Political Notes: Labour love in (1982)

The Political Notes Column from the October 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

Labour love in

In November 1980 Michael Foot defeated Denis Healey in the parliamentary election for the leadership of the Labour Party. This victory was regarded by many people in the Labour Party as signalling an important change, as with a new, dynamic, “left-wing" politician as leader, the next Labour government would be able to begin, once again, the job of running the profit-system in ways it claims are beneficial to the working class.

As Foot's ascendancy was greeted from some quarters with great enthusiasm, we were not encouraged to remember that he had been Minister of Unemployment in the last Labour government when the number in the dole queues had doubled. The large membership of the Labour Party is not united in sharing a single political objective and Foot's inability to smooth out major disagreements between the fighting factions has led to speculation that he is about to be ousted from his position.

The names of Denis Healey, Tony Benn and Roy Hattersley have all been rumoured as possible successors. As the ideas of these heirs apparent are canvassed it is worth remembering that they all give general support to the profit system. The Institute of Directors in Scotland recently invited Healey to address them on “How any future Labour government would not be a bad thing for business, or for free enterprise" (Observer, 5 September 1982) to which Healey readily agreed. A twist to the episode came when Denis — engaging in some free enterprise himself — asked for a £500 fee on top of his expenses, and the Institute, unwilling to pay his free market rate, went elsewhere for a speaker.

Tony Benn, although often mistakenly associated with the word “Socialism", does not advocate revolution. By his own admission he believes that capitalism can be changed to work in our interests by a series of reform measures. In the 27 August edition of New Socialist, the Labour Party magazine, Benn urged certain reforms regarding the constitutional power of the cabinet to declare and end a war and the monarch's power to dissolve Parliament and invite someone to form a government. He does not urge the arrangement of society so that there will be no need or use for monarchs, governments or wars.

Wars fought over the interests of the ruling class — over markets, trade routes, raw materials and strategic areas — are not democratic occurrences. Soldiers are not, for instance, asked by their commanding officers whether they would care to engage in killing “the enemy". But this is what Benn would like to see: "The making of war and conclusion of peace should be subject to the consent of the Commons".

In an interview after his article had been published, he described his proposals as “modest". The scale on which our lives are impoverished and made insecure by capitalism is not “modest" and this social structure cannot be dismantled by piecemeal measures.

As Shadow Home Secretary, Roy Hattersley has been busy trying to cultivate an image of respectability, perhaps in order to be regarded as a person “responsible" enough to be trusted in higher office. Unveiling a proposed policy to be debated at this year’s Labour Party conference. Hattersley said that the next Labour government will adopt “a compassionate and moral attitude" towards immigration. He said the approach would be not to treat immigration issues as a numbers game about black people.

From the point of view of his vote-catching potential. Hattersley must have been pleased to have made his opinion clear, lest his support for the racially discriminatory 1968 Commonwealth Immigration Act was remembered. For all his endearing “compassion”, he is still firmly in favour of the world being artificially divided into nations and of people's mobility being shackled by their "nationality". Being interviewed on News at Ten (ITV) last month, he was asked whether, by wishing to case the pressures on immigration, he was implicitly condoning the actions of some "illegal immigrants”? “Oh No", he replied, “I am very much against illegal immigration, and I favour catching illegal immigrants and sending them home.”

More love

In a pamphlet, The Labour Party — Myth and Reality, published by the Socialist Workers Party, the role which the Labour Party has played in supporting capitalism is described in some detail and many examples are given of its impotency to remove the problems we suffer in a class-divided society. It speaks correctly about the "myth that the Labour Party can be won to socialist politics". It concludes, however, with the ludicrously illogical statement, “We even support the Labour Party against the Tories, until we are in a position to replace it". If you continue to give support to something you will, of course, never be able to replace it. For, although it may have escaped the attention of the Leninist intelligentsia of the SWP. you cannot both support and oppose the same political party.

Racist repentant?

In his early days as governor of Alabama, George Wallace would get his audiences going in that Deep South fortress of racial persecution with a chant: “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever”.

Well forever is a long time and it was a notably different Wallace who recently went on the campaign trail for another term (or rather to win the Democratic nomination, which amounts to the same thing). The old favourite of the Ku Klux Klan came out as a bold champion of equal rights between white and black.

No secret was made about the reason for this. Few black votes were allowed in Alabama in the old days but now about a quarter of the state’s registered voters are black. Wallace badly needed their support. Leaving nothing (he hoped) to chance he also declared himself a fervent friend of god (religious groups like the Born Again Christians have quite a political influence in the Deep South).

The old Wallace was a chilling politician; in face of his racist mob oratory, one did not know whether to laugh, cry, or run for cover. It was easy to forget, then, that he had not always spouted these vicious prejudices; he came out as a white racist only after his first attempt at being governor failed because he was too “liberal”. The lesson he learned is that, if there are votes in it, you must out-racist the racists—or, now, try to out-liberal the liberals.

If Wallace is to be taken seriously, it must be in a way he does not intend. His cynical, vote-grubbing changes of policy, careless as they are of the effect on the conditions — and in the case of Alabama it used to be on the very lives — of people, were always inspired by a single-minded ambition for power.

They may be represented now as caricatures but if so it is because, like caricatures, they have a basic validity, illustrating the nature of the features they emphasise.

Wallace’s campaigns, with all their swings, have one message. The politics of capitalism are cynical, corrupt and decadent, typical of the social system itself.

Sunshine

Geoffrey Howe has never been famous as the Conservatives’ little ray of sunshine but even at that his latest thoughts on the matter of unemployment were gloomy enough to depress the dole queues even further.

Interviewed on Radio Two by Jimmy Young (who tries to be famous as everyone’s little ray of etc., etc.), Howe said that the peak of unemployment has not yet been reached (in other words, things will get worse) and that “It’s bound to take a long time” before the jobless figures begin to fall.

Well if anyone is supposed to know about these things it is the Chancellor of the Exchequer but the unemployed can take comfort; Howe, like his predecessors, has a notable record for getting his prophecies about the economy wrong.

In May 1980, flushed after his first year in charge at the Treasury, he exulted “. . . inflation would start to move down after July, the economy would resume its growth from next year, interest rates would come down ‘in due course’ and there were still many opportunities for firms to expand” (Daily Telegraph, 29 May 1980).

Just over a year later, Howe was definite that he had done the trick, claiming that “there was an accumulation of evidence” which justified him in saying that “the recession was over” (The Times, 10 August 1981).

If Howe was wrong when he said that things were getting better for British capitalism, he can also be wrong when he groans that they are getting worse. Both prophecies are false for the same reason: no Chancellor, nor any of the hordes of “experts” who offer their advice (whether asked for or not) can predict the course of capitalism’s economy. If it were otherwise, they might be able to eliminate booms and slumps and instead organise an even progress to prosperity.

Their obvious impotence should of itself be enough to ensure that no worker anywhere will ever vote for them again. What will actually happen, at the next election, is that people will leave the dole queues to join those at the polling stations, lining up to opt for another spell of anarchy and poverty. And that is a little ray of sunshine for Howe.

So They Say: New Book — Old Story (1976)

The So They Say Column from the September 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

New Book — Old Story

In an interview published by the Times on 2nd August, Sir Harold Wilson let it be known that he has completed the first draft of a book called The Government of Britain. Apparently the work has much to commend it. “Every sentence was an intellectual challenge to try to remember things which will be useful as a kind of text-book, which in the past have been mainly written by academics from outside.” Such a description suggests a semi-autobiographical account of the attempts to administer capitalism over recent decades, and as such it can only be a commentary on the various acts of expediency employed in order to paper over the basic contradictions. Acts of expediency in our description, governments choose to call them “policies.”

Even Wilson appears to acknowledge that the “Governance” in his title is only alleged when he remarks “In the compulsions of taking decisions, of course, you cannot forecast whether this decision will come off.” Of course. Capitalism is a system of society in which there is no social control over the means of wealth production and distribution. The owners, a non-working minority, allow production to take place only when there is a likelihood of a profit. Wilson and the Labour Party have preferred to tinker with the effects of such a system and shy clear of the revolutionary solution — hence the never-ending “compulsions” they have been faced with. The frequency of the calls upon Wilson’s juggling ability meant that among other things his reading suffered.

I have never even read Marx, couldn’t get past the second page because of that whacking great footnote which bores me every time I ever try to read it. Although I think I have a vague idea of what he was after in his concept, it is not what I understand by British socialism.

Were Marx alive, we feel sure he would concur with the conclusion.

The Devil You Know

George Bernard Shaw wrote somewhat sarcastically that “the reasonable man adapts himself to the world.” Recently those most reasonable of men, the Labour Party Tribune Group, have been giving an excellent display of their adaptability. The Conservatives tabled a motion in Parliament for the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s salary (£15,000) to be halved. This amounted, in the words of the Times report of 2nd August, to “a criticism of the public expenditure cuts announced on July 22nd, and a condemnation of the Government’s economic and financial policies in general.” Amid the hot air and other gaseous emissions in that Palace, Tribune group members have been loud in their criticism of the cuts. Consequently the possibility of their abstention from the vote with a resultant government defeat was raised. The time for these men of principle had come.

However, adaptability prevailed. First they issued what we have come to expect from Tribune Group MPs — “a token protest.” The “left” pulls no punches, their amendment called for a reduction in Healey’s salary of £5.00 per annum. Next Mr. Norman Atkinson, one of their leading if somewhat dim lights, explained why his group should not risk a government defeat.

The Government have made it clear that they support the central banks about the use of international credits . . . It seems logical therefore, that all those who seek to sustain the Government in office must accept the bankers' cuts in principle, not in their entirety, but in principle. The only alternative was to force the Government to go to the country for a general election. But such action would make little sense . . . because if Labour won it would be taken as an endorsement of the bankers’ policies and it would mute the left for a long time to come.

This, we understand, is known as keeping all the options open. The Tribune Group wish to preserve the Labour Government because they prefer to mouth disagreement from the government benches. In this way their posturing attracts more attention than it otherwise would. Mr. Atkinson was simply overflowing with sweet reason and “left-wing” principle:

Only the 2 per cent levy on employers through national insurance contributions will attract combined opposition from the Tories, the nationalists and the Liberals, he said. Because the measure must mean at least 50,000 sackings in addition to those already announced, the left must face the sacrifice of jobs to keep the Government in office. We have no alternative, and neither has the Trades Union Congress in four week’s time, that is the brutal reality.

Facing reality must necessarily strike the Tribune Group as brutal, they are more used to dealing in hypocrisy.

Con on Class

While giving a public pep-talk to fellow conservatives in the columns of the Daily Telegraph, Sir Geoffrey Howe MP indicated that times are a-changing. He argued that changes had to be made to the Conservative Party image if the electorate was to be persuaded that the party did not stand “only for bosses, rich people, upper classes.” Unless the common man discarded such misapprehensions, Howe ominously concludes, “This could bode ill for the future.” Apparently he has been inspired to speak out following numerous reports that the typical response to Conservative canvassers has been “We re all Labour voters in this house. We’ve got to be haven’t we? We’re a working class family you see.” We do not deal with this ill-founded statement here, but note the politician’s attitude to it.

It makes it difficult to argue that class is not a significant factor in British politics.

Daily Telegraph, 2nd August ’76

Which is extremely tiresome for politicians no doubt. A class-divided society necessarily produces such handicaps for them. However, Mr. Howe, who thinks that there are several classes rather than two, is ready to throw one of them overboard in his search for conservative voters.

The son of a successful entrepreneur — even the grand daughter of a Prime Minister — is bound to acquire knowledge and experience that will confer advantage in the next generation. But let us certainly reject the suggestion that we favour the concept of a ruling class or anything like it.

But wait, he would only reject the suggestion that they favour the concept. The ruling class, no doubt rattled, can breathe again.

Will He, Wont He?

A glittering exchange took place between Mrs. Thatcher and the Prime Minister shortly before the parliamentary recess. The Conservative leader asked what the Prime Minister expected to be the maximum number of people unemployed in 1976. Mr. Callaghan replied:

The Chancellor has said he expects unemployment to begin to go down by the end of the year. I cannot improve on that forecast. I have come without the figures in any case.

Times, 6th August ’76

After other remarks, Mrs. Thatcher rose again.

The Chancellor did not give any figures. He refused to give figures when cross-examined by both sides of the House. I would have thought that the Prime Minister would automatically have informed himself about one of the main figures, which is the maximum unemployment expected during the next year. Is he saying he has not?

With considerable politeness, Mr. Callaghan informed the enquirer “Yes, I am saying that because I find these forecasts often cancel out . . .” He also had some advice for her.

I would beg her not to take too much notice of forecasts. So many of them often proved wrong over the last six months . . .

The performance and the show (the longest-running in the west and) will continue after the interval.

From Bad to Bad

However there is a time and place for everything, and Mr. Callaghan is not adverse to making forecasts when it suits him. In October 1975 he informed us that over the (then) oncoming year “British families will suffer a sharp drop in their living standards.” His description was “a temporary sacrifice.” We ventured to suggest then that the “temporary” label might be forgotten and apparently it has.

I think industry can say the conditions are present to enable us to have a reasonable bet on the prospects of viable expansion that will continue. I don’t want to boom and bust. The real traumatic period for this country is between now and 1980 and this is the period we’ve got to concentrate on.

Daily Telegraph, 9th August ’76

Members of the working class take note, the traumas will be yours. Unless you are prepared to study Socialist ideas and work for the abolition of the private property system, the only “reasonable bet” to be had here is that shortly before the end of 1980, Mr. Callaghan or his equivalent (we include conservatives) will be telling us that the forecasts had been wrong; the real traumatic period was to be extended until the mid-1980s. In the meantime working-class poverty will continue.

Alan D'Arcy

Greasy Pole: No grace without favour (2006)

The Greasy Pole column from the July 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

Anyone whose memory is flavoured with a proper measure of vindictiveness will have little sympathy for the corpses of careers, once so promising, which crowd into the political morgues of capitalism. They will not be moved by tales of the bewilderment and distress experienced by the careerists at the dying of their ambitions. There will be no bereavement counselling for those who contemplate a bleak life without a platoon of flunkeys to organise their days, to usher them unsullied by probing questions from one media-intensive exposure to another. No sympathetic third ear for those who pine for the emotional highs sprouting from a passage of adroit fencing across the Despatch Box. A stolid indifference will be shown to anyone grieving for red boxes and gleaming limousines, uniformed chauffeurs and swarming police escorts. And no glimmer of empathy will console previous inhabitants of the architectural jewels which are known as Grace and Favour Residences

Dorneywood

As almost everyone who can switch on a television set or read a newspaper knows, it was deputy Prime Minister John Prescott who, at a time when he must have been desperate to avoid any more bad publicity, swung the media searchlight onto the whole matter of grace and favour residences when he was snapped by a tabloid photographer playing croquet on the lawn of Dorneywood. Croquet – a game which needs immaculate turf, traditionally played by men and women in straw hats with hat bands in club colours. John Prescott, who is supposed to represent the interests of the people of Hull East, where croquet is not a popular game. John Prescott – who once decked a man at an election meeting for throwing an egg at him, who feeds copy to the parliamentary hacks by gabbling his Commons speeches in a riot of confused syllables, mangled words and malapropisms. Prescott the ocean going steward who angered Harold Wilson by being among the leaders of the 1966 seamen’s strike. And all of this was played out on the immaculate turf of Dorneywood – Prescott’s elegant grace and favour home in leafy Buckinghamshire. The tabloids were ecstatic, playing the game they know so well – making sure as many people as possible are aware of embarrassing facts which, no matter how trivial, can then be left to speak for themselves.

Grace and favour residences are big business, coming in a variety of sizes and shapes and being awarded for many different reasons. But none of these homes attract the same degree of attention as the few which are allocated to prominent politicians – “given to the nation” as a retreat for senior ministers where they can re-energise themselves after the exhausting business of trying to control British capitalism. Chequers is unique because it is reserved for the Prime Minister of the day, donated in 1917 for that purpose by Arthur Lee, the Tory MP for Faversham and later Lord Lee.  The house nestles among the Chiltern Hills, easily visible from some of the public footpaths around about. Lee gave Chequers on the assumption that, consequent on the sequence of electoral reforms flowing from the Reform Bills, it could no longer be assumed that the Prime Minister would necessarily have their own landed estates. (At the time, some sections if the ruling class had not woken up to the fact that this was an unimportant distinction).

Chequers

Thatcher was enchanted by the place: “I do not think anyone has stayed long at Chequers without falling in love with it” she wrote – an assessment which would not have chimed in with the millions of workers who spend their lives in homes which, emphatically, they do not “fall in love with”. Ted Heath was also fond of Chequers and stayed there most week-ends, although he was typically frustrated by the refusal of Arthur Lee’s widow, who was allowed to live there until she died, almost forty years after Lee’s death, to agree to the improvements he was impatient to make. Heath organised social events and concerts there, when his guests could enjoy the indoor swimming pool which was a gift from another rich benefactor. If Heath could see no irony in this, the same can be said about Tony Blair and his fondness for hosting events attended by fashionable stars of the media and the entertainment industry – Elton John, David Bowie, Richard and Judy. The publicity was a useful promotion of Blair’s assumed credentials as a trendy – while he devoted himself to his mission to govern the rest of us in a distinctly outworn fashion.

Chevening, a grand house surrounded by a 3,500 acre estate, is now occupied by Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett – although what this will do to her well-known preference for caravan life is anybody’s guess. The Earl of Stanhope left Chevening to “the nation” in 1967, specifying that it must be used by the Prime Minister, a Cabinet minister or a descendant of  George VI. Prince Charles at first had his eye on it but then changed his mind; perhaps he was uneasy about being spoiled for choice. In fact Chevening, along with the now notorious Dorneywood, has previously figured in events exposing the meaner, ruthless nature of a politician’s ambitions and their perceived need to enforce recognition of their standing. When the scandal of Prescott’s office affair first broke he was adamant that he would not be forced out of Dorneywood, clinging to the house as a symbol of his power and influence; to give it up would be to admit to a decline in his standing. It was not until the pressure on him became too intense, symbolised by those photographs of him leaning on his croquet mallet, that he changed his mind, in the hope that this would assuage his critics and so save his place in the government. It was rather like Arctic travellers trying to distract a pack of pursuing wolves by throwing chunks of meat off the sledge – except that in this case it was not human lives, but the vanity of an arrogant, discredited politician that was at stake.

Chevening

There has been another, equally illustrative and sickening, example in recent years. In July 1989 Thatcher had run out of patience with her Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe, on the grounds that  “…his clarity of purpose and analysis had dimmed”.(which meant that he had disagreed with her too often). When she came to sack him Howe was furious, partly because he would have to give up Chevening, where he was very comfortable. To prevent him becoming too much of a rebellious nuisance Thatcher offered him another post and occupancy of Dorneywood, which at that time was occupied by Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson.  After a spell of bitter bargaining Howe settled for Leadership of the Commons, the meaningless title of Deputy Leader – and possession of Dorneywood. A Tory peer later raged at Woodrow Wyatt about Howe’s behaviour and the fact that the reshuffle had been “… overshadowed by a squalid squabble about houses … Why didn’t he keep his own house?”: to which Wyatt replied “probably because he doesn’t have any money and maybe he needed the money when he sold it”. This sordid episode is a commentary on how devotedly our leaders protect their own interests while they savagely denounce any workers who dare to resist the constant pressure to depress their conditions.

John Prescott must have found it very satisfying to lord it over Dorneywood and its acres. It was, after all, tangible evidence that this man who took pride (and won a few votes) in being rough and ready had climbed so high up the greasy pole. All the more bitter the irony then, that the place should have triggered his downfall.

Ivan

Running Commentary: Junk society (1988)

The Running Commentary Column from the July 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Junk society

It's not often that I find myself in half agreement with a lackey of capitalism, in this case Edwina Currie, junior Health Minister. When she made her headline-grabbing remarks that Northerners are more overweight than Southerners, eat too many crisps and drink too much. I could only concur with her. While aware that Southerners eat junk food too, Mrs Currie raised a question to which any socialist could have given her the answer: diet is related to economic circumstances.

Two years on medical "experts” have reached the same conclusion and are taking Mrs Currie to task for omitting this explanation from her previous comments. The Henley Centre's director of health. Mr Kreitzman. told a BUPA conference in Leeds that by the early part of the next century life expectancy in the South would be longer than in the North. "We are talking about four to five years, which is quite significant", he said. "Just as we are developing an economy with affluence and poverty living cheek by jowl, so it is the case with health" (Guardian, 2 June). Currie was also attacked by Dr Colin Waine, chairman of the Clinical Research Division of the Royal College of Practitioners, who said that she had failed to understand that a northern diet is based on a tradition of low wage levels and heavy manual work.

One explanation for the northern predilection for "comfort" food may be that offered by George Orwell in The Road to Wigan Pier:

 Would it not be better if they spent more money on wholesome things like oranges and wholemeal bread? Yes, it would, but the point is that no ordinary human being is ever going to do such a thing. The ordinary human being would rather starve than live on brown bread and raw carrots. And the peculiar evil is this, that the less money you have, the less you feel inclined to spend it on wholesome food. A millionaire may enjoy breakfasting off orange juice and Ryvita; an unemployed man doesn't. When you are unemployed, which is to say when you are underfed, harassed, bored and miserable, you don't want to eat dull wholesome food. You want something a little "tasty".

As long as capitalism exists, if you have caviar tastes but a fish and chip budget then your choice of food will be restricted by the amount of money you get for selling your labour-power to a minority ruling class. If you really want to improve both your health and your happiness then abolish this junk system of society. Abolish capitalism.

Sheep’s brain

Tucked away on the back page of the Guardian of 7 June was a hundred and fifty word report headlined "Howe insists on the beneficence of the capitalist system". In a speech in the City of London the day before Sir Geoffrey Howe had defended the social responsibility of the capitalist economy by claiming that those acting in their own interest in the market were promoting an increase in others' well-being. (Those readers who haven’t at this point fallen off their seats, and are rolling about consumed with hollow laughter, read on.) Replying to recent criticism by the Church of England, Sir Geoffrey said. “Where people are able to respond to the signals of the market place, they are responding to the preferences of their citizens. In effect, in seeking to increase their own well being, they are often helping to promote an increase in other people’s well being." He concluded that the welfare state, by promoting rights rather than responsibilities, had undermined traditional obligations.

Assuming that all readers aren’t curled up on the floor at this point, screaming "Please, Sir Geoffrey, no more. Have you ever thought of auditioning for Bob Monkhouse's Opportunity Knocks?', let me remind you that Denis Healey compared being criticised by Howe to being savaged by a dead sheep. This is a mistake. One must never under-estimate the power and influence of a member of the executive of the modern state, the committee for managing the common affairs of the ruling class, no matter how inane or ineffectual he or she may appear to be.

Dave Coggan

Between the Lines: House of Frauds (1992)

Healey and Howe in ermine.

The Between the Lines column from the December 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

House of Frauds
I have long been of ihc view that there is something particularly silly about the British ruling class. All that left-wing talk about how the rulers will prevent a socialist majority from having our way has never carried any credibility. Watching tire Channel Four Cutting Edge documentary on the inside life - life? - of the House of Lords (16 November, 9 pm) was watertight evidence that sanity is no qualification for being in the ruling elite of capitalism.

The rituals of the so-called Upper House, where twelve hundred unelected members can claim five hundred pounds a week for doing a totally worthless job which involves a lot of sleeping, are part of that public school tradition which makes Britain an ex-Empire. The documentary showed the induction into the peerage of two new life frauds. Geoffrey Howe — Thatcher's hatchet man at the Treasury who finally turned the axe on the mad priestess herself — and Denis Healey — who started out in the Communist Party and ended up as the Labour Chancellor who introduced monetarist policies before the Thatcherites ever entered Number Ten.

These social vandals were receiving their pay-off for a lifetime's dirty work of screwing the working class on behalf of the bosses. That is why life peerages are given to politicians and trade union leaders who have served the system well. Most members of the House get there simply because their old man died and they inherited a peerage. Remarkably, the documentary stated that one third of all members of the House of Lords went to just one school: Eton, the place which has huge annual fees and where names of pupils must be signed up soon after they are born. So much for the myth of equal opportunities under capitalism.

But back to the silliness. Watching the absurd rehearsal of their inauguration, where Howe and Healey had to practise putting on and taking off their ridiculous medieval hats and bowing to the Lord Chancellor as they proceed towards him, it became clear that this sort of behaviour would not be out of place in the confines of a psychiatric hospital where disturbed people repeat certain actions with no particular purpose. The parliamentary games are to a great extent about doing barmy things simply because other people have done them before. Those caught up in such a ritual, and benefiting from the payments involved, no doubt think that they are indispensable.

In fact, this documentary was ample proof of the good sense of dispensing with these useless people. Unlike other critics, however, socialists are not simply out to abolish the House of Lords. We want to abolish the entire function of government. This will only happen when lire majority refuses to be governed, to live as inferiors in a class society, and to demean themselves by accepting for one moment that there are superior people who must sit in a special House or Chamber and make decisions for us.

Terry Fields

More Frauds — No Longer In The House
Socialism will be a stateless society without leaders or led. The Cutting Edge documentary the week before the Lords' expose was about the Militant Tendency — in particular, their campaign in Broadgreen in Liverpool to retain their MP, Terry Fields, in the 1992 General Election. As it happens, the Militant members shown on this documentary were exposed as sincere and enthusiastic people whose convictions were worthier, at least on the surface, than the tired old official Labourites who were out to defeat them.

The problem with Militant is that they are a fraudulent body, they pretend to be socialists, but they stand for state capitalism — a repeat of Lenin's failed vanguardist strategy. They claim to be the real Labour Party, even though Labour has expelled them and is embarrassed by them. Terry Fields appealed for support on the grounds that he was the real Labour candidate. His supporters sought votes on the basis of sterile old promises to make capitalism better. Fields lost the election. Of course, he lost in part because he was the victim of a campaign to discredit his leftist stance. But it would be nice to think that he lost also because workers in Broadgreen were unwilling to get excited about left-wing Labourism, were not prepared to give yet another pseudo-radical five years to govern them from the House of Common Thieves in Westminster, that they regarded Fields and other politicians as playing a game that they wanted no part in.

The Socialist Party is hostile to both ermine-clad rulers who like capitalism as it is and reformist MPs who want capitalism with bandages over its worse sores. Neither Etonians nor Leninists, but THE WORLD FOR THE WORKERS!

Steve Coleman

So They Say: For Ever England (1973)

The So They Say Column from the August 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

For Ever England

The petrol companies have agreed to stop competing with “free gifts" to customers: no more soup-bowls, Famous Paintings, one-size tights, or the sets of imitation medallions which looked like becoming the successors to cigarette cards.

Texaco’s series of reproduction Army badges is therefore the last of its kind, and it is almost worth the 25p for the album to find a cat let out of the bag in an unexpected place. “Great British Regiments” has an introduction by Lieut.-General Sir Brian Horrocks, and he says:

  In my opinion, however, their greatest contribution to the British Empire which is rarely mentioned has been the protection they have given to our indomitable British merchants who, in search of fresh markets, spread our influence all over the world. For some this has involved spending many years in distant garrisons where their casualties from disease were often far greater than those suffered in active service.

Young collectors may find that enlightening. They should remember it when they are being told the Army is there to defend freedom and combat oppression, and dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.


If Things Don't Alter . . .

Sir Geoffrey Howe, Minister for Consumer Affairs, has been trying to impress with a muscular posture. On the front of the Observer on 24th June, under the headline “Minister’s Warning on Profits”, it was reported that he had

  yesterday warned businessmen that they would be wise to remember that if they were making good profits the Price Commission could compel them to reduce their prices.

The same issue of the Observer shows, elsewhere, plenty of scope for Sir Geoffrey. On page II Weston Pharmaceuticals, who have 197 retail branches, reported that their profits rose from £459,070 in 1972 to £1,872,586 this year. The dividend was 27.3 per cent., and the “earnings” per share went up from 5.6p to to 8.1p. On page 13 Lead Industries Group Ltd. state an increase in profit before tax from £6,585,000 in 1971 to £7,040,000 in 1972, and in gross dividends from 11.5 per cent, to 12.075 per cent.

Both these companies appear to be making “good profits”. Are they alarmed by Sir Geoffrey’s warning? The annual report of Lead Industries Group says:

   There must inevitably be uncertainties as to the effects on profitability of the Governments’ anti-inflation policy and fluctuating currencies, nevertheless the present picture is a cheerful one overall and prospects for the current year look good.

In other words, they are “being wise” — and expect to go on doing well.


. . . they'll Stay as They are.

The strongest uncertainties, in fact, appear to be Sir Geoffrey Howe’s — as to what is going to happen anyway. The report of his speech ends:

  He quoted the view of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research that commodity prices would fall back from their recent high levels . . .  if the national institute was right, he said, ‘we can certainly expect a significant reduction, in the months ahead, in the pace of inflation that has beset us all’.

This recalls the classic headline-question: Did She Fall Or Was She Pushed? What the Minister says, summarized, is that he could try to make prices come down, but if they do it will be of their own accord.

The inability of governments to control the economic working of capitalism could hardly be demonstrated more clearly. While Sir Geoffrey waits for the answer, anyone with £25,000 can try phoning Bevington Lowndes Ltd. (20 lines, 24-hour service) — who, in the Sunday Times the same day, were advertising “the lifelong investment that beats inflation”. That sum will bring you £2,500 a year tax-free, and to heck with the Price Commission.


Into Europe

We recently reproduced an item from The London Property Letter, which tells its subscribers how to play the regulations and exploit the housing situation. Its publishers, Stonehart Publications Ltd., are now launching The European Property Letter, again with Robert Troop of the Sunday Times as editor. The annual subscription is £25.

The introductory leaflet is headed 1975: The Year of the Property Gold-Rush, and begins:

  Over these past months British property companies have taken a quickening interest in Europe. Samuel Properties spent £8,000,000 on an office block in Frankfurt. Abbey Life £7,500,000 on one in Brussels. This is clearly the right moment for UK investors, large and small, to begin exploring the EEC — not simply because Britain has now joined, but because there is bound to be a huge rush of funds into European property and a consequent rise in prices when exchange controls are lifted, somewhere about 1975.

They promise to present:

  Street-by-street profiles of cities and towns where property is still underpriced.
  How to exploit the many investment anomalies that still exist in European backwaters.
  Advice on land: where to buy, what to pay, whether you’re permitted to hold.
  Planning: where it’s easiest to get it and why.

And other good things — for capitalists. Thrilling to be in Europe, is it not?


Meanwhile, back at Mon Repos —

Still in property, The Guardian had something cryptic in its house-market page on 6th July. Stating that mortgage repayments have gone up on average from £19.75 a month at the end of 1970 to £32.74 at the end of 1972, Nicholas Heman wondered how people were finding the money “when wages and salaries have not risen by anything like the same amount". His view was that

   the greater number of first-time purchasers may be explained by the fact that they are now regarded much more favourably by building societies who previously would have been more demanding in their requirements.

Which sounds like saying that building societies lend money to people who cannot afford to repay it with interest. And on 11th July The Guardian reported “the whole chilling picture" given by Shelter Housing Aid Centre, headlined “Shelter Finds Better-Off Have Housing Problems". It said:

   In this situation, people are more willing to commit themselves to higher mortgage payments than they can really afford. SHAC encountered one example of a 37½ per cent rate of interest. One man was paying a £140 a month mortgage on a £200 a month salary . . . “In 1973, a family needs an income of at least £2,500 and savings of £1,000 minimum before house purchase in London becomes a possibility."

There is something wrong with The Guardian’s headline. These people are not “better-off”: they are living in crippling poverty.

Give the Fellow a Break

“What you've got to remember about Prince Philip is that he is in a dead-end job.” — A Pressman in “The World at One”, 11th July.

Robert Barltrop

Running Commentary: Strikers condemned (1980)

The Running Commentary column from the May 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard

Strikers condemned

More than 5,500 workers were out on strike as a wave of industrial unrest spread to hitherto uninvolved plants. The week-long spate of walk-outs and go-slows affected 27 firms in five cities. A total of more than 8,700 people had stopped work since strikes started and more than 750 of them had been dismissed as a result. The dispute was over pay, a shorter working week and guaranteed pension funds. A spokesman for the employers’ association said he was “gravely concerned’’ and the trade union congress issued a statement expressing hope that the government would “respond constructively in solving the problem”.

These familiar events took place a few weeks ago, not in Britain or the industrialised West but in newly “liberated” Zimbabwe. The government’s response, however, was somewhat blunter than European wage slaves are used to. (Give them time and they’ll no doubt learn to refine their language.) Mugabe’s spokesman pointed out that all strikes were at present illegal; that companies that had dismissed their workers were within their rights; and that strikers were liable to arrest and prosecution. Any of the black population who remained in doubt as to the nature of their recent “liberation” had the position forcefully explained to them by the new Minister of Labour, Mr Kumbirai Kangai. Freedom, he said, did not mean that a worker could do or behave as he wished. “Discipline at work must remain part and parcel of the freedom we have attained” (The Times, 22 March). He told the strikers that his colleagues were deeply disappointed in them, and that by behaving in such a manner they were hurting themselves and the government. The new Minister of Mines echoed his remarks: “We believe in a competitive economy . . .  a lot of teaching of the people is necessary”.

We, however, did not need confirmation that African nationalism is the ideology of a would-be ruling and exploiting class. It is those workers, black and white, who dreamed that the election of Mugabe’s Zanu PF party would further their interests that have had an early and rude awakening. African nationalism may talk of democracy, but this is not its concern at all. The history of the continent’s independent states shows that any attempts of the working class to organise themselves have been resisted. One function of the new Zimbabwe State will be to hold down the working class in the interests of capital accumulation, to train the work force to become hardworking, obedient wage slaves. And as in all other countries, the important social division is that of class, not colour or race.

Marx and the monetarists

Some of the Chancellor’s best friends are monetarists, but you’ll be relieved to hear that Karl Marx isn’t among them. In his budget day television broadcast, Geoffrey Howe suggested that the government’s policy of restricting the “money supply” as a means of combatting inflation would have met with the approval of socialism’s greatest theorist. “It is a great pity”, he said, “that its (monetarism’s) practical, commonsense importance has been so confused by arid, theoretical dispute”, adding that “even” Marx had believed in it. The Chancellor had possibly picked up this, to him, amusing titbit from the guru of “monetarism” himself, Milton Friedman. Interviewed in the Guardian (1 March), Friedman declared:

“The quantity theory of money is a scientific proposition. It is not political. Karl Marx was a monetarist, because he believed that increases in the supply of money push up prices.” 

Sir Geoffrey has not exactly got it right. The Marxian explanation of inflation and the views of modern monetarists differ in important respects and have been discussed in our pages many times. Over the years, the Socialist Party has been alone in pointing out that inflation is the result of governments printing too much money, but this is not synonymous with Friedmanite doctrine and should not be confused with the present government’s views.

First, Marx only accepted the Quantity Theory of Money (which says, basically, that the level of prices is determined by the amount of money in circulation) as valid where inconvertible paper currency is in use; where the currency was gold (and/or a convertible paper currency) this was not the case. On the contrary, said Marx, refuting the ideas of the classical authors of this theory, Hume and Ricardo, it was the level of prices (and of economic transactions) that determined the quantity of money in circulation — and which, we might add with Marx, still determines the quantity of an inconvertible paper currency that should be issued to avoid inflation.

Second, by “money” Marx understood basic cash — notes and coin. He did not include, as most modern “monetarists” do, bank deposits in the “money supply”. Third, Marx was merely concerned here with analysing and understanding how capitalism worked, not with laying down a monetary policy for capitalist governments to pursue. He must not be regarded, therefore, as an advocate of a non-inflationary currency policy.

Cheap life and death

The News of the World of 23 March told of an elderly widow who got into serious debt paying for her husband’s funeral, even when the insurance she had taken out was added to the Government death grant. The latter was fixed at £30 in 1967, since when prices have trebled. The Labour opposition’s move to increase the amount to £45 (intended, no doubt, to show their newly-found “compassion”) was resisted by the Government in the person of Mrs Chalker, Under Secretary of Health and Social Security. She accepted that some people had extreme difficulty in meeting funeral costs but had “nothing but understanding for them”. As if to compensate for this, a group of Tory MPs tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade the Chancellor to increase child benefit by £1.20 instead of the proposed 75p.

In the same week, five Civil Service unions issued a pamphlet criticising the proposed engagement of 1,000 extra inspectors to stop what the government considers to be £50 million in social security “fiddles”, and claiming that the same number employed on income tax evasion would save ten times as much. (Since, over a 20 year period, only one business in twenty has its returns investigated, the unions may well have understated their case.) The general secretary of the Inland Revenue Staff Federation remarked: “If we could get it all it would be enough to take 5p off the basic rate of income tax”. (Guardian, 20 March)

Two other recent articles in the Guardian emphasised yet again capitalism’s priorities, this time in the field of health. In one (10 April), Dr Alf Spinks, former director of research at ICI, stated that cost prevented the full testing of chemicals in daily use to see whether they could cause cancer. In the other (20 March), Dr Tony Wing o(the European Dialysis and Transplant Association remarked that many of the 1,000 kidney patients who die in Britain every year could be saved if money were available to give the treatment. We also had the Sunday Express (6 April) reporting, on its front page, the plans of American medical firms to set up in Britain and Europe “Buy your Blood” collection points that could also involve the purchasing of human organs for spare part surgery. The “British” blood would then be sold on what is a growing international market.

All these news items show capitalism for what it is: a system of society incapable of meeting the needs of its members; that employs cost-benefit analysis in the treatment of human suffering, as in all spheres of social life. The working class will be made the scapegoats for capitalism’s problems so long as they aspire to nothing better than “5p off” instead of “3p off’.

Still, there is some good news. The Daily Telegraph of 6 April reported the building of a factory at Old Buckenham, Norfolk, which will be producing veneered polystyrene coffins for workers at “half the price”.

Melvin Tenner

Common Market: A Bore or an Opportunity? (1984)

From the May 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

If the Common Market seems such a bore to so many people that's because, quite simply, it really is. As its name suggests, it is about tariffs, quotas, customs duties and other such matters of vital interest to capitalist firms but of no importance whatsoever to the great majority of us who have to work for a wage or a salary for a living. It's a businessmen's club whose main concern is buying and selling. All the same, if we want to understand why our capitalist rulers and their political servants are getting agitated over this matter we are forced to consider the world of free trade areas, customs unions and other trading arrangements.

Not even a Common Market

The Treaty of Rome, which set up the Common Market, was signed in 1957 by six European states (France, Germany, Italy and the Benelux countries) with the aim of creating a single vast market in Europe for industrial goods and agricultural products to be called, pompously, the "European Economic Community" (EEC). In 1973 the Six were joined, after protracted negotiations, by Britain, Ireland and Denmark and in 1981 by Greece. Spain and Portugal are waiting on the doorstep with 1 January 1986 provisionally fixed as the date for their entry.

The establishment of a European "common market" is an ambitious project in that it involves creating the same sort of trading conditions throughout Europe as now exist singly in each of the member states. In other words, not simply the abolition of customs duties but the establishment of uniform tax and monetary conditions too. Ultimately it implies, if not a single European state, at least a single European currency and a single European economic policy.

As anyone crossing a European frontier knows, this is far from being the case at the moment. VAT rates, not to mention other taxes, differ from country to country. The rates of exchange of European currencies fluctuate and have to be periodically adjusted. Europe is far from being a genuine common market, as Geoffrey Howe complained (on behalf of the "business community" who alone are really concerned) at a meeting of the Common Market Council of Ministers last September:

“The principle of the free circulation of goods and people and the free offer of services within the European Community is one of the foundation stones of the Treaty of Rome. Twenty-five years after signature however, it is still not a reality. The Community has got little further than the abolition of tariffs. This falls well short of our business community's expectations. What they experience day by day is a range of non tariff barriers and administrative measures which impede a true common market for both goods and services, which seriously add to the cost of trading across frontiers, and which indeed are in danger of growing, despite recent efforts to make progress in this area” (paper presented to Special EEC Council of Ministers meeting, 20/21 September 1983).

At the moment the Common Market is essentially only a customs or tariff union.

An EEC document explains:

“In international law, a customs union consists of an economic area comprising members who undertake contractually: (i) to refrain from applying to one another any customs duties, charges having equivalent effect, or quantitative restrictions; (ii) to apply a common external customs tariff to countries not within the union. ("The Customs Union", European Documentation, No 6/1983.)

So, in the EEC, there are no customs duties on trade between its member states while goods entering into the area are subject to a uniform tariff no matter which country imports them. This latter means that the EEC enters the world market as a single trading bloc; the biggest in the world in fact.

“The Community's common external tariff means that it is seen as a single trading partner by other world trading powers. By volume of trade, it is well ahead of its partners. Averaging imports and exports, the Community has 19% of world trade, compared to 14% for the United States and 8% for Japan” ("The External Trade of the European Community", European File, December 1983).

As a matter of fact, the main economic conflict in the world today is not, as might be imagined from listening to Reagan, between America and Russia but between America, Japan and the EEC as these three trading groups jostle each other for markets, investment outlets and sources of raw materials. Even some of the political and military conflicts are not what they seem. For instance, the conflict in Central America is not so much between America and Russia as between America and the EEC, with America trying to prevent the EEC countries from entering its traditional hunting-ground.

The British ruling class made the choice to join the European trading bloc in the late 1960s. It wasn't a unanimous decision since it meant sacrificing the commercial interests of certain sections of the capitalist class: those who imported from outside Europe, especially the Commonwealth, and who would now face tariff barriers where none existed before.

The Labour Party made itself completely ridiculous over the Common Market, supporting it when in office and opposing it when out of office, but opposing it on the most inward-looking, nationalist grounds. Since the Labour Party accepts

capitalism, to make its opposition to the Common Market seem less ridiculous, it had to come up with suggested alternative markets for Britain's capitalists; these ranged from Britain's internal market protected by tariffs to the underdeveloped countries and the state capitalist bloc. Needless to say, the capitalist class wasn't convinced and even began to write off the Labour Party as the alternative government of capitalism to the Tories that it has traditionally been, creating and grooming the SDP to take over this role.

In opposing the Common Market the Labour Party in effect chose to identify itself with the interests of the more backward-looking sections of the capitalist class rather than with those which stood to benefit from the creation of a vast customs-free trade area in Western Europe.

The agricultural anomaly

Since the aim of the Common Market is essentially to create the conditions for freer trade and since trade in Europe is mainly trade in industrial goods, why has the Common Market adopted a "Common Agricultural Policy"? Or rather, why did it adopt one so early in its evolution (since the long-term aim of a true common market would indeed have to involve agricultural products too)?

The Common Market could have chosen to allow its member states to pursue their own agricultural policies, subsidising and protecting their farmers in the ways their national governments thought fit, while pressing ahead with progress towards complete free trade in industrial goods. This was the option taken by the European Free Trade Area (EFTA), set up as a sort of rival to the Common Market around Britain in 1959 and which still survives but is now dominated by Sweden and Switzerland (in fact free trade in industrial goods exists between EFTA and the Common Market so the whole of Western Europe is already a vast industrial free trade area). There is free trade among the EFTA countries in industrial goods but each country is left to pursue its own agricultural policy. Thus, although farmers in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Switzerland, Austria and Portugal are subsidised like farmers in the rest of Europe, this is done by the national governments concerned, not by an inter-governmental organisation.

The answer to "the Common Market having an agricultural policy lies in the conditions under which the Treaty of Rome was signed:

“It is important to appreciate that the Rome Treaty was a delicate balance of the national interests of the contracting parties. Let us consider West Germany and France in terms of trade outlets. In the case of West Germany the prospect of free trade in industrial goods, and free access to the French market in particular, was extremely inviting. In the case of France the relative efficiency of her agriculture (particularly her grain producers) as compared with West Germany held out the prospect that in a free Community agricultural market she would make substantial inroads into the West German market. This was obviously likely to result if the common price level of grain, for example, was set well below the West German level but at or above the French level. Agriculture had therefore to be included (D. Swann, The Economics of the Common Market, 1970, p.78).

Or, as a more recent Common Market propaganda document puts it, "Community countries most dependent on agriculture inevitably made free trade in farm produce a fundamental condition of their willingness to open their markets to the industrial goods of their neighbours" (European File, March 1984, p.12). In other words, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was the price industrial Germany had to pay to have a European-wide market for its industrial goods. De Gaulle kept the British capitalist class waiting on the doorstep until it too agreed to pay this price.

What the adoption of the CAP meant was that farm prices and farm subsidies are fixed annually by Common Market Agriculture Ministers meeting in Brussels. In view of the large number of lobbies and vested interests involved it is not surprising that these sessions have often lasted all night before coming up with a compromise agreement. So, with the CAP, European farmers are subsidised, feather-bedded as the Americans say, from European funds rather than directly from national funds. Up to 70 per cent in fact of the Common Market's total budget is devoted to agriculture. Since it is the industrial countries, Germany and Britain, which contribute proportionately more to the Common Market budget, they are at the same time paying proportionately more towards subsidising European farmers. This is what the famous "budget issue" is all about, with Britain complaining loudly and Germany more discreetly.

The fact that agricultural policy is decided at European level has meant that decisions to stockpile or destroy agricultural so-called "surpluses" (butter mountains, wine lakes, bulldozing of tomatoes, pouring diesel oil on peaches) are made in Brussels, not in the national capitals. This has given rise to the illusion that it is the Common Market that is responsible for these actions, thus allowing anti-Marketeers to turn people's legitimate indignation at this destruction of food and productive capacity against the Common Market. But this is to mistake the real cause. It is capitalism, not the Common Market, that is responsible. Milk, for instance, was being poured down disused mineshafts before Britain joined the Common Market and this would happen again from time to time even if Britain withdrew. All the Common Market has done in this respect is to centralise the process by which these decisions are made, but it is the logic of capitalism that imposes such decisions whether they are made at European or national level.

The British capitalist class's campaign against its "unfair" contribution to the Common Market budget has involved trying to drum up mass support through such exhibitions of mindless nationalism as the Sun's anti-French campaigns. But this issue does not concern wage and salary earners. It is not "our money" that is going to subsidise French, or for that matter British, farmers. The only money that is ours is what we are paid as wages and salaries plus any state hand-outs to which we may be entitled. What we produce over and above this belongs to the capitalists to use as they think fit. We have no control over what they do with the wealth they take from us and certainly no interest in taking sides when they fall out over how to use it.

If Heath and his Tory government negotiated a bad deal for the British capitalist class in 1972 (as it now seems) that's too bad for them, but we have no interest in allowing ourselves to be stirred up by them as a means of trying to renegotiate a better deal today.

A single crumb

Since the Common Market represents to a certain extent a normal stage of development of capitalism ― towards bigger trading units and bigger markets ― it would be surprising if it didn't bring a few marginal improvements for workers. We've scraped the bottom of the barrel and have only been able to come up with one relatively insignificant change which could be seen as an improvement compared with what happened before; namely, the free movement of labour. But we hasten to add, this change does not warrant abandoning a position of complete indifference to the Common Market. We merely note it as a consequence of an inevitable trend under capitalism to break down national frontiers and national differences.

We appreciate too that the free movement of labour is only a corollary of free trade in other commodities since what we are talking about here is free trade throughout the Common Market in the commodity labour-power. All the same, this has meant that workers have been able to travel freely over a larger area than previously (even if this is only a return to a situation which existed in Europe before 1914) and this is a real, if marginal, improvement.

The first thing to notice about the European Parliament is that it is not really a Parliament. Real decision-making power in the Common Market lies with the Council of Ministers from the various member states who come to decisions on the basis of proposals from the European Commission in Brussels. The so-called Parliament is merely a sort of advisory committee that is consulted in the course of this decision-making process.

When elections to the European Parliament take place workers in countries with a total population of 270 million (320 million if and when Spain and Portugal join) are being given the opportunity to express their views at the same time. At the moment they misuse this opportunity by confining their support for capitalism but, when the socialist movement has reached a more developed stage this will provide an occasion for socialists to demonstrate their strength across frontiers, to turn these at the moment meaningless elections into a Europe-wide referendum on the issue of "socialism or capitalism"?

Elections to the European Parliament are taking place next month, on 14 June. Socialists will be able to express their support for world socialism by writing "WORLD SOCIALISM" "SOCIALISME MONDIALE", "WELTSOZIALISMUS", "SOCIALISMO MONDIALO" across their ballot paper.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain will not now be contesting the forthcoming European Election in Central London. We will, however, be mounting an intensive propaganda campaign, during which your help will still be needed. Please contact the Parliamentary Committee at Head Office for details.

Greasy Pole: Healey and Howe (2016)

The Greasy Pole Column from the January 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Victory in war, as in politics, often goes to the side which makes fewer, or less serious, mistakes’ was how it was summed up by one with searching experience of both types of human activity. Denis Healey held the most exposed and demanding jobs in British politics after serving time in the army, including a spell as Beach Master for the Allied forces storming ashore in 1943 at the Italian port of Anzio. He ended the war as a major and when emerging into what was known as peace quickly attained a superior ranking on the Westminster Front Bench rather than in the warm sea of that Italian beach. So all things considered it was not an insult, or necessarily damaging, to be described by him as resembling a casualty of the farmyard.

Because those words were aimed, as accurately as any of the projectiles at Anzio, at the Conservative bastion Geoffrey Howe while Healey was Labour’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, a post in which it was vastly preferable to make the fewer mistakes. Healey remembered this well and it went down in some kind of history: ‘In one debate he had raised some difficult questions in his opening speech. I did not want to be distracted from my own argument by answering them, so I dismissed them by saying that I found his attack “rather like being savaged by a dead sheep” ’.  This response to a considered opposition argument by resorting to childish insult was a part of Healey’s need at the time to disguise the fact that his policies as Chancellor were directed at dealing with the current crises of British capitalism through debasing the living standards of workers. Howe referred to the incident in 1983 when he responded to Healey congratulating him on being reluctantly appointed by Margaret Thatcher as Foreign Secretary (it was in fact more of a demotion} by burbling that it was ‘like being nuzzled by an old ram’. Which Healey accepted as a welcome enlivening of a dull afternoon; he liked and respected Howe as one who also grappled with the impossible labours of making sense of capitalism’s insanity economies.

Bow Group

Howe was too young to match Healey’s authentically managerial experience of the war so he had to be satisfied with drilling the school Home Guard and setting up a National Savings group. Just before the end of the war he was conscripted into the army and reached the heights of a commissioned officer. After demobilisation he went through what was carefully known as a ‘judicious marriage’ and set himself to qualify in law, eventually reaching the levels of a high-earning QC. Politically active, he became chairman of the Bow Group and contributed to a pamphlet which argued that the trade unions were too powerful and enjoyed some privileges which should be cut back (a policy which Prime Minister Harold Macmillan thought would be ‘inexpedient’ ). After two expected doomed efforts to get elected into Parliament at Aberavon in 1955 and 1959 Howe succeeded in the more welcoming Babington from 1964 until 1966 when he was defeated. It was easier for a Tory to contest the comfortingly leafy seat of Reigate, where he remained the Member from 1970 until he retired from Parliament in 1992. After the Conservative victory in 1979 Thatcher plucked him from the back benches to be her Chancellor of the Exchequer. It was typically a time of severe economic crisis, the flavour of which was inflation running as a continuous threat to working class conditions with the purchasing power of wages, pensions and the like continuously eroded. In response Howe could offer no more than some outworn policies fashioned roughly from the assumption that the trade unions were the crucially self-destructive factor. Against the opposition of many established economists he imposed ‘monetarists’ policies, which could offer no remedy to the unemployment which was reaching an historic high; in January 1982 it exceeded 3 million, in some areas affecting almost 20 per cent of the liable population, with particular damage to areas suffering from the decline of established industries such as car production, textiles…

Smug

Meanwhile relationships between Howe and Thatcher were uneven; ‘On your own head be it, Geoffrey, if anything goes wrong’ was a typical comment from her in 1979 about a clutch of policies which included the abolition of exchange controls. Matters came to a head in 1983 when she moved him to Foreign Secretary. Howe was not entirely happy about this; apart from anything else it deprived him of the right to use luxurious accommodation in Carlton Gardens in London and Chevening House, the 17^th century stately home in Kent where Howe and his wife had very much enjoyed playing hosts at smart social events. In June 1989 Howe accompanied Nigel Lawson, who was his successor as Chancellor of the Exchequer, to an early morning meeting at Ten Downing Street when they more or less threatened to resign if Thatcher persisted in her opposition to their proposal of British membership of the exchange rate mechanism of the European Monetary System. She refused to be cajoled in this way and what she witheringly described [as] a ‘nasty little meeting’ ended with Howe looking ‘insufferably smug’.

Reshuffle

It was soon after this that her first act in a reshuffle was to inform Howe that she intended to replace him as Foreign Secretary with John Major. Howe resisted, which led to some lengthy and abrasive negotiations settled only by the offer of the use of another stately home and the post of Leader of the House of Commons and Deputy Prime Minister, which ensured that Howe would always sit on Thatcher’s left at Cabinet meetings. Such symbolism is clearly vital to the smooth working of capitalist politics. But the arrangement soon crumbled away when Howe resigned with a speech which has endured as an example of bilious revenge. It was on 13 November 1990, soon after Thatcher had boasted how she would dismiss the proposal of a single European currency: ‘The bowling’s going to get hit all round the ground. That’s my style’. To which Howe responded that he was resigning because being in Thatcher’s government was like an opening batsman whose bats had been broken before the game by the team captain.

Denis Healey died on 3 October 2015.

Geoffrey Howe died on 9 October 2015

Two more examples of the resolve and talents often applied to condition the inhuman plunder of this system of capitalism and to deceive millions of others that there is no other way.

Ivan