The two suspects in the south London slavery case ran a Communist collective in the 1970s that worshipped the Chinese leader Chairman Mao, the Daily Telegraph has learned.
I take it that we’ll be calling the billion odd Chine3e who suffered for 30 years under Mao slaves as well then?
Or possible we should be calling all N Koreans slaves?
Actually, that last sounds about right….
The Daily Telegraph has learned that the couple arrested last week were well known to the police having set up a notorious Communist squat in 1974 and have both served prison sentences associated with their political activities.
Based in Brixton, south London, the couple set about recruiting women from other far left groups, encouraging them to engage in “revolutionary work”.
The organisation published political pamphlets calling for the downfall of Western Capitalism and also ran lectures, study groups and held film screenings.
In 1978 police raided their premises, arresting 14 members of the organisation, including the two leaders, who were later jailed after being convicted of assaulting a police officer.
After the headquarters were closed, the organisation is understood to have broken up with the two heads of the group moving into a squat in Brixton with a number of their followers.
The collective were later given social housing by Lambeth Council and moved into a large house in the Herne Hill area.
Isn’t that lovely? The local council gave them a larger house to keep the slaves in?
Cue outrage from politicians and rent-seekers calling for a clampdown on extreme left-wing groups. Cue sound of pin dropping.
This thing is so not slavery. You’ve got this remnant of a commune, acting as a kind of informal polygamy (wife number one + 2 extras), so a sub-wife decides she wants to leave but not sure how, and rings a charity for help… and the charity call the police, the police crusader division decide they can make this into a justificatory case for the “slavery wot ain’t really slavery law”, after all it’s sort of coercive right?
So, they’ve been working the women over for the past month, into getting them to bring charges when they initially stipulated they didn’t want to. Why would they? They just wanted some help leaving a situation they’d been in for 30 years and didn’t know how to live any other way any more.
The whole thing is ridiculous.
I’m guessing that Irish Wifelet figured if she called a charity, they’d sort everything out including getting the social to rehouse them. And it’s all snowballed from there.
Could we not send them Seumas Milne to be a replacement wife-slave?
@Steve: I’m still laughing.
Can’t see why anyone is surprised. The defining characteristic of far left countries is big fences on their borders oriented primarily to stop the inmates escaping.
*orders more popcorn*
I’m still a bit baffled how May has leaped from the discovery of a
left over communist collective to rabbiting on about the evils of Vietnamese nail bars.
Ian B,
We’re now looking at charities as industries, aiming to increase their size and sustaining themselves, and colluding with the state to help the state achieve its aims.
The government is putting through a bill called the Trafficking Prevention Orders, and this case means that Theresa May’s words to anyone questioning it will include the words “slavery, right here in a suburban street in London”.
People really have to understand just how much the name “charity” is being abused now. Being a charity is a powerful brand, because it suggests decency and honesty when some are really just about the promotion of ideas, or the people running them.
And their website reeks of fake charity. The lack of call for volunteers, a “team” that mostly executives, the presence of a Labour peer.
Of course, they’re now selling a “snowed under with work since rescuing these women” story, which means that the government can throw even more money at them.
Arguably, this was Labour’s greatest legacy – creating a whole new level of state bureaucracy with a self-interest in expansion and survival with no oversight who can act as an opposition to the Tories from an allegedy moral, independent standpoint.
The Left would have us all turned into serfs, so the politics of all this is hardly surprising.
And what The Stlgler said about fake charities. Some serious reform of charity law is required, if only we had someone in Number 10 with the minerals to do it.
VC, talking about balls in No.10.
Cameron is the boss in No.10,
And he has his wife’s permission to say that!
Sounds like the sort of setup the Guardian usually drools over. I wonder if their coverage will dry up after this?
Well, there is still an article linked on the Guardian online home page. But it is from yesterday. And although it relentlessly rants about “shared ideology”, it doesn’t mention that it might just be a wee bit leftist, rather than, say, Scientology.
Oh, sorry, the article does mention that the 1970s arrests were “linked to their roles in a far-left political movement based in Brixton”.
Arguably, this was Labour’s greatest legacy – creating a whole new level of state bureaucracy with a self-interest in expansion and survival with no oversight who can act as an opposition to the Tories from an allegedy moral, independent standpoint.
It was the Tories who started to partner with Charities. At the time they thought it more efficient to outsource, and who better to outsource to than the trusted third sector.
Waiting for the news that they were a spin-off from the SWP…
“ITV News’ UK Editor Lucy Manning understands that the couple accused of holding three women as slaves for more than 30 years are Aravindan Balakrishnan, known as Comrade Bala, and his wife Comrade Chanda.”
Human traffiking, slavery, this really should be Guardian territory, but for some reason they are a bit quiet on this one, not even a CiF article yet.
“[1] In all fourteen people were arrested in two raids. On March 4, 1978 the fascist police raided the Centre and arrested five people on trumped-up charges. They included Comrade Bala, the Secretary of the Workers’ Institute and his close comrade and wife Comrade Chanda. They were both physically assaulted and charged with causing “actual bodily harm” to the police! They both refused to recognise the fascist courts and upheld the authority of our Party, and were sentenced to six and three months in jail respectively. This is the sixth time that Comrade Bala has been likewise politically detained since 1971 in Britain. Comrade Chanda who went through her second political detention, the first time being in 1971, nearly lost her right eye through the injury caused by the brutality of the fascist police during their attack on the Centre on March 4, 1978. Comrade Chanda is a member of our Party Committee.”
http://www.marxists.org/history/erol/uk.hightide/closure.htm
Obvious loons but reading that link above I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the allegations of police brutality and racist insults are true. This was the seventies after all, that sort of thing was not just common it seems to have been obligatory, if you were already inclined to paranoia it would only have confirmed your delusions.
@TDK, Stigler,
regarding Labour’s legacy, you sure that’s not ‘Orders’? ASBOs to SOPO’s to TPOs. IE legal instruments allowing punitive actions over incidents outside established offences.
Not underselling the whole ‘independent charities, that we pay, claim that something must be done’ angle, it’s a nasty propaganda tool, but ‘fill in the blanks’ penal codes are flat-out scary.