Power pact (1981)

From the November 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

The political alliance between the Liberals and the ‘Social Democrats' pales into insignificance in comparison with the more sinister alliance between the SDP and the BBC. The media in recent months has outdone many of its previous efforts in paving the path of ‘moderation' as the TV, radio and newspaper journalists invent stories to prove that there is now a popular burst of opinion in favour of ‘centre politics'. What began as a Gang of Four has become a rabble of many: ex-Labour cabinet ministers, sixteen members of the ruling group on Islington council, some Liberals who look like they have just won the jackpot at Bingo, and even an inoffensive looking Tory from Norfolk. Names that once sent us searching for a copy of Who's Who (Had you heard of Bill Rodgers when he was a member of ‘our great movement’?) are paraded across our screens as the speakers of Truth; Liberals who used to write manifestos about saving whales and giving power to Wales (or was it the other way round?) are now adopting pompous airs and talking about ‘preparing for government'; even that undying enemy of labour and friend of Labour, The Daily Mirror, has opted for the alliance, with full-page photographs of semi-nude women saying The middle way is the best'.

In order to establish the mythical middle, mythical extremes are needed. One can imagine the editor of The Guardian issuing the order: ‘Go out and create us a couple of really awful extremes so that we can sell this new centre.' And so the caricatures came to be. First, there is the caricature of the wicked, thoughtless Thatcherite Tories who plan to increase unemployment and blow up the world with American weapons once they have succeeded in getting the whole working class standing in one long dole queue. Like the witch in a children’s book, Thatcher is painted as being wickedness personified. The other side of the caricature is the Marxist- dominated Benno-Trotyskyist Labour Party. Benn is portrayed as a modern Stalin, waiting patiently for his chance to grab power and destroy Western Civilisation (coming soon).

Like all myths, there are elements of truth. Thatcher and the Tories are viciously anti-working class. When have Tories not been? Their ignorant and unhistorical monetarist policies do fail to provide any solution whatsoever to the social problems of our time. They are impotent in the face of disaster and arrogant in the face of criticism. With increasing unemployment, increasing cuts in social services, increasing armaments production and increasing poverty, workers are right to regard the promises of Thatcher and her team as an insult to human intelligence. The memories of Labourites are as short as their alternative policies for getting society out of the mess it is in.

They attack the problems as if Thatcher caused them. As if unemployment did not double under the last Labour government; as if Labour Ministers were not in the forefront of cutting social services in order to balance the books; as if the last Labour government did not place armaments production as a top priority; as if the rich did not get richer during the period of the last Labour government. Who are these people trying to kid? But now they have an ‘alternative economic policy’ and the story goes that if we give Benn another chance (‘another' because he was in the last Labour government) he will run capitalism in the interests of the working class. This claim is a foolish and cruel con-trick. The next Labour government (if there is one) will not run capitalism; capitalism will run it. The portrait of Benn and Co. as a socialist alternative may attract a few people to the Labour party, it may scare some off, but in the long-run it will be seen as a waste of political energy.

And there they are, standing in the middle between the Wicked Witch and the Bogus Marxist Threat: the Liberal-SDP Alliance. Dead centre, dead honest, in fact they claim to be so innocuous that they might as well actually be dead. There is that nice young David Steel and that dear old Roy Jenkins . . . all terribly nice chaps with whom any self-respecting media hack would enjoy sharing a bottle of claret, but there is just one little thing: What the hell do they stand for? So far they have left the electorate in the dark about this minor aspect of their alliance. Like a well-rehearsed play for which there is not yet a script, the Alliance are selling plenty of tickets, but what will they do when their followers demand to see the performance? Not long ago a successful SDP candidate for a local council in the North East was interviewed on the local radio: “Now that people have voted for you, could you tell us exactly what policies you stand for?" asked the man from the media; “Well, we’ll be deciding our policy later this year and as soon as we have, the electors will be the first to know", replied the man from the media. So, there you have it; vote for the Alliance and ask what you are voting for later. History being made? It’s more like a mystery being made.

On one point the allies are definitely in agreement. Both are one hundred per cent committed to the maintenance of the capitalist social order. No need for a policy statement about that. Both the Liberals (who claim to stand for capitalism) and the SDP (who call themselves ‘democratic Socialists’) accept a way of running society in which goods are only produced if there is a prospect of selling them on the market for a profit. Both are opposed to any challenge to the class ownership and control of the means of wealth production and distribution. In this vital respect the alliance is broader than it thinks, for it includes the Conservative and Labour parties. All of the Lefties with their ‘alternative economic strategies’ (for which read, ‘previously tried and failed Keynesian policies’ are as committed to the buying and selling system as any Liberal or SDPer.

As reported in a previous issue of the Socialist Standard, the SDP has refused a challenge from the SPGB to debate its views in public. Its leaders prefer to state their case from the secure distance of a BBC Any Questions studio rather than face real working class people with real problems arising from a real cause which the SDP will do nothing to remove. As the media continues to persuade us of the moderation and reasonableness of the new messiahs; as David Steel prepares to resume where Lloyd George left off; as political careerists from all parties point the accusing finger at one another and say that everyone is an extremist but themselves; as the word ‘socialism’ is tossed about the political arena like a football which changes shape each time it arrives at another team; as a Gang of Bores awaits its call to do for the working class what has never been done before and what can never be done, it is high time that we, the working class, took a good, hard look at those who want us to follow them, and when we have seen them for what they are we can tell them precisely where to go.

Steve Coleman

Running Commentary: More royal drivel (1983)

The Running Commentary column from the September 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

More royal drivel

The Police Federation is a strange body, dedicated as it is to improving relationships between the police and the people the police coerce through in-depth research into social problems. This learned lot were recently addressed by one of the world's great experts on psychology, youth delinquency and social pressures — which can only mean the Prince of Wales.

This typically unproductive member of the ruling class thinks that young "offenders'' — youths who break the laws which protect useless parasites in their privilege — have “icy and unfeeling’’ attitudes towards the elderly and would benefit from a spell of Army discipline. (The Army is another strange body, whose profession is to destroy things and kill people).

Of course the Prince is no fool and he had ready some evidence to back up his theories — after all, his audience consisted largely of Chief Constables who are famous for their persistent hunger for dispassionate, scientific research.

The “evidence” consisted of what the Prince saw — or thought he saw — when he visited some courses run by the Army last year, when about 2,000 youngsters put themselves through some risks and exertions. The Prince decided that they had "benefitted immeasurably” from it all.

Jolly good. But as a contribution to research it was useless because those young people were not delinquents, they did not come from slums and they had volunteered to go on the courses as a possible way of getting a job. It would have been a very different matter, if the courses had been filled with restless young offenders from places like Toxteth and Lambeth, sentenced by some pompous magistrate to find their true character dangling at the end of a rope on a rock face.

There is in fact some evidence, which the Prince did not use, about the effects of this kind of regime, in the “short, sharp shock” Detention Centres (now Youth Custody Centres), where youngsters are pushed by a variety of nasty methods beyond what they think are their physical and emotional limits. This evidence does not support the theory that such harsh discipline breeds humane responses. The “success” rate (the proportion of inmates who are frightened out of further offences) of this type of “treatment” is notably low. Perhaps this is because nothing a Detention Centre can do can be worse than living in the slums of Liverpool, Manchester or London.

It is to be expected that parasites like the Prince should be keen that the people whose work keeps him in privilege should be disciplined into accepting their inferior social standing. It is to be expected that the forces of coercion, in the persons of Chief Constables, should applaud his vacuous drooling on the matter. But the subjects of it all — the working class — should react with anger and contempt and a resolve to end such a miserable, decadent society.

Bad connection

The trade unions and the Labour Party are in high fever about the looming menace of Norman Tebbit and his threat to place a garrotte on the unions and in particular to make it more difficult for them to pump money into the Labour Party.

No one who has a concern for working class interests and for a healthy, effective trade union movement will object to plans to sever the ties between the unions and the Labour Party. By such standards — not to mention those of democracy within the unions — there is much to be said for substituting the “contracting in” procedure, by which any union member who wants to contribute to Labour Party funds must declare so, for “contracting out”, by which the contribution is taken from the member unless they say otherwise.

The present excitement springs from the popular fallacy that it is only Tory governments who wage war on the unions while Labour governments live in unbroken peace with them. The 1945-51 Labour government was constantly in conflict with trade unionists, especially with "unofficial” strikers — strikers who couldn't get their Labour-Party-dominated union to support them.

The Wilson government also fought the unions, in one famous strike denouncing the seamen as misled by a group of “politically motivated” wreckers. That government, after years of struggle over pay and conditions, tried to draw up legislation with which Tebbit would have found no fault, but Barbara Castle's anti-union proposals in In Place of Strife were too much for even the most obsequious of union leaders and they had to be shelved. The Callaghan government made their name by breaking the firemen's strike with troops in their Green Goddesses, for the battles with the pickets in the Winter of Discontent and for its ministers urging workers to break through picket lines.

Unions must clash with any government, whether Labour or Tory, because they stand — at least when the unions are doing their job — on opposite sides of the class struggle. The unions should represent the interests of the workers, and the government the interests of the capitalists, in the struggles on the industrial field.

The Labour Party have always cynically exploited their trade union connection to help them get into power. If, after all that recent history has taught them, the unions still go along with this they will find again, and to their cost, how mistaken they are. With friends like the Labour Party they hardly need enemies like Norman Tebbit.

Sick note

Poor David Steel, meaning well but so grievously misunderstood.

Some sections of the Alliance had serious doubts about him during the election, with people like Cyril Smith grumbling that he was hogging too much of the limelight and Steel expressing some rattiness with his supporters for their lack of involvement. It seemed to be coming to a head when the leader announced abruptly that he was taking himself off for a long rest. How could a capitalist party survive, asked bewildered Liberals, without a leader to sort out its knotty problems of compromise and deceit, to hand down decisions on policy and action for the mass of the party to obediently carry out?

But then relief for them. Steel was not mad or disintegrating but only struck down by the sort of virus which lurks about waiting to infect politicians who are exhausted by the effort of battling for the votes of the deluded supporters of capitalism.

Steel's illness was said to be making him tired and depressed so that his problems seemed insurmountable. At which point it is reasonable to question the nature of this illness, which has the effect of stimulating such an insight into reality. For the Liberal leader’s problems, like those of Thatcher and whoever replaces Foot, are insurmountable.

All leaders confront the difficulty of first persuading enough workers that theirs is the likeliest method of running British capitalism, that they have a unique ability to bring in an age of unprecedented peace and plenty. If that propaganda succeeds, and the leader passes through the door of Number Ten, they are faced with the further problem of hoping and praying that they will be lucky enough for their term of office to coincide with one of capitalism’s upswings, which they can claim credit for and so appear to keep their election promises.

Some leaders — like Harold Macmillan — have quite a long run of luck before they are exposed to a downswing. None of them are able to control the cycle of boom and slump, or notably to mitigate the effects; such basic elements of the capitalist system are out of their control. Capitalism works through its own laws and takes little account of the electoral needs of politicians.

That is reality. Perhaps Steel, at some blinding moment, glimpsed it and saw what was in store for him if he ever made the top. Enough to make him sick as a politician.

Greasy Pole: Wind At Daybreak For The New Politics (2011)

The Greasy Pole column from the June 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

As dawn broke on 6 May Danny Alexander, the fresh-faced Chief Secretary to the Treasury, sat alone in the Sky TV studio and, in what one seasoned observer called “a Facebook moment”, relieved himself of an explosive fart.

At the time he was composing himself to spout some predictably scripted excuses and evasions about the LibDem losses in the local elections and their disappointment at the result of the AV referendum. Somewhere outside the studio the Tories were gloating. He assumed he was unobserved but his contribution to the day’s entertainment was recorded on some 100 monitors. Well it was a change from the usual noxious emissions from the mouths of politicians but should we be worried about Alexander and his flatulence? Was it the only way for him to relieve his despair at the exposure of the LibDem’s deceit, their savaging by their supposed Tory allies and the crumbling of a generation of baseless ambitions? Was it heralding his guilt at his own part in provoking his party’s debacle?

He rose, after all, through the ranks as a personal assistant of the disastrous Nick Clegg. He was deeply involved in composing the LibDem election manifesto – including those pledges such as opposing any rise in tuition fees – and he was at the lead in negotiations to form the coalition, heedless of the disastrous effect on his party of previous such arrangements. Which did not affect his enthusiasm for the job of Chief Secretary and its work of “deficit reduction”, which entails reducing the incomes if masses of people who so meekly vote for a social system which brings them such misery and fear. Any examination of Alexander must reveal that his ailments are chronic and resistant to treatment.

Clegg

However hapless his condition, Alexander cannot rely on any therapeutic example from his colleagues (and, of course, his rivals) in his party. Clegg, for one, persists in what might be called his optimism were it not so perilously separated from reality. On the first anniversary of those blissfully exciting days when the coalition came into being in the fragrance of the rose garden at Number Ten, he said: “There is a reason neither of the two bigger parties won last May. Neither of them were really trusted to deliver both a strong, dynamic economy and a fair society. We can be trusted on both counts…I am confident that showing we can combine economic soundness with social justice – competence with a conscience – will make us an even more formidable political force in the future.” Those words were breathtaking in their audacious refusal to acknowledge the real situation – for example the survey for ITV News which showed 49 percent regarding the Coalition as “bad for Britain” and 63 percent saying they do not trust Clegg.

Then there was his boss Cameron who made a contemptuously obstinate dismissal of LibDem claims to be able to smooth the crueller edges of Tory policies: “I don’t accept the whole idea that the role of one party is somehow to moderate the other. The Conservative Party, under my leadership, has changed. It is a new and different Conservative Party.” That statement is crammed with falsehood, paying no attention to the fact that the Liberal Party – whatever alliances it has embroiled itself in, however it has re-shaped its name – has not been a nationally considerable political force for some ninety years. Their typical response, when their real situation became too distasteful, was to gorge themselves on fantasy.

Steel

One notable addict of that variety of political narcosis was David Steel who was Liberal leader between July 1976 and July 1988 and who, perhaps as consolation for joining the ranks of failed leaders of his party, was in 1997 transformed into Baron Steel of Aikwood. During his time in charge he did a favour to James Callaghan’s ailing Labour government by joining a pact to keep them in power in return for being consulted on some aspects of policy. That arrangement fell apart with Thatcher’s 1979 victory but Steel became excited again by the scent of power in 1981 when the Gang of Four broke from the Labour Party and, in spite of his former gruesomely futile expedition into such territory, he felt encouraged to join a SDP/Liberal Alliance. Here, he thought, was at last a real chance of worming his way into a position of fame and influence which would get the cameras watching him striding along Downing Street smiling at the reporters’ cheeky questions, then emerging from the black door to issue some history-making declaration to the waiting world.

There was some encouragement in such dreams by the opinion polls which indicated that the despair about the previous Labour government was widespread and deep enough to give the Alliance a realistic hope of success. Steel was impressed enough by this to bellow at the 1981 Liberal Assembly that party members should “…go back to your constituencies and prepare for government”. And when the ecstatic uproar caused by that historically embarrassing, desperately forgettable, blunder had died away there was Thatcher and the war in the Falklands and a smashing win for the Tories in 1983 and the virtual death of the Alliance and all its dreams and nightmares.

Conservatives 

None of this, nor of the other such disasters, seems to have influenced Clegg – nor Alexander and the others – when Cameron offered them the chance of again living the dream denied to their party’s previous leaders. Indeed the early attitude of the likes of Vince Cable and David Laws gave the impression that they were satisfied they had made the right choice, working for policies which they knew would adversely affect the lives of masses of people – workers, children, the elderly and the sick… We know now that situation has changed; there is a dominant Conservative Party (now condemned by Cable as “…ruthless, calculating and thoroughly tribal”) which may calculate on being in power for a period comparable to Thatcher’s. During last year’s general election we were promised, especially by Clegg who was suffering from a kind of hysteria arising from his ecstatic TV ratings, a New Style of Politics. The elections this year exposed that lie but there is a way to go before the end of any politics, old or new, signalling the end of this entire rotten system in which reality is swamped in toxic fantasy.

Ivan

Problems of partnership (1987)

From the August 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Almost all successful politicians are, to some extent, opportunists. Some may seek to maintain a core of non-negotiable principles — a bottom line which they will not compromise in the interests of short term political gain — but that still leaves considerable room for opportunism. Many more change their "principles" in accordance with their assessment of which way the political wind is blowing.

The current breaking of the Alliance mould illustrates precisely this. It was opportunism that persuaded the SDP and Liberals of the necessity for, first, local electoral agreements so that their respective candidates did not compete against each other, and later for joint policy statements and parliamentary spokespersons. Clearly, until the general election, both parties saw partnership as their best chance for making an impact and achieving electoral success.

Now, in the wake of the failure of this strategy to bring the desired result — a share in political power — new tactical calculations have had to be made. The split between those who favour merger of the two parties and those who oppose it is not, in the main, about disagreements over principle but about differing assessments of what will be in the best interests of the respective parties and of certain individuals within them. Not surprisingly it is those who have most to lose or gain by the adoption of the "wrong" strategy — the leadership — who have been the most impassioned contributors to the debate. Few of the Alliance leaders have emerged from the current row with much credit although it is perhaps David Owen who, more than anyone else, has been exposed as the arch political opportunist.

In the past Owen has cultivated an image as a man of principle standing aloof from the sordid business of political skulduggery. In reality any "principles" he may adhere to have consistently taken second place to consideration of his own political standing. Since leaving the Labour Party he has travelled at a considerable speed through the political "centre" so that he currently sounds as if he could quite easily be eligible for a place in Thatcher s cabinet (which illustrates also that the difference between the main political parties is not so great as political rhetoric would have us believe). It is little wonder then that Douglas Hurd felt moved to appeal to "constructive and forward-looking" SDP members to join the Conservatives.

Owen's opposition to a merger with the Liberals is, he claims, because the SDP stands for something different from the Liberals. (We weren't told that during the election campaign!) Instead of a merger he advocates a federal structure in which both parties would retain their own distinctive identities. But no doubt he also recognises that the SDP. which polled one million fewer votes than the Liberals and has fewer than a third as many MPs. would be overwhelmed in a new merged party and Owen himself would have a considerably weaker claim to be its leader.

However, Owen has this time clearly not seen which way the wind is blowing: it seems that a majority of SDP and Liberal members do want a merged party and Owen's intransigent opposition to it will leave him out in the political wilderness, unless of course he decides to make a new bid for power from inside the Tory camp.

By contrast David Steel appears to be the less egocentric and power-hungry of the two Alliance leaders. But this image may also conceal a shrewd calculation of where his best interests lie. Steel has certainly read the mood of the grassroots of the two parties better than Owen — in many areas SDP and Liberal activists are already working to all intents and purposes as a single party; and the issue of the dual leadership does provide a plausible excuse for the poor showing of the Alliance at the.polls. But it may also be true that Steel, aware of the way in which the leadership role during the election campaign was hijacked by Owen, has decided to take a calculated risk to improve his own political standing by putting forward the merger option. After all it is highly likely that he knew that Owen would not agree to it and so by proposing a merger he would effectively be ousting Owen and leaving the way clear for himself to become the leader of the new party. If this was his thinking — and such cynical political manoeuvring is not without precedent — then he has demonstrated himself to be at least Owen's equal in the opportunism stakes.

What are the implications of the Alliance's angst for ordinary workers? Firstly it gives their campaigning rhetoric a hollow tone. After all this is the political outfit which, throughout the election campaign, extolled the virtues of "partnership", "cooperation" and "consensus" as the universal panacea and held up their own organisation as a shining example of how society as a whole could be organised. And just as they denied the existence of conflict or division within their own ranks, so too they denied the existence of conflict or division — notably that of class — within society at large. Recent events have shown that their description of the relationship between their two parties was incomplete if not false. (Their description of social relationships has been equally misleading.) Now we are told that Owen doesn't think much of the Liberals at all and never did; that they have been wrong on numerous policy issues including the Falklands war, the sale of council houses, social security changes and defence. In other words he has used the Liberals as a convenient partner in his attempt to achieve his own political ambitions.

Secondly, Owen, who put himself and his party forward as the defenders of democracy, the advocates of a fairer electoral system and who left the Labour Party in part because of what he regarded as a the anti-democratic tendencies of the extra-parliamentary left, is now revealed as a man who tried to rig the ballot on merger by posing what the Electoral Reform Society deemed was an unfairly loaded question, and who has stated that he will not accept the democratic decision of SDP members — unless the vote goes the way he wants it to.

Now that the election glitter has been stripped away the Alliance leadership has been left looking rather tawdry. It wasn't after all a partnership of equals, rather a marriage of convenience between two leaders with conflicting egos and political ambitions. The lesson is clear: don't trust leaders — they're usually in it for their own selfish ends — and trust their rhetoric even less — it's likely to conceal an extremely seedy reality.

Janie Percy-Smith

Lab-Lib: A rabble (1977)

From the May 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

There is an old saying that if you lie down with a dog you get up with fleas. No doubt it has dawned on the leaders of the Liberal Party that the idea of projecting themselves as an alternative government to the Labourites and Tories is a non-starter. With thirteen MPs and a discredited minority government, their only way to power is through the side door.

With no ideas to put to the working class, the only alternative to a future in the political wilderness and possible extinction was to do a deal. But, such are the fortunes of opportunism and reformism, they could be cutting their own throats either way. The price they will inevitably pay for “dealing" will be to forfeit the phoney image they have built up over twenty or thirty years — that they had distinctive policies and independent ideas. For them to line up openly with one of the parties they have claimed to be so different from can only lose the support of those who had turned to them, having despaired of the other two.

In an effort to have his cake and eat it Mr. Steel, the Liberal leader, sought to pose as champion of the motorist and pledged himself to vote against Budget increases in petrol prices and road tax. He argued that these increases fell outside the arrangement, and as there had been no consultation on them the Liberals were free to vote against them. After the by-election massacre at Stetchford the motorist did not seem to matter so much. A more urgent need instantly asserted itself: avoiding a General Election, with the threat of annihilation. The great and courageous leader had to find a way out while still trying to sound plausible, at least to the gullible. So he discovered that the increases in motoring costs would not be voted on as a separate resolution in Parliament, but would be tied to other proposals; so it might be best to let the thirteen Liberals make up their own minds, and lead from behind.

The Labour Government are like drowning men desperately clutching at anything in the agony of their disastrous attempt at running capitalism. Having repeatedly declared against coalition, they turned to the Liberals to survive. The one-time “firebrand” of the Left, Michael Foot, will solemnly sit down each week in consultation with the Liberals to keep his mob in power a little longer, unless the whole thing blows up in their faces. Then they will blame each other and fail back on any feeble excuse to try to save their political hides. There is no expediency too shabby for any of them.

The IMG, WRP, IS and the CP, who urged workers to vote Labour and now go round muttering demands for “socialist policies”, get the policies of the Labour Party which they voted for. The policies which these Lefties hold to be Socialist are in fact just as useless and reformist as those of the Labour Party.

When Mr. Steel claims that his deal with the Government will mean no more nationalization in this session of Parliament, is he really silly enough to believe he is saving capitalism? Is he unaware that his own Party, when in power, carried out Acts of nationalization? He only displays his ignorance if he thinks a Labour Government represents any threat to capitalism, or that nationalization has anything to do with Socialism. It is a shame that questions like these never occur to people like Robin Day during those boring mock-interviews on television, like the one on polling day for Stetchford. But of course they would not keep their cushy jobs for long if they did.

Mrs. Thatcher and her Tory tribesmen can get as indignant as they like, but under Heath in 1974 they were quite willing to talk coalition with the Liberals. The readiness of the Liberals to co-operate with either of the “major” Parties, shows how little there is of fundamental difference between any of them. In fact, Steel said it is his belief that people “will find the artificial Party battles irrelevant to the problems of the day” (Guardian, 24th March). It is the parties that are irrelevant, Mr. Steel. The problems arise out of capitalist society, and you are all dedicated to its preservation.

For the Tories Mrs. Thatcher said: “We believe in capitalism and democracy”. What about the other combinations, Mrs. Thatcher? Capitalism and war? Capitalism and poverty? Capitalism and crises? Capitalism and unemployment? Even Callaghan said in the same report: “I would not like to guarantee that the decline in unemployment will continue in the next few months”. None of them can guarantee anything. But while the system lasts the misery and political trading it has always produced will continue.

Enoch Powell pledged not to bring the Labour Government down and abstained on the crucial vote of confidence. Callaghan and Co. had been just as prepared to deal with the Ulster Unionists as they were with the Liberals. Just to show that they all have the same priorities, seven Liberals voted against cuts in war potentials in the first vote after the deal.

The working class trust any of them at the expense of their own interests. Apart from war-time coalitions when Tories, Labourites and Liberals joined forces with “Communist” support to pull capitalism’s chestnuts out of the fire, there have been deals between the Labour Party and the Liberals from the very early days of the Labour Party. The 1924 Labour Government was voted into office on Liberal votes. As early as 1910 there were electoral “arrangements” between these two reformist Parties.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain has one objective, Socialism. This can only be achieved when a majority of the working class reject the squalid expediencies of opportunist politics.

Harry Baldwin

A Steel Prop for Labour (1978)

From the March 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

At many a Labour Party meeting, among the querulous Trots, the sandalled thinkers, the ambitious suburban admen, and the ruminative trade unionists there are a few old men, flotsam from the party’s past. They wear broad red ties beneath Donegal tweed, sing the Red Flag with defensive fervour. Grown old in decades of canvassing, licking envelopes, collecting dues, they speak as the constituency’s self-appointed conscience; they can remember when Labour, although in apparently endless opposition, seemed to them to stand for a better society and to be concerned about what they described as political principles.

Their delusions linger, through the reality of the government opposing strikers, or persuading the workers to take cuts in their living standards, or embracing whatever political bandit they are currently doing a deal with, or performing their genuflecting duty to the royal family. The old timers may take consolation from a moody, complaining beer with the ward’s left winger but even that will leave them uneasy about their party’s policies in action.

Any last few hopes they may have nurtured that the Labour Party stood for Socialism, or even had any consistent principles, must have come near to suffocation when, a year ago, Callaghan and Steel concluded the Liberal/Labour pact. However the agreement was dressed up by both sides for their members, the simple fact is that a Labour government which, those old members might have hoped would be able to introduce Socialism, has made a deal with an avowedly capitalist party in order to stay in power. And power, for Labour, means more wage restraint, more cuts in medical and social services, more international nuclear politicking.

Decline

When the pact was sealed, last March, Labour was in an overall minority of nine in the House of Commons. From their point of view this was a grievous come down from the overall majority of three which they won in the general election in October 1974. They have declined even further during the past year and are now kept alive only by the Liberal Party’s acquiescence in the agreement.

The pact was made just in time to avert what would have been a killing defeat on a vote of confidence. Described as an “experiment”, it set up a joint consultative committee to keep an eye on the government’s policies and to inject bits of Liberal policy into them (there is talk of a so-called profit sharing scheme being among the government’s plans for later this year). At the time Steel argued that the pact would tame some of Labour’s wilder ideas, would help secure “agreements” on pay and price restraint and would avoid the election which none of them wanted. Since then the Liberals have been anything but restrained in the claims they have made about the effects of the agreement:

   Since last November the results of this tough and unpopular struggle are being seen in a rise in real wages and a relaxation of the spending cuts. That success was made possible only by the pact . . . Just four years ago the miners, in a confrontation, had thrown the country into a three-day week . . . Today, the miners have voted to dig more coal and to be paid by results. (Richard Wainwright MP at the Special Liberal Assembly, The Guardian 23/1/78)

It is constructive to compare this extravagance with Harold Wilson’s reaction to an earlier agitation in favour of a deal with the Liberals. In September 1965 the death of the Speaker effectively cut Labour’s majority to 1. There was plenty of advice to the government, in the press, that the only way it could survive was by arranging for reliable support from the Liberals. And this was how Wilson, in his memoirs (The Labour Government 1964-70) dismisses the matter:

  Only if there were a prior general understanding between Labour and the Liberals on broad principles could the Liberals undertake to keep Labour in office . . . But his [Jo Grimond’s] proposal would have meant . . . scrapping basic beliefs and philosophy as Socialists. I never considered accepting his proposal for one moment.

The idea of Wilson as a man with a belief in socialist philosophy, and prepared to relinquish power for it, is entertaining but for the moment it is enough to ask, now that Labour has done the deal Wilson refused to consider, what has happened to their “beliefs”. The Liberals have no doubts:

    . . . We have stopped Labour’s spendthrift and dangerous programme of nationalisation . . .  we have a government backed by a majority of public opinion. That is strong government. (David Steel, The Sun, 30.1.78)

If for a long time the idea of a Lib/Lab alliance was an obscene thought in the Labour Party, this is rooted in Labour’s experience. In the years just before the First World War, as Labour was emerging as a political force to be reckoned with, the then Liberal government made a number of proposals for an alliance, even offering Labour seats in the government. On one occasion the Labour leader MacDonald was approached with a little flattery by the Liberal Chief Whip, the Master of Elibank:

   “You are one of our best debaters. The opposition are really frightened of you . . . Will you not join the Cabinet?” (Ramsay MacDonald  by David Marquand)

(Macdonald who was supposed to be so frightening to the opposition, was later described by a colleague of Elibank’s, Winston Churchill, as a “boneless wonder” which must have been confusing for everyone).

Flexibility

At the time MacDonald refused the offer but a couple of years later, demonstrating the customary flexibility of mind, he became enthusiastic for a similar scheme. The outbreak of war in 1914 killed the idea and Labour could join the greater coalition for the defence of British capitalism, at the cost of a few million working class lives in Europe.

MacDonald emerged from the war unscathed and a few years later found himself Prime Minister of a Labour government which was going to bring in the revolution with the support of Liberals who were opposed to it. This period in office was one of Labour’s bad memories, which bred a generation of members distrustful of all alliances with the Liberals; only a year later it was a Liberal initiative in the Commons which brought MacDonald’s government down.

Whatever the Liberals may have hoped to gain from this, they must have been disappointed; in the subsequent election they lost 118 seats and with only 40 MPs they began their long, slow death pangs which linger to this day. In the 1929 election, with the interest roused by their plan We Can Conquer Unemployment which offered public works schemes as a method of reducing unemployment to “normal proportions” (what, might have been asked, is “normal”?) they claimed to be experiencing an Indian summer but when the votes were counted they had scraped up only another 19 MPs. For the first time the Labour Party were the strongest party in the Commons although they again relied upon Liberal votes to keep them in office.

Back in Number Ten, MacDonald was brisk not to say contemptuous. It was, he said, up to the Liberals and the Tories whether there was another election during the next two years. Meanwhile, he would stand “no monkeying”. (He was obviously out of touch with some of his parliamentary colleagues). In fact neither of the other parties relished the prospect of another election so soon — the Liberals in particular feared to sustain more damage — and the Conservative leader Baldwin spoke for them all when he soothed MacDonald with assurances of “fair play”.

Discussions

With Labour safe for a while the Liberals opened discussions about the details of how they would keep them in office. Lloyd George wanted a formal pact. MacDonald offered them a series of joint conferences and access to information—an offer he made in spite of his opinion of Lloyd George as “. . . the most consummate cheat and wirepuller of all time”.

As the crisis of capitalism deepened the exchanges continued, with differing arrangements—talks between MacDonald and Lloyd George (who feared that “. . . unless we can do something to save the situation, the whole lot of us—Liberals and Labour alike—will be swept away by a great Protectionist wave”), hints about a pact between the two parties, a joint consultative committee in regular session.

Like so many other schemes, it was all ended in the Great Crash and MacDonald, in a notable widening of his ambitions, headed the National government which lived until the 1935 election. Another bad experience for Labour, it at least provided them with the excuses which helped them win outright power over British capitalism in 1945.

For winning—getting into power—is what capitalist politics are all about. All the parties which compete for our votes—as distinct from promoting a wider understanding of society—are hoping for some measure of control over the affairs of British capitalism, whether it be the outright power in the grasp of the Labour Party or the indirect influence which, in some circumstances, can be exerted by minorities like the Liberals.

Unity of Principle

When it suits them—and particularly at election time—they pretend to operate under deeply held, inviolable principles over which they are passionately divided from the lot with the rosettes of a different colour. But it takes only the normalities of capitalism—the political problems of a minority government, the pressures of an economic crisis, the emergencies of a war with a rival capitalist power—for their basic unity of principle to assert itself in some sort of alliance or coalition.

This is what Steel and Callaghan have really been talking about, when they have used phrases like “stable government” and “national interests”. The society they stand for has all the stability of anarchy and the interests are those of a privileged minority. If coalition in some form or another has figured so prominently in the politics of capitalism it is a measure of the endurance of the system’s crises and of the politicians’ impotence in the face of it all.

Ivan

Best years of your life (1985)

From the October 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

No wonder it's called the silly season. While the scenes at the party conferences purported to be "serious politics", the media events outside the conference halls were what were really meant for public consumption. to show that our leaders are really human.

You know the sort of thing — Neil Kinnock finds a beach to fall over, or maybe Margaret Thatcher chances on the birth of a calf in Scarborough. All in front of the TV cameras. But that's not the end of it. In this, the International Youth Year, youth has suddenly become important to the politicians and their PR officers. This is not because of any particular concern for the health or hopes of the young, but something of far greater importance — their votes.

According to the Observer (1 September 1985). between now and the next general election two and a half million new votes will join the electoral register, bringing the total number of voters between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four up to a decisive five million. That's not all because, as the Observer quotes a leading psephologist, the young are "trendy and more malleable than other voters" and they no longer give automatic support to the Labour Party. The evidence of previous governments has shown that despite the repeated promises from Labour politicians on jobs, peace and poverty, the Labour Party is as powerless to deal with these problems as are the other parties of the profit system.

Many of the young suffer particularly from these problems; from the prospect of a life that capitalism — through the dole queue — dictates will be useless; from nuclear war, the mere threat of which claims some psychological victims among those least used to the brutal truths of the property society; or from the artificial escape of an empty crisp bag and a tube of glue. As if this were not all, from every hoarding and magazine the young are offered Clearasil for their spots, pop stars for their emotions and carefully packaged leaders (in many flavours) to do their thinking for them.

So it's open season on the political field. The hunt is on for that prized species, the gullible young voter. Reared on mindless and unquestioning fodder from the pulpit, the press, or the classroom, they are fair game for any opportunist with a nice smile. The first shot in this massacre was fired by the SDP in the form of their "Youthblitz". According to the Observer, David Owen, who is worried at the effect of his Gang of One style of leadership, has devised a series of speeches and high profile media stunts due to start soon. From the party that delights in meaningless slogans (remember "Caring about the People, Caring about the Costs". "Compassion and Competition", and "Toughness and Tenderness"?) they now plan all this publicity under the title "Have You Got The Guts - To Take Up The SDP Challenge?", which is presumably like the Pepsi Challenge TV advert, except less honest.

On the other side of the Alliance. David Steel is keeping a lower profile, presumably because, with his style of leadership he does not need to worry so much about his image with the youth of the Liberal Party. He listens intently and earnestly to the Young Liberals every year before overruling their annually-successful conference resolutions on "defence". The leader of the Liberal Party, though, is already a pastmaster at the sordid business of capitalist politics, that of getting votes regardless of the basis on which they are given. Not for him the blatant publicity tricks of Owen, nor the degrading scraping after votes on any flimsy pretext. No, when David Steel seeks votes he's artistic — a couple of years ago he rapped on a truly unforgettable disco-funk record called "I Feel Liberal, OK”. But it had about as much chance of getting to number one as he has of getting to Number Ten.

The leader of the Labour Party must have learned something from that, for when he recently entered the pop world (appearing on a video for a Tracey Ullman single), he for once kept his mouth firmly shut. It seemed to work. His popularity rating improved immediately. Tracey Ullman, however, hasn't had a hit since. Another artist prepared to align himself with the Kinnock camp is the rock poet Billy Bragg, who appeared with Neil Kinnock as part of the Labour Party's Jobs and Industry campaign. The task of the Labour leader was to explain how it is that this time the Labour Party in office will create jobs when, in their last term of office, unemployment in fact doubled. Billy Bragg's function was to entertain a few thousand people with just himself and his guitar a relatively easy task, as it turns out, compared with that of Neil Kinnock.

The SDP, for their part, have decided on principle that they don't want to stoop to the depths of the Labour Party and use pop stars in their campaigning. This decision, however, may also have something to do with the fact that no pop group (that would like to continue selling records) is prepared to align themselves with the SDP. For the Tories, who had their bluff called in 1983 and are now vainly trying to fulfil their promises, the best policy is silence; the best argument is no argument. Their efforts will be directed towards keeping the FCS (which spells electoral liability) well out of sight.

Add to all that lot the more mature activities all other parties go in for to attract the vote of adults —such as kissing their babies — and it should be clear that only the Socialist Party is concerned with the workers' vote to the extent of what it represents. In the hands of gullible, misled workers the vote is a waste or worse. But in the hands of politically aware workers who refuse to be diverted by the rhetoric, the promises, or the pop songs of politicians, it is a potent weapon for peaceful, democratic, revolutionary change. To paraphrase Engels, the vote is like a razor-blade in that you can use it for its real function, to shave, or you can cut your throat with it.

The point then is clear. The problems that plague young and old under capitalism, as well as the insulting attempts to trick them out of the power of their votes, will continue only as long as we let it. So next time you turn on the TV to be faced with the sight of Neil Kinnock looking out of place in a Madonna video, or maybe Nigel Lawson breakdancing in the city streets for the benefit of the cameras, don't just think "What pillocks!", but rather. "What's the alternative?"

Brian Gardner