SPGB October Events (2026)

Party News from the October 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

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Obituary: Alwyn Edgar (2026)

Obituary from the October 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are saddened to report the death in August of our comrade Alwyn Edgar at the age of 97. Born in Canada where his parents from Britain were then working, he moved back to England at an early age. He opted to do his ‘national service’ by working in a coal mine in South Wales. He joined the Party in 1948 after listening to Party speakers in Hyde Park. Although he qualified as a barrister he worked as a teacher. Latterly he was a member of the East Anglia branch. He contributed articles to the Socialist Standard for over 70 years, notably the ‘Passing Show’ and ‘Diary of A Capitalist’ columns under A.W.E. as well as his full name. Taking his cue from what Marx wrote in Capital about the Duchess of Sutherland, he became an expert in the Highland Clearances in Scotland, writing a number of volumes and running a YouTube channel on the subject.

Blogger's Note:

The Eastern Daily Press published a non-political obituary for Alwyn on their website. An extensive chronological list of Alwyn's articles and reviews for the Socialist Standard is available at the following link.

Action Replay: Stay on the safe side (2026)

Nobby Stiles in 1966.

The Action Replay column from the October 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sport can be dangerous. You can fall or be hit by someone or something, or else overdo the physical activity. It’s obviously not like working down a mine or on a construction site, but people taking part in sport, whether as professionals or amateurs, can sustain injuries or even get killed. It is not just horses that die in racing, as sometimes jockeys do too. For instance, in 2024 a jockey died at a point-to-point race in Kent.

In August a cyclist was killed on the Volta a Portugal, when a non-race vehicle travelling in the opposite direction crashed into him. The road was not fully closed to other vehicles, and the riders’ union was ‘speechless and filled with anger’ at his death. Last year a cyclist died on a descent during a race in Italy, apparently after striking a bump in the road and losing his helmet.

In football it is well known that heading a ball can cause brain injuries. England player Nobby Stiles, who died in 2020, had headed a ball thousands of times, which contributed to the Alzheimer’s that caused his death. Women players appear to be more susceptible to brain injuries from heading, and it has been suggested that heading be banned for all players under 11. The leather footballs that were once in frequent use were heavy, especially when wet, and lighter synthetic balls are now commonly used, but that doesn’t remove the risk entirely.

Players of American football (gridiron) have been shown in recent research to have a death rate from a degenerative brain disease about four times higher than the general population. Most of the head impacts had apparently occurred at collegiate or high school level. Back in 2016, the National Football League agreed a billion dollar settlement with over five thousand retired players who had brain damage as a result of concussion.

Tackling in rugby can lead to concussion, but also to injuries to legs, arms and the spine. Tacklers are encouraged to hold their head to one side of the ball carrier, never in front of the carrier. As in football, blows to the head affect women differently from men, with female players more susceptible to concussion. Deaths are rare, but do happen; fifty years ago, for instance, a Swinton rugby league player died after breaking his neck in a match.   

Combat sports such as boxing are of course the main source of deaths. On average, thirteen deaths occur each year, including two or three in amateur contests. The number of serious injuries is much higher.

Over the decades the regulations and protocols intended to prevent and treat sporting injuries have been improved, and it is good to see men and women being treated differently when appropriate. But deaths and serious injuries still occur.

Paul Bennett

Editorial: Democracy? Insert cash . . . (2026)

Editorial from the October 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

What many considered laughable in all the recent outrage at Reform UK getting twin donations of £36m from crypto-billionaires (one of them convicted for money laundering offences), was Farage’s claim that the money would ‘help to level the playing field’. As opposed to ‘buy it outright’, presumably.

Actually, Farage wasn’t far wrong on that score. Electioneering doesn’t come cheap. Labour’s pre-election fundraising in 2024 has been estimated at £64m, while Conservatives raised £54m (2026 Autonomy Institute report PDF). So Reform’s £72 mill doesn’t look wildly out of place. The problem, as pundits have pointed out, is that it all comes from just two dodgy geezers. Reform UK may not be buying the next election, but Messrs Harborne and Delo are pretty much buying Reform UK, and will doubtless expect a Reform government to be super-cuddly when it comes to crypto regulations.

Also slightly peculiar was the high moral tone struck by some newspapers, in congratulating themselves on how Britain has a robust and venerable democracy that can’t be bought. Well, maybe not bought exactly. But when you think about the expenses scams, the grifts, the grace and favour junkets, the lobby groups, the revolving doors and the side hustles, rented by the hour would be more like it.

Still, that’s nothing compared to US politics, where ‘mega-donors’ are pouring hundreds of millions into the Republican mid-term electoral war chest even as they trail the Democrats in the polls. ‘Other mega-donors have funnelled cash to candidates pushing deregulation of cryptocurrency and gambling or to promote AI’ (Financial Times, 16 September).

Why, if capitalism is genuinely democratic, do the rich feel the need to pile so much money into political campaigns? If you can’t already guess, a clue is offered by a well-known 2014 US study that looked at 1,779 policy issues between 1981 and 2002, and compared what people wanted versus what decisions were actually taken. It concluded that the preferences of the poor and middle-income majority had a ‘miniscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact on public policy’, while the views of the top 10 percent virtually dominated (Princeton PDF).

That this feels intuitively true is probably why so many people don’t bother to vote in elections. They may also consider that any system where your total say consists of writing one ‘X’ every five years is not really a democracy in the first place. But a flawed electoral system is better than no system at all – just ask people in China or North Korea. We continue to contest elections because they are a legitimate way for workers to express their opinions, and because no amount of mega-donor moolah is going to stop the landslide that will swallow capitalism once the world’s majority finally decide they’ve had enough of the 1 percent and their bullshit.