Instability and Corruption (1995)

From the March 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is now almost universally accepted that politicians aspiring
 to positions of power do so on the failings of those already in 
power rather than on any ideas of their own. Everywhere we 
look in the world today capitalism is in chaos - and it isn't
 going to get any better.

It seems that the more capitalism develops the more anarchic the global as system becomes, with chaotic economic development in such areas as China's free enterprise zones and the mad scramble for power in the wars of Soviet succession. In the West so-called democracy just seems to lead to confusion as politicians are unable to solve basic economic and social problems. As people have not yet identified capitalism as the real cause of these problems, the latest set of incumbent politicians are blamed, as if the next lot have the magic formula.

So in France we have seen the “Socialist" government and parliamentary representatives decimated in elections as unemployment and crime rise, to be replaced by a right-wing government who in turn are incapable of solving economic problems and will probably be replaced by a resurgent left. Whilst in Italy a government elected on a specific anti-corruption ticket has collapsed through corruption allegations and a confused electorate are prepared to vote in desperation for extremist parties.

The list could go on, so in this context the convoluted events in Ireland do not seem so surprising. The fact that Ireland's electoral system, in common with much of Europe, creates coalitions means that frequent changes of government are common as partners in these coalitions squabble. In Ireland the specific causes of that squabbling in recent years revolved around the main coalition partner, Fianna Fail, and its cosy relationship with Ireland's largest beef baron and how that relationship upset the “normal” running of government business, irritating the other coalition parties.

Having already caused one general election this underlying feeling quickly soured another coalition, this time between Fianna Fail and an electorally confident Labour Party. The catalyst that broke this coalition, as everyone probably knows by now, was the inexplicable delay by the Irish Attorney General's office to extradite a paedophile priest to Northern Ireland, and the insistence of Fianna Fail to promote the very man responsible for this delay. The catalogue of excuses, blame and backbiting that ensued meant that the coalition was doomed. This bizarre story finally ended with a parliamentary coalition reshuffle excluding Fianna Fail and the introduction of Democratic Left into the coalition to make up the numbers.

Political instability and corruption seem to be endemic to governments but whatever the specific causes of each incidence of graft or dispute the general underlying cause is capitalism.

Never-ending search for profit

Capitalism as an economic system is inherently unstable for a number of

reasons.

• It is based on the never-ending search for profits through competition, which manifests itself as rivalry between companies, regions and social and economic interest groups. Just the fact that the world is divided into about two hundred countries at the last count is example enough. The majority of them are divided again into numerous regions each with their own elites who in turn are divided into various factions due to historical, cultural or regional developments. This can only result in unequal economic development as resources go to areas of greatest potential profit or patronage rather than to areas of greatest economic need. This economic confusion and instability caused by capitalism leads to threatened or actual armed conflict between economic rivals on a grim and regular basis.
• The economic cycle of boom and slump caused by the tendency of capitalism to over-produce during a boom and thus reduce the rate of profit causing a slump. This cycle tends to hit the most economically and socially vulnerable harder in a slump and benefit the wealthy most in a boom.
• The division of society into two opposing and unequal classes. The minority owns the means of production and obtains profit by extracting unpaid labour from the majority who have only their labour power to sell. This fundamental difference of needs automatically results in conflict, class conflict, a never-ending, daily war of attrition that manifests itself in various ways. The most obvious is continual industrial disputes throughout every sector of the capitalist economy as workers attempt to defend or improve their economic position and are resisted at every step by the employers intent on improving their profit margins.

Thus, because the economic base of society is unstable, it is logical to assume that the social and political structure which rests on this base is also unstable. The facts prove this assumption correct. The supposed separation of powers in liberal democratic governments between the judiciary, legislature and executive, rather than acting as checks and balances on each other, are just the tools or conduits through which rival groups compete for access to power and resources. Indeed the American government, which is supposed to be the prime example of the separation of powers, can also be the prime example of a government in thrall to graft and corruption from lowly congressmen up to the President and riven by rivalry between the regions and social groups.

So what of the future? Well it's business as usual. The political theatre may provide entertainment but, as one economic commentator mentioned at the height of the crisis, who is in government has very little impact on the workings of the capitalist system. The iron laws of competition, profit and class conflict will remain as long as capitalism remains together with the disastrous global ramifications that this entails.

Jonathan Meakin

The Labour Party Enters the National Government (1940)

From the June 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

The entry of Labour leaders into Mr. Churchill’s National Government on May 11th makes the fifth occasion in the history of the British Labour Party on which prominent Labour leaders have occupied Cabinet posts and been wholly or partly responsible for the affairs of government. The first time this happened was during the first great war, when Mr. Arthur Henderson, Mr. John Hodge, Mr. J. R.. Clynes and others entered the Government. It ended rather ingloriously with Mr. Henderson resigning in August, 1918, because the Government refused his and the Labour Party’s wish for a restatement of war aims and an international conference of Labour Parties, and with his Labour successor, the late Mr. G. N. Barnes, signing in 1919 the Versailles Peace Treaty. He did so in defiance of the declaration of the Labour Party National Executive repudiating the Treaty because “The Treaty involves a violation of the principles embodied in Labour and Socialist Conference decisions.” (Manifesto of June 4th, 1919, issued by the National Executive of the Labour Party.)

The second occasion was the minority Labour Government of 1924, which ended with the Zinoviev letter and the election of October, at which the Labour Party’s representation was reduced from 191 to 151.

In 1929 the Labour Party were back in office. Then, after two years of mounting unemployment and falling confidence, the “crisis” found their leaders, MacDonald and Snowden, entering the National Government, but repudiated by the bulk of the Labour Party.

Now, in order to prosecute the war, Mr: Attlee, Mr. Herbert Morrison, Mr.. Greenwood, Mr. Bevin and others, take office under Mr. Churchill.

Speaking at the Labour Conference at Bournemouth, where the decision to join the Government was endorsed by 2,413,000 votes to 170,000, Mr. Greenwood explained that the Labour Party had for years “built up a strong policy of resistance to aggression, and when at long last a wavering Government plucked up its courage to resist, the Labour Party had no alternative but to accept the implications of its own policy.” (Daily Herald, May 14th, 1940.)

He went on to prophesy : —

“Because we have the courage of our convictions as a movement now, we shall have greater power when it is over than we have to-day. We shall have a trembling capitalist system which can never recover again. We shall have broken the back of the vested interests, and we can build a socialist commonwealth which will be a powerful factor in the world.”

Socialists would wish that the words were really prophetic; but time will show them to be otherwise. Socialism does not spring from the catastrophe of capitalism at war any more than it came from the other catastrophe of capitalism, the crisis of ten years ago. No doubt Mr. Greenwood hopes that something else as well as victory may come out of participation in the Government; but Socialists remember similar hopes in the last war when the Labour Party, in its 1918 declaration of policy, “Labour and the New Social Order,” affirmed that it would not tolerate the revival of the social and economic system which the war was supposed to have destroyed, but would seek to build up a new social order based on co-operation in production and distribution for the benefit of all who labour by hand or by brain.

Nothing came of those hopes, and the men who cherished them still do not show that they understand why. They spent years preaching peace and disarmament, and trying to lessen international antagonisms, and tried equally hard and unsuccessfully at home to lessen the evils of the social system. The two things they never frankly faced up to are that there never will be or can be any real solution to the twin problems of poverty and war until capitalism has been replaced by Socialism. So, little by little, each one of them had to abandon his belief in Peace by disarmament or appeasement or League of Nations. It is not, as Socialists have been at pains to point out, that war is a kind of capitalist conspiracy—the view of the Communists—but that capitalism forces states into deathly rivalry even though at a given period one group of states may be doing their utmost to preserve peace against the encroachments of their rivals.

The Socialist is consistent in opposing the Labour Party policy.

The Communist critics of the Labour Party can claim no such consistency. Apart from having vigorously supported in the opening weeks the war that they now oppose, they are in the curious position of denouncing a Government which is as nearly as possible their own choice.

Communists Get the Government they Asked for

The Communist Party is annoyed about the new Government. They do not like the Government led by Mr. Churchill, which includes Mr. Attlee and other Labour leaders, along with Sir Archibald Sinclair and other Liberals. The Daily Worker of May 10th, 1940, says in its editorial: —

“The Daily Herald thunders against Chamberlain, but it is silent about Churchill.

What a man to take under the wing of the Labour Party !”

The next day (May 11th, 1940) the Daily Worker had another fierce article against the National Government, under a headline “Fight against Labour participation in Churchill’s new War Government.”

So far it is clear enough, except to those who recall that, only in September last, after the war had broken out and Churchill was already in the Government, the same Daily Worker was backing the war wholeheartedly and writing of “determination that now that war has come it shall be fought in our cause, and to a finish. This war must be made a people’s war to end Nazism, and its attendant evils of oppression and violence for ever.” (Daily Worker, September 16th, 1939.)

By the time Mr. Churchill had become Prime Minister in order to fight the war to a finish, th Communists no longer wanted the war.

But further examination shows more mystery. The Communists now do not want the war, or Mr. Churchill, or Mr. Attlee or Sir A. Sinclair It was not always so. Only last year the Daily Worker was campaigning for a Popular Front Government and urging that the men of its choice should get together and form an all-party Government in order to carry out an active policy of “collective action against new aggression and threats of aggression” from Nazi Germany.

And who were the men of the Communist Party’s choice ? None other than Mr. Churchill, Mr. Attlee and Sir A. Sinclair ! The front page of the Daily Worker (March 30th, 1939) carried in bold headlines : —

“COMMUNIST APPEAL TO ATTLEE, SINCLAIR AND CHURCHILL—URGED TO DEFEAT CABINET AND FORM NEW GOVERNMENT.”

It went on to say: —

“In a swift and sensational move to get practical action to save the country in the rapidly deepening crisis, Harry Pollitt, on behalf of the Communist Party of Great Britain, yesterday addressed to Major Attlee, leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party, Sir Archibald Sinclair, leader of the Liberal Party and Mr. Winston Churchill, most prominent of the Conservative ‘rebels,’ an appeal that they shall get together without another minute’s delay.”

We live in tragic days, when wrong theories have culminated in appalling consequences for the workers of all countries. One of the most tragic aspects of the situation—as tragic as working-class support for Nazism in Germany—is the spectacle of workers accepting misguided Communist theories.

Sir John Anderson is very unhappy (1944)

From the July 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

A large part of Sir John Anderson's Budget speech was devoted to the question of subsidies, wages and prices. As he so very clearly explained it, the trouble is that whereas as a result of the subsidisation of most of the essential commodities, prices have only risen by 28 per cent., wage rates had risen by us much as 40 per cent. He said : — 

  We had aimed at maintaining a reasonable stability in the cost of living, partly by means of an intensive and successful rationing system, and partly by subsidising costs. Here again our policy had been fully successful, but he could not claim that in this field the position was so satisfactory that he need do no more than leave well alone, for he was not altogether happy about the present trend of events. (The Times, 26/4/44.)

The whole of his remarks is worth reading, but we selret the following: —

  When the stabilisation policy was first introduced, wage rates had risen 6 per cent. less than the cost of living, but today they showed a rise of 11 per cent. more than the cost of living. It would place the stabilisation policy in an altogether false perspective, and the purpose of it would be to a large extent be stultified if the Government were to continue blindly pouring out subsidies to keep the cost of living down rigidly to a predetermined level without regard to the current level of costs and wages.

In considering Sir John Anderson's statement, it should be borne in mind that he was speaking on behalf of the Government (the executive committee of the British capitalist class), whose main concern is to protect the interests of the British section of world capitalism, to keep the British workers and fighters in a proper frame of mind, and to make sure that the war does not cost them a penny more than they can help.

If there were ever any danger of the British Government continuing "blindly" to pour out subsidies to keep prices stable, Sir John Anderson can at least claim the merit of having opened their eyes. However, he is the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and that is his job.

To explain all this pother from a purely capitalist angle, it is this. The capitalists had their eye on the post-war period; they wanted to keep the workers in a happy mood, and in order to avoid the conflicts likely to arise from a continued rise in the cost of living, they decided to stabilise the price of most of the essential commodities. This, they thought, would also enable them to avoid the possible post-war conflicts when a full in prices would have to be met by a corresponding fall in wages. But the economic laws of capitalism have a bad habit of defeating the most ingenious schemes to get around them, and so, due to other factors, wage rates have actually gone up by "as much as" 10 per cent.

Most workers have short memories, but those whose recollections go back to the pre-war period must surely remember that the one eternal conflict with the employer was the question of wages. If you went after a job, you never dared to ask for more than you could live on, because you knew the other fellow would surely ask for no more, and equally you could not ask for less, because thus you could not carry out your job efficiently. And didn't the boss know this too? Similarly the trade unions in their negotiations with the employers always harped on the "cost of living." Now that, as a result of the urgency of war, there has developed a system of state controlled capitalism, the state has taken a hand in this question of wages and prices (cost of living).

To get down to rock-bottom facts, the position is that present-day society is divided into two classes, an owning class—the bunch who own the factories, mines and transport systems, etc., in the British Empire—and the other lot, the workers, some with white skins, others black and yellow, some with snub noses, and others with crooked ones, who do all the dirty work, physical and mental, including quite a spot on the organising side, all for wages, or, as they are sometimes euphemistically termed, "salaries.” The same conditions apply in the other bits of the world which are controlled by rival groups of capitalists, but in these other cases, owing to certain geographical and historical circumstances, there is not the same variety in pigmentation, though noses have a habit of repeating themselves all the world over. Between the two classes there has always been, and, so long as capitalism lasts, always will be, a conflict. The workers want to get their wages up, the capitalists want to keep them down. Combining the fruits of much experience, however, the capitalists have now evolved more than one process of controlling wages. Under war time controls they can reduce subsidies and cause prices to flow upwards a little faster than wages, and if it goes too rapidly for their liking, they can again subsidise the more important articles figuring in the workers' standard of living. There is the third and last and most inconvenient resort, of forcing the workers to accept lowered wages when prices fall. It is clear, therefore, that from the workers' point of view, the only thing that basically concerns them is their standard of living, and low wages or high wages, low prices or subsidised prices, high taxes or no taxes, it is only from this angle that they can logically view the matter.

The capitalist class rule the roost; they want to win the war as cheaply as possible; they have to pay for it, anyway, despite all the camouflage of income tax, beer tax and all the other taxes, and hence any possibility that the workers are going to get away with something while they have to foot the bill is an immediate cause for alarm. Hence the unhappiness of our friend Sir John. But he is a smart fellow, and so he told the assembled representatives of capitalism how he proposed to get over the difficulty. It was not proposed for the time being to continue to increase subsidies in line with increasing world prices . . . "he felt that for the ensuing year a range for the cost of living index of 30 to 35 per cent, over pre-war should he substituted for the 25 to 30 per cent, laid down by Sir Kingsley Wood in 1941."

As stated above, the principal immediate concern of the workers should be with their standard of living. Yet the fact is that, however much they try to keep it up or put it up, the workings of Capitalism are such that in the long run they cannot, materially improve it. Where the standard of living is higher, it is accompanied with a higher rate of exploitation. This explains the higher standard of living of the workers in U.S.A. as compared with Britain, while in this country, due to the exceptional circumstance of the war, the workers have been induced to accept a lowered standard of living with a higher rate of exploitation, the mirage of income tax and post-war credits having blinded them to the real situation. For the post-war period the ruling class envisage both a higher standard of living and. a greater intensity of production. Sir John Anderson says: —

  The plans which my colleagues and I are preparing for the days after the war are based on the assumption that we shall be in a position to import the raw material necessary for active employment and sufficient food to maintain a standard at least a little better than what we are enjoying now. It is right that this should be our assumption, for we intend to make it good.

The News Chronicle (27/4/44) comments: —

  Our capacity to sell our goods abroad depends on our industrial efficiency. British industry will have to make a fresh start. It must modernise its methods; bring its equipment up to date—indeed, if possible, keep a little ahead of its competitors—apply in peace time some of the dynamic energy that has been developed for war production, and utilise all that we have learned and all the physical assets we have acquired in the years of war.

It requires but little perspicacity to see from all this that what we are in for after the war is intensified competition for the world’s markets and intensified exploitation of the workers—in short, a repetition of the conditions which brought about the present armed conflict. As the News Chronicle states : —

  We shall be faced, after the war, with strenuous competition. America’s vast resources will be pitted against ours. Russia will be making her way felt. The whole of Asia will in course of time become industrialised. No one is going to buy British products from philanthropic or sentimental motives.

This is the picture of things to come. A world of giant capitalist nations struggling for world markets and control of the sources of raw material. Even when there is no positive desire for additional territory, bases, etc., the necessity of defending existing possessions implies the continuance of “defence” forces, and who knows what spark may light the next conflagration? And meanwhile the workers will be subject to the same ruthless operation of capitalism, despite Beveridge or anything “better than Beveridge,” for no form of unemployment relief will allow workers a decent standard of living—how many would want to work if this were so?—and the “policy of full employment’’ will be found to be but a rainbow, diffusing before the storm of trade depressions, and even in the “good times" of capitalism, unattainable.

One further aspect of Sir John Anderson’s speech may be noted. Up till now the budget has been mainly a matter of looking round for sources of revenue to meet the cost of administration, armed forces, etc., and of adjusting tariffs to keep out certain competitive commodities. The present budget, however, develops to a new point. Now taxation is studied from the point of view of furthering the interests of the ruling class in all spheres. Taxation reliefs are offered for scientific research, for the modernisation of equipment, and on the excess profits duty, while farmers are promised loans at cheaper rates for the modernisation of farm buildings. etc. The interests of the chemical industry are to be studied, so that they shall not be handicapped by tariffs in obtaining cheap oil as raw material. All this is in line with the logical development of capitalism. The intensification of competition for markets means that the state must be integrated more and more with capitalist industry. The worker, the cog in the machine, is promised “full employment."

But while the worker’s immediate interest, under capitalism, can only be with his standard of living, he has a further and more far-reaching interest. That is to devote a little time to the study of past and present societies, and to ascertain whether there is not some alternative to the capitalism which provides him with poverty, insecurity, worry, unemployment, occasional wars, and a premature old age.

Ramo.

"Daily Worker" Unity Conference (1944)

From the May 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

On Sunday, April 2nd, at the Stoll Theatre, London, a conference of delegates from various working class organisations was organised by the Daily Worker, It was proclaimed as a tremendous success in the Daily Worker the following day—in the words of Mr. William Rust, the "Conference has spoken the will of the people."

Here we might well question whether the conference was representative of the people as it has been claimed. The Daily Worker (April 8, 1944) giving details of the representation states that there were 1762 delegates present, (we have totalled up the figures as given and make it 1803, but that is by the way!)

The vast majority of these represented trade union branches, district committees, shop stewards' committees, etc. The Communist Party sent 73 delegates, the Co-operative movement 66, Common Wealth 32, and local and divisional Labour Parties 17. The Labour Party had officially boycotted the conference, the Liberal Party was not represented although Mrs. Corbett Ashby, late Vice-President, claiming to speak for an enormous number of the rank and file of that party, was present as an independent, neither was the I.L.P., nor, needless to say, the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

It would seem, therefore, that Mr. William Rust has been tempted to exaggerate a little, like a proud father, perhaps over the achievements of the baby he had helped to bring into the world, especially in view of the fact that his paper claimed that the delegates represented only 2,000,000 of "the people."

Passing over this doubtful claim of speaking the will of that nebulous entity "the people," let us examine the "will" that was expressed. The conference was called to face the "urgency of unity for victory in the war, for overcoming all obstacles to the mobilisation of resources and power in the war effort, and for laying the foundations for victory in the peace, too."

In the morning session the problem of winning the war was dealt with, the chief bone of contention being picked by the Common Wealth (Mr. Tom Wintringham) and the Communist Party (Mr. W. Gallacher) on the question of the Coalition government. Wintringham wanted to see the ending of the coalition whilst Gallacher stated that it was futile to discuss getting national unity by breaking up the National Government yet at the same time we should not have a Tory-dominated coalition.

In the afternoon session dealing with post-war problems, however, more diversity of opinion was expressed. Sir Richard Acland wanted nationalisation of the mines; Krishna Menon wanted Amery sacked and the Indian leaders freed;- somebody else wanted better education; another wanted to build houses after the war; R. G. McKay of Common Wealth said that "it would not worry him which progressive M.P.s got in —so long as we got a Socialist majority in the House of Commons;" and so forth and so on.

Amidst all the welter of diverse opinions there was, however, agreement on the fact that "Unity and progress are possible only by the united action of the great mass organisations of the Labour movement—the Labour Party, the trade unions and the Conservatives."

It was stressed throughout the meeting that nothing could be done without the Labour Party, but we want to know what they want to do. We doubt whether the words "unity" and "progressive" have been used so frequently in one day before, with so little regard for what unity was wanted for or to what it was wanted to progress.

As a generalisation of the speeches made it is our impression that all the delegates were concerned with was getting rid of the Tory domination of Parliament and substituting a United Progressive Left Front Government in its place and this would appear to be the intention behind the resolution which was passed, viz.,

  "This Conference greets the decision of the Executive Committee of the Amalgamated Engineering Union calling on the Labour Party to convene a conference to formulate a common policy for the working class movement in readiness for the next general election and pledges itself to do all in its power in support."

It will be noted that the conference pledged its support for a "common policy" not yet decided upon at a conference to be called by the Labour Party which officially banned this one!

Thus we see that the result was that nobody got very far although everybody was in a hurry to get somewhere. The trouble was that nobody knew exactly where to go.

How much longer will the S.P.G.B. have to point out to the working class that as long as they make these futile attempts at unity simply on the flimsy basis of getting rid of the Tories or some such specious plea they will still have to travel the same old capitalist road. Unity for Socialism alone is what the working class should bother about—when this is achieved all these other pettifogging problems will disappear like chaff before the wind.

N.S.

Caught in the Act: Cutting Up (1989)

The Caught in the Act Column from the November 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

Cutting Up
A left-winger's medical nightmare might be to look up, drowsing into anaesthesia on the operating table, to recognise that the gowned and masked figure wielding the scalpel above them was none other than Dr David Owen.

Nightmares of the political kind have been induced in many of those treated by Owen since the days when, surprisingly elevated to the job of Foreign Secretary, he was spoken of by adoring hacks as the Anthony Eden of the 1970s. After that, who knew? With his good looks he could have been Labour's next Prime Minister. But it all went wrong when the voters decided they didn't want another Labour Prime Minister. Owen decided that this mortal blow to his ambition was the fault of all those left-wingers and their delusion that a Labour government is supposed to be something other than an imitation of a Tory one. Since then Owen has been in and out of the operating theatre, amputating one political member after another until now only three lonely MPs represent his drive to change the face of British politics forever.

How you regard this must depend on your overall attitude to politics. If you are aware that all the parties which want to reform some aspects of the present social system, rather than do away with it, must put winning votes before sticking to principles you will have the basis of an understanding of what motivates David Owen and the other reformists. You will also be aware that what they offer as new and radical policies are really a re-arrangement and a dressing-up of old ones which have been tried and have failed.

For example, Owen's latest ruse is to tout around the prospect of an alliance. It does not especially matter which party or parties join the alliance—Labour and the SLD would be most welcome—as long as the end result is seen as a presentable opposition to the Thatcher government. According to Owen, when he made his outdoor speech to the SDP delegates after the bomb scare at their Conference (which was widely praised as a brilliant example of extempore oratory but which—if we may say so—was not a patch on the style and delivery always practised by Socialist Party speakers) the worst possible fate confronting us is another spell of Thatcher at Number Ten. So we must all unite to kick her out.

Stitching Up
The first thing to be said about this is that it is by no means a new policy. Formal political alliances are not common in Britain as in some other countries but the informal kind often operate. For example, Denis Healey when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer always worked closely and amicably with his Tory shadow Geoffrey Howe, even if he did once say that being attacked by Howe was like being savaged by a dead sheep. The Labour Governments of 1924 and 1929 were kept in office through Liberal support and although these experiences caused what was left of the Labour Party in 1931 to swear that never again would they form an alliance with the Liberals that was just what the Callaghan government did. Between 1931 and 1935 Britain was governed by a ‘National” government of Labour. Tory and Liberal politicians and in 1940 there was the wartime coalition under Churchill, who had swapped sides often enough to be an alliance all by himself. All these alliances were justified on the grounds that the priority was to defeat or frustrate a common enemy; the Lib/Lab pacts were aimed against the Tories, the “National" government was supposed to organise the chaos of British capitalism during the slump of the 1930s. and the 1940-45 Coalition was formed when the enormity of the effort needed to defeat Germany became not just apparent but inescapable.

The second thing to be said about Owen's desperate fishing for friends is that it is out of step with what he once offered as a political principle. One of the more emphatic reasons given for the founding of the SDP was the urgency of getting away from “Two Party" politics, in which power bounced to and fro between Labour and the Tories. A third political force, it was argued, was essential to counteract the extremism (for that was how some of the Labour and Tory policies for running British capitalism were described by the SDP) of the two big parties. Of course, with the SLD and the SDP we now have four political forces but let that pass. The point is that if the SDP succeed in forming an anti-Thatcher alliance we shall be back with the “Two Party" politics which the Gang of Four once said was so damaging and frustrating.

Waking Up
But could the other parties' reluctance to rush into Owen's embrace have anything to do with his infamous personality? When he was Foreign Secretary he was not at all bashful in letting everyone know how lucky we were to have so brilliant a man in charge of British capitalism's diplomacy. Not only enemies are uneasy about his vanity over that handsome face. His former ally David Steel has given an insider's story in his book Against Goliath (geddit?) that Owen was not only arrogant, overbearing and difficult but also inconsistent: “What Owenites think on Monday may be different from what they think on Thursday".

This would be more convincing were it not that when Steel and Owen were in partnership during the last General Election Steel was doing his best to persuade us to vote for this arrogant and inconsistent man and was always being photographed or televised in a state of exultant celebration with him. As things have turned out, Steel has retired from the SLD leadership in good standing, an inconvenient shadow behind Ashdown, while Owen and his party are in tatters. So which of these two Davids wields the scalpel more artfully? Which can cover his inconsistency more cleverly—which the smoother operator? And when will the patient come out of the anaesthetic and wake up to what is being done to them?

Ivan

Greasy Pole: Theresa - Strong And Stable (2017)

The Greasy Pole column from the July 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

We were told that Theresa May decided, flushed with optimism, to hold a general election on June 8 when she was hiking with her husband through Dolgellau, a small market town lying at the base of the Cader Idris range in Snowdonia. Dolgellau was once a woollen town but it was taken over by the automatic looms. Now it relies on tourists, who walk and climb or stay at the hotels there. When May was a small toddler a group of Socialist Party members climbed to the summit of Cader Idris, where one of them who was pregnant stood deeply awestruck by the view. That evening in the hotel there was a lot to be discussed – such as capitalism’s abuse of the world’s beauties, like the political conceits of the system’s rulers to the misery of its people. For May it is rather different now from her relaxed stroll through Dolgellau.

Speaking Out

One who would have been particularly interested in that discussion was Ed Balls, whose book – Speaking Out – has recently been published. This is an account of his political experiences including a previous election when, according to Balls in an advisory mood: ‘What we badly need in Britain is a return to the sort of leadership exemplified by Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister and Gordon Brown as a Chancellor…’ without speculating on how this proposed combustible partnership might have operated. Speaking Out is about Balls’ time as an Oxford undergraduate, then as an economist at Harvard followed by the Financial Times and a place at the Treasury until with the election of the Labour Government under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown a succession of ministerial posts preceded the defeat of that government and had him emerging as shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer.

PMQs

That was when he achieved a kind of notoriety appearing on the TV screens exchanging insults and indecipherable hand gestures with David Cameron during Prime Ministers Questions – which entailed the exposure of Cameron to lasting scorn among the fans by mistaking West Ham for Aston Villa. Those broadcast clashes earned Balls a reputation as a left-winger inspired by a passion to help establish a more equal society. Except that he denied this with his very own words: ‘But being Labour doesn’t mean that I can’t also believe in a market economy which creates wealth and good jobs . . .  you couldn’t build a stronger economy on a fairer society through opposing business; it had to be a partnership between the dynamism of business and the helping hand of government. And my arrival from the Financial Times, the pink-papered global business newspaper, to work for Labour in 1994 was one symbol of that change they were pursuing’.

Osborne

This was a preamble to Balls’ next, heavily publicised, ambitiously gratifying, personal appearance on TV when as the news came in late on polling day he picked over the tastier morsels with George Osborne. It was not comforting for Theresa May – but then how was Osborne to react when one of her first responses to becoming party leader was ruthlessly to eject him from being Chancellor of the Exchequer – even if he could then take his revenge as editor of the Evening Standard? And in any case May herself had never hesitated to make enemies. Apart from her infamously informing the Tories that they were better known as The Nasty Party there was the matter of her costly tastes in clothes, like a ‘Deliciously Soft Escada Cashmere Coat’ priced at £1950 and her revealing underwear such as headlined by the Express as ‘The Day Theresa May’s Boob-Busting Bra Sparked Twitter Meltdown’.

Paisley

Walking that day with her husband through Dolgellau Theresa May could feel easy about fixing the date of the election. She had cleared a number of rivals out of the Party, leaving her supreme to assure the voters that she alone would ensure Strong Stable Government. She would see off Jean-Claude Juncker along with those other tiresome European mediocrities. The Tories were a long way ahead with every opinion poll, leaving Jeremy Corbyn behind in what seemed a swamp of defeat. But as the campaign got under way another, profoundly unsettling, picture emerged. And when it came to that fateful day Jeremy Corbyn was returned in his constituency with 73 per cent of the vote and the Labour Party gained 30 seats. After all those confident boasts May’s party did not have enough MPs to set up a government. There was plenty of advice and predictions. In the end she turned up with yet another surprise by announcing that, along with her guilt and despair about the outcome of her campaign she would ensure that at least she could be at the head of a government, even if it entailed being in alliance with the Democratic Unionists – Ian Paisley’s original sprouting in Northern Ireland.

Crackpots

The DUP was formed in 1971 and has survived during various disciplines of militarism known as The Troubles. It is now the largest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly and its ten seats at Westminster make it the fifth largest in the Commons. But as it was typically known as ‘a coalition of crackpots’ it seemed unlikely that May would aggravate the chaos in her party by trying to survive as a government with their support. But that is what emerged from the chaos, with May as the titular leader of a minority government intended to operate on only ‘matters of mutual concern’, which left her enemies to speculate hopefully on exactly how it could fail. There is no lack of evidence that this will happen, if only in the recorded attitudes of the DUP leaders. One is in the Caleb Foundation opinion that the origins of the Earth – by god over six days – should be taught in schools. The party is hostile to LGBT groups and opposed to same sex marriage: ‘Peter will not marry Paul’. Northern Ireland is the only place in the UK where it is illegal to have an abortion, with a prison term of life for cases of drug-induced abortion. In December 2015 Arlene Foster became the party leader but in January 2017 she had to step down from the post of First Minister after presiding over a disastrous Renewable Heat Incentive Scheme costing the Budget some £400 million and ensuring that Theresa May’s effort to survive through an alliance with the DUP would look very unlikely. Which should divert us no more than on that long gone day on the Welsh mountain.

Ivan

Editorial: Coalition Politics (2015)

Editorial from the May 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Lib Dems have come up with a seemingly perfect alibi for the notorious betrayal of their promise to abolish the tuition fees that the previous Labour government had imposed:  that they were in a coalition government and this meant that they had to give up some of their promised policies in order to reach an accommodation with their partners in government.

Now that coalition governments seem to be the order of the day this is a get-out-of-jail card that all parties can play. And seemed to have been preparing to do so.  At least this is what was suggested by  the increasing extravagance of their promises as the election campaign went on. They seemed to know they would have a ready-made excuse for not honouring them.

Using the need to compromise with coalition partners as an alibi, however, is not one that will hold up. Most election promises cannot be honoured even if there is a single party government with a decent majority. That’s because they are promises to make capitalism work in a way that it simply cannot be made to.

An adequately funded NHS and affordable housing are examples. Such reforms cost money, money that can only come in the end, in however roundabout a way, from profits. But profits are the life-blood of the capitalist economic system. Which is why they have to be given priority over meeting people’s needs adequately. And why governments always end up according this priority, despite what they may have promised.

The only way a government could, for instance, get more affordable houses built (apart, that is, by giving people more money to spend,  but nobody would believe any party that promised that) would be to subsidise this. Houses are built by profit-seeking companies and these are not going to invest in building houses to sell to people who cannot afford to buy them. Left to themselves, they invest in building houses for people  who can afford them; these days, upmarket  houses and flats for the better off, whether bought to live in, rent out or leave empty as a speculative financial asset.

The money to subsidise affordable housing – or an adequate health service or reducing inequality or eliminating child poverty or any of the other laudable promises we heard – would have to come either out of taxation, which will ultimately fall on profits, or from borrowing from the rich, which will incur legally-binding interest charges which will have to be paid out of taxation.

Any government which reduced take-home profits in this way to promote a better life for people would provoke an economic slowdown. Which would create other problems for people. It’s a lose-lose situation but one that is built-in to capitalism.

Coalition politics won’t end this. All it will do is provide parties with another specious excuse for not honouring promises which can’t be honoured anyway. Just wait and see.

Greasy Pole: Friends (?) in need (2010)

From the July 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

Waking up on the Seventh of May, the voters might have experienced a measure of confusion. In the polling stations they had done their civic duty, after months of suffering bombardment from the three main political parties on the theme that we are in a mess and unless you do as you are told it will get even worse, to the point of social collapse too horrible even for seasoned politicians and propagandists to contemplate. You must take immediate action to forestall such a disaster by helping to put a new government into power. But it is important that you are careful to support the right party and not vote for one party when you really support another - for example vote Liberal Democrat when you would prefer a Conservative government. Or vice versa. Or, even worse, to complicate the matter by introducing other parties like Labour, Scottish and Welsh Nationalists, UKIP. So that was what the voters did, in their millions.

But on the day after it became clear that no one party would have a majority of elected MPs, which made forming a government rather more complicated than had been intended. British capitalism held its collective breath; the Stock Exchange, traders and bankers twitched and writhed; this was not what popular suffrage was supposed to be all about. But the day was saved when the three big parties announced a change in their attitude. No longer contesting over one of them being in government alone, they were suddenly certain that the best – the only – way out of the crisis would be for two of them to make up a government in alliance. Majority government was, in other words, no longer the smart option; it had become the old, stale politics. In its place was Coalition – the new, resuscitating politics. And if this made the voters confused – well so were the politicians.

Cameron And Clegg
Just over a week before polling day the leaders of the Tories and the Lib Dems had assured us that they were in no doubt about the disastrous consequences of their rival being elected at the head of a new government. On 26 April this is what David Cameron thought about Nick Clegg:

“It's now all becoming clear...he's only interested in one thing and that is changing our electoral system so that we have a permanent hung Parliament, we have a permanent coalition, we never have strong and decisive government...he wants to hold the whole country to ransom just to benefit the Liberal Democrats.”

(This view of Clegg – as a ruthless, scheming manipulator – differs from Cameron's previous contempt for him as “a joke”, but never mind). Meanwhile Clegg had expressed his own doubts about Cameron's character and political ambitions:

“The Conservatives are so desperate that they have resorted to a crude form of blackmail. David Cameron and George Osborne are stoking up fears in the markets, actively trying to destabilise the pound and reduce the Government's ability to borrow. It's like a protection racket; vote for us or our friends in the City will lay waste to your economy, your savings and your job.”

But hard words had to be smoothed away by the prospect of a Coalition. In that teeth-grinding press conference in the garden at Number Ten, with both leaders behaving like affectionate old school chums, Cameron sniggered when reminded of his sneer that Clegg was a joke. Instead he he trumpeted that this Coalition would mark a “historic and seismic shift” in British politics, with Tories and Lib Dems united on the key principles of “freedom, fairness, responsibility”. And Clegg, not to be outdone for florid vacuity, announced that the government with him as Deputy Prime Minister would be “a source of reassurance and stability”. After which all that was left was for the Lib Dems to explain to their local parties and to their voters why the prospect of being a voice in government was so seductive as to persuade them to drop so many of the policies which were central to their their appeal for votes. But dishonouring election pledges is the very stuff of government – something Deputy Prime Minister Clegg and his party may become even more familiar with in the near future.

Along with the celebrants of the Lib Dem once-unforeseen elevation into the dangerously dizzy heights of power – like Nick Clegg, David (tragically briefly) Laws, Danny Alexander – were those who were outraged at what they saw as a blatant betrayal of what had comforted them as their party's vital policies.

MacDonald
This is not first time an election has exposed those whose energy has blinded them to the cruel reality of the political system they were immersing themselves in – its brutal cynicism, its ready acceptance that its policies are there to be modified, compromised or if need be wiped out, its leaders ready to accept, indeed revel in, what they had repeatedly said would be unacceptable.

The general election of May 1929 resulted in a hung Parliament with the Labour Party, under Ramsay MacDonald, winning the most seats. Outside Westminster, in the mines, factories and shipyards an historic slump was gathering and unemployment rising. By August 1931, with the situation worsening almost by the day, MacDonald might have done the honourable thing and admitted that his party's government was impotent, confused, disintegrating. Instead he approached the Liberal and Conservative parties with a proposal to form a Coalition. With the other leaders –Baldwin and Samuel – he went to inform the King who, when told that MacDonald had the resignations of his Cabinet ready, replied that he “trusted there was no question” of MacDonald's being among them; it was up to them to “come to some arrangement”. A Coalition government, combining Tories and parts of the Labour and Liberal Parties and led by MacDonald, took over.
In the following general election MacDonald's National Labour Party was all but wiped out and the remnant of the Labour Party reduced to a derisory fragment. All this while the slump ground on. There is no reason to believe that now, in the time of Cameron and Clegg, the situation is any different from the 1930s – that the disasters of capitalism are any more curable by two parties in fragile unity than they were by one separately.

Ivan