Twenty Years After (1958)

Theatre Review from the September 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

In his play, "Chicken Soup with Barley" (Royal Court Theatre), the young Jewish writer, Arnold Wesker, born of Hungarian-Russian parents in the East End of London, gives us glimpses into the world in which he grew up, through the history of a Jewish family from 1936 to 1956, to show the gradual disintegration of a political ideal—the Communist Party.

The play opens at the time of the Blackshirts' marches on the Jewish East End. We are immediately caught up in the excitement of young Communists fighting the Fascists on their doorstep and at the same time looking eagerly towards the crusade in Spain, to the front line. It seemed to them as though any fight with the Red Flag flying was the good fight, a blow for the future, whether in the workshops, the streets or on Jarama Ridge. To Sarah Kahn, her family and friends, out of the ceaseless struggle would come—something. And in the East: Moscow. The Red star still glowed as to them the god had not yet failed.

The war plans are bypassed, and with the end of the war the pattern has changed; there is a strange emptiness now. The Communist Party is somewhere in the background, but the group has naturally been broken up by the war. Gradually they go their various ways; a greengrocer's shop in Manchester, a handicraft furniture in the Cotswolds. The unity and urgency has gone; to each his own salvation. But Sarah Kahn is still the same, carrying on her fight against the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker, and against her husband Harry, a drifter of a man who could never hold a job down and to whom even in the old days the party was just something that happened to be around, like his wife and the boys. For Sarah Kahn nothing has changed, life is still fighting and caring.

Her son Ronnie Kahn, now grown up, carries with him the thread of the past, an enthusiasm for the "Left," together with an ambition to write, to write about the working class life he knows, to express its culture and hopes for the future. One day in 1956 he returns home after working in Paris, a shattered man, one of the many whose belief in the great Russian myth had been destroyed by the Hungarian revolt, and with it, his desire to write. Against Harry, now a paralysed wreck of a man after suffering a strike, Sarah's struggle is almost over, but her son now stands in his place. At all costs to be saved from becoming as his father had been. But "If you don't care, you will die," she says. 

This is where the play leaves us, and gives, as its political injunction, that we must simply "care!" The retreat from an illusion has left nothing but a little infused hope that may ease the agony and make life bearable. And perhaps—sometime—who knows?

For thousands a political idea is dead. But those people who take their political philosophy on trust must not be surprised if that trust is forsaken and their ideals turned to ashes. So much for so little. But the tragedy is great.

I.D.J.

Proper Gander: To EDL and Back (2014)

The Proper Gander Column from the April 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

Broadcasting budget cuts have led to plans to take BBC3 off the air in 2015, demoted to being an online-only channel. So it looks like there’ll be fewer of its trademark brash documentaries, like EDL Girls – Don’t Call Me Racist. This show follows three women attached to the thuggishly nationalistic English Defence League. Gail is a long-standing leader of the Yorkshire ‘Angels’. She has a steely, scary determination, undaunted when she’s ‘disrespected’ by founding leader Tommy Robinson’s departure from the organisation. Amanda is a younger wannabe member, who thinks ‘it’s quite romantic going on an EDL demo’ as a date with her new boyfriend. Katie is the only one in her family of committed EDLers to doubt their beliefs. She tells her mum that she doesn’t want to be thought of as racist as they sit colouring in A4 placards with felt-tip pens.

Those taking part in the programme hope that it will dispel the stereotype of EDL members as shaven-headed racist young males. If nothing else, it succeeds by reminding us that obnoxious, mistaken beliefs can be held by both men and women. One member objects to bread being marked as halal, claiming that a few pennies from its sale will go to the Taliban. Another says that she doesn’t want her children to be ‘made to wear a burqa’. There are enough reasons to criticise Islam without having to rely on these kinds of laughable misconceptions.

The EDL makes ill-founded generalisations about others, but can’t see the irony when they complain that other people make ill-founded generalisations about them. The difference is that generalisations about EDL members are usually correct, as they all share views which easily fall apart with only the slightest scrutiny. They have a misplaced sense of ownership and loyalty to the country they just happened to have been born in, along with misplaced beliefs about society’s problems, and misplaced blame towards Muslims. They’ve even misappropriated the slogan ‘Whose Streets? Our Streets’ from the left.

Mike Foster

Talks In The Train. (1905)

From the March 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Good morning, John."

"Good morning, William, what do you think of the King's Speech?"

"I am pleased to see that the Government intends to deal with the question of the unemployed!"

"To 'deal' with it!"

"Yes, 'legislation will be submitted to you for the establishment of authorities to deal with the unemployed'!"

"And you really think the Conservatives will 'deal' with it?"

"Is there any reason to doubt it?"

"Yes, the capitalist system, which the House of Commons is elected to support, produces an unemployed problem. If that problem were effectively 'dealt' with it would mean the abolition of the capitalist system, and that, as you know, is not 'practical politics.'"

"But surely you will give the Government credit for good intentions?"

"It is said that the road to Hell is already well-paved with such. Apart from that, both Conservative and Liberal leaders have declared their inability to do anything."

"When did they make those declarations?"

"Speaking at Watford, in October, 1895, the late Lord Salisbury said 'we have got as far as we can to make this country more pleasant to live in for the vast majority of those who inhabit it' and 'we have no panacea for the evils with which we are afflicted.' In the following November, at Brighton, he said 'I am conscious that when the Government has done its best, this would advance but a very small distance in diminishing the suffering which the hand of Providence has inflicted.'"

"But what about Balfour? He is leader now."

"Yes, and at Manchester, in January, 1895, he said 'If you ask me whether anything in the power of the Unionist Party or any other party or within the compass of the wit of man to devise can meet the curse of lack of employment, I fear we can look forward to no prospect of that kind.' He now doubt holds the same opinion now."

"Then we must turn to the Liberals!"

"Who will give you no more better encouragement. In the House of Commons, in February, 1895, Sir William Harcourt said that with regard to the question of the unemployed, he agreed with the position taken up by Mr. Balfour a few days previously at Manchester. Of Asquith, who responsible for the murder of the Featherstone miners, a cynical indifference could only be expected. At Newcastle, in January, 1895, he referred to the unemployed as the nation's 'rubbish!' And when Campbell Bannerman was asked by the unemployed deputation at Poplar in January last what he would propose as a means of dealing with the problem he merely said he 'was not in the Government.'"

"But, then, admitting the futility of expecting either Conservative or Liberals will solve the problem, I think that the promised legislation on the alien question will help."

"In what way?"

"Well, if aliens come over here and drive our own men away and deprive them of work, don't you think the Government  should prohibit alien immigration?"

"You and I are clerks. A few years ago all clerks were males. But women have entered the field against us. In many departments they have not only lowered men's wages, but have driven out male labour altogether. Would you ask the Government to prohibit women and girls entering into competition with clerks and other workmen?"

"Ah! but then they are our own flesh and blood; the others are foreigners."

"But the effect is the same!"

"Still, we must look after our own flesh and blood."

"Is it the rule of the employers to consider 'flesh and blood,' or are they not usually willing to employ any person, irrespective of nationality or creed, who will answer their purpose?"

"But if the aliens were kept out things would be better."

"I cannot see it. The unemployed problem confronts us because of the increasing power of producing wealth which man, aided by machinery, is securing, a power which is increased every day by the improvement of old methods and machines, and the introduction of new. This would continue, even if we had no aliens. All that is urged against these victims of "man's inhumanity to man" could be met by strict enforcement of the Sanitary and Housing Acts, and by the enactment of laws fixing a maximum working week and a minimum wage, equal for both sexes when equal work is done."

"Isn't that a big order?"

"Not if the alien problem is as important as you urge."

"You say that even if all aliens were excluded we should still have an unemployed problem. In that case we have our colonies."

"Where you already have an unemployed problem."

"But not so intense as here."

"But you propose to make it so by sending more men to them."

"Ah! but that's where Chamberlain's scheme comes in. Give our colonies more of our trade."

"That might help for a time; but do not forget there is no cessation of the development of the machine industry, in your colonies as elsewhere. In the near future your colonies will be manufacturing all that they require, and will not them need manufactured goods from Britain. They will be independent of us, as the Continental nations have become. Moreover, by giving your trade to your colonies you take it away from other countries and intensify the unemployed problem in those."

"Oh, that's their business."

"You admit them, that these proposals cannot solve the problem, that at best they would merely improve matters in some parts of the world, and make things worse in others."

"I quite see now that the problem is an international one."

"And can only be solved by international action on the part of the wealth-producers. The present demands of the unemployed are unsound."

"In what way?"

"They are asking for 'work' when already far too much 'work' is done. What is required is something which involves a change in the basis and organisation of society—the redistribution of work."

"The redistribution of work!"

"Yes. Let everybody work. Let each do his share of the work before enjoying any of the results of labour."

"Why, that means—"

"ALL CHANGE!"

CORNER SEAT.

Obituary: George Bellingham (1938)

Obituary from the June 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

During the past few months the Party has suffered severely at the hand of death, and we regret the loss of another propagandist, George Bellingham, who died in April, at the age of about 55.

His attention was directed to the Socialist movement during the early days of the War. The conduct of the Labour Party in its whole-hearted support of that slaughter, and the betrayal of the workers by the Trade Union leaders, prompted him to take a more active part in working-class affairs.

In 1916 he was elected to the Executive Committee of his Trade Union, the London and Provincial Union of Licensed Vehicle Workers. The following year, in company with a member of the Socialist Party, he attended a conference of the Transport Workers' Federation, held at Bristol. While there they noticed that the whole of the passenger-carrying industry was in the hands of the Bristol Tramway & Carriage Co. The employees were unorganised, and dare not mention a word about Trade Unionism.

Realising that the time was favourable to rectify this, they reported the matter to their Executive Committee, and, as a consequence, Bellingham was sent to Bristol to undertake the task of organising this body of workers, and so bring them into the Trade Union movement. This work he carried out in a thorough and efficient manner, and as a result he was approached to stand as a Parliamentary candidate for the Labour Party. This offer being in conflict with his Socialist principles, he declined.

He continued the work of Organiser until the various Trade Unions catering for the Transport Workers were amalgamated into the "Transport Workers' Union." When this took place our late comrade gave up his position and ultimately returned to his work as a journeyman cab-driver.

For many years he gave unsparing service to the cause of Socialism, carrying on consistent propaganda, both among his fellow drivers and from the platform. Not until his recent illness compelled it, did he relax those efforts to help forward working-class enlightenment and ultimate emancipation.

E. L.

Not consistent (2011)

Book Review from the February 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilization … and how to save it . By Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed: Pluto Press, 2010, £19.99

The author is an Executive Director of an ‘independent’ think-tank, working within the sphere of International Relations theory. He has written a very interesting and useful book, but it’s not always an easy read. The subject matter is dense, and there is an immense amount of material packed into its 300 pages.

Ahmed argues that a conjunction of crises is facing humanity, comprising a massive threat to modern industrial civilisation. The crises are global warming, energy scarcity, food insecurity, economic instability, international terrorism, and the tendency towards an erosion of democratic rights. What he stresses and successfully demonstrates is how the various crises are interconnected, and make worldwide systemic change to humanity’s political economy not just desirable, but inevitable. He also rightly insists that these global crises are not aberrations but are actually “integral to the ideology, structure and logic of the global political economy”. As such, they can not be solved by either minor or major policy reforms “but only by drastic reconfiguration of the system itself”.

There is certainly plenty for socialists to agree upon in this urgent and appropriately alarming book. Ahmed advocates a radical extension of democracy, with a need to localise and decentralise political power, the need for sustainability and balance in our relationship to the environment, and a consequent rejection of the values of rampant consumerism. Many of the suggestions outlined for future social organisation are also useful and necessary, but the question arises as to what type of system they should take place in.

In stating that he is using a “Political Marxist Framework”, the author contends that “global crises are generated directly by the operation and structure of the global system” with its untrammelled pursuit of profit. However, a problem arises with his emphasis on ‘neoliberal capitalism’. This description is fair enough when referring to a specific phase of development within global capitalism, but it seems it’s not capitalism in its entirety that he rejects, despite his desire to see it radically restructured.

Ahmed does say we need to “fundamentally reconfigure the relationship between labour and capital,” but not to the extent of eradicating private ownership of the means of production. Instead, he argues that it should be massively extended “to facilitate universal access … by all individuals and communities” (original emphasis). If there is to be ‘universal access’, why retain private ownership? Work – labour – is a social activity; and if all own, then none do. It’s better, therefore, to end the system of ‘production for profit’ and all the paraphernalia of the class-divided system.

To be fair, he does describe his solutions as a “tentative template”, and insists that we all need to be involved in developing responses to our problems. The issue remains of what direction a “post-carbon revolution” will take. The danger is of a continuing and refined super-exploitative society dominated by the interests of a small minority, but a more hopeful scenario is also put forward of large grassroots movements emerging worldwide to push humanity in a more equitable direction. This book provides plenty of reasons why the task of building a political movement for socialism is more urgent than ever.

RW

Editorial: "The Menace of Socialism." (1907)

Editorial from the August 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Daily Express endeavours to make capital—or rather profit—out of the prominence which the word "Socialism" has attained during the past few years. The character of its attack upon what for its purpose it chooses to consider as Socialism is quite worthy of the traditions of "yellow" or capitalist journalism.

In heavy type on its leader page the Express published the following:-

Why not look the facts in the face? The issue is no longer Liberalism against Conservatism. It is, instead, Constitutionalism—which signifies unity of Empire and the rights of property, law and order—against Socialism, which stands for disruption, for loot, for the elimination of individual enterprise, and the incentive to do great things for laziness, for ATHEISM and FREE LOVE.

Here wage-slavery, the exploitation of the mass of the people to supply the luxuries and ease of wealthy drones appears disguised as Constitutionalism, Empire, Property, Law and Order! Whilst Socialism is disguised also but in a different way as Disruption, Loot, Laziness, Atheism and Free Love!

But who, pray, is it intended should be frightened by these scarecrows? Is it the worker? Or is the leech to be applied to some sacred capitalists for the benefit of the free and glorious Press?

The answer to the wild ravings of the Express is soberly unfolded month by month in the columns of this journal; and any reader who follows the installments of Kautsky's work will be enabled to understand and appreciate the depravity of such apologies for capitalism.

Bogey!

The tirade of the Daily Express against Socialism is palpably overdone. In the eyes of the average worker the Express simply makes itself ridiculous by its antics. If the result at Jarrow showed that the working class can no longer be relied upon to vote Liberal or Conservative, the result at Colne Valley showed that at least the word "Socialism" is no longer a bogey from which the workers will fly in terror.

But is the Express concerned with this? Is not its aim rather to scare the less astute section of the capitalists into helping forward an Anti-Socialist League scheme and into providing, incidentally, of course, some very profitable jobs?

If we have to realise that the capitalist Press is a powerful aid to the supremacy of the ruling class, we are also sure that the parasitic nature of that Press makes it at times a sad thorn in the side of our enemy, and a heavy drain on its ill-gotten "swag."

The Great Sham Fight

The Daily Express knows, as do the smarter among the capitalists, that the Liberal Party so far from giving way to the so-called Socialists, stoops but to conquer. By patronage, by flattery, by subsidation, if need be, the Liberal Party collects under its wing the "labour" men who, not having been elected to wage the class struggle for Socialism, and not being answerable to a class-conscious electorate, but being merely the expressions of personal ambition, and of confusion and vague aspiration among the electors, become easily dupes or tools in the hands of the enemies of the working class. Thus the teeth of labour leaders are drawn, jobs are found for them and they become "respectable, adaptable and sensible" citizens; tranquilizers of the discontented among the workers and bulwarks against revolutionary working-class action.

The Liberals, like the mountain that was in labour, are big in promise—it is part of the game, although the fulfillment could only be as chaff to the workers; but even as it is the net result behind all their hypocrisy out-tories the Tories.

The retention of the party division, splitting as it does the capitalist party into two factions, is a splendid dodge for blinding the worker to the truth. But Liberal and Tory, like the genial sun and the boisterous wind in the old fable have identical objects—only their methods differ.

Action Replay: Putin's Games (2014)

The Action Replay Column from the April 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

The 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow were the subject of a large-scale boycott following the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. The recent Winter Olympics in Sochi managed to avoid anything similar relating to the situation in Ukraine, but were still not uncontroversial.

New events, such as half-pipe skiing, were staged for the first time, on the basis of their supposed appeal to spectators and TV viewers. And as usual at such enormous events, global companies have been keen to sponsor and gain attention, and also to get publicity without the expense of official involvement (as ambush marketers). Some of the ambushers did pretty well, with Red Bull winning overall (according to Global Language Monitor) and, somewhat incongruously, Subway beating Rolex.

Michael Hudson and Jeffrey Sommers saw the Games as ‘the great success Russia hoped for’ (www.counterpunch.org/2014/02/24/russia-after-sochi/). Money and development were brought to the Caucasus region, and the authors were almost rhapsodic in their praise: ‘Sochi shows that Russia can pull off world-class projects on the global stage. The games proved how Russia can transform its economy through infrastructure investment in a way that can build up a middle class while countering religious and racist fundamentalist discontent.’

But not everyone was so enthusiastic (see December’s Action Replay). Of the £30bn cost of the Games, perhaps one-third went in corruption and embezzlement. Two thousand families were evicted from their homes so Olympic infrastructure could be built. The ecosystem of the Sochi National Park was badly damaged, and the prospects for the city becoming a big winter resort are at best dubious. The clumsy harassment of a Pussy Riot protest did the Russian state’s image no favours, either.

A large Italianate residence near Sochi, known colloquially as Putin’s Palace and allegedly built for his personal use during his first spell as Russian president, was recently sold for £215m to a fellow oligarch. So Putin’s bank balance at least is now in a healthy condition.

Paul Bennett

The Miners’ Strike Remembered (2014)

From the March 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

One socialist recalls what made him class conscious

The 1984-85 Miners' Strike was a pivotal moment in my political education, a formative event in the development of my socialist class consciousness. After the death of Thatcher in April 2013 I was at a celebratory gathering in Trafalgar Square which was also attended by a few Geordie Miners who carried their North East Area NUM banner. In the old mining village of Goldthorpe in South Yorkshire an effigy of Thatcher was publicly burned. Seumas Milne wrote in The Enemy Within that 'films such as Billy Elliot and Brassed Off rammed home the devastation of the mining communities wrought by the politically driven closures.' Recently there have been released cabinet papers that reveal the Tory government had a secret plan to close 75 pits at the cost of 65,000 jobs, and that the government used police tactics to escalate the dispute. The IPCC is currently undertaking a preliminary assessment to decide whether it should launch a full inquiry into the 'Battle of Orgreave.'

On two occasions having my birthday in February meant the candles on my birthday cake were the only light in our house. In February 1972 a miners' strike led to power cuts, and the defeat for the Tory governmentpay policy. Again in February 1974 a miners' strike caused power cuts but this time Heath called a snap election asking 'who governs? The Tories or the Miners?' The British electorate told Heath it was not him.

On 18 March 1979 an explosion at the Golborne Colliery near Wigan in the St Helens coalfield killed 10 miners with one survivor, a 20-year old apprentice electrician called Brian Rawsthorne. Following the explosion Golborne was visited by the Labour government Secretary of State for Energy Tony Benn who said: 'It is the most terrible tragedy. I have come to express sympathy with the families. The human cost of coal is still a very high cost and we must never take it for granted.' On Boxing Day that year in Garswood, near Ashton-in-Makerfield my family were visiting my uncle who was a mining surveyor for the National Coal Board. The young Brian Rawsthorne was also a guest that day. As recent as September 2011, a miner was killed at the Kellingley colliery in North Yorkshire, and 4 miners were killed at Gleison colliery in South Wales.

Workshop of the world

In the nineteenth century Britain's industrial position as the 'workshop of the world' (Disraeli 1838) – reflected in the bourgeois triumph of the Great Exhibition of 1851 –was based on coal. In 1865 in The Coal Question the leading economist of the day, William Stanley Jevons wrote 'Coal in truth stands not beside but entirely above all other commodities. It is the material energy of the country, the universal aid, the factor in everything we do, a material of such myriad qualities, of such miraculous powers.' Britain had huge coalfields in South Wales, Lancashire, South Yorkshire, the North East and Scotland, employment in coal mining hit a peak of 1.3 million workers in 1920 with a production peak of 287 million tons in 1913. In 1983 production was still over 100 million tons and close to 200,000 miners still worked in the industry.

In 1956 in Coal is our Life, Dennis et al wrote 'The prestige of the miner in the working class is higher than it has ever been' but in some quarters there was a growing realisation of the 'state capitalist' nature of the nationalised coal industry. VL Allen in The Militancy of British Miners (1981) wrote that 'there existed a group of politically articulate miners who argued for the emancipation of their fellow miners from the conditions which made them compliant, vulnerable and dispensable wage labour.' Milne observed a 'visceral capitalist class fear of miners emerging from the bowels of the earth to demand their rights which touched a raw nerve'.

On 2 March 1984 the Miners' Strike began at the Cortonwood Colliery near Wath-upon-Dearne in South Yorkshire. On 6 March the government scrapped the 1974 NCB Plan for Coal and announced a closure plan. On 12 March the strike went national with 196,000 miners on strike. Chas Critcher in Working Class Culture (1979) wrote 'The miner may not think of wage labour or class consciousness as abstract categories, but he knows who pays his wages and what they get out of it, and hence sees that they are not on his side.'

At the end of March 1984 I heard the Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock speak about the Miners' Strike at Preston Polytechnic. Within days I had joined the Labour Party Young Socialists, was reading the Militant newspaper and essentially I had joined the Militant Tendency, a Trotskyist organisation. There followed public meetings on the Miners' Strike at the Preston Trade Union Centre, a Militant Rally in Blackburn, attending branch meetings, and selling Militant in Preston town centre. I read the Manifesto of the Communist Party by Marx and Engels but the most important book to my then comrades in Militant was Lenin's What is to be Done? which describes a disciplined, centralised 'vanguard' party of dedicated revolutionaries (i.e. Militant) bringing socialist consciousness to the working class. I was always hearing the word 'cadre' and was told the situation in Liverpool where Militant controlled the City Council was akin to 'Petrograd in 1917.' I also helped out in the Labour Party rooms at the May local elections.

In June I knocked on doors in Preston collecting food for striking miners' families in the Lancashire coalfields. There were 6,500 Lancashire miners at 20 collieries in the Manchester coalfield, 26 collieries in Wigan, 22 in St Helens and 18 in Burnley. The working class are capable of organising their own affairs in common and this was clearly demonstrated by the mining communities pooling their energies and resources and taking what they needed from a common store. As Engels wrote 'the humanity of the workers is constantly manifesting itself pleasantly. They have experienced hard times themselves, and can therefore feel for those in trouble, whence they are more approachable, friendlier, and less greedy for money, though they need it far more than the property-holding class.'

18 June was a decisive day during the strike when 10,000 miners picketing at Orgreave coking plant in South Yorkshire were confronted by about 8,500 police from ten counties. The NUM planned to repeat the success of the picket at Saltley Coke Depot, Birmingham in 1972. At Orgreave coal was turned into coke for use in steel production and British Steel plants had been receiving 'dispensations': picket-permitted movements of coal to prevent damage to their furnaces. However it was discovered that British Steel was moving far more coal than the dispensations agreed. In the ensuing 'Battle of Orgreave' 93 miners were arrested, and 51 miners injured by the police. The BBC edited footage to alter the time-line of events to show police defending themselves from miners attacks when it was miners defending themselves against police attacks. Later 95 miners were charged with riot and unlawful assembly. In 1991 South Yorkshire police paid £425,000 to settle civil actions brought by 39 miners for what happened at and after Orgreave including for assault, wrongful arrest and malicious prosecution, but no police officer was ever disciplined for any misconduct.

In The Enemy Within Seamus Milne details the Tory government, police, MI5 and Special Branch tactics in the class war against the miners; tapping phones, checking bank deposits, forging documents, using agents provocateurs, providing disinformation to the media, surveillance of miners and the NUM, the DHSS withholding benefits to striking families, restrictive bail conditions and courts sequestering NUM funds. There was the creation of what ostensibly was a national police force, the police used as a paramilitary force, the police using road-block strategy stopping cars and buses and turning them back hundreds of miles from their destinations, and arresting miners if they strayed outside their home county. The criminal law was used against the miners even though picketing including secondary picketing was not an offence in criminal law.  

The Left

A few days after Orgreave I was in Leyland for a miners rally where I heard speeches by Dennis Skinner, ex-miner and Labour MP for Bolsover in the Derbyshire coalfield, and Peter Heathfield, NUM General Secretary. A 'Second Front' of strikes in the face of Tory anti-trade union legislation on secondary picketing was opened up in July with a 2 weeks national dock strike prompted by the use of contractors to unload iron ore at Immingham Docks. There were also prolonged 'wildcat' strikes at power stations in the Aire, Calder, Wharfe, and Ouse valleys in Yorkshire. Railway workers did not move coal trucks, and the railway workers at Shirebrook marshalling yards in Nottinghamshire right in the heart of scab country refused to move one ounce of coal throughout the year-long strike.

In September I came to London to read politics and philosophy at Thames Polytechnic in Woolwich, South East London. Leftwing politics were popular at the Poly; the SWP, the Labour Club which comprised the LPYS, i.e. Militant Tendency, the Socialist Labour Group, and the IMG. My first gig at the Poly in the Student Union Cellar Bar was a Miners' Benefit with The Three Johns and Hagar the Womb, a feminist anarcho-punk band. The Miners' Support Group was linked to the Kent NUM and the 3,000 miners at Betteshanger, Snowdown, and Tilmanstone collieries. In Plumstead I knocked on doors collecting food for striking miners families in the Kent coalfield.

NACODS, the Pit Deputies and safety officials union, wanted the NCB to withdraw the pit closure plan and a ballot on strike action was 82 percent in favour. Strike action was called off when the NCB and Government promised a modified colliery review procedure which was reneged on. If NACODS had gone on strike could the miners have won the strike?

In November I travelled on a hired bus with the Miners' Support Group and Labour Club to the NUM picket line at West Thurrock Power Station in Essex. Near to Christmas young miners from the Betteshanger Colliery in the Kent coalfield visited the Polytechnic and we spent hours drinking with them in the student union bars and later smoking hashish at our house in Charlton.

During the strike state capitalist Poland exported cheap, non-unionised coal to Britain demonstrating that the defeat of the Polish miners in their earlier efforts to form an independent trade union (Solidarnosc) contributed to the defeat of the British miners. The class war is not local but international and the interests of workers in one part of the world are the common interest of all workers. There were no power cuts in Britain in the winter of 1984-85. Later it was revealed that a $1 million donation by Soviet miners never reached Britain through the influence of Thatcher over Gorbachev when he visited Britain in December 1984.

Like many others in the world of art of performance, the 'alternative music scene' I followed was behind the Miners' Strike. Test Department, from New Cross in South East London collaborated with the South Wales Striking Miners Choir on the album Shoulder to Shoulder. The Redskins sang Keep on Keepin' On! about the Miners' Strike, and proceeds from Billy Bragg's Which Side are You On? and Paul Weller and the Council Collective's Soul Deep were donated to the striking miners fund.

Eventually, the Miners' Strike ended in defeat on 3 March 1985. Two miners had been killed during the strike, and three teenagers died picking coal from colliery waste heaps. During the strike police arrested 11,312 miners in England, Scotland and Wales. In December 2011 only 3,000 miners were left at 9 pits.

At the end of the strike I left 'leftist' politics and began over 25 years of counter-culturalism, beatnik-hipsterism, and armchair-anarchism. Then I discovered Marx's Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, the Socialist Party of Great Britain and realised the miners needed to go beyond fighting over wages and conditions in the industrial struggle and instead 'ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword, abolition of the wages system.'

Steve Clayton

Sting in the tail: Tory caring (1994)

The Sting in the Tail column from the June 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

Tory caring

Sir Louis Blom-Cooper and Professor Elaine Murphy have been sacked.

They used to work for the government-funded Mental Health Act Commission. This is a body set up to protect the rights of patients compulsorily detained in hospital under the Mental Health Act.

Louis and Elaine were experts in the field of Mental Health. They were chairman and vice-chairman of the committee. They worked their socks off in their endeavours to protect the mentally disabled.

They were sacked because they warned the government that inner-city mental services were "in crisis". They claimed that seriously disturbed patients were being discharged too early to make way for even more disturbed people. They said:

"Psychiatric wards were so overcrowded that patients had to share beds and sleep in corridors." (Observer, 24 April)

In order to protect the "care in the community" policy of the Tory market-mad ministers they had to be given their cards. They will be replaced by someone more amenable to market forces. 'Nuff said.

Having a good war

This was Lord Marshall, chairman of the Central Electricity Generating Board during the miners' strike of 1984-5, reflecting on the strike in The Men Who Kept The Lights On (BBC2, 23 April):

"It was absolutely thrilling. A wonderful, wonderful year. I mean it's like being in a war. Wa, of course, is bad because people get killed, but if you're in a just war, a proper war, I mean war in inverted commas, it was just very, very exciting. Much more exciting than normal, everyday life, and after it was over there was a terrible sense of loss because there was nothing exciting for us to talk about any more." 

What a pity that the miners and their families couldn't have borne their hardships for just a while longer and so delayed this noble Lord's "terrible sense of loss"?

A horror story

Ever since the end of World War Two there has been a stream of "Now it can be told" stories. They always deal with episodes from that conflict which had hitherto been suppressed.

Another such story surfaced in an American TV programme about the Holocaust and was reported in the Jewish Chronicle on 15 April:

"Countless thousands of Jews died in the Holocaust because of a conspiracy between the US State Department and the British government not to rescue them . . . "

The US and British governments sabotaged a plan whereby American Jews would "put up the funds necessary to 'buy' 70,000 Romanian Jews" because both feared that the Germans mights actually agree to it! A British Foreign Office document complained about "the difficulties of disposing of any considerable number of Jews should they be rescued from enemy-occupied territory".

So the Jews were left to their fate. Were all those politicians and officials inhuman monsters? The thing to remember here is that anyone who is involved in the administration of capitalism's affairs may find themselves having to make such gruesome decisions "in the national interest". 

Labour and the CIA

The notion that international capitalism fears a Labour government in Britain has always been one of the favourite illusions of what is called the Left.

Under the "freedom of information" legislation in the United States documents have been released that show how silly that idea is:

"Ironically, a CIA report sent to President Truman in February 1950, headed The British General Election and US Security, concluded that 'US interests might be slightly better served by the return of Labour.'"

The CIA observed that advantages of a Labour victory included "greater domestic stability in Britain, especially of the standard of living falls", and "greater loyalty of British workers to the policies of the British government." (Guardian, 11 April).

Far from fearing a Labour government, certain sections of the capitalist class welcome it.

Tony Benn – Rebel's End (2014)

From the April 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

By now we are accustomed, if nauseated, each time a self-promoting rebel – in sport, entertainment, politics – warns us of the end of their need to be disruptive by transforming themselves into something called A National Treasure. This was how it was with Tony Benn who died last month. Among the outpourings of blather there was Ed Miliband: 'iconic figure of our age, a great parliamentarian and a conviction politician'. Then David Cameron: 'a magnificent writer, speaker, diarist and campaigner with a strong record of public and political service'. And Benn himself, shortly before he died: 'the nation's political grandfather'. Even Denis Healey, Benn's bitterest enemy when they were fighting each other over the Labour leadership (Benn was an 'unprincipled careerist') persuaded himself to comment moderately, suitable to his great age.

We did not contribute to that tsunami of hypocrisy. We have seen too many of capitalism's political leaders grappling for power by promising to change this social system, out of its essential character, but doing little more than re-arranging some of its more toxic effects while tagging it with another name. Among that parade of frauds and cheats the Labour Party has been most persistent and damaging. And in that party's disreputable history Tony Benn ranks high as a Treasure, a Grandfather... As examples of his 'socialism', during his time as a Minister in the 1960s and 1970s he was involved in many developments such as the creation of the giant motor firm British Leyland which was combined from other similar firms to be in competition with foreign companies such as Volkswagen, Renault, Vauxhall but which floundered. He was enthusiastic about the Concorde airliner, which was sleek and fast but did not fulfil the hopes that it would see off the American Boeing Corporation. Benn's fantasy about that rolled out to be no better than flying for the rich – but carrying unforeseen technical faults which eventually wiped it out.

In 1979 Benn agreed to be interviewed by two members of the Socialist Party on the basis of his recently published book Arguments for Socialism. An edited account of the interview (approved by Benn), was published in the Socialist Standard of January 1980. Benn was first asked for his definition of socialism but then had to be repeatedly encouraged to do just that instead of offering vague, often contradictory, evasions. Our final comment, after outlining socialism as 'a world common-ownership society with free access and voluntary co-operation' was to remind Benn that the logic of his argument led, not to socialism but to different forms of capitalism. We had not expected that he would be in any way diverted by the case for socialism and at the end of his life our comment in the 1970s – that 'capitalism today is as terrible a system to live under as it ever was'  –is as pertinent as ever. Benn's final comment was 'Well anyway I've enjoyed it very much. A stern cross-examination'.

Next month we analyse in more detail Tony Benn’s career and politics.

Editorial: Russia, Ukraine and Crimea (2014)

Editorial from the April 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

As always at times of international crisis, we are bombarded by strident propaganda from both sides – propaganda that skilfully combines half-truths, distortions and outright lies. In Ukraine and Russia the resulting mix is emotionally potent enough to set working people speaking slightly different languages at one another’s throats.

Each side summons the revered ghosts of World War Two to its ranks. Pro-Ukrainian scribblers present Putin as a new Hitler. Russian propaganda calls the change of regime in Kiev a ‘fascist coup’ and casts Russia as a heroic knight setting out once again to save Europe from fascism.

Although there are some parallels between post-Soviet Russia and Weimar Germany, Putin is hardly an adventurer on the same grand scale as Hitler. He is, rather, taking advantage of disarray inside a neighbouring country to reincorporate marginal territory with strong historical ties to Russia (as he did in Georgia in 2008).

Of course, the breakdown of the previous consensus against the diplomatic recognition of secession has encouraged such border adjustments. If the Western states can help Kosovo secede from Serbia, asks Putin, why should Russia not help Crimea secede from Ukraine?

Russian talk about a ‘fascist coup’ does have some basis in reality. The ‘Maidan’ movement may well have started as a peaceful protest of citizens against the corrupt and oppressive government of President Yanukovych, but it was the violent clashes between police and armed insurgents that finally brought that government down. And it was semi-fascist groups of Ukrainian ultra-nationalists – in particular, the Right Sector led by Dmytro Yarosh – who played the leading role in the insurgency and were rewarded with posts in the new government.

What strains credulity is the claim that Russia’s annexation of Crimea has anything to do with resisting fascism. Even before the annexation local militias were quite effective in keeping Ukrainian ultra-nationalists (and all other ‘Maidanites’) out of the peninsula. If there is a threat of ‘fascism’ in Crimea, it comes from Russian ultra-nationalists – like the men who dress up as Cossacks and whip opponents of the secessionist regime. Such people are also active in the current protests in the cities of Eastern Ukraine against the new ‘Orange’ government. For example, Pavel Gubarev, a leader of the pro-Russian protests in Donetsk, is a former member of the fascist organisation Russian National Unity.

Why then has Putin annexed Crimea? There are strategic and economic interests at stake.

Crimea is crucial to strategic control of the Black Sea. Russia’s Black Sea Fleet is based at Sevastopol and other Crimean ports. Russia leased the bases from Ukraine, but the term of the leasing agreement was to expire in 2017 and the agreement was unlikely to be renewed.

A great deal of Crimean real estate is Russian-owned. In late February Russia’s Ministry of Economic Development called on Russian capitalists to invest $5 billion in infrastructural projects in Crimea (port infrastructure, roads, etc.). Gazprom is interested in rich oil and gas deposits off Crimea’s coast, as are such Western companies as Exxon, Shell and ENI.

Greasy Pole: A Tale Of Two Constituencies (2014)

The Greasy Pole Column from the March 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

At what may have been a bad time for him David Cameron made the most of it, perhaps in the hope that the term A Falkirk Experience would go down in history as epitomising the corruption of an election in order to gain power over a victorious puppet. Falkirk is a Scottish town which grew up in the Industrial Revolution, at the junction of two canals, into a major centre of the iron and steel industry. But it has not survived unchanged; where once they made carronades for the Royal Navy and pillar boxes for the post there are now what are called business parks and temples of retail such as Tesco, Asda and the Co-Op. Typical of such places in Scotland, Falkirk has been dominated by the Labour party, leaving any Tories like a threatened species. The MP between 2000 and 2012 was Eric Joyce but he was suspended from the Party after displaying a tendency to treat others with violence during a session in the Strangers' Bar at the Houses of Parliament. He has since then sat as an Independent while the local Labour Party has sorted out another, hopefully less impulsive, candidate.

Unite

But this was complicated by ruthless in-fighting driven by some over-active ambitions. The applicant favoured by the trade union Unite was Karie Murphy who, apart from a any other factor, is a friend of the union's General secretary Len McCluskey. It was quickly obvious that this was not to be a dispute among friends, settled by a hand shake. Ed Miliband described it as '...politics of the machine, politics of hatred'. The substance was that, as it was put by a Labour Party report, 'members were pressured into completing direct debit forms' for party membership; it was also alleged that some had been signed up into the party, through being in Unite, but without their knowledge. The matter was settled by the selection of Karen Whitfield to stand at the next election. In all it was a promising gift to Cameron, who made much of the influence of McCluskey on the Labour Party and what this said about the party's subservience nationally to the unions.

Deselection

Leaving the warring Labour factions in Falkirk and travelling south will bring you to North Yorkshire, where another constituency is looking for a candidate to contest the next general election. Thirsk and Malton is firmly Conservative, with Anne McIntosh winning the seat in 2010 on a majority of 11,281. It was not an uneventful victory for her. She had been previously elected in 1997 for the Vale of York and held the seat until it was abolished in 2006. She then applied to the Conservatives in Thirsk and Malton but her approach was not unanimously welcomed; she was selected as the candidate only after there had been an attempt to deselect her in August 2009. And when she won the seat in 2010 it was quickly apparent that the opposition to her was still strong. At present the reasons for this are confused; she has a reputation as a notably industrious MP but also as one liable to be aggressively divisive. During a surgery when she was MP for the Vale of York she angered a constituent by her refusal to discuss local opposition to a proposed incinerator plant so that he tipped a pint of beer over her (the surgery was being held in a pub). More recently, an opponent in Thirsk has said that she is 'a silly little girl' and Boris Johnson or Nigel Farage would be preferable as a candidate. Another describes her as 'a few peas short of a casserole'…another as 'a menace'. In response she has referred to them as 'a small cabal... or 'a narrow clique'. The contest in which she won the candidature at Thirsk and Malton has been described as 'unpleasant, leading to 'deep divisions'.

Right Wing

All of this is rather surprising in view of McIntosh' steadfast right wing opinions. She is against same sex marriages and fertility rights. In a recent debate in the Commons she questioned the sense of appointing female doctors because they would place 'a huge burden on the health service' by marrying and having children. Among other angry responses to this came from the wife of Andrew Mitchell – he of 'Plebgate' fame – who scorned her comments as 'not just insulting but a display of sexism that is simply not acceptable in this day and age'. (Of course McIntosh may have found some comfort in the applause from Melanie Phillips in the Daily Mail). On wider issues she supported the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan, is in favour of the Trident nuclear submarine, the hated 'bedroom tax', a fully privatised Royal Mail. .

Candidate

It says something about the turmoil in the Thirsk and Malton Tories that it took them three attempts to deselect her – and even then only after it was discussed at a four-hour meeting. In defiance McIntosh declares that she will stand again at the 2015 election, presumably in the hope that this will expose some of the party's malaise. In all these events a central figure has been Party chairman Peter Halkett Kinsman Steveney, known as 'the galloping major' because, apart from holding that exalted military rank, he is also a retired Jockey Club stewards' secretary. Steveney was heavily criticised in a report by Tory HQ over the 'fundamentally flawed' process of overthrowing McIntosh. While the battle was raging Steveney made no secret that his preference for the seat is one Edward Legard, Old-Etonian, St. Andrews University, Sandhurst ex-Light Cavalry officer, now a barrister and a judge and – in case these are not sufficient qualification, heir to an hereditary baronetcy. After making the usual noises about his immaculate intentions for the constituency and how innocent he is in the current infighting, Legard has avoided committing himself.

In Kilmarnock and Thirsk and Malton we have two constituencies whose political parties assert that they represent vitally different methods of managing the capitalist system. The current disputes reveal that it is only the personalities which vary. Common to them all is the basic function of repressing and exploiting the people who vote for them.

Ivan

Music Review: Agitprop Bop (1978)

From the June 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Tom Robinson Band reviewed in concert and on record.

With lyrics asserting hat "When Left is Right and Right is wrong/You'd better decide which side you're on", Tom Robinson is being hailed as "our first red rock star." Time Out, however, described the Tom Robinson Band's music as "songs for swinging social workers" thus neatly acknowledging an affinity between the Socialist Workers' Party's elitism and TRB;s condescending tone as in Ain't Gonna Take It: "I'm a middle-class kiddie but I know where I stand / I've got brothers in Brixton . . . "

Essentially TRB put over the agitprop of minority pressure group politics, sharing the same false assumptions that they need only "stand up and fight for their rights" against the "puritanical backlash" portrayed in  Power in the Darkness. Despite this, they do make clear that the problems of various minorities should not be seen in isolation but that "we are all in it together."

It's too easy to knock TRB's songs as merely patronising platitudes when after all, what constitutes socialist music? Even if it were desirable, few would want to listen to a Marxist liturgy let alone a rock version of "sing along with ma(r)x". Music, to be successful as propaganda, must be emotive with lyrics of protestation.

TRB's music is successful because it fulfills both these conditions. The result is powerful and infectious though at times somewhat frightening for, as the Gay News review warned, "some of the lyrics are dangerously simplistic evoking a Pavlovian response in their listeners." This is illustrated by the unfortunate clenched fist gesture audiences copy from the band's insignia and use during the more aggressive numbers, which in other circumstances might be classified as a nazi salute. The emotive power of the music is shown by the oft-remarked enthusiastic response by straight audiences to—what has become the gay anthem—Glad To Be Gay.

But emotive responses aren't sufficient in themselves to make socialists, however well intentioned. Rational insight into the nature of capitalism must accompany the gut reaction. For in focusing attention on the oppression of minority groups (gays, blacks, women, etc.) by authoritarianism, police harassment, machismo and violence, these come to be seen as the cause and thus the target of protest rather than realising these to the inevitable effect of capitalism. Urging us to stop "Fighting each other/Instead of the Front" perpetuates the erroneous notion that eliminating the NF will eradicate racist ideas. The inverse is true; removing racist ideas by showing how the  inherent problems of capitalism, create them, will permanently eliminate the NF.

The necessity of simple lyrics in musical verse offers the possibility of only brief insights into the nature of oppression though the reactionary views of "Benyon and Whitehouse getting us stitched/'cos abortion and the gay scene are only for the rich" in Ain't Gonna Take It illustrates well the class nature of oppression and hypocrisy.

But it is in attacking the cherished assumptions of capitalist society that TRB succeeds best. Like, for instance, the satire on the adolescent youth in Grey Cortina, aspiring to emulate the aggressive "Cortina owner, no-one meaner" which is scathingly ironical in lampooning the mindless image of the macho driver. "Chewing gum at traffic light/Stop at red but leave on amber/Grey Cortina outta sight". Yet the paradox is that while debunking machismo in this number, elsewhere (e.g. Up Against The Wall) the necessary use of powerful music to express anger gives the impression of aggression found in "conventional" rock bands.

TRB's success in moving from the obscure pub performing circuit to EMI contracted recording stars has caused political pundits to debate the possibility of TRB having to compromise their political stance through commercial pressure. Yet with the recent release of their first album* containing their most 'political' songs it would seem that EMI have shrewdly realised their market potential among at least the 'left', if not the general public, (e.g. EMI advertise "Rock Against Racism" on the record sleeve and the giveaway gimmick is a TRB clenched fist stencil with the "caution", "This stencil is not meant for spraying on public property!") Tom Robinson himself, in an interview with Melvyn Bragg on The South Bank Show (ITV 13 May) quite candidly admitted that his ambition was to be a rock star and that "music is his first concern". And with those political impresarios the SWP exploiting the slogan type lyrics for their own propaganda 'Carnivals' (see accompanying article) it would seem that any 'commercial' pressure to influence TRB is likely to come from the listening expectations of their supporters.

In an interview in New Musical Express Tom Robinson reckoned he had no "illusions about the political left any more than the right: just a shrewd idea which of the two sides gonna stomp on us first". Unfortunately his "shrewd idea" is merely an "illusion", for 'left' and 'right' are only different sides of one record, variations on the same theme—capitalism.

Paul Moody

* "Power in the Darkness" by Tom Robinson Band (EMI Records)

Platoon (1987)

Film Review from the July 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Platoon, directed by Oliver Stone

It's very hard to make an anti-war film that successfully gets its message across. The temptation is to show all the horrors of war—the blood, brutality, boredom and battles. But films that glorify war do that as well.

Platoon, directed by Oliver Stone, was intended to demonstrate the brutalising effects of the Vietnam war by following the career of a young soldier, Taylor, who has volunteered to fight after dropping out of college. Initially filled with fanciful notions of "fighting for his country" and "defending the free world", he finally concludes that in reality "we are fighting ourselves". This comment was supposed to be profound. At the most obvious level it was true. Much of the film focuses on the battle between two members of the platoon, both grotesque caricatures: Elias, the embodiment of good, who only kills "the gooks" in battle and doesn't engage in any gratuitous extra-curricular brutality like his enemy, Barnes, embodiment of evil, who comes complete with grotesque facial scars. But at another level the remark was also true, although this was probably not what the director had in mind when he put the words into Taylor's mouth. Americans in Vietnam were "fighting against themselves" in the sense that they were fighting against members of their own class with whom they had no reason to be at war.

Taylor, who lets us into his inner conflict through the unlikely medium of letters to his grandmother, becomes more disillusioned as his ideas of heroism are replaced by the daily terror, discomfort and fatigue of army life in the steaming jungle on the Cambodian border. To cope with the constant fear of ambush, the raids on Vietnamese villages and the atrocities he, like many others, turns to smoking dope. In the end, inevitably perhaps, he is injured in a cataclysmic battle and is flown home, more or less physically intact but mentally scarred.

Whatever the director's intentions the anti-war message got lost under the special effects of the battle scenes. For those who watch war films for the blood and gore, the excitement of the crackle of machine guns and the flash of bomb blasts, Platoon was probably as watchable as films like Rambo which glorify war. It would have been easy to have seen it and to have learnt nothing new about the war in Vietnam and to have missed its essential message. Nevertheless there were a number of interesting "points" made in passing—like the number of blacks who were sent to fight as compared to the number of whites, like how it tended to be the poorest Americans who made up the bulk of the US Army — people who were dumbfounded that Taylor could be so stupid as to give up a comfortable life in college to volunteer to fight.

On the other hand the film had almost nothing to say about why America was fighting or indeed who they were at war with. The Vietnamese were referred to only as "gooks" or the "NVA" or "VC". The only time the film tries to make the point that the Vietnamese were human too is when Taylor prevents a young Vietnamese girl from being raped by his fellow Americans. Otherwise the Vietnamese are only shadowy and menacing forces setting traps and ambushes for the Americans.

All in all Platoon was a disappointing film. It is difficult to see why it has received so many plaudits from the critics, although not why it's been such a hit at the box office in America. War films are popular. This one uses the same technique as any other to appeal to its audience. Many people will watch it and not see it as a protest about the brutalisation that war causes. When I went to see it many people in the audience laughed in the "wrong" places, like when the Americans enter a Vietnamese village to look for Viet Cong and one American soldier brutally murders a young Vietnamese villager for no apparent reason. After he has bludgeoned him to death with a rifle butt he says something like "Did you ever see a head come apart like that?" And the audience laughed.

Janie Percy-Smith

Politicians galore (1987)

From the June 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Roll on 12 June! We won't see the politicians for another five years. The usual election issues of poverty, unemployment and crime won't disappear so easily though. For the moment we're going to hear a lot more from the politicians. They will be dumping their leaflets—with nice pictures of them and their families on the front and damn all else inside—on our doorsteps. They'll be stopping us in the street to shake our hand and blame the weather on their opponents. And they'll be on the TV ("And I think I can safely say that I speak for the whole of this great nation of ours when I say blah blah blah").

Some lucky voters are blessed with the attention of the politicians all year round. During the cold spell at the start of this year, Breakfast TV just happened to have a camera crew crammed into some OAP's kitchen when who should pop in for a friendly chat but Neil Kinnock and Michael Meacher, the Shadow Minister for Health! But they weren't there for some cheap publicity shot and some political point-scoring. No, they'd brought some draught excluders with them, which they proceeded to nail up for the benefit of the lucky OAP. As she was getting it done for free, the old lady was prepared to put up with all the guff for the cameras about Labour's plans for rate reform that the Labour leader just happened to have prepared. That's the sort of thing Neil Kinnock means when he, "speaks for the whole of the British people about the indignity of old age blah blah blah".

Obviously, the best place to live in Britain is right next to Shepherds Bush or TV-am, if you are prepared to open your door to any political conman with a nice smile and a camera crew, some new carpets for you and some old policies for the viewer.

Regardless of the gimmicks, or even the policies of the parties, there is one thing that all the party leaders are trying to get over, and that is unity. Unity within their party and, more importantly, unity under the leader. That, after all, is what a leader is there for—to rule, to dominate. We can laugh at them and their antics but support for a leader, means someone else taking decisions for you. Leaders and democracy do not mix. As the election looms and the ranks close, this becomes all the clearer. The Alliance when they disagree, have a split for a few weeks until it is glossed over; the Labour Party have a few expulsions behind closed doors; and the Tories? Well the Tories don't look like they need to worry too much on that count. The Scottish Tory Party Conference recently spent three days in what they call "debate". Of the 294 resolutions put to the conference only one was in any way critical of the government. The whole charade was stage-managed as the first unofficial party political broadcast of the election campaign.

It's just a taste of things to come. Every night we'll get the gimmicks—here's the party leader shaking hands, here's the party leader out shopping, here's the party leader driving a tank. And while wars and world hunger get relegated to the last item on the news, we'll see the party leader being cheerful, the party leader being caring, the party leader being defiant.

It's not just confined to the news programmes either—David Steel appeared on Game For A Laugh dressed as a policeman and Thatcher had a go at playing Prime Minister in a sketch from Yes Minister.

Even Saturday mornings aren't free from the vote-catchers—the children's programme Saturday Superstore recently had each of the party leaders on in turn. Each party's image makers had obviously done their market research—here's the party leader with no jacket, no tie, but a trendy cardigan. "I think I can safely say that I speak for the whole of this great nation of ours when I say my favourite disco record of the moment is blah blah blah". OK, they're not kissing babies, but molesting children's minds was what it amounted to.

Of course, we shouldn't be surprised at a quick change of clothes to suit a different audience (after all, policies are jettisoned just as quickly) but the victorious SDP candidate in the Greenwich bye-election, in February of this year, has turned it into a fine art. Part of her campaign strategy that helped the SDP win Greenwich and break the mould for the seventeenth time, involved wearing "cheerful jumpers and sensible dresses" while canvassing on council estates and "smart sludge-coloured two-piece suits" for Tory areas (Guardian, 12 February 1987).

In stark contrast to such patronising tactics that are part and parcel of the politics of leadership, the Socialist Party has no leaders, no secret committees and no advertising agency. We've also got damn few candidates—at this election anyway. We won't be jumping in and out of OAP's homes for the benefit of the viewer. Nor will we be jumping in and out of sensible dresses and sludge-coloured suits for the benefit of the voter. Let's not look to leaders to do our thinking for us, at this election or at any time.

Brian Gardner