Party News Briefs (1958)

Party News from the January 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Hemel Hempstead.—Will all those members and sympathisers who live in the Hemel Hempstead area and who are interested in the formation of a group in the area, please communicate with: B. N. West, 44, Adeyfield Gardens, Hemel Hempstead.

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Propaganda.—At the termination of the Speakers' Classes, which have been held by the Propaganda Committee at Conway Hall, six of the twelve members are taking the Speakers' Test and, if successful, will add to the number of official Party speakers to the list and so enable the Propaganda Committee to extend their programme in 1958. The class was most successful and it is to be hoped that arrangements can be made in-the near future to run another series.

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Film at Head Office.—Although no meetings were held during the last three Sundays in December they will recommence this month, the first being held on January 5th. 

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Why the B.B.C. does not understand.—On 10th December the Overseas Department of the B.B.C. telephoned the S.P.G.B. and asked to speak to Mr. Gaitskell. When they were told that we are the Socialist Party, and Mr. Gaitskell has nothing to do with us, the clerk who was making the call was astonished. She did not know there is a Socialist Party that is not the Labour Party. If the B.B.C. had not refused for 20 years or more to let the S.P.G.B. put the Socialist case on the air, perhaps the B.B.C. staff would have known that there is a Socialist Party.

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Lewisham Branch.—We would like to draw attention to the notice of meetings organised by Lewisham Branch, published in another column. The meetings are held fortnightly on Monday evenings. It is hoped that members will attend and bring along sympathisers and make this venture a success.

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Islington Branch have taken over the arrangements for the Tower Hill lunch hour meetings each Thursday. Despite inclement weather, these meetings are being well attended and members who are in the vicinity should try to get along and support the meetings.

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“Socialist Standard.”—Each January a particular reference is made to the Annual Subscription form for the Standard. A form appears in this issue and it is to be hoped that readers will use this and ensure a regular delivery each month.

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Tottenham Branch Secretary writes that Comrade T. H. Fowler died in October last. Comrade Fowler was 80 years of age and joined the Party in 1913, regularly attending propaganda meetings and selling literature. He was always a willing helper in the canteen at Party Conferences and socials. Until earlier this year he was an enthusiastic worker. It is with regret that we learn of his death and extend sympathy to his relatives.

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Extract from letter from Comrade H. Wheatley, Nottingham :—

“My trade-union, the A.U.B.T.W. makes Free-card presentations on 50 years' membership, and myself being included this year, I screwed up pluck to seek permission to face an audience for the first time: a vote of thanks from the recipients really, a very few words; then used the Union-cards of 50 years ago and to-day as emblems of a deeper and broader outlook, hoping that also applied to each individual member; but 50 years was slow progress with results that still left them, fighting old battles repeatedly, pointed out the need to understand the present system, and then realising the identical interests of ALL workers, they must eventually see no reason for division

After much revision and cutting, I got through two closely packed pages of urging to look to the future (yes, I had to write it—managed better that way) and drew quite an embarrassing applause. Our leaflets were spread over a spare table, and on count just over 25 each were picked up.

Seeing I had avoided naming the "Party," I think it speaks volumes for our clear case, that an official should state he soon knew just where I was leading—The S.P.G.B.

The more hopeful side is the 30 or so of working Trade Unionists—and their wives—who probably never heard their position put this way before. An effort to follow up by a S.P.G.B. speaker to address their branch met with the usual coldness—they can’t get them in—just pay their dues and depart. This still in mind for further pressure."

Phyllis Howard

Observations: Pop goes Norman (1986)

The Observations Column from the April 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Pop goes Norman

The British Record industry Awards (BBC 1, 10 February) consisted of the usual vacuous ego-tripping and facetious speeches from such useful members of society as the pop group Tears for Fears. The recipients of the awards were the same kind of safe, tedious performers as last year, and the year before, and so on. Phil Collins, the Eurythmics, Huey Lewis and the News, Bruce Springsteen — the list of commercially successful and artistically irrelevant "stars" is endless. Of course, there was the patronising "special award" to Bob Geldof and Live Aid but in general these awards showed that Nothing Had Changed. (Although, in the spirit of tokenism for which the BBC is famous, we even had a Best Classical Recording award.)

However, this award ceremony was special, because the guest of honour was none other than our old friend Norman Tebbit. The emptiness of the speech he was to make was presaged by Noel Edmonds' blatant appeal to naked emotion when he introduced Tebbit as "a man who has recently returned to public life after a long spell in hospital" — or words to that effect: Tebbit began by saying that he didn't know much about pop music (neither does Noel Edmonds, so he was in good company) and then sallied forth into a series of facts and figures showing that pop music was an extremely high-earning export (and therefore ideologically sound as far as Norm was concerned). He praised its "competitiveness" and the fact that it gives pleasure to so many people and went on to praise Live Aid for "helping people less fortunate than ourselves". An analysis of why they are "less fortunate" was too much to hope for, but the hypocrisy of first praising competition and then shedding crocodile tears for the inevitable results of the competitive system was blatant even for Tebbit.

But the awards only served to confirm what Tebbit said — those who are most easily marketable take the awards. Of course, in this twisted society it makes more sense to waste time and effort marketing the garbled vocals of Bruce Springsteen than to ensure the free distribution of resources which would ensure that disasters like the Ethiopian famine can never be repeated.

Socialism will be a world wide society of free access, in which everyone's needs are met. Then there will be no need for faded pop stars to organise fund-raising concerts; no need for hypocritical politicians to congratulate them for doing so and no need for ceremonies in which the musically illiterate are presented with awards for selling more records than their equally illiterate competitors. Pop music will no longer be a commodity to be bought and sold — it will simply not matter whether or not a record is Number One. Maybe music will then give real pleasure rather than a temporary respite from the misery of life under capitalism.

God spot

"Gawd", you mutter, as our Brian, busily buttering up his latest Establishment worthy, rolls over invitingly to have his belly scratched. "What about some genuinely aggressive questioning for a change?" But Scargill's out in the cold these days; Brenda Dean's dangerously popular, and Hughie ("terrible twin") Scanlon s sleeping it off in the Lords alongside Joe (Lord) Gormley. We'll just have to wait until there's a nice juicy striking bus-driver for him to sink his teeth into.

But what's this? Thought for the Day. Aarrgh! Here it comes again! You'll know the sort of thing. Some vicar, attired in the gear of an archangel, arrives at the studio clutching a couple of frying-pans, a brace of walking-sticks. and a chalice of font-water. Like as not he'll be sporting six yards of striped woollen scarf (run up, hell confide unctuously. in celebration of advent) and a crash-helmet. In true evangelical style he's off to Killamey to skid down the Paps while singing the Greater Doxology to the tune of the well-known popular ditty, My Old Man's A Dustman.

“Heavens", observes Master Redhead. "Precisely", murmurs our impassioned divine. You haven't even a free hand to turn the damn thing off as you mop the blood from your lacerated face, or as you scrape the porridge from the kitchen floor. You may remind yourself that, after all, it's only three minutes. But then, it's three minutes every morning. There you are. struggling to interpret the customary BBC Newspeak, fuming, perhaps, at yet another gratuitous assault on yet another group of disaffected trade unionists when — Wham! — you're suffocating in yet another nebulous cloud of sanctimonious codswallop.

They've mugged you again. (This time it's a holy cook who manages to punctuate his pietistic diatribe with entirely disgusting recipes for goatsmeat stew.) But they won't catch you next time — will they?

The great and the good

"I have built many roads and sewers in my time"
(Employment Secretary. Lord Young, on BBC Radio 4. 20 February)

My, my! How about that, then? Of course, Lord Young is not exactly unique in his truly prodigious endeavours, is he? Take the Great Wall of China. You may have heard a broadcasting hack assert (Radio 2, 26 February) that this mighty rampart — all 1500 miles of it — was built by one Shih Hwang-ti. the first of the "universal emperors'. Swiftly on to 5th century Athens BC. Phidias builds the Parthenon. Admittedly, he enjoyed a little help from Ictinus and Callicrates, but it was a brave effort for all that. North-Westward to Rome and the Colosseum. The Emperor Vespasian rolled his sleeves up for this one. Unfortunately he was "summoned by the Gods" before he could complete it — overwork, no doubt — and his successor. Titus, to the cheers of his admiring people, finished the job — all on his own.

But what about the home scene? There have been many instances of selfless hard work and heroic devotion to duty. One in particular springs to mind: the example of Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Brunei built anything and everything bridges, railways, ships, canals . . . One very fine example of his handiwork is his tunnel at Box. on the old Great Western line from London to Bristol. Imagine, if you will, all those spotless navvies and their wenches, sitting round their roaring fires, tankards of foaming porter clutched in their soft white hands, howling encouragement to Isambard as, shovel in one grimy fist, pick in the other, he hacks his way through miles of rock and clay. A heartening sight indeed!

Or — and here you rub your eyes — can it be possible that the nearest Lord Young of Graffham ever got to building sewers was when he presented his aristocratic backside to them?

Fake News (2019)

The Woods for the Trees Column from the May 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists are amused at the establishment’s latest discovery: something called ‘fake news’. Information and its interpretation has, until the advent of the internet, traditionally been the preserve of the ruling class. Ownership of information (the media) is seen as a vital component for preserving the wealth and power of the 1 percent. Besides the handful of private owners (Murdoch etc.) their representatives in various governments have sought to monopolise the access to information. Socialists have, therefore, dismissed most of it as bourgeois propaganda and have always sought to render it transparent in terms of the agenda that defines its content (fake news). Can we ever disentangle the relationship between the events and their (political) interpretation? Of course raw data is useless without interpretation as can be seen from the information overload that is the World Wide Web. Let us engage in a thought experiment and examine what news might look like in a socialist society.

As a species we are always curious about the activities of our fellow beings and there’s no reason to believe that this will fundamentally change in socialism. In terms of global news there would still have to be a decision about the importance of any event. Those with journalistic responsibility (due to their talent in that area) will make this decision. Sometimes it will be obvious that an event has to be covered (a natural disaster or major technical failure etc.) otherwise an editorial judgment will be made. Upon the convergence of journalists at the required scene footage, interviews and interpretation would follow – just as it does today but with one significant difference: no political agenda. There would be no need to discover ‘scapegoats’ so as to deflect responsibility from one class to another, no need to feed the prejudice of the ideologies of racism, sexism, xenophobia, conspiracy or envy and above all there will be no need to protect the interest of privileged minorities – in other words it would not resemble, in any significant way, the ‘news’ we suffer today. In the absence of the political agenda outlined above what would be the nature of the interpretation of events in socialism?

Without the tensions inherent within class society the interpretation of events (the news) would assume that the mistakes (‘bad news’) are due to system malfunctions, human error, unforeseen natural formations or human scientific and/or technological hubris; the good news would, therefore, celebrate achievement in the absence of these qualities. Unlike today no default human malevolence would be assumed although the possible activity of psychologically disturbed individuals would not be entirely discounted.

Another important contrast to today’s newscasts would be the use of the historical perspective to explain the context of any event. History is humankind’s primary teacher. If we have failed to learn through the experience of the past then this will be highlighted. Socialist consciousness will allow journalists to access the dialectical processes inherent within any system and this will, hopefully, reveal the internal faults (or strengths) that have led to a ‘newsworthy’ event. From this the reader may assume, as we do, that this news of the future will be primarily ‘good news’ – something which is, with good reason, almost entirely absent in the contemporary media. Given our cynical cultural context many will roll their eyes at the perceived naivety and idealism of the above account of such a journalistic future unaware that this is a response conditioned by today’s media which seeks to explain events in terms of an innate and unchanging malevolent ‘human nature’ rather than by reference to the underlying tensions within capitalism.

Ironically one of the most infamous examples of fake news in recent times was the scandal of the ‘weapons of mass destruction’. In an attempt to justify the invasion of Iraq (for its oil) the Tony Blair government built a fantasy upon very flimsy and scant ‘intelligence’ that we were all in immediate danger from a weapons technology developed by a madman called Saddam Hussein. The British establishment chose to accept this as a show of loyalty to the flag bearer of international capitalist ideology (the USA) with the added incentive of a share of the liberated oil revenue. However this was such an extreme example of fake news that even the BBC exposed it as such only to have the journalist concerned martyred alongside his boss Greg Dyke for their pains. After the deaths of thousands of innocent Iraqis those who sought to expose the lies of the Labour government were justified and the reputation of both the Labour Party and the BBC should never be allowed to recover from such invidious and servile behaviour.

If the antithesis of fake news is real news how do we access it in a world of propaganda? Is there some source of raw data that exists apart from its interpretation? Given the impossibility of such an unpolluted reservoir of facts perhaps the duality of fake and real is unhelpful in this respect. We may replace it with the human traits of integrity and mendacity. In a society where the news is, like everything else, a commodity which is bought and sold the inability to understand the world in any other terms is intellectually and morally corrosive and inevitably leads to a level of mendacity. When the level of spin reaches such a lofty peak of contradiction then it usually becomes a matter of integrity and courage for those in a position to potentially become a whistle blower. That such individuals continue to exist inspires us all when our turn comes to articulate our defiance toward the manipulated consensus with the subsequent possibility of the loss of our job or even the love and respect of those whom we hold close.

Wez

Dear Theresa . . . (2019)

From the April 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

How are things? How is Brexit going? Just teasing you! I daresay our inimitable BBC is still inflicting wall-to-wall coverage upon its hapless audience. I don’t get past the headlines myself, but they always seem to be proclaiming another lost vote in your pitiful attempt to cut a deal in Westminster – and you thought Barnier was a hard nut to crack! I wondered whether you were trying to get into The Guinness Book of Records as the prime minister who has suffered the most defeats in parliament. It might not be a bad idea. There won’t be much else of interest to your legacy. Have you packed yet? Remember to put enough food down for the cat.

What are your plans? Perhaps you could get a job with the BBC. It would be the least they could do for you given your generosity towards them in continuing to facilitate the expropriation of £4bn a year from the licence payer, under threat of fine and imprisonment. I don’t think you would be qualified as a political correspondent, even against the undemanding selection criteria of the BBC. I was thinking more of a TV licence enforcement person. If you were to dig out those iconic £1,000 leather trousers and signature black patent over-the-knee boots, and generally ham up your gothic look, you could do quite well. Whilst the terms of employment are a closely guarded commercial secret I would guess that there is a high element of commission in this door-stepping activity. I’m sure you would frighten a number of those miscreants into coughing up the licence fee. Others might respond favourably to the novelty of an ex-prime minister, in costume dress, banging on their door. There are worse jobs. You would be out in the fresh air, meeting new people and getting plenty of exercise. It would be much healthier for you than the putrid atmosphere of Westminster.

If you are doubtful about my suggestion then ponder this: of all the thousands of crimes by which your benign government contrives to bestow a criminal record upon its citizenry, the failure to hold a valid TV licence ranks as the sixth most prolific offence, with 163,000 convictions in 2017. Now that’s a wad-full of commission. Of course strictly speaking you wouldn’t be a BBC employee, but instead would be working for the private contractor, Capita, the provider of this essential public service, no doubt at an equally essential lucrative fee. I’m sure Capita owe you a favour or two. Don’t be coy about using the ‘revolving door.’ Everyone else does.

If socialism has come to pass by the time of your eviction then life will be altogether more straightforward for you. Our society will be based on the maxim: ‘from each according to ability, to each according to need’. You won’t have to fret over the consequences of your shortcomings, or to prostrate yourself before an employer under duress of starvation or homelessness. All your basic needs will be catered for without the need for money. It would seem unlikely that the BBC would constitute a ‘basic need,’ but in socialism this – and other similar matters – will be decided democratically; dare I say it, by referendum, or similar device.

Anyway, I look forward to hearing about the adventures you are planning for yourself.

Yours sincerely,

Tim Hart

Rear View: BBC Newspeak (2017)

The Rear View Column from the June 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

BBC Newspeak
‘When you have covered the story from every angle. When you have reported the facts whatever the obstacles. If you have asked the questions others won’t. When you have never taken sides in any war, revolution or election. When you have come under fire from people in power around the world and you have always championed the truth, then you can call yourself the most trusted brand in news.’  Sic and repeated ad nauseam currently on the BBC World News television channel. Such vomit-inducing chutzpah! How should socialists react to media lies, omissions, distortions and half-truths, as well as conspiracy theories and alternative facts? We should remember Marx’s favourite motto – doubt everything! – and this from his German Ideology (1845): ‘the class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production.’ The BBC has a long history of supporting the status quo: in the General Strike of 1926 it clearly sided against our class. This quote attributed to Orwell is also apposite: ‘during times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.’


Down and Out in Manchester
Engels’ The Condition of the Working Class in England (1844) is a classic analysis of the appalling conditions of our class in Britain during his stay in Manchester and Salford. There have, undoubtedly, been some improvements since then: smallpox has been eradicated and deaths from diseases such as measles, scarlet fever and whooping cough are very rare. In The Housing Question (1887) he shows how and explains why reforms within capitalism always come up short. News therefore of a ‘homeless community found living in dark, squalid tunnels… under the streets of Manchester’ (thesun.co.uk, 2 May) should not come as a surprise. There are more than enough empty dwellings in Manchester and elsewhere to accommodate the homeless but because houses are produced for profit there is no possibility of a rational approach to housing within capitalism. Engels is clear: ‘as long as the capitalist mode of production continues to exist, it is folly to hope for an isolated solution of the housing question or of any other social question affecting the fate of the workers’.


Moribund May Days
When the Labour Movement was young, the first of May was set aside as a day on which the workers of different countries would suspend their labouring and join in mass meetings to send to each other fraternal greetings and expressions of solidarity in the struggle against capitalist oppression. Their value has, however, long since come into question. A contributor to the May 1936 edition of this Journal wrote: ‘for many years now these May Day demonstrations have been held, and the net result of them all is nil, as far as helping the workers out of their difficulties is concerned.’ Were that writer alive today, he would likely die of despair: ‘… marchers have taken to the streets in several cities across Sweden to call for Muslim women’s right to work while wearing the hijab . . . Protesters . . . chanted slogans such as crush racism, my hijab is not your business and employment is our right” (aljazeera.com, 1 May). Today, a large number of workers want a visual sign of their ignorance and submission as well as the right to bear the yoke of wage slavery.


Telling the Truth
‘Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave’, said Frederick Douglass. Socialists value free speech and abhor censorship in all its forms. Stephen Fry may be fined for saying ‘how dare you create a world in which there is such misery? It’s not our fault? It’s not right. It’s utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid god who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain’ (independent.ie, 6 May). Paying £11,000,000+ for a licence plate is legal yet ‘a Canadian Trekkie has had his Star Trek-themed license plate revoked after his insurance firm deemed it offensive. Nick Troller was driving round with his ASIMIL8 custom plate for almost two years before he was contacted by the Manitoba Public Insurance to say he would have to give it up. The phrase ASIMIL8 refers to the Borgs [sic] – the villains of Star Trek: The Next Generation – who want to assimilate all other alien races into their own’ (dailymail.co.uk, 30 April). Let us hasten that glorious day when a majority of us armed with the knowledge of socialism act. The capitalists will know that resistance is futile.

Between the Lines: Letter from the BBC (1993)

The Between the Lines column from the February 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

Letter from the BBC

Last May, following the total exclusion of the Socialist Party's ideas and actions from the BBC's extensive election coverage, we published in this column an Open Letter to the Director General of the BBC. We pointed out that it was a principle of democracy to allow time for the expression of minority ideas; that it is inexcusable to refuse radio or TV coverage to a small party such as ourselves on the ground that we are small, not in small part as a result of media silence as to our existence. We made what we regard as the strong case that we are confident that if we advocated bombings and street violence — and, better still, acted upon such advocacy — we would doubtlessly obtain plenty of media exposure. The BBC is penalizing our party for being democratic, rational and peaceful. The BBC failed to assist in creating a democratic electoral atmosphere, but contributed to the undemocratic carve-up of TV and radio time by and in the interest of the existing ruling parties.

On 15 December 1992 a letter of reply was received, not from the Director General, but from one Douglas Evans who is described as Chief Assistant, Political and Parliamentary Affairs. He writes as follows:

  "I think I would find it helpful to know more about the campaign which you conducted at the time of the General Election. For example, how many seats did you contest and how did you make sure that your views and policies were communicated to media organisations? Were these prominently reported by other news media?
  I am sorry that you are dissatisfied with the rules governing the allocation of Party Election Broadcasts, but I should point out that these rules are devised by the Committee on Political Broadcasting and are not the sole responsibility of the BBC."

We thank Mr Evans for his letter on behalf of the BBC and have published it because we intend to keep this correspondence open to the scrutiny of all our readers who will be free to judge whether the BBC is acting democratically or otherwise. We shall respond with some comments and some questions to Douglas Evans.

Firstly, we find it strange that the BBC, the largest news-gathering body in Britain, envied across the world for its professionalism, needs to ask the Socialist Party how many seats we contested in the last British election (a fact which was published in most quality newspapers). We contested one (Holborn and St Pancras), the main reason being that we are a small party and are restricted by the government-imposed deposit of £500 per candidate. It could be argued that a party contesting only one seat deserves to be ignored. If so, the BBC should let us know that this is their policy and tell us how many seats we should contest before they will stop ignoring us. We would remind the BBC that the Natural Law Party, with extremely rich backers and a few bizarre policies, paid to put up enough candidates to buy a Party election Broadcast. The Natural Law Party, formed in 1992 as an electoral stunt and now dissolved obtained that much BBC coverage, whereas the Socialist Party, formed in 1904 with eighty-eight years of principled and well-argued policies was worth no time.

Secondly, we can inform Mr Evans that the Socialist Party called a Press Conference, which was held in central London, within days of the election being announced. All media organizations, national and local, were invited to attend. We made it clear that if they could not attend they could contact our candidate, election agent or other speakers. They were sent copies of our official manifesto. No TV or radio station reported on these, "prominently" or otherwise. There was coverage in the local press. But our campaign was of national importance. We were the only political party standing in the 1992 election committed to the common ownership and democratic control of all social resources. We alone stood for the abolition of the money system; of the economy based upon buying and selling. We were the only leaderless party in the election, making it clear at all times that our candidate was not seeking followers and would refuse to lead anyone wishing to follow him or our party. We were the only party urging electors not to vote for us unless they agreed with what we stood for. Such policies might be rejected as absurd by controlling editors at the BBC. They are free to conclude that, but our concern is to allow the millions of people voting in the election, many of whom expressed the view that they were presented with little choice, with our revolutionary alternative. Let them judge what we say on its merits.

Thirdly, we note with disgust that the Committee on Political Broadcasting — a body appointed by and comprising those who have won previous elections — are free to determine the rules regarding media time for elections in which they intend to ensure that they will win again. In short, politicians who have deceived their way into power in the past set the rules for who may have public exposure in the future. We would be pleased to know when this Committee was elected, by whom, with whose authority and to whom it is accountable. We assume that this is not secret information.

Finally, some question. Would the BBC confirm or deny that any party, however newly-formed or lacking in policy, may have BBC exposure if it can afford to pay the £25,000 deposits entitling it to enough candidates to give it preference over the Socialist Party which has less funds? Is it the ease that an invitation to a press conference in which our party proposed to advocate acts of terrorism would have stirred more BBC interest than the total indifference which our democratic position resulted in? Is there a BBC policy to guarantee the right to be heard of minority political parties or does the BBC regard this aspect of democracy as unimportant? As the Socialist Party is refused a slot on the BBC "access" programmes on the ground that we are a political party, and we are refused electoral exposure on the ground that we are not a big enough political party, can we assume that the BBC expects us to either wind up as a political party so as to obtain half-an-hour of access TV or abandon our principles in order to be accepted as a winnable force by the BBC?

Steve Coleman

The BBC: A Clumsy cover-up (1976)

From the December 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

A member of the Socialist Party wrote to the BBC about its persistent refusal to allow broadcasting facilities to us. The following reply on behalf of the Director General, dated 18th October, was sent to him.

  You are in fact suggesting that the BBC is biased against the Socialist Party of Great Britain. The answer to that charge is that this is one of a number of very small political organizations, with no members in Parliament and only a very modest number of parliamentary candidates in the field at any General Election. It may from time to time merit some mention on the air on its news value, or when we are doing a programmme about minority political organizations in general, but it is unrealistic to suppose that it will receive anything like the coverage given to the major parties, unless and until it begins to compete with them on an appropriate scale.
  I hope this will explain the position to you and can assure you that there is not, as you seem to suppose, any ‘ban’ on the SPGB being mentioned on the air. The test is purely one of news value.

Yours sincerely, 

Norman Longmate 

Secretariat

What does “from time to time” mean? It conveys, we think, that the SPGB might expect some coverage once a year, perhaps; if that is over-optimistic, once every two or three years. We should like the chance. The facts are as follows. Despite continual representations, the first mention of the SPGB in a BBC programme was made in 1958—fifty-four years after the foundation of the Socialist Party, and thirty-six years after the beginning of broadcasting. This was also the last occasion, and apart from election results the SPGB has not been mentioned on BBC radio or television again between 1958 and 1976. “From time to time” is quite untrue.

What are the programmes about minority organizations in which the SPGB “may merit some mention”? Such programmes have appeared, but we have never once been invited to take part or been mentioned in them. Our exclusion is all the more remarkable when it is from programmes dealing with Marxism. Without referring to correct and incorrect versions of Marxism, the position is that the SPGB has been in existence far longer than any other organizations which makes use of Marx. Yet radio and TV discussions of Marxism and “dissent” have allowed recently-sprung-up groups, some smaller than the SPGB and all lacking MPs, to make statements.

The apparent implication of “news value” is that the BBC prefers trivialities to serious interest and arranges programmes in that frame of mind. Otherwise, there are many respects in which the SPGB is thoroughly newsworthy. In 1974 the 70th anniversary of the Party’s foundation, and an exhibition of material from our archives, were notified to the BBC and the press but ignored by the BBC. (For comparison, in 1953 there was a radio programme on the 60th anniversary of the ILP, a “very small political organization” which has now ceased to exist as a party.)

The SPGB's analysis of Russia from 1917 onwards, our attitudes to the Welfare State and nationalization from the outset, our publication of a pamphlet on the race problem in 1948 might “merit some mention on the air”—but did not get it. Currently, the SPGB can claim to be unique in having over many years shown the fallacies in Keynesian economic doctrines. We have also, alone among commentators on society, consistently rejected the ideas of hereditary inequality allegedly proven by tests now found to have been fraudulent. Our record in countless matters is of a lone voice which turned out to be right, but still not “news value” for the BBC.

The statement that we cannot expect coverage because we are a minority is particularly interesting because it flatly controverts the views of official committees on broadcasting. The Beveridge Committee of 1949, after recommending a “Hyde Park of the air” (Para. 257) went on to state precisely what it had in mind—that opinions should not be kept off the air “either by simple calculation of the numbers who already hold such views or by fear of giving offence to particular groups of listeners. Minorities must have the chance by persuasion of turning themselves into majorities” (Para. 259; our italics). The letter on behalf of the Director General says in effect that he rejects this, and in the BBC run by him minorities shall not have the chance by persuasion of becoming majorities.

We would add that the BBC alone takes this attitude. Earlier this year London Broadcasting allowed our GLC election candidate radio facilities with the other parties. When two SPGB speakers went to LBC for an hour-long programme in September the interviewer asked if it were “really true” that an organization with our reputation and history had never been given “exposure”. And, of course, our companion parties abroad are able to broadcast regularly via the arrangements in their own countries.

It is therefore not surprising that members and supporters of the SPGB should draw conclusions. The BBC’s reply does more to confirm than to rebut them.

Robert Barltrop

Media attempt to discredit Marx (1989)

From the October 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

No newspaper or television item is guaranteed to annoy a socialist more than those in which some capitalist country is described as "Marxist" or "socialist", both words that are frequently prefixed to the name of various state capitalist countries in Africa or South America which happen to be aligned with Russia.

Apart from the BBC, which has always refused to offer a reasoned reply to our request for an explanation of their deliberate policy decision to describe such countries as Mozambique and Ethiopia as Marxist, among the other main offenders are the Guardian and the Daily Telegraph. However, if recent reports from the correspondents of these two papers are to be believed, there will shortly need to be a fundamental editorial review on how their reporters are to describe these countries in the future.

In an article which appeared in the Guardian on 31 July, their correspondent in Mozambique reported that the single party there (Fremlimo) had just "abandoned Marxism”. Showing a painful lack of any knowledge about Marx's writings on politics and economics and under the heading 'Mozambique is No Longer Marxist', she claimed that Marx was being thrown overboard because private groups were now able to run their own schools but, more importantly to her mind, because there was to be a relaxation of state control over the means and methods of production. As this is what the media believe is meant by “Marxism", it is hardly surprising that there has been such an embarrassing silence from the BBC.

Marx was quite clear in his writings that not only has the establishment of socialism to result from the political action of the working class itself ("the proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority", as the Communist Manifesto puts it), but that this involves the abolition of commodity production and wage-exploitation (the workers, says Value, Price and Profit, "ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword 'Abolition of the Wages System'”) and their replacement by a democratically-organised society where the principle ‘from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs' would apply (Critique of the Gotha programme).

It is clear that, on Marx’s definition, Mozambique is not socialist. It is in fact a developing capitalist country which is trying to find its feet in an ever more competitive world market. That its ruling class felt that it would accumulate capital quicker if it adopted state capitalism and its attendant Leninist (not Marxist) ideology and is now prepared to accept harsh measures imposed upon it by the IMF, including the liberalising of its economy, does not mean that it is no longer Marxist. It never had anything to do with Marx to begin with. Workers there, as elsewhere, still need to engage in the general democratic struggle for society as a whole to own and control the means to life.

In the same week that the Guardian informed its readers that Mozambique was “no longer” Marxist, the Daily Telegraph (3 August) ran a report on its foreign news page with the headline ’Ethiopia Loosens Marxist Chains To Woo Investors'. Like Mozambique's ruling class the dictators in Ethiopia require foreign investors from outside the Russian sphere of influence. If that means changing one set of ideological clothes for another, and if it means introducing a modicum of private capitalism and a loosening-up of the state-controlled economy, then this is something they have accepted they will have to do. But, as with Mozambique, it has nothing to do with abandoning Marx or socialism.

One central feature of socialism, clearly stated by Marx, is that it would be a classless society in which the means to life would be the common ownership of all society ("In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have", says the Communist Manifesto again, “an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all").

So, if Ethiopia was socialist by Marx's definition, it would have abolished classes, but the Daily Telegraph writer actually draws her readers’ attention to the class divisions that exist there. In one place she writes that “Ethiopian teenage girls in puffball silk skirts and the latest European finery attend parties at the Hilton Hotel" and in another that “more than a million people live in squalid homes with mud walls and tin roofs”. If there was common ownership and direct access to production then nobody in Ethiopia or anywhere else in the world would need to be living in squalor and poverty.

Reporters who describe backward state-capitalist countries like Ethiopia and Mozambique as “Marxist" are either ignorant or are telling lies to try to discredit Marx.

Richard Lloyd

"Dear Sir —" (1951)

From the May 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are all familiar with the "write-to-the-news-paper-about-it” fiends. Any particular bee that is buzzing around their bonnets at the time is given a whirl, either in the daily paper or the local rag, more often than not bringing forth a counter blast of opposing opinions couched in varying degrees of heat from others of the same species. The most common type dashes off in high dudgeon a sulphurous epistle registering deep disapproval of the government's foreign policy or blisters the paper with an attack on the local street fighting or the unreliability of the 9 a.m. train. There is also the "is-this-a-record” type, lying in wait, ears pinned back and pen poised for the first notes of the cuckoo, or to record the remarkable age at which Grandmother finally handed in her dinner pail. For 24 weeks up to and including the 5th April the B.B.C. opened up a new and exciting "happy hunting ground” for these scribes in their programme “Dear Sir," broadcast every Thursday at 8 p.m. for 30 minutes. It comprised a very mixed bag of letters written to the B.B.C. by the public on an infinite variety of subjects, edited and introduced, by Leslie Baily. The letters came over the air with what was apparently considered suitable voices and inflections. Some letters from children were piped up as such. The women's voices were vibrant and trembling with emotion or indignation. The men, bullying or frightfully refined according to the subject matter of the letter. (Obviously fugitives from a repertory company.) Taken all in all it was an innocuous collection of letters and it is a matter for conjecture as to what precisely was the "open sesame” to the air. The letters were hand picked, as in the short time at their disposal only a very small percentage could be broadcast. Many letters were representative of dozens on the same theme. One correspondent wrote to say "Au revoir” to the series and mentioned plaintively that his 15 previous letters had not received publicity. The subjects ranged through self government for colonies, the recent Tory tactics in the house, water divining, the proposed alteration in Divorce laws, the Census, lack of women geniuses and should the Welsh language be taught in schools? Someone posed the question, "why is it that Welsh people can always sing”? A rather rude reply denied that they sang but said, "they just lament in unison,” which brought forth highly indignant letters in the come-back of the following week. A few letters turned the searchlight of publicity on some present day evils, the frightful conditions for the slaughtering of animals, some facts regarding T.B. and the starvation wage of £3 8s. weekly for waitresses who stated they could not exist without “tips.” A controversy raged for several weeks regarding the Christian attitude to war and rearmament, and it was interesting to note that only a small minority came out on the side of pacifism. The majority wallowed in a spate of words and while re-assuring us that "God is love,” were not against rearmament. Some of the letters called for "laws of war” or counselled restraint and discrimination in waging war. One Christian correspondent wrote to say that according to the New Testament the state has God's permission to make war. (Church and state have always foraged amicably together as purple patches in past history testify.) An ex-service man thought housing shortage caused labour troubles and someone else said that the worker who had a large family should have increased wages instead of family allowances.

Another brain wave suggested enclosing rabbits in wired-off tracts of land like the monks of olden days, and leave nature to remedy that blot on the escutcheon of the Labour government, the meat shortage. Another suggestion was to utilise the interior heat of the earth for mechanical purposes, and a plea was put in that crooners, male and female, should celebrate the festival of Britain by using their own language instead of that ghastly "Americanese.”

The foregoing very sketchy review does not cover the whole range of letters but listening to this programme week by week the writer was struck by the infinite number and variety of subjects with which a large section of the public concern themselves. The thought occurs, is it possible for all these widely differing people to ever think alike on one subject and act in harmony to establish socialism? Add to this the language difficulties and prejudices fostered between workers in different lands and the odds against a genuine world socialist understanding seem almost too formidable to contemplate. Last, but not least, is the absolute dependence of the workers for their picture of world affairs on the press and radio tainted with incessant and almost unconscious propaganda.

The scales are heavily weighted but the workers of the world share the common denominator of a desire to live in peace and security. This happens to be a desire to which the acquisitive nature of capitalism renders it powerless to accede. International rivalries, rearmament, the threat of war, bring in their wake steadily deteriorating conditions for the workers which should hasten their enlightenment. Here then we have the ingredients for a snowball growth of genuine socialist ideas. When the majority of the workers revise that there is no other alternative and vote for socialism, it will be “curtains” for Capitalism and no regrets.

F. M. Robins

Between the Lines: chasing the dragon (1994)

The Between the Lines column from the June 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

Chasing the dragon

Aaah! Just when you thought it was safe to come out in the dark, she’s hack . . . and Nicholas Broomfield was out to make a documentary about her whether she wanted him there or not. (C4, 9.30pm, Thursday, 19 May.) The subject in question is Margaret Thatcher, a one-time Prime Minister who said that there was no such thing as society. See the Postcards from Hell on other pages for a more vivid guide to her preferred habitat. Broomfield, who is used to following around confirmed fruit and nutcases (it was he who made that superb documentary about the mad Boer, Terre Blanche), was as welcomed by the Thatcher groupies as a cockroach at a cocktail party. It Is good to see just how small and foolish "the mighty" really are.

In the same week the BBC was chasing the story of the Chinese political prisons where countless detainees are locked up for speaking out against the government. Down at the BBC they have no need to lock up the journalists who are vetted by MI5 before they can have a job and then only allowed to interview those whose words have not been banned by government edict. That’s what they call capitalist democracy, that is. On Newsnight (BBC2, 10.30pm, Wednesday, 18 May) Jeremy Paxman interviewed a smarmy businessman who insisted that human rights abuses should not interfere in commerce. Paxman put it to him that to trade with a state that can do this makes him and his fellow capitalists collaborators. Quite so. And what’s new about that? When have a few camps filled with tortured victims ever stood in the way of a healthy profit? Perhaps next time Paxman interviews Douglas Hurd he would care to ask him whether as a major arms-seller to Indonesia his government feels just a tiny bit like collaborators in the slaughter of the people of East Timor.

What’s all this then, Arfur?

ARFUR: 'Ang on Phil, I’m reading this ’ere election manifesto.

PHIL: Reading? You goin’ soft or something Arfur?

GRANT: You want me to sort him, bruv. That’s how we do things in the East End see. We put the boot in first and ask questions later. Right?

ARFUR: It says ’ere in this ’ere Socialist Party manifesto that all politicians are out to take us for a ride. Now, I’m only a simple bloke, as you well know, but 1 can’t ’elp thinking that they might have a point. What you think Michelle . . . I mean, you’ve been to that there university, ’avn’t you?

MICHELLE: Well, according to what I’ve been reading this totally leaves out of account the post-modernist critique of metatheoretical discourse. I mean, haven’t these socialists ever read Lyotard? Anyway, I’m off to tell my daughter that’s she’s really my cousin.

GRANT: Yeah, and I’m off down the Arches to sort out some geezer with a shooter who reckons Minder was just a comedy.

[Enter an old drunk with a blue suit and a political rosette who looks a cross between that dodgy lawyer used by the Mitchell Bruvvers to get them off at their last court appearance and at least half the members of the House of Commons]

SWINDLER: Hello there, jolly working folk. I’m your candidate . . . 

ARFUR: Ah, perhaps you can ’elp us. I was just reading this Socialist stuff about the likes of you being a lot of useless leaders. They reckons ’ere that the emancipation of the working class can only be the . . . 

SWINDLER: Put it away, my good friend. Subversive nonsense. Pure idealism. You can’t run your lives without us. Any chance of a G and T?

PHIL: You saying we can’t run the world without being led by a load of old duffers like you?

GRANT: Want me to sort him, bruv?

SWINDLER: No . . . what I’m saying is that the likes of you — decent working chaps that you are — need the likes of me — educated at Jesus and the bar, you know — to do a few things to improve life for you. A couple of new beds in the local hospital, for example. And free chiropody for all those of ninety-five and over. Jobs for everyone . . . 

ARFUR: Well thank you very much indeed. I’ll put this socialist stuff away right now. And buy this man a large G and T on me.

DOT: Did somebody mention Jesus?

BIG RON: Did somebody mention a late bar?

MICHELLE: Oh, hasn’t anyone ever told them that they’re just pathetic caricatures of workers invented by people who drink in wine bars. No wonder they’re stupid enough to be taken in by another bloody politician.

Steve Coleman

Media harlots (1979)

From the March 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

You cannot hope 

to bribe or twist, 

thank God! the 

British journalist.

But. seeing what 

the man will do 

unbribed, there’s 

no occasion to.

(Humbert Wolfe).

Bribery and Graft can—and do—take subtle forms. So can pressure on one’s job; especially in times of heavy unemployment. Otherwise, how else could the master class persuade workers such as journalists, type-setters, television and radio news-readers and interviewers, editors, chat-show hosts, camera crews, engineers and the like, to sustain the unremitting stream of heavily-slanted clap-trap with which we have been assailed over these past few months.

I refer, of course, to the well-orchestrated and wholly unprincipled attack which has been, and is being, directed at millions of workers whose resentment at finding their already modest standard of living even further eroded has boiled over into open — if uninformed — rebellion.

However, while recognising the effects of, on the one hand, the economic stranglehold the capitalist has on his hired labourers, and on the other, the lack of a true understanding of our condition as wage-earners under capitalism, it can do no harm to point up some of the shadier verbal and other techniques employed by the press, television and radio to convince the public of the greed and perversity, not to mention downright callousness, of striking trade-unionists (as if these same strikers were not themselves also members of the public!).

No doubt readers of this journal will have their own store of prize examples; including, perhaps, that memorable occasion on which Angela Rippon, reading the news, referred, apparently quite unconsciously, to  ". . . trade unionists and other extremists . . .” And that shining moment during which listeners to a morning news round-up-cum-chat-show could have heard an interviewer attempting to trap a lorry-driver picket into confessing that he fiddled his time-sheet in order to make up his money. (His ingratiating manner as he did so caused swallowed porridge to rise back into at least one listener’s throat. But when a BBC toady next interviews the Director-General of the CBI, take note of the obsequious little chuckle he manages to emit as he concludes a tendentious performance studded with gently sympathetic leading questions with his “. . . and thank-you, Sir John”).

From the screaming prejudice of the lady before the pickets (Look North, 24 January) to the Consultant Physician who spent a day refusing his selective services to trade union card-holders; (Radio 4, 25 January) from the threat to day-old chicks (due to have their necks wrung later, anyway) to the brigade of outraged ladies busy sharpening their umbrellas; from the priest who used his morning radio God-Spot (Friday, 2 February) to denigrate hospital workers and the like, to that other consultant (the same programme) who was whipped in to elaborate his contention that we should dispense with the less-than-dedicated services of half the hospital ancillary workers anyway; broadcasting and the press have been having a field-day.

What workers responsible for preparing and presenting such malevolent harlotry should remember is that it is directed against themselves—just as surely as at social workers or lorry-drivers, or hospital porters, or school caretakers, cooks and cleaners. It is intended to create a climate in which a more deferential working class accepts the specious argument that to ask for a few measly quid a week more in order merely to try to restore a deliberately-engineered cut in their wage-packets is to "bring the Nation to its knees”; or to create “uncontrollable inflation”; (who actually prints the money, anyway?) or "bring down your Labour Government". (The writer emphatically denies possession).

But the thoughtful worker can learn a valuable lesson from all these manifestations of capitalism in crisis. Our present system cannot be made to function efficiently no matter which government holds office, crude attempts to shuffle off the blame for the current state of affairs onto disaffected workers using the media of broadcasting and the press to do so reveals a blatant and cynical determination on the part of the capitalist class to hide this truth from the only other section of capitalist society which has the power to put things right: the 90 per cent of us who constitute the world's working class.

And that 90 per cent includes the ‘front’ men and women who push loaded news at us all via the airwaves and the printing-presses.

Richard Cooper

Rear View: The Mainstream Media Matrix (2018)

The Rear View Column from the August 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Mainstream Media Matrix

One of many examples is the BBC – Broadcasting Bourgeois Canards since 1922. Their advertisements want us to believe otherwise, to swallow the lies with little or no question. 'Take away the noise, the fury, the fighting voices, the distortions, cosmetics, the colour and the flashy effects, but most of all, you can take away the lies, the slander, the misrepresentations that seek to pull us apart, and then ... you can find out what is actually happening, and when you find that, then you will find BBC News[peak].'

Stop consuming their canards – take the red pill of socialist understanding instead.

'All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind' 'He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him. Hence, the cost of production of a workman is restricted, almost entirely, to the means of subsistence that he requires for his maintenance, and for the propagation of his race' (The Communist Manifesto, 1848).

Campaign for real socialism

'Lookups for socialism spiked on June 27, 2018, following the Democratic primary victory for a congressional seat in New York City by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, defeating 10-term incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley' (merriam-webster.com, 27 June). 

But unsurprisingly the same dictionary defines socialism as 'a way of organizing a society in which major industries are owned and controlled by the government rather than by individual people and companies,' and democratic socialism [there is no other kind!] 'is a form of government in which state regulation (without state ownership) would ensure economic growth and a fair distribution of income.' Socialism, as originally used by the followers of Robert Owen, appeared for the first time in their Co-operative Magazine of November 1827 and later made famous by Marx, will be a system of society where production takes place directly for human needs, where money, governments and states do not exist. This is still the only sensible way of understanding socialism, and not the Alice in Wonderland world where words mean whatever anyone says they mean. Ocasio-Cortez is better defined as a social democrat, a term associated with the German politician Eduard Bernstein. He rejected socialism's revolutionary and materialist foundations and advanced the position that it should be grounded in ethical and moral arguments and achieved through gradual legislative reform.   

Not so strange bedfellows 

“There’s no way around it, Socialism and Communism are kissing cousins. The only difference is when this concrete strategy begins to fail, that’s when somebody grabs a gun and Socialism goes to Communism. Socialism really is just diet-Communism,” said Glenn. “Putting ‘democratic’ before Socialist … makes it seem, I dunno, a little less Stalin and more Bernie Sanders” (theblaze.com, 29 June). The spectre haunting the likes of Glenn Beck is not that of socialism or communism but state-capitalism. He and Ocasio-Cortez are clueless. During one of her interviews she at 'first tried to argue there was a significant difference between her beliefs and socialism.' Indeed, but finding herself in a hole she started digging: '. . .  there's a huge difference between socialism and Democratic socialism . . . Democratic socialism, and really what that boils down to me, is the basic belief that I believe that in a moral and wealthy America and a moral and modern America, no person should be too poor to live in this country' (freebeacon.com, 29 June).

Defenders of the status quo

Main stream media, Beck and Ocasio-Cotez support the status quo. They are opposed to the revolutionary nature of socialism (or communism – Engels & Marx used both terms interchangeably). Here the 170-year old Communist Manifesto again remains relevant.

'There are, besides, eternal truths, such as Freedom, Justice, etc, that are common to all states of society. But Communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality, instead of constituting them on a new basis; it therefore acts in contradiction to all past historical experience. ' 'The Communist revolution is the most radical rupture with traditional property relations; no wonder that its development involves the most radical rupture with traditional ideas.' 'Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working men of all countries unite!'

Civilization? (1972)

Book Review from the February 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

Civilization. A Personal View, by Kenneth Clark. BBC and John Murray. £2.25 (paperback).

Discussing man's transition from dependence on nature to dominion over it, Marx, more than a century ago, gave us a description of civilisation which could have been written yesterday. “Work no longer seems to be included in the production process as man rather stands apart from the production process as its regulator and guardian . . .  In this transformation it is less the immediate labour performed by man himself, or the time that he works, than the appropriation of his general productivity, his comprehension of nature and dominion over it through his existence as a social body . . . that appears as the supporting pillar of production and wealth.” It must be a great pity that Kenneth Clark was not familiar with this passage, as it could easily have set his personal view of civilisation in a more purposeful mould than the philosopher-seeking-after-truth image, which we have here.

Millions of people will recall with pleasure, and no doubt considerable enlightenment, the television epic (a composition in a lofty narrative style) from the script of which this book is compiled. While the author stays in his own field, art, there is no doubt that he knows what he is talking about. When he discourses on the exquisite delights of Michelangelo’s statue of a young man he called "David’’ then, certainly, those who may have cultivated a taste for this sort of thing, will think him well worth listening to; but when he ventures into the realm of political economy, the mask of the truth-seeking philosopher is liable to slip and reveal a sometimes appallingly ignorant prejudice.

Obviously this is most clearly seen when we get to the Industrial Revolution and matters with which we are all. perforce, familiar. It is easy to seize on incorrect details, particularly in one’s own pet subject, and use them to berate an opponent, but it does not need a very profound knowledge of what went on in England in the first half of the 19th century to expose this author’s treatment of the period.

Surely every schoolboy knows today, thanks however indirectly to Marx and Engels, that the sanctimonious Wilberforce got the money to campaign against chattel slavery by sending equally helpless wage slaves, aged about ten, down the mine to get a gutfull of coal dust. Kenneth Clark may like to give us the impression that he has read Engels’ Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 but he shows little evidence of having absorbed any of its lessons in economics; if he had he might have got the title of the book right: among knowledgeable people there is a difference between ‘working class’ and ‘working classes’. Furthermore somebody could have corrected the index error, which has been allowed to persist from the earlier, more expensive, edition. Surely after reading this book nobody could be quite so pathetically eulogistic about the “humane reformers” of the period, nor could he possibly have the breathtaking effrontery to describe the penetrating observation, painstaking research and devastating comment of Engels’ book as “the passionate cry of a young social worker”.

In the story of this period we are also treated to a brief, incredibly brief, reference to Marx. There is no direct comment on his work nor even the suggestion of an argument, but he is there alright, wedged between some more “humane” stuff about Lord Shaftesbury and a few lines of poetry by Wordsworth, who, we are told solemnly, knew all about the workers before Marx even heard of them. Here again it seems unfortunate that Kenneth Clark should suppose that his readers are not familiar with the doings of Lord Shaftesbury. Marx, when dealing with this man, didn’t treat us like a lot of simpletons who can be told any old rubbish, so why should Kenneth Clark? He only had to take a few lines after the Ten Hours Bill, and all that stuff, to tell us that this “great humanitarian” was also a grasping landowner, who helped to provoke the Swing riots by, among other oppressions, taking from the miserable wages of his labourers, exorbitant rents for the hovels they lived in.

Kenneth Clark, almost with the very last sentence of the thousands of words comprising this work, aims an utterly mindless aside at Marx asserting his “moral and intellectual failure”. Perhaps he should read over his own comments on the first half of the 19th century and think again about that one.

F. T. G.

Passage to Poverty (1997)

The TV Review column from the August 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

David Dimbleby’s India (BBC2. 12 July) should have been enough to remind anyone with any doubts why this planet needs a social revolution. Dimbleby himself—a pillar of the British establishment— ironically demonstrated how relatively little of real worth has changed in India since the days of the Raj. The social and economic movement that there has been has done little if anything to benefit the vast majority of India’s teeming population.

Dimbleby’s programme started with one or two "success’’ stories brought about by the intrusion of capitalism into India’s backward economic structure. The very fact that these were painted as examples of real progress told the viewer everything one needed to know, both about the programme’s general ideological thrust and the state of the rest of India. "Successful’’ young computer software executives were shown imbibing the dubious advantages of western-style wage-slavery, all for the princely sum of £40 per month. Interestingly, some other would-be wage-slaves showed themselves unconsciously sceptical of the benefits of capitalism, including the schoolgirl who stated when asked about her ambitions: "I want to be an accountant—and apart from that have an enjoyable life." Well, quite.

Where Dimbleby's programme was telling, however was in its portrayal of India’s traditionalist/ modernist dichotomy. The tension between the demands of capitalism and the stifling structure of the centuries-old caste system was brought out quite well and not even Dimbleby—skilled broadcaster that he is—could disguise the awful truth that in many respects Indians are experiencing not the best of both worlds but the worst of both.

Infanticide and gangsterism 
As the need to compete in the world economy pushes down the meagre income of millions of Indian workers so they find it increasingly difficult to meet the obligations demanded of them by their culture and traditions. In many instances this has led to some quite dreadful consequences. Parents with young girls, for instance, are less able to afford the dowry payments expected from them on their daughter’s marriage and so parents look upon the birth of baby girls as a financial disaster waiting to happen. Almost unbelievably, this has provoked the return of mass infanticide as poverty-stricken young Indians, particularly in the north of the country, feel that the only way they can ensure their own survival is by terminating the lives of their own children. Relatively few can bring themselves to do such a deed, so amazingly, they scrape together a few rupees to pay somebody else to take the children away and do it for them. In this way traditional Indian culture meets the joys of Western free enterprise with a vengeance.

The dangerous mix of traditional authoritarian and patriarchal cultures with the market economy has brutally given rise to other social problems too. Many of these are common to the majority of the "developing" world, but as is so often the case. India probably demonstrates them better than anywhere. As the poison of the market soaks in to infect an already cancerous organism, crime, corruption, gangsterism, violence and massacres are the order of the day across huge swathes of this beautiful country. Such is the level of patronage, ignorance and illiteracy that hundreds of thousands have been known to gather to defend those politicians and criminals (the dividing line is hazy) who have been systematically defrauding and robbing them. In these circumstances it has been left to other members of the capitalist class to take action against those—and there are plenty of them— who have been refusing to play the game according to Hoyle.

In several regions of India slavery still unofficially exists. Millions of children are “economically bonded" to shopkeepers, artisans and factory owners, working for nothing apart from enough food to ensure that they can put a bit of wealth into their masters’ pockets the next day. This—yet another happy victory for traditional values in a modern setting—shows no real sign of abating. Even under India’s old neo-state-capitalist economic arrangements child slavery was still rife: anyone who expects a great improvement since the recent move towards a more free market economy would be foolish indeed.

Given that India is in a number of respects so typical of much of the world it is astounding that people exist who still think that capitalism is the best of all worlds, a progressive social system that is the best on offer. If watching TV programmes about India is not enough perhaps they should visit it and open their eyes. Then they might know what socialists have learnt—that capitalism is now a planetary disaster.

Dave Perrin

A Vivid Imagined Nation (1997)

TV Review from the September 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is always fascinating to attend an event later portrayed on television if only to make the obvious "compare and contrast" analysis afterwards. So it was on Sunday 10 August with BBC2's The National Eisteddfod of Wales, which comprised commentary, clips and observations of an event I had attended in the cause of wage slave duty on three occasions the previous week.

Given the strong links between the Welsh establishment and the media it was unlikely to be a highly critical piece—more so with BBC political correspondent Huw Edwards doing the commentary, a man whose father was a Bard. Focusing on the traditional portrayal of Wales as the land of harmonies and the harp, of poetry and prose, it successfully documented an event in many ways well worth attending, even by non-Welsh speakers. The impression given was that of a generally convivial atmosphere in the north Wales hills, sunshine beating down and fine music of most varieties all around. With much of this being true it might seem churlish to complain.

And yet in other respects it does well to cast a more cynical eye at events than the BBC is in the habit of doing. For instance, it is not necessarily a good idea to go to the Eisteddfod if you are poor. Entrance fees notwithstanding, food and drink prices on the site—dominated seemingly by a cartel of some sorts—were extortionate to a degree rarely found outside of Central London in peak season. And with the Eisteddfod site itself still being alcohol-free, a trip to the pubs in Bala which had also formed a cartel just for the week, was not an entirely sensible alternative.

You can of course go to Alton Towers or London Zoo and complain about the prices after they have got you in their ring-fenced compound, but in virtually all other respects the Eisteddfod has a clear edge. To illustrate this, it was a pity that the BBC didn't have its cameras at the ready for the hardly untypical scene when a Jordanian academic, who had spent over a decade learning fluent English, conversed with a Welsh boy while showing him how to use the internet. Whenever he spoke to the child, the boy's mother shouted at her son in Welsh not to answer him . . . and the naive among you thought language was all about effective communication. So did the pop band Gorky's Zygotic Munci, who were banned from playing their traditionally bilingual set in the Rock Tent because the language-fascists thought their occasional English singing would have corrupted the young and innocent. (Bands singing sexist or totally vacuous shit was fine so long as they did it all in Welsh.)

Narrow-minded nationalists
The prevalence of this type of stultifying, narrow-minded behaviour is a tragedy for a land which otherwise has so much to offer. But then again. Wales has been blighted by nationalism and bigotry for as long as anyone can remember. And the ultimate irony is that while all nations are imagined communities, few illustrate this better than the Land of My Fathers.

Wales and the type of traditions currently celebrated at the Eisteddfod are largely a product of the rise of a Welsh non-conformist commerce-based class in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This was a class initially desperate to throw off English domination and in some instances, at least, keen to pursue the same course eventually adopted by the southern Irish. The legacy of this mindset still persists today and pervades most Welsh culture and institutions.Wales has a fascinating culture and Welsh is a fine language but both have been devalued by the actions of capitalism's class of predators who would have been quite content to let Welsh culture in whatever its forms die if it had not served their interests to cynically mould it and debase it.

None of this is really a matter of dispute even among bourgeois historians, with Kenneth O. Morgan once famously stating that it was this economically-inspired cultural process, with the refoundation of the long-dead Eisteddfod, which led to the “rebirth of a nation", though admittedly the phrase "rebirth” was overstepping the mark a bit. In Wales: The Imagined Nation edited by Tony Curtis, another argues that the rise of the Welsh trading and capitalist class helped create "what was really a new national identity at a time when Wales was drawn inexorably into the maelstrom of British social, political and industrial life, and when many of the peculiarities of Welsh nationhood had either disappeared or become moribund".

The Welsh capitalist class—today more fully developed than hitherto and perhaps even more entwined in the workings of the state machine than its English counterpart—still trades on the nationalist myth and distortion it was largely responsible for in the first place, binding its wage slaves to a totally fake commonality of interests encouraged by a suspicion of outsiders.

The Labour Party, much in evidence at Bala '97 all the way from the Secretary of State downwards, panders to it all like they pander to their paymasters whoever they may be, from the City one day to the Farmers' Union of Wales and the "Taffia" the next. Meanwhile, the culture of the dispossessed class reflects the competing claims of the propertied, a global class forever encouraging the parochial touch for its subordinates, not out of a cultural celebration so much as an extension of the principles of divide and rule and each against all. To this end, in the grim terraced mining valleys, metropolitan Cardiff and the massive sink council housing estates of Wrexham and Newport the working class go about their daily business listening to Oasis, eating at McDonald's and occasionally taking night-classes in beginners’ Welsh. A cynical thought perhaps, but with more than a grain of truth attached to it and one unlikely to be given expression on the BBC.

Dave Perrin

The BBC says "No" to the SPGB (1964)

Party News from the October 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

On a number of occasions over the past few years, we have approached the BBC with a view to getting time on the air to state our point of view. Always we have been refused.

Again, just recently, we learned of a new programme series Let Me Speak, which the BBC is planning and which apparently is for the purpose of allowing minority parties to state their case. In all innocence we applied again, and what was the reply? That’s right—No! Here is the text of the BBC’s letter of August 10th:-

    It was at no time intended that an opportunity should be given for the expression of all minority points of view in “Let Me Speak," and this would indeed have been impossible. The series aims to allow a representative cross-section of minorities whose views may be of interest to the British public a chance to air them. It has been made on the basis of those whose views are thought likely to be of most interest to the public, and at the present time there is no intention of adding to the list of groups chosen.

So the BBC will be the sole arbiter of what is “likely to be of most interest to the public,” and a unique and old-established minority party with a consistent and uncompromising viewpoint, does not seem to meet its requirements. After numerous efforts, it would be difficult to know just what else we have to do before the BBC drops its evasive attitude and grants us a few minutes of its precious broadcasting time. Perhaps we shall learn the answer when we hear some of the groups in Let Me Speak. Of one thing we may be sure; most of them at least will be nowhere near as well established and constant as the SPGB.