, for instance by Trump, as a cover for state oppression of Muslims. Bethan ended her article with a call for “unity of the oppressed”.
