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Okay.
I can't
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Welcome to Sputnik, orbiting the world
with me, George Galloway,
and me, Gatri. The new Pope Francis
kicked off the red shoes and put on
workers boots, escued a limousine for a
blue Ford Focus, and hasn't spent a
night in the papal palace, preferring
the Spartan boarding house he'd stayed
in before his election. He has emerged
as the leading critic of contemporary
capitalism in the world, even going to
Davos to lash the selfishness and greed
of the world's ruling elite. The world's
first Latin American pope where almost
half a billion Catholics reside and the
first Jesuit is being received
everywhere he goes as a kind of
superstar and appears to have lifted the
reputation of the Catholic Church which
had been on the floor over corruption,
child abuse and 100 scandals.
The charisma he radiates contrasts
vividly with the cold Germanic purity of
his predecessor Pope Benedict. And as he
crosses the first anniversary of his
papacy, we're discussing the superstar
pope with Catholic thinker and activist
Dr. Declan Hayes. Declan, one man
doesn't make a team. Uh but Lionel Messi
is a superstar even in the Barcelona
team. Would you give credit to the
theory that uh this superstar pope has
lifted the Catholic Church off the
floor?
No, not really. Um if if you go back to
uh another so-called superstar uh Pope
John Paul II,
he really fed into the American agenda.
Um and in fact Rush Limbo who is
attacking the current Pope says that he
badly compares to Pope John Paul II and
he puts Pope John Paul in with Margaret
Thatcher and Ronald Rean. Now you can
figure that company out yourself. Pope
John Paul was if you like a tough pole
and he set out with a mission and some
of the mission he did achieve. The
current pope does not like being called
a superstar. And in fact, from a
Catholic viewpoint and if you like, you
come and I come from the same robust
general Catholic background, shall we
say. And I would like to see more of
that robustness and more of the best
elements of the robust community, not
individual, that the two of us uh come
from. And in fact, if we just look at
your own history a long time ago, uh
what robustness was there? Um brother
Wilfred, a superstar by anybody's
measurement, he went to Glasgow and he
started a team which still gives a lot
of respect to a lot of people around the
world. And if you like that superstar
was the beginning of the diversity that
we have in Britain at the moment. And
brother Wilfred,
Pope, the current pope, they can only
lead. It's really other people have to
follow.
Oh, no. I agree. I mean, the proof of
the pudding's in the eating. But just
judge where we were a year ago. Benedict
was if not unpopular then really rather
mediocre. Uh the church was enveloped in
scandals. Uh some of which of course I
agree it's still enveloped in. Uh its
reputation couldn't really have fallen
very much uh lower. Now triple the
numbers are turning out for papal events
with Francis. And he does seem to have a
certain something just like Messi. No,
Messi certainly has a certain something.
It's a pity his grandmother doesn't come
from Ireland. Now, if you go back a
year, yes, that stuff about the uh child
sex abuse was going on and is still
going on. And in fact, one of the super
cardinals he's bringing to um supposedly
sort out the Vatican. uh George Pel who
I knew from Australia.
Australians say that they're only taking
him out of Australia because of the
whole child sex abuse stuff there that's
brewing up now. George Pel is supposed
to sort out the economics of the Vatican
which is a mess as bad as their media.
And I don't think a superstar I don't
think Messi or Balotelli or the Pope or
anybody else can do this. It takes a
very concerted effort and I think one
very good thing he has done in that
respect is he's bringing in outside
people the likes of McKenzie to look at
this and to try to sort out some of the
in his own words the leprosy of the
Vatican. He definitely doesn't live as a
superstar. As we all know, he lives a
very sober lifestyle. But everywhere he
goes, he's being received as such. You
know, the followers um are
overwhelmingly enthusiastic about him
because they can relate to him as he
does relate to them, the common people,
the poor in specific.
Okay. Yeah. But but the question is what
does enthusiasm bring to the party,
right? You actually need organization.
Now, if if we look at the Middle East,
the Palestinian or the Syrian thing or
anywhere else, there's a lot of great
people there on the ground doing a lot
of great work, but they actually need
organized support behind him. Now, I was
in the Vat I I I was in Rome there about
two weeks ago. I called into the
Palestinian embassy and uh some other
places. I hadn't time to go to the
Vatican, and there's priests and nuns
all over the place in Rome. And the
question is, and uh Pope Francis is
asking it himself, what what are all you
guys doing here in Rome? Why aren't you
out, you know, working in the fields
kind of, you know, in Africa, in
England, everywhere else?
Bethlehem. Uh something very important
to uh you as well as me and Guyatri. Uh
in in in Bethlehem, Mary would not she
would have had to give birth to Jesus at
a checkpoint. uh the Palestinian
Christians and uh Syrian Christians,
which is a slightly separate matter, but
nonetheless crucial. Pope should be
doing a bit more on that. No,
the Pope is actually going to Israel
Palestine uh in May. There's several
things he could do in Bethlehem. One is
to go up to that checkpoint at 3:00 in
the morning to see the Muslims and the
Christians uh going in for work. And I'm
not exaggerating here. I've been there
at 3:00 in the morning. And the and the
nearest thing I can think of that is the
French slave laborers of World War II.
That's what they look like. You have to
beware of Greeks bearing gifts and you
also have to be aware of Irish people h
bearing grips. I have a little present
for you here, dietry. It's it's olive
oil soap made by Palestinians. I bought
this in Thai Bay from French nuns who
are doing a lot of good work. Here is
packaging from a different Christian
group in in the Holy Land. And these
people need if he wants to do something
symbolic, what he could do is go in and
buy 20 million buy 20 million bars of
soap. If the if if the if the church has
to have a mission, right? It is
certainly uh the mission should be not
killing the Christians and Muslims of
the Middle East as as a lot of these uh
right-wing people want to do. The
mission has to be something else.
Well, the biggest killer is capitalism,
of course. That's the biggest killer the
world has ever known. It's killing poor
people in every continent
uh all the time.
Yeah, but that's an abstraction, right?
The bullets read US of A, right? And and
the the Pope and the Catholic Church has
to actively oppose this. Not not perhaps
uh if you like totally physically, but a
lot of symbolic stuff can be done and
the pope is in an excellent position to
do that. But there are a lot of people
in the Vatican and everywhere else who
don't who want him essentially singing
from the same more or less the same hym
sheet as Rush Limbo and everybody else
and that's his real challenge and he has
started well there by trying to sideline
a lot of those people but he does have
his work uh cut out um I I before Geneva
2 for example uh he he he'd invited or
somebody had invited I think it was the
French had invited Tony Blair to to
discuss solving.
I've got that here. One of the great
paradoxes of our age that a a man who
the last pope asked or the previous but
one begged him not to invade Iraq and
cause
essentially cause ineluctibly cause the
slaughter of thousands of Iraqi
Christians as a result of the American
and British invasion. And uh Tony Blair
laughed in his face and walked out and
did it. M
how on earth is it possible that Tony
Blair is such a welcome guest in the
Roman Catholic Church?
Well, I suppose H Pinoce has a soul
would be the argument and so has Tony
Blair and probably thank God it's not
your soul or uh or my soul but you know
the power of prayer does work and um h
we all prayed h fervently and luckily
Mr. Chiron died. So, um, Tony Blair went
to Chiron's funeral instead of showing
up at at the Vatican.
Place for him,
which much better. But could you imagine
how the message that would have sent out
to to um the to the Christians and the
Muslims of of the Middle East. And when
the Pope goes to Palestine, Israel, um,
again, people want them, the Israeli
government want them to sing a certain
message. and they do have a lot of
power. But he has to try to sing the
message that the Christians and the
other people of goodwill in the Middle
East and throughout the world want him
to sing. He has to build up a robust
Catholicism, a Catholicism or a thing
that's not afraid to speak its
viewpoint. Now, now I know it's a kind
of a family affair today with the Hayes
family, right? But but um you know Bob
Crowe was not afraid to say what he
said, right? Bob Crow would get up on
his pulpit and he expelled people of the
uh BMP from it. Right? Uh he actually
expelled leading members of the Labor
Party. Okay. Now he walked the walk. So
it's it's easy enough to talk the talk,
but walking the walk is important as
Certainly not walking them in the last
pope's red shoes, but in a worker's
boots. Well, unfortunately, we're out of
time. It's been a pleasure disagreeing
with you. Thanks very much, Declan
Hayes. Coming up after the break, trade
union bells were muffled this week upon
the death of just 52 of one of Britain's
great working-class leaders. We'll be
talking about Bob Crowe with his friend
and another great union man, leader of
Britain's communication workers, Billy
Hayes.
A
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if you're killing women and children
continuously knowingly for so many
years, it is worth trying.
Martin Luther King said, "I have a
dream. Obama is today telling me I have
a drone."
[Applause]
The drones have not caused a huge number
of civilian casualties. Uh that for the
most part they have been very precise
precision strikes against al-Qaeda. And
this small body on the ground is a
little girl and just next to her is a
little boy of eight.
[Music]
We do some operations Afghanistan. Yes.
And also which other countries?
Uh Afghanistan's the only one that I can
confirm that we are operating in
in Yemen.
Afghanistan's the only other country
that I can confirm
and Pakistan.
Afghanistan's the only country I can
confirm.
Heat. Heat.
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I don't understand how the world can let
NATO
not say sorry for this.
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[Applause]
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Bob Crow, the leader of Britain's
railway workers, merchant seaman, and
other transport staffs, was Britain's
most successful union leader. His
members loved him, and their bosses
loathed him.
And the media hated them even more. If
Bob Crow had woken up on Tuesday
morning, he would have read yet another
attack in the right-wing press. This
week on his salary, the week before on
his holidays, and before that, that he
had stayed in the house he had stayed in
since he was an ordinary railway man
himself.
Media hostility was unremitting, proving
he constituted a clear and present
danger to the way things are and a
powerful advocate of how things could
be. To discuss Bob Crow's life and what
the meaning of the well of affection
brimming over since his death means is
another powerful union leader with many
of the same attributes. He's Billy
Hayes, leader of the Union of
Communication Workers. Billy, thanks for
coming on board the Sputnik. The meaning
of uh Bob Crow's death, we'll come to in
a minute, but his life was pretty
spectacular. Short and spectacular. And
the impact that he made as a union
leader, well, it's hard to compare him
with any other.
No, he was probably Britain's most
famous trade union leader. And he was he
was charismatic. He was uh, you know,
everybody knew Bob was, but he was also
a great guy. He was also a good human
being. you know, he had all the
attributes of uh what it is to be a
leader. He was friendly. He was kind. I
never hear him once rubbish anyone
individually and he but he fought for
the people that you know the he
represented and he fought very well and
he was he was seen to be very effective
as a trade union leader. union
membership in his union grew by 30% in
the 12 years he was the leader
and the wages I don't know what the
percentage increase was but everyone
famously talks about the London
underground driver on more than £50,000
a year heaven forbid that any blue
collar worker should earn more than
50,000 a year of course he had some
good luck in the sense that he was
representing a section of workers with a
monopoly on their uh services. But do
you think that his style of negotiating,
his style of confrontation, if you like,
has something to offer other union
leaders?
Well, you know, Thatcher said weakness
invites aggression. Well, Bob took it as
a word in some ways. You know, he he
knew that he he was to to coward and
back off that, you know, you would be
treated badly. And, you know, yes, he
had some luck in terms of London
Underground. Let's not forget as you say
he represented seafare workers that's a
much diff more difficult but even low
paid cleaners he he represented them
well he was prepared to fight and
because he the the the establishment if
you like knew he's prepared to fight
they dealt with him you know they I I he
was unapologetic for improving the
living standards and the conditions of
of his people and you know he's to be
applauded for that
he died on the eve literally of the uh
anniversary 30th anniversary of the
minor strike.
The defeat of the miners marked a very
important turning point, as we both
know, turning point down a road that uh
has not been good.
Uh do you think the death of Bob Crow
will be a turning point, too? Will there
be any other Bob Crows?
I think there's going to be other
people. You know, Bob had a certain
style uh that was a Bob Crow style and
it was a it was a one-off. But the idea
that you represent people, you know,
fiercely represented the government
itself shows by its own figures. If
you're in a trade union, your pay is
likely to be on average about 18% what
is in an organized sector. And the main
reason why people uh you know maybe not
join unions is fear. But Bob showed you
join a strong trade union and you take
action and you will improve the lot of
working people. He left a lasting
legacy. That was the paying conditions
of the people he represented.
Of course, his union uh was expelled
from the Labor Party same more or less
same time as me and for similar uh
reasons even though it was the railway
workers union that actually proposed the
motion which established the Labor Party
uh in the first place.
Uh Bob supported with the political
funds of the union.
Yeah.
uh freed from constraint once the labor
had expelled them. Some
political formations that haven't done
well uh and uh and some that uh were
positively wrong. I mean I think for
example his
his no to EU stand was the wrong uh
stand
but at least in a way he was able to
creatively decide on behalf of the union
uh where the funds of the union should
go. Are unions going to be involved in
politics in their own right more and
more in the way that Bob pioneered?
I'm not so sure to be honest with you. I
mean, as you say, George, the the the
formations of these, the reason why they
were expelled, which was affiliating, as
I understand it, to the Scottish
Socialist Party, I mean, that fell apart
for for lots of different reasons. Uh, I
think the problem is, and you know,
there's a lack of political
representation in this country and at
the moment, the only party that even now
with all the changes is the Labor Party.
now that you know and that's in this
country in this particular point in
history you know um I don't think
there's much alternative for trade
unions other than to get this government
out and the only party that's capable of
doing that in the next 420 days is the
Labour party but I think the problem for
the for the Labor party and for the
political class in this country Bob you
know was elected by in ordinary people
and there's an underrepresentation of
ordinary people in this
Even in the Labour party when you know
we had uh two wings of the party anus
Bevon who give us the atomic bomb and
Narin Beavenon who give us the national
health service they were from you know
workingass stock as it were now you
don't have to be a horny hand of soil
just to be an MP but you we do need to
have a bit more of a locus in the lives
of ordinary people and I do think
there's a bit of a political crisis in
that respect in terms of workingclass
represent resentation. I don't think the
avenue that Bob chose was the right one.
And similarly with the EU, I didn't
agree with him on the EU, but Bob's, you
know, mission was to represent people.
The first thing we must do as trade
unions is pull ourselves up and
represent the people who who look to us
for to looking after them in the
workplace. The problem that we've got in
society at the moment is that, you know,
the political class don't just don't
seem to get it. Now, we know that the
right-wing media attacked him
enormously, almost on a daily rate. Now,
Bob Crow appears like a very strong man,
but do you think it affected him in any
way negatively or was he able to brush
it away and carry on?
You know, Bob was like every one of us,
you know, uh I'm sure there were times
when he, you know, when they attacked
his family or attacked his home, you
know, or followed them around. I mean,
I've had similar but not on the same
scale as Bob because of Bob's notoriety
in some ways, but I'm sure it affected
them. You know, Narin Beavenon once said
the to the Tories are hard are soft on
the outside and hard inside. And
workingclass people are hard on the
outside and soft inside.
And that was true of Bob. you know, for
all his bluster and all his tenacity and
determination. He was quite a gentle and
and and a very intelligent man.
Uh Billy, I mean, the point you've
identified is undoubtedly true that only
labor can get the Tories out. That I
agree with.
I hope Labor wins.
But what kind of labor is a big question
now? What the unions going to do to
continue to back labor? Yes. continue to
fund labor. Yes. But what can the unions
do to try and make labor more
representative of the working class in
the way that Bob Crow represented the
working class?
That's a big question. Um, and I don't
think there's a, you know, there's a
there's a single answer. I think the
first thing that we have to do as trade
unions is represent the people were paid
to look after. That's the first point.
And install a confidence that was there.
um you know when you know when you
became politically active and I think we
can't underestimate on this anniversary
of the minor strike how much of an
impact that had that has had on workers
self-confidence and working class
self-confidence and at the moment the
only show in town really is is the Tory
government I have two kind of scenarios
how are you going to feel if the Tories
get a a majority at the next election
Um and and if Labour win, you know,
we'll be we'll be some trepidation about
that, but we know there's a bit of space
in which to operate. You know, Tar Ali
famously said there's only 6% difference
sometimes between a Labor and a Torian,
but we operate in that 6%. I think there
is an issue about under representation
and we're trying to do what we can as a
trade union you know um in terms of um
ensuring representation but you know
I've got the the polit the general
election results going back to 1892
and apart from the 1930s and apart from
individual bi-elections and you know
yours is a case in point George there's
no evidence that parties to the left of
the Labour party so-called left at times
have done well. I mean at the Eastley
bi-election the trade union socialist
coalition got less votes than Elvis
loves pets party you know and it's only
when you got a particular uh by I think
what we need what we need to address
also is a change in composition of
Britain you know the it's much more
multicultural so I think it's slow
patient work and I'd never say now and
forever for all time we've seen places
like Germany
where the delinka you Although it
dropped its vote at the last election.
Yeah.
Still got 70 plus
still got exact. So you know there
particular reason but it oeriza in
Greece at the moment on current polls
it's getting a better vote than the uh
the Greek social democratic party.
So it's never for always for all time
but in these particular circumstances I
would see the main priority is um making
sure that the Tories are not returned at
the next election. Well, Bob Crow would
certainly agree with us on that last
point if not on uh all of the others.
Billy Hayes, trade union leader, real
leader of the working people,
remembering the late Bob Crow.
Now it's your turn to tell us what you
think in the social media review
roundup. What's rattling guy?
I asked the people what they thought
about superstar Pope Francis. Dynamit
Media says, "Not a superstar, but a
friend of the poor, humble pastor and an
enemy of the wararmongers. Read his
anti- capitalist Evangali Gaudium." To
which uh Farah Ali uh argues further
that he's definitely a step in the right
direction, especially in view of his
predecessor, but he's not a superstar
for religious leaders. Such conduct
should be the norm, not the exception.
something very wrong with the system of
appointment that is so inconsistent.
Well, I mean it all sounds like a
superstar to me. Uh but the numbers uh I
mean the old song 40,000 Frenchmen can't
be wrong.
Audiences have tripled in 12 months.
When Benedict went anywhere they really
had to work hard even to get the
faithful on parade. The others were not
interested. with this pope. The faithful
are flooding out and non-atholics are
listening for the first time in a long
time to what a pope has to say.
I think we are bigger fans of the Pope
Francis than Declan and all our
followers.
That's definitely uh appear definitely
appears to be uh the case
about Bob Crow, the late Bob Crowe. Andy
Gilchrist says it's a major setback. He
would tell us to pick up the ball and
run again. RMT will never replace him,
but one we will. And David Thomas says,
"We value rare folk like him, widely
recognized for integrity and commitment
to his socialist purpose." Decent.
Decent indeed. Uh, one of the most
significant things about the death of
Bob Crowe is how much sadness there has
been in the country about it. If you'd
believed the newspapers, Bob Crow was
the most hated man in Britain.
Yeah. And yet,
except he wasn't. Yeah,
he wasn't because people knew that in
him they saw an authentic working-class
leader who may have views which they
didn't agree with, may have taken
actions which they didn't agree with,
but they never doubted the sincerity of
his motives. He had no master
other than the working people who
elected him. And my goodness, did he
represent them well.
And that's all for this week,
which sadly means that's the end of the
show. You know, you can reach us on
Twitter at RT_Sputnik
and on Facebook you can like us on
Sputnik on Russia Today. That's it for
me, Goyatri.
And from me, George Galloway, it's been
marvelous.
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