Workers' Fight workplace bulletin editorials, 23 January 2007

On Monday, the report by the Police Ombudsman into collusion between the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the Special Branch and Loyalist paramilitaries in Northern Ireland, was made public - even if such collusion has been an open secret for very many years.

What was already known, was not just that the RUC was using cold-blooded murderers as informers, but that they also used them as death squads against Republican activists fighting the British military occupation. But no action has ever been taken against the RUC officers involved.

Numerous past reports and enquiries which exposed the role of the RUC, as well as MI5 and other "special agents" in this respect, have been left on the back burner or even suppressed. Like the report by ex-Manchester Police Chief John Stalker, which cost him his job, or the inquiry into the murder of lawyer, Pat Finucane, conducted by "Sir" John Stevens himself, former Met Chief.

Of course, today, the RUC no longer exists. It has been re-branded as the "Northern Ireland Police Service" (NIPS) and it is supposed to be a "non-sectarian" police force.

But the truth of the matter is that behind the RUC, the long arm of the British government and its state machinery was always to be found. And today it is still very much alive.

Significantly, there is no question of exposing the role of senior British officials, MI5 or MOD special agents, in the 15 murders, 15 attempted murders, punishment beatings and shootings, etc., all documented in this latest report.

No, the Dirty Tricks Department is to remain intact and under cover in London, at all costs. In fact, this government is about to give it a new lease of life - and even higher status!

Hasn't John Reid just announced his plans to set up a "National Security Department" modelled on Bush's National Security Administration (NSA)?

This way, the Dirty Tricks Department will get a brand new legitimacy, no matter how many mountains of reports are written to expose its crimes. We have been warned.

The government has announced that 40 "Respect Zones" will be set up in England, to fight anti-social behaviour. Blair decided to reveal this personally, in a "face the people" session in Brighton.

These Respect Zones are meant to provide parenting classes, meetings between police and the public, and "intervention projects" to tackle so-called "neighbours from hell".

The Zones embrace whole metropolitan councils and borough councils, like those of Birmingham, Sunderland, Liverpool and Manchester, for instance. Yet only £6m in total has been granted by the government for this purpose! This works out at around £150,000 per Zone - or the price of one small house! What a joke!

There is no question of generous funds being made available to "tackle" the insufficient and inappropriate housing and lack of amenities which blight so many of our towns and cities. And if this chronic dereliction is not the direct cause of neighbourly disputes and the "badly behaved children" Blair singles out, it certainly makes them very much worse. But of course, that the government once again plays at "tackling the crime" and ignores the real causes, is no surprise.

But it is all the more outrageous, when one contrasts this latest puny £6m, with the £53 billion which this same government has made available, out of public funds, to private sharks who are feeding off the NHS and contributing to its demise.

The "Keep Our NHS Public" campaign has estimated that out of the hospitals' PFI projects alone, private businessmen and their shareholders will make "take home" profits of £23 billion over 30 years. Yes, to spend on their multiple homes and castles here in England, and in the warmer climes where they take their holidays and moor their private yachts.

Of course, that kind of high living at public expense is not considered "anti-social" behaviour by Blair and his ministers. No, these same sharks are honoured by this government. If they do not get peerages after loaning some of their takings back to the Labour Party, they are given directorships of government quangos and jobs as Tony's "advisors".

There is a very long list of such "respectable" people, but fortunately for most working people, at least they will never have to put up with them living next door.