Review: January 1972 (1972)

The Review of the Month column from the February 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

At Home

The New Year came in to the ominous sound of politicians and economic experts assuring us that 1972 is going to be a boom time to remember. Ominous for those who recall, or who know about, all those other Januaries when the same forecasts from the same quarters turned sour. Most spectacularly, and most memorably, the year of the Great Crash—1929—was welcomed as a bumper year. There is plenty of evidence that the people who claim to control the economy of capitalism have no idea of what is happening but at times they make it too obvious.

Thus boom year 1972 opened with about one million out of work; what did they think, of the gay assurances on the city pages? of the reports of the bumper time many big investors had in 1971, and expect to better in 1972? It opened with the miners striking in a desperate attempt to hold the slide in their standard of living, with a strike. What sort of a boom is it, in the mining villages with only a ghost of a pit to remind them of the reality of capitalism’s economics—and its anarchy? When the experts tell us we are in for a good time, wise men take cover.

Some had to take cover literally, as the drums of poisonous chemicals from the sunken steamer came bobbing in on the tides along the beaches of southern England. This will not help the seaside landladies to get their share of boom time 1972. The incident sparked off, again, a great uproar about the environment and the way in which capitalism fouls the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat.

In some ways this is all to the good; after all, who chooses to take their holiday swim in a sea full of sodium cyanide? But it is fair to ask, where the environmentalists have been all this time, while socialists have been spelling out the facts on the pollution which capitalism has to cause. A clean world fit for humans to live in is an impossibility while society is organised on the basis of production for sale and profit. Capitalism pollutes and corrupts everything it touches, not simply our directly physical environment. We have been hammering home this lesson for over sixty years; and it still isn’t too late to do something about it.

Abroad

The freeing of Sheik Mujib Rahman gave the people of East Pakistan a new god to worship; presumably they now feel secure and certain in their future. Nobody should be misled into thinking that the scenes of massive, hysterical rapture which followed Mujib’s release could happen only in a country like Pakistan. The memory of Nazi Germany, and of the mass adulation given to Churchill, is too close for that. The mob emotion in Pakistan is a symptom of the political backwardness of its people; just like their counterparts in more “advanced” countries, they are sure to be disappointed when they find how frail, how humanly impotent against the demands of class society, their new god is.

Meanwhile, a few thousand miles across the world the first preparations for the election of a new god are under way. In America the Democratic Party are beginning to sort out the contenders for their nomination for the next presidential election. From now until August there will be a series of primary elections, which will be contested with an intensity of purpose so strong that it may disguise the true nature of the whole affair. The same old promises, dressed up in up-to-date terms, will be dragged out and offered. There will be the same old talk about qualities of leadership, as each candidate modestly puts himself forward as the new superman who can solve all the problems of the American workers simply by being in the White House. A great deal of money will be spent in the campaigns. And the end result will be another leader of capitalism.

Politics

For some time it has been muttered, that Heath was about to reshuffle his government (“reshuffle” is a good word — after it all we’ve still got the same old cards) and present us with a new set of political bosses. There was some surprise, that this had not happened immediately in the New Year — and probably some anguish from the hopefuls who were looking to take the first steps up the ladder of political ambition. To the workers of Britain it need not matter, who rules over the part of capitalism they happen to live in. Their resolution for 1972 should be to do something about getting rid of the system, with all its suppression, its poisons, its cynicism and despair.

Review: February 1972 (1972)

The Review of the Month column from the March 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

At Home

As the miners ended their strike in victory, it became clear that there had been a widespread miscalculation. The strength of the strikers — their solidarity, the effectiveness of their picketing — was underestimated by the government, by the press and, incidentally, also by the Socialist Standard. This strike was an example of effective trade union action; it was solid and well directed so that it demanded a rapid settlement. For the government, this defeat of their wages policy may be a chance for them to regroup and consider their next field of battle. The high level of unemployment is not the only similarity between the present and the twenties, when an apparently victorious miners’ strike preceded the General Strike and a victory for the capitalist class over the workers.

One of the most cynical statements on the strike came from Labour leader Harold Wilson, who supported the miners because they are a special case. It is not so long ago that Wilson was Prime Minister in a government which fought bitterly against strikers, whether their case was “special’’ (whatever that may mean) or not. In perhaps the most famous strike of Wilson’s time as Premier, the seamen were also said to be “special”. Their wages were comparatively low, they worked long hours often in unpleasant and dangerous conditions. And, like the miners, there was a large fund of goodwill for them, in memory of their particular suffering during the war. Wilson’s reaction to all of this was to oppose the seamen and, in one of his most wretched speeches, condemn them as misled by a small band of politically motivated wreckers. There is no reason to think that he is sincere now in his support for the miners; he is simply hoping to drive another nail into Heath’s well-studded coffin.

Abroad

President Nixon took off for his visit to China, which will probably do him no harm in this election year, declaring that he went with the object of talking about peace. The fact that the admittedly capitalist America can find common ground with the allegedly socialist China is proof that both countries have the same social system. In fact, what Nixon went to talk about was war. The subjects the leaders will discuss will be the clashing interests of their two capitalist powers in the Far East, how to carve up that piece of the world, how to establish more contact between the two states so that the processes of capitalist diplomacy can be more smoothly carried on. These are the superficial issues which spring from the conflicts of capitalism which are the cause of modern war. Whatever settlements Nixon may negotiate it is safe to say that other conflicts will emerge, if not between China and America then perhaps between the two in alliance and some other line-up. The plain fact, which is often overlooked amid all the emotion and the lies at such times, is that capitalism is a society of conflict and that war is its normality.

In Rhodesia the Smith government showed its racist teeth again in the imprisonment and ill-treatment of the Todds. The Smith government imprisons people without even the right of a trial, which most capitalist governments allow and which is a valuable safeguard, because it is a racist and therefore an openly repressive regime. But this type of imprisonment is a common method under capitalism. In the dictatorships of Eastern Europe it happens all the time and over this side of the world, the British government has of course used the same method in Northern Ireland. What this means is that a capitalist state will fight ruthlessly when it is threatened and that none are above using such methods.

Politics

The government’s narrow majority on the Common Market caused a tremendous uproar, mainly from Labour M.P.s who were screaming with fury like the baby whose bottle is stolen; they saw themselves robbed of a chance of power over British capitalism by the votes of a few Liberals who had done no more than vote in the way they had always said they would vote. This puts the vote, and the so-called debate which preceded it, into its proper perspective — another piece of the great, boring, futile game of capitalist politics.

One who always played that game in an especially petulant style finally chucked it in. Ray Gunter, ex-Minister of Labour, left the Labour benches with a characteristically illiterate letter. Gunter used his position as a Minister to fight working class wage claims tooth and nail. He was a strong advocate of tougher controls on immigration and a supporter of the racist laws passed under the Wilson government. He sent his resignation at a time when he was staying at a posh hotel in Durban, as a guest of the racist government of South Africa. All of this, from a man who calls himself a socialist— and who got away with it because he was in a party which also takes that name while standing for capitalism with every inhumanity that implies.

Review: January 1972 (1972)

The Review of the Month column from the January 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

At Home

It was fitting that, in the season of good-will and hand-outs, everyone should get so alarmed by the terrible news about the straitened circumstances in which the queen has been forced to live recently. It was rumoured last year, when she did not make the usual Christmas appearance on the box, that she had virtually gone on a genteel strike for more pay. Many workers must have taken time off from their efforts to balance their own budgets to give a sigh of relief that the figurehead of British capitalism will now be able to scrape by on the more comfortable wage of a million a year and that it will not, after all, be necessary to put up any of the castles and palaces or any of the other symbols of royal penury for sale.

Similar relief must have been felt at the news that our Members of Parliament and our Ministers are also to get a hefty rise. Apparently the inflation of the currency has meant that all these people in Parliament find the buying power of their wage getting less as time goes by. But what sympathy can there be for them, since they are constantly getting their jobs as MPs on the solemn promise that they can control inflation? A prime example of someone being hoist with their own petard, or whatever we might call it.

At the other end of the wages spectrum, the 280,000 members of the National Union of Mineworkers were voting for an official strike to start on January 9. The strike —the first national industrial action by the miners since the lock-out of 1926 — was decided on after three years of mounting militancy among the union’s activists, which forced the executive to drop their previous "moderate” policy of concern for the finances of the state capitalist National Coal Board. The miners’ demands may seem to be high but in fact they are asking for no more than enough to maintain or re-establish their standard of living. The press are unable to use one of their usual lies —that strikes are forced upon unwilling workers by their union — since in the secret ballot 59 per cent of miners (75 per cent in the largest coalfield, Yorkshire) voted to strike. In this latest battle in the continuous class struggle, the miners should have the full support of every member of the working class. They’ve got a better case than the queen.

Abroad

The war between India and Pakistan, as part of the long struggle they have waged against each other, was predictable from the earliest days of independence which was, let us remember, sold to us as a step towards peace and prosperity for the sub-continent. Both these nations are regular rattlers of the begging bowl, pleading their inability to support refugees, victims of natural disasters, famine and so on. Yet both seemed to find little difficulty in financing a war, which says something about the order of capitalism’s priorities. The conflict is of course more than a minor matter, since the three leading powers of world capitalism, as they all quickly showed, are vitally interested in what happens there. Russia in particular is determined that this shall be her exclusive area of influence. Altogether an ominous situation, showing again that this is no time of peace and security.

As the statesmen patted themselves on the back when they drew the borders of India and Pakistan in 1947, so they were busily congratulating themselves over their latest "settlement”, this time in Rhodesia. Of course this was a sellout but it was almost impossible, given the facts of life under capitalism, to see any other way out for the British ruling class. Those who were angry at the terms of the settlement should remind themselves that betrayals, of varying degrees of cynicism, are a constant feature of capitalist diplomacy.

Politics

The newspapers were almost damp with the tears of the leader writers, as the news came through that the Parliamentary Labour Party had turned down Barbara Castle as a member of their Shadow Cabinet. (In the event, as must have been expected, Wilson appointed her to his team anyway.) The theme of the comment was to regret this scurvy treatment of so fine and clever a woman. Yet Castle was one of the most prominent tricksters of the late unlamented Labour government; in her role as boss of employment she planned to restrict the bargaining power of the unions. This was her most famous achievement; apart from that she was always ready to defend all the Wilson government’s anti-working class measures on the grounds that she, a “left-wing socialist”, could be trusted to stand against anything which harmed working class interests. What this means is that she. was among the most cynical of this bunch of quacks and liars. Except for the fact that she would simply be replaced by another, equally cynical, politician, no member of the working class need mourn her departure.

Review: June 1972 (1972)

The Review of the Month column from the July 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

Home

Events in the docks, on the railways and in the Industrial Relations Court seemed to indicate that the government policy on the unions is, as the newspapermen like to say, in ruins. At first they huffed, with the big fine for the TGWU; then they puffed with the railmen’s ballot and the threats to imprison the dockers. But then their house fell down. The Labour Party seized upon the government’s confusion, implying that things would have been better ordered under Wilson. They forgot that the last time a government was made to look foolish over taking legal action against strikers was the Labour government who prosecuted dockers in 1951. They forgot also that every government starts off with promises to tackle the unions, in one way or another. This applied to the Wilson period, which began with attempts at getting the unions to agree to voluntary restrants and ended with the famous, ill fated legal restrictions of In Place of Strife. The insoluble problem for all governments, which are trying to run capitalism, is to legislate order into an anarchic situation. The class struggle is an essential part of capitalism; politicians who think they can control it, and workers who vote for them in that belief, are simply deluding themselves.

The same newspapers which took a high moral tone over the allegedly grabbing activities of the unions also adopted the same attitude over the activities of the asset strippers, notably John Bentley who has stripped so effectively in recent times that he has become a millionaire. The whole point about asset stripping is that someone makes money — a lot of money — over shutting a factory down. City editors striving to believe that there is something logical and beneficial to us all in capitalism thought it a bit much, that someone can make a fortune over a process which involves throwing thousands of other people out of work. In fact, asset stripping conforms perfectly to the basics of capitalism, which is that everything must be carried on with a view to making profit. Bentley personifies the uselessness of the system which provides for him so well.


Abroad

The South African government are under increasing pressure to modify, if not abandon, their policies of apartheid. Of course we have been hearing for a long time now, that the end of apartheid was near; meanwhile the special type of suffering which it entails has if anything worsened. What is new about recent developments has been the growing tendency for whites to protest against the government— and not just whites who were anxious that they would lose the chance to watch touring sports teams but some with other concerns, other interests. In many ways apartheid stands against the logic of capitalism, which needs a free, mobile working class. In South Africa, the industrialists have smarted under the restrictions of the official policies and have looked hungrily at the vast labour force which was being denied them. The immediate possibility is that Vorster will crack down on the protests with more restrictions but beyond that, in some way, there must be an end to apartheid if capitalism is to develop in South Africa. When that happens, and the Africans have arrived at a state of established working class life style, with all that implies in terms of poverty and suppression, the protesters may realise that something more fundamental is needed by way of social change, if human problems are to be dealt with effectively.

Politics

Anyone who still cherishes the idea that the parties of capitalism are united bands of brothers will have had their delusions damaged somewhat by recent happenings in party committee rooms. In both the big parties, the knives have been out and there have been one or two corpses to cart away afterwards. The whole trouble has been that in the next election there will be a lot of redesigned constituencies, as a result of the adjustment of parliamentary boundaries. In many cases this has meant that thousands of supporters have been drawn into a neighbouring constituency, where they are likely to be swamped by the larger votes of the other side. Some seats probably change hands, others become perilous instead of safe. The struggle has been to desert the sinking ships and find a place on a nice, dry safe one—and it has involved some big names among them no less than the Prime Minister whose seat at Bexley may have become Labour in the reshuffle. Capitalist politicians are persistently telling us that they serve us. sacrifice themselves for us, give us the best years of their lives and so on. When they are struggling for their survival, however, they tend to show rather different motives.

Review: April 1972 (1972)

The Review of the Month column from the May 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

Home

The cruelest month brought yet another bout of misery for workers who rely on the trains to get them to and from work, as the railway workers went slow in an effort to get some results on their pay claim. There might be some argument about whether the railmen were well advised in their handling of the episode in which Alex Jarrett awarded them a rapid 12½ per cent. That would be a matter of tactics. What cannot be in dispute is the fact that here we have another section of workers who are struggling to arrest a lowering of their living standards. In view of the recent history of the railways, which has been one of cut back and decline, they may well be trying to hold back the tide; but theirs is a struggle which all workers should support. And in giving this support workers should not be in the slightest impressed by the cynical mouthings of the press and of official spokesmen, who express such concern over the “suffering of the public”. To take only one example, British Rail have not considered public interests when they have decided to shut down lines; they have been concerned only with the profitability of the railways. That remains their concern and that is why they are fighting the railmen. In the confusion of the struggle, the essential facts must be kept clear.

Of course the government claimed that their stand against the railway workers was a matter of principle—and any worker who still accepts that capitalist politicians have such things may have believed them. Yet they showed again, how flexible their “principles” can be, when they agreed to pump more money into the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast. Those with a memory which goes back to June 1970 will recall that the Heath government was going to make capitalism a joy to live in by the simple process of refusing to support lame duck firms and industries and making all of us stand firmly on our own two feet. This policy took a knock when the government virtually nationalised Rolls Royce; now there is another example, in the case of Harland and Wolff. The plain fact is that modern capitalism runs on a large measure of government interference in, and support of, private industry. When the Tories pretend otherwise they are merely playing for votes by ignoring facts.


Abroad

Vietnam forced its way explosively back into the headlines it had been kept out of by Northern Ireland and all the other news items about the current violence of capitalism. As Nixon prepares for his re-election campaign, it may be remembered that in 1968 he seemed quite sure that his administration would not have too much difficulty in finishing the war, which seemed at that time to be about to drag on for ever. With the approach of election year, Nixon has put in force a policy of training the South Vietnamese to fight the war themselves on the ground, with support from American aircraft and “advisers”. This policy has now been exposed, like the rest, as impotent. Nevertheless, we can depend on it, that in November there will be more policies, more plans, more vote-catching promises. None of them will deal with the reality, which is that the war in Vietnam is another of the conflicts which spring from the essentially divisive nature of capitalist society. It should not matter to workers, what nationality of people it is that fights a war; as workers their interests are the same. War is unavoidable in a capitalist society and workers everywhere should unite to end the system.

Politics

Another great split in the Labour Party, bringing back memories of the days of Aneurin Bevan, although elegant Roy Jenkins is of course much more acceptable in the vote-floating areas than was Bevan, who might sometimes sound as if the Labour Party was in opposition to the Tories and who could therefore be a bit of an embarrassment. At least until he learnt his lesson at the famous Brighton conference in 1957.

The latest split came over the issue of a referendum on the Common Market. Recently a group of Labour M.P.s have been agitating for this, completely ignoring the fact that when they were in power they were trying to push through membership of the Six without any talk of a vote on whether the workers wanted such a thing or not. Apart from this, the Jenkins rebels are fighting over the Labour leadership, however much they protest, hand on heart, that nothing is further from their intentions. This is not a battle over principles, since neither side have any to fight over. It is at best a struggle over an issue of capitalism—whether and how the British capitalist class should join a trading combine of other capitalist classes on the Continent. It is of no consequence to workers whether their rulers join any such combine; neither is it of any consequence how the affairs of that combine are handled. Jenkins may or may not improve his career prospects as a result of his resignation; the real issue for workers is whether they will continue to stand for capitalism, with its trade and its conflicts and its cynical leaders.

Review: July 1972 (1972)

The Review of the Month column from the August 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

At Home

Connoisseurs of political scandal, with all its romantic implications, had their appetite whetted by the blowing open of the Poulson affair, which was in fact first ventilated in the scandal-hunting Private Eye. This was no Profumo affair, there was apparently nothing in it to suggest that the press was about to have such a merry time as in those high summer days of 1963. But Maudling, conforming to the proprieties of capitalist government (which exist, even if in a strange, half-lit world of their own) knew he had to resign from the post of Home Secretary. There will now be an enquiry, which presumably will be intended to prove something or other. One conclusion it will not reach is that the whole thing is really irrelevant. Capitalism is a system which might be called basically corrupt, since it works on the basis of a mass robbery which is perfectly legal because the ruling class make it so. But within those bounds it is of no account, whether politicians or businessmen spend all their time handing out and taking bribes, fiddling the books or any of the other activities which sometimes come to the surface of the system’s very murky waters. If capitalism were administered in such a way that there was never the faintest breath of a scandal, it would still be one vast swindle on the mass of its people. It would still deprive the majority of us of the fruits of our labours. It would still produce poverty, still condemn its people to lives of suppression, still produce conflicts right up to the scale of a nuclear war. Whether it is run corruptly or not, capitalism will never be able to operate in the interests of most of its people.

As Maudling left the Home Office, is was remembered by his enemies that one of his failures was in Northern Ireland. So much has happened there, since Maudling was the minister responsible, that it comes as something of a surprise to remember his part in the dispute. Yet it is in fact not so long ago, that he was dabbling in some of the “solutions” put forward. This is a measure perhaps of the speed with which events have moved in Northern Ireland. It is certainly an indication of the futility of all the efforts to end the fighting there. This is a conflict between sections of the ruling class over the right, and the method, to exploit the workers of the country. It has been worsened by the bigotries which both sides have stirred up in an effort to get their way. In the present social set up there is virtually no hope of solving the problem; the best that is possible is a suppression of its symptoms for a time, until they break out again.


Abroad

In the end the McGovern bandwagon rolled home, its wheels running over a few famous Democratic toes in the process. Now McGovern says he is planning to win the presidency in the same way as he won the nomination. He has made a start, by coining a new slogan “Come Home America”. Of course all politicians have to have some catch phrase to identify them to the voters, no matter how dishonest or inane it may be. Kennedy promised the New Frontiers, Johnson the Great Society. McGovern’s slogan is equally loaded, since he also made a clear promise that he would immediately stop bombing North Vietnam and, within a specified time, withdraw all American troops from Vietnam. Some of his critics claimed that in this, and in his slogan, he was pushing for a return to the isolationist politics of old but as isolationism is now a dirty word McGovern could be relied on to deny that charge. The important issue now is what the American working class will make of the election, and of this man who is said to be a dangerous radical (whatever that might mean) but who would probably fit comfortably into the Liberal Party were he a British politician. If the workers in America take a mature and conscious attitude to the election they will not be deceived by any promises or programmes for their “prosperity”, or by any slogans. They will realise that leaders are not to be trusted to solve working class problems, simply because they cannot. The issue in the election will be capitalism or Socialism, and in that the workers themselves must act for themselves.


Politics

Parliament goes off for its long summer holiday, leaving Westminster silent except for the tourists who come in ever increasing numbers to gaze at the seat of parliamentary power of British capitalism. The politicians go to their various holiday haunts—Wilson to his cottage in the Scillies, Heath to win a few yacht races around the coast. At the same time, they assure us that we are not unguarded; they keep in touch with events and the red despatch boxes are still delivered, in a crisis the ministers would come flocking back to take over again. Meanwhile, the working class are also taking their holidays — usually a couple of weeks which they might spend abroad if they can afford a package tour. It is a good time for them to reflect, as they take it easy on the beach, on the function of politics in capitalism; on the way they are deceived into trusting their leaders to run society when they are in fact doing it themselves. On the fact that they do all the useful work but allow a minority to appropriate the results of their work. Then they might think about what they can do about it and come back, bronzed and refreshed, determined to start doing it.

Review: March 1972 (1972)

The Review of the Month column from the April 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

At Home

The blast waves of the Aldershot bombing continued to spread, with the police searching the homes of some members of International Socialism and causing an uproar of protest as they did so. Loudest among the protesters were the I.S. members themselves, striking poses of offended virtue that the fuzz could think them capable of involvement in such nefarious activities. The bombing itself was the occasion for a fresh flourishing of the unhealthy fantasy that in a dispute like Northern Ireland only the other side can be guilty of indiscriminate killing. In the last war a similar act of sabotage against a German Army headquarters, killing a few civilians in the process, would have been reckoned a triumph of the forces of light over those of darkness.

A similar fantasy raised its head again in the case of the naval officer who sold secrets to the Russians to get money to pay off family debts. This was a desperately tragic story, of a man caught up and crushed by the ruthless machinations of capitalism. Yet beneath the emotions roused by the case was another; the assumption that there was something particularly dirty in that officer selling the secrets of the force of which he was a member. Yet a Russian who does the same thing is not condemned as a traitor. The basic point in both cases is that capitalism is a vicious, dirty society which makes human beings act in vicious, dirty ways. And that is exactly what they do, on all sides, all the time.


Abroad

In Northern Ireland, viciousness reaches new peaks almost with each passing day. It is not so long ago, that we were worrying that if things went on as they were someone would get killed soon; now, a death hardly rates a news story. It was not so long ago, again, that some elements on the left were calling for the introduction of British troops who, they said, would act “impartially” and so be an improvement on the B Specials. Those some people are now raging about the actions of the Paratroops and are becoming deeply absorbed with establishing, in many incidents, who fired the first shot, who offered the first provocation and so on. These are tragic irrelevancies. On both sides, it is members of the working class who are dying in Northern Ireland. And, as ever, they are losing their lives in a conflict in which their interests are not in the slightest degree involved. That is the one relevant fact about the war there and it does not need a tribunal or enquiry to do anything about it, but a conscious act by the people to end this society of conflict.

No signs of such consciousness, yet, in the preliminaries of the Presidential election in America. For the Republicans, Nixon seems to have it all sewn up and to be indisputably their candidate. The Democrats have not yet recovered from Chicago 1968 and are split wide open, with the wound of George Wallace especially festered. As the results of the first primary elections came in, Wallace was seen to be collecting substantial numbers of votes—and in Florida victory, no less—which gives him an ever more powerful base within the Democrats. The other candidates, in the customary way, had to put a brave face on their defeat and to describe their beating almost as a strange sort of victory. Wallace claims to represent the opinions of the average worker in America and in the sense that he calls to mind much that is ugly, frightened, bigoted and confused he may be right. Workers feel that way, and take refuge in extreme political ideas, because capitalism is a society of fear, without security; it is a divisive system. If it ever comes to a President George Wallace, with all that implies, the responsibility for it will extend a long way beyond the bigots of the Deep South.


Politics

Roy Jenkins made a speech, which brought at first ecstatic joy, then embarrassed confusion, to his supporters. The joy because any words from the lips of elegant Jenkins are now treated with a reverence previously reserved for such white hopes of the Labour Party as Ramsay MacDonald, Stafford Cripps, Harold Wilson. The confusion because the speech was at once interpreted as a bid for the Labour leadership which, in these days of difficulty and disarray at Transport House, is reckoned in some quarters to be becoming more and more open. In fact in the present situation any speech by Jenkins must be a move in the leadership game but any aspiring Labour leader would be foolish to write off a man as cunning and ruthless as Wilson. At any rate Jenkins showed in his speech that he has all the cheek needed for a political leader, since he came out with all the corny old stuff about looking for a new style of politics, new idealism, for compassion, justice, principle. It was all as if the Labour government of 1964/70 had never been, as if Jenkins had not been a prominent member of a government which consistently fought the working class, which passed racist laws, which set out with the avowed aim of reducing workers’ living standards. If he ever makes leader he will eventually be exposed as Wilson was exposed, and as every Labour charlatan has been exposed before him. The Labour leadership carries with it a distinguished pedigree of cynicism and Jenkins has shown us that he is worthy to take his place in that sordid line of descent.