Party News (1985)

Party News from the March 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

About 100 people came to Bolton Central Library one evening in late November to hear a debate between local Conservative MP, Tom Sackville, and Socialist Party representative Howard Moss. The subject was. “Which Way to Freedom: Conservatism or Socialism?”

It was an occasion of which one Socialist Party member remarked afterwards: “I’ve never heard socialism itself discussed so much at a meeting”. And that was the kind of debate it was. What socialism means — a moneyless, stateless world society of free access and democratic control — was clearly defined very early on and the discussion remained on that subject. To Tom Sackville’s credit he never tried to shift it to different ground on which he would have been more comfortable. He admitted it was an idea he’d not heard before and that it obviously had nothing to do with the Labour Party or with what passed for socialism in Russia. He did bring up certain common objections such as “human nature” and “overpopulation”, but didn’t persist in them when contributions from the floor and from his opponent showed them to be untenable. He was left in the end in the position of having to say that he thought socialism was a good idea but that how it could be brought about hadn’t been demonstrated and that, since anyway it would be a long time coming, we had to get on with trying to deal with the world as it was now.

Howard Moss replied that it would indeed be a long time coming if people took no practical steps to achieve it and instead buried their heads in the sands of short term “practical politics”. If Tom Sackville thought, as he seemed to, that socialism would mean a freer and more democratic society than the present one, then he should resign from the Tories, join the Socialist Party and help to speed the day. The second son of the tenth Earl de la Warr showed no signs of wanting to do this. But clearly he’d been given a good deal to think about.

Bolton Branch

Blogger's Note:

This debate was recently mentioned by Howard Moss in his Life and Times column.