Go For A Million (1993)

Party News from the November 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

Do you want to support us in our biggest campaign yet?

Our plans for the June 1994 Euro-election are now well underway. We will be putting up genuine Socialist candidates in four seats: Birmingham East, Glasgow, London Central and Lothians. These constituencies are nearly ten times the size of the Westminster ones, so in our campaign we will effectively be contesting the equivalent of 37 parliamentary seats.

This will mean that over two million electors will have a first time ever chance to vote for the case for Socialism.

In return for the £4,000 deposit which we will pay, the Post Office will distribute our Socialist Manifesto to one million households. This will be the widest single circulation of socialist ideas in our history. 

So if ever there was a good time to make a donation it is now. Please send your contributions to Election Fund, The Socialist Party, (52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN) and please make cheques payable to The Socialist Party of Great Britain. To contribute through a standing order, write to us for a form.

Between the Lines: After Warrington (1993)

The Between the Lines Column from the November 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

After Warrington

Colin and Wendy Parry lost their son, Tim, aged twelve, to an IRA bomb. Their response was to try to find out why he was killed. Panorama (BBC 1, 9.30 pm, 6 September) followed them as they visited the rival factions in search of their tribal motives. It was moving and compelling viewing, but, above all, it was frustrating. The Parrys are the kind of reasonable people socialists like to meet; their minds were genuinely exercised by the question "Why?". But the responses of those they met on their quest for knowledge ranged from the entrenchedly bigoted to the enthusiastically stupid.

This TV viewer has grown bored of watching ghetto catholics and protestants pleading a defence for their blinkered outlooks. The self-pitying nationalists who want us to imagine that the Great Famine is still going on and that it constitutes some kind of an excuse for blowing up children should dry their eyes and stop whining; nobody beyond the drunken barroom rebels of Boston cares less about their persistent self-indulging in a patriotism which puts kids in graves. And as for the protestant bigots, always shown to us on our screens from their siege headquarters in the Shankhill Road, they should be informed in no uncertain terms that their vociferous paranoia in defence of a Union which confines them to slums and slogans is a form of nationalist arrogance, made worse by the fact that they too are wage-slaves and have nothing but their illusion of ascendancy to defend. Who cares about these people with their shallow, offensive ethical defences for the prejudices which keep the undertakers busy.

But worse than these home-grown fools, whose only hope now lies in the recognition that instead of fighting to protect their poverty they have a world and not a nation to win, there were the fellow-travelling republicans in Boston — the Noraid brigade who want to see bodybags for their bucks. Who could but admire the patience of Colin Parry, a man whose son was murdered with the support of these remote-control warriors, when one of them (no doubt the son of a nephew of a man who claimed once to spend his boyhood in Kerry) told him that his position of opposing all violence was too easy? No doubt they would prefer it it he came to the war in Ireland by their lofty route: by sitting in a bar in Boston drinking imported stout, singing rebel songs which they do not understand and which decent people have long ago forgotten the words of, and putting dollars in collections so that more Tim Parrys can leave home one morning and arrive at the mortuary before it is dark.

Pretty Woman meets Reality

Not being much of a cinema-goer, ITV’s showing of Pretty Woman (9 m, 5 September), starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere, was this writer’s first opportunity to see this tale of Cinderella encountering the delights of the free market. The romance is quite simple: Gere, a millionaire whose description of his uselessness as a property speculator was good stuff, picks up Roberts, a hooker who looks like a Hollywood movie star. He pays her huge amounts of money; she gives him sex and then falls in love with him. According to the Beatles, money can’t buy you love, but times have changed and if you want to spend the rest of your life with Julia Roberts, open a deposit account now. Then on Wednesday, 8 September BBC 1’s Inside Story ran the sequel to the film. It was not intended to be a follow-up; it was a documentary about prostitutes and their lives. None of them looked much like Julia Roberts did, but a few of them might have done had they not suffered years of being beaten up by ruthless pimps who wanted their money’s worth out of their investments. It was a story of the daily struggle which our opponents celebrate as the free marker. It’s a strange medium, TV: you watch a romance about buying sex and smile at the happy ending; if the documentary would have been shown immediately before the film its offensive message might just have been a little clearer.

Steve Coleman

Letter: Do you get the picture? (1993)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

Do you get the picture?

Dear Editors.

You know what happens to the sheep that follows the goat down the path of no return? They end up in the freezer. It doesn’t pay to follow leaders!

It reminds me of an old saying I heard in the Socialist ranks. "Where there are leaders there are led, where there are led there are bled". When you act like sheep you are begging to dc sheared. Do you ever wonder why millions are spent during a campaign to get someone into office? Obviously there is a great deal at stake. Candidates are identified by their ideology. If a Socialist candidate entered the race, his only monetary support would be supplied by the Socialist Party and they would have to rely on donations from the members and sympathizers and they are unlikely to have any rich "Perots" to help them. Since we are the only Party that represents working-class interests it follows that the Government is owned by those who can spend millions on campaigns. They pass all the laws in their favour. They have at their disposal all the most able professors of economics, all the captains of industry. Nevertheless, even with all their power, they cannot make capitalism do their bidding. It is like trying to steer a boat without a rudder. No-one can fix something that cannot be fixed! We must replace capitalism with socialism. "Once a Socialist always a Socialist" is a familiar saying among socialists. When you have become convinced that reforming capitalism doesn’t work (for the have-nots) there is no other alternative.

We all pay taxes, right? Consider this; in the last 50 years that I know of, taxes have increased year after year and we have been able to pay them. Where do we get the money? In your pay envelope. When you negotiate with your boss for a raise, the "cost of living" is the main topic of discussion, and that includes taxes. Do you get the picture?

William Hewitson, 

Santa Maria, California

If Maria Victoria, of Collyhurst, Manchester, will supply us with an address we will be able to reply to her recent letter.

The Penguin Dictionary of Politics (1993)

Book Review from the November 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Penguin Dictionary of Politics by David Robertson. £6.99.

This new edition is alright on subjects like referendums and the party system in Scandinavia but hopelessly inadequate on anything to do with Socialism or Marx — though the idea of the former USSR as "state capitalism" does get a mention.

50 Years Ago: The coal crisis (1993)

The 50 Years Ago column from the November 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

Between 1920 and 1939 a serious situation existed for the miners; poverty, unemployment, ill-health and fatalities were constant and recurring features of their lives. They marched to London, their leaders addressed meetings of protest demanding that something be done. Nothing was done by the Government except in 1931 when the meagre dole was cut on the grounds of “economy” and “equality of sacrifice” (with the sanction of the majority of the Labour Government) : a marked difference from the feverish activity now shown by the Government and its spokesmen, when faced with a serious coal shortage. There were no newspaper appeals then nor any broadcasts calling men to volunteer for this “honourable and vital work.” There existed no need to entreat or flatter workers—in fact, when miners sought to improve their working conditions or prevent a lowering of these conditions, abuse was the weapon used against them by the mineowners or their apologists. The miners’ leaders have been referred to as “Arrogant, bellicose, stubborn to the verge of stupidity” (page 96. “The Coal Problem,” 1936, by J, Dickie, formerly Liberal National M.P. for Consett).

[From an article by L. J., in the Socialist Standard, November 1943.]

SPGB Meetings (1993)

Party News from the November 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

World Socialist Radio - No Such Thing (2025)

Adapted from the November 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘No Such Thing as Free Buses’ and ‘Woolly Thinking’, by The Socialist Party of Great Britain

Proposals for “free buses” under capitalism—like the plan by New York politician Zohran Mamdani—paint a misleading picture: there’s no such thing as “free” in a system based on profit. While fare-free public transport would indeed make travel easier and lower emissions, the column warns that funding it via higher local taxes essentially subsidises employers by reducing the cost of living, which in turn can suppress wages. The only way to make transport—and all essential services—truly free and accessible for everyone, according to the authors, is to abolish the wage system entirely and bring the means of production into common, democratic ownership, enabling a socialist society where goods and services are provided solely to meet people’s needs.

In Woolly Thinking the author critiques trade union leader Sarah Woolley’s call to raise taxes on the rich and corporations in order to fund public services like housing, health, education, and a “just transition.” While she argues that the money already exists in society, the article contends that under capitalism, that wealth comes from surplus value created by workers — which capitalists then reinvest or hoard. Taxing profits would reduce incentives for reinvestment, likely leading to less job creation, lower wages, and a shrinking tax base. The piece warns that these reformist proposals misunderstand how capitalism fundamentally operates.

Articles taken from the November 2025 edition of The Socialist Standard.

World Socialist Radio is the official podcast of The Socialist Party of Great Britain. We have one single aim: the establishment of a society in which all productive resources – land, water, factories, transport, etc. – are taken into common ownership, and in which the sole motive for production is the fulfilment of human needs and wants.

World Socialist Radio is the official podcast of The Socialist Party of Great Britain. We have one single aim: the establishment of a society in which all productive resources – land, water, factories, transport, etc. – are taken into common ownership, and in which the sole motive for production is the fulfilment of human needs and wants.

RSS Feed for No Such Thing as Free Buses’ and ‘Woolly Thinking’.

To read more news, views, and analysis please visit: worldsocialism.org/spgb