Sting in the Tail: Spot the Difference (1991)

The Sting in the Tail column from the August 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

Spot the Difference

A typical piece of left-wing mythology is that it is only the Labour Party leaders who are opportunists and obsessed with "image” while the rank and file are concerned with principles.

This fallacy was exposed once again when The Guardian (July 8) published a selection of letters from readers advising Neil Kinnock on how to win the next election.

One Labour activist suggested:

Learn how to hold your hands when strolling on camera. Look grave on suitable occasions.

Another suggested:

Open the door to electoral reform. Not too wide: that would expose the divisions on the subject within the Labour Party the wrong side of a general election.

A third told him to keep Labour voters happy by being:

. . . less lenient and understanding to criminals.

The thinking of Labour leaders and the rank and file is not nearly as different as the left-wing imagines.

Good Morning Blues

Should any of our readers have the misfortune to be rising for work at 6.30am take our advice — don't switch on the TV.

It's bad enough being a wage slave, who has to rise in the middle of the night to go to work, without being greeted by the mindless pap of breakfast TV. The item that grates with this writer is the Stock Market News.

Some earnest young whiz kid prattles on about the Nikkei Index and the Dow Jones Index, the Balance of Payments Deficit and exciting news — the Weakening Pound.

Who is this stuff aimed at? Do they imagine the working class are interested in the Stock Market? Surely all members of the capitalist class are snugly tucked up at this unearthly hour?

The other morning, after yawning through this drivel, Scorpion phoned in sick; switched off the Bright Young Thing in mid-sentence as he enthused over Invisible Earnings (a reference to Scorpion's wage packet?): and returned to bed to contemplate the intricacies of Supply Side Economics —- it's all good sleep-inducing stuff.

Deep Thinker (1)

The mental bankruptcy of Militant is well demonstrated by Derek Hatton in his book "Inside Left".

Even in a totally socialist society there will always be the need for independent trade unionists.

So here's a "Marxist" who thinks there will still be trade unions when capitalism, the system which spawned them, has been abolished!

And what makes a Liverpudlian? According to Hatton:

It's that philosophy which produced the Beatles, the Cilia Blacks, the Jimmy Tarbucks . . . It's a natural spirit of competition coupled with a belief that you're not simply as good as anyone else. You are better.

Deep Thinker (2)

Speaking of mental bankruptcy, the news that Yorkshire County cricket club are to hire players who are not "pure bred Yorkshiremen" has provoked a Yorkshire Labour MP, Roland Boyes, to table a Commons motion regretting this move.

It is my beloved Yorkshire that I am concerned about. We have a proud tradition and I feel a little part of me has been destroyed.

(BBC Ceefax July 12)

Obviously the "little part" Boyes is referring to is his brain.

Up the Poll

If you are baffled by the ups and downs of recent opinion polls then spare a thought for the Labour Party.

No matter how many problems face the Tories — rising unemployment, big rows over Europe, public distrust over their NHS policies, etc., somehow they are doing well in the polls.

Many weird and wonderful reasons are offered for this. The Tories put it down to their "sound policies", some pollsters say that many voters are simply rewarding John Major for not being Mrs Thatcher, while Labour can only gulp and stare at the polls like a rabbit hypnotised by a stoat.

Whatever the reasons for the topsy-turvy polls may be, the voters' fickleness is not caused by any doubts about the ability of politicians to solve capitalism's problems, only about which bunch of tricksters to entrust with the job.

That's Entertainment? (Part 1)

The news that a supremely talented artist like Woody Allen is to produce TV commercials for an Italian supermarket for a reported $2 million fee would depress any of his admirers who have enjoyed such films as 'Take the Money and Run" and 'The Sleeper'; so it is heartening to know that capitalism has not yet completely ruined artistic integrity.

Advertising signs that con you 

Into thinking you're the one 

That can do what's never been done 

That can win what's never been won 

Meanwhile life outside goes on 

All around you

Sang Bob Dylan in the sixties and it would seem that after all the trappings of commercial success he can still take a rational view about the phoniness of capitalism:

You know things go better with Coke because Aretha Franklin told you so and Maxwell House coffee must be OK because Ray Charles is singing about it . . . I'm not gonna live or die behind that — I’m not selling breakfast cereal or razor blades . . . Everything is just too commercial, like a sprouting octopus, too much part of the system. Sometimes you feel you're walking around in that movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers and you wonder if it's got you yet, if you're still one of the few or are you "them" now. You never know do you?

The Guardian (July 2)

Well, how about it? Has the system got to you? Have you become an orthodox unthinking zombie? Or is there still the spark of human individualism and criticism burning out there?

That's Entertainment? (Part 2)

In discussing the suicide of Nick Massey, a Public Relations man in the Pop business, The Independent on Sunday (July 7) revealed some of the deceits that go on in the business that is cynically called Entertainment

Dusty record columns, titled Disc or Parade, became Bizarre or the White Hot Club and sparkled with increasingly malicious rumours. Elton John had connections with rent boys; Andrew Ridgely broke his nose in a nightclub brawl; the Beastie Boys swore at disabled kids — all were untrue.

Elton John sued The Sun for £1 million. Andrew Ridgely had actually had a nose job; the "brawl" story explained the dressing. And the Beastie Boys? Well, that story was just too good not to use. . . "You might bend or curve or shape something, but what is fact?" Rick Sky said to Q magazine. "What is truth? Everbody around you, PRs and stars, is lying".

Yes indeed, there is no business like show business — and there is no system like capitalism for deceit, hype and cheating.