A Socialist Principle Re-examined (1957)

From the September 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

At each general election the Tory Party tells the electors that it intends to make changes in the law or in the administration of the law. Among the changes promised in 1955 were lower taxes, smaller classes in schools, legislation to safeguard the employment of children, changes in the rating system, more Scotsmen for Scottish affairs, reform of the House of Lords, and encouragement of the Welsh language in Welsh schools. In addition to definite promises, there were expressions of “anxiety," "sympathy." and so on, about other problems. The Labour Party had a similar list; it included action against monopolies (the Tories' only undertook to be anxious about this); smaller classes (like the Tories, but using the phrase “more teachers"); respect for the national culture of Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland, and "full employment" in the first two, but only the promise of “new industries" for the third. The main purpose of these promised "reforms" is transparently clear—they are to attract the votes of interested people, the Welsh and the Scots, parents of young children, small traders afraid of monopolies, and so on. The politicians and business men who control the Tory Party are not trying to persuade the electors to make great changes in present social arrangements; their purpose is just the opposite. They like the arrangement that makes 10 per cent. of the population the owners of 90 per cent. of the accumulated wealth of the country, and they want to be elected and control the government so that they can keep it that way. They promise to make small changes in order to have power to prevent big ones. At the 1955 election they were the most successful of the “reformers." They and their associates got 49.8 per cent of the votes cast while the Labour Party got only 46.3 per cent The Liberals and the Communists and the I.LP. were also there before the electors, trying, though with much less success, to get votes on a list of promised reforms.

Socialists fight the Reformist Parties

The Socialist Party of Great Britain on principle has no list of reforms, either between elections or at elections. We do not seek the votes of people who want reforms of the present social system. The only votes we seek and receive are for the purpose of getting rid of the present social system and replacing it by Socialism. We do not support campaigns for reforms or associate with reformist organisations. The S.P.G.B. was formed in revolt against the uselessness of reformism, and to fight the reformist organisations, including such bodies as the Labour Party. The Socialists who founded the S.P.G.B. had had long experience of that sort of thing in the Social Democratic Federation, from which they broke away. The reformist organisations are the enemies of Socialism. 

The Socialists who, back in the times of the S.D.F., thought they could be reformists as well as Socialists, had a neat theory to justify themselves. They were, at first, comparatively clear about what Socialism is and what its attainment involves. They knew, for example, that it meant dispossessing the capitalist class and transferring the means of production and distribution to society. They knew that h involved ending property incomes and the production of articles for sale and profit. But it was. they said, impossible to make headway with the clear-cut object of Socialism because the workers were too stupid to understand and accept it: they dubbed the S.P.G.B. the “Impossibilists. ” They said they knew a better way. They would keep Socialism as their ultimate aim, but in the meantime they would unite the workers on programmes of reform and lead them on to Socialism, they refused to believe our contention that fighting for reforms leads to confusion, builds up a purely reformist organisation, and ends by burying and forgetting the Socialist aim that was supposed to be the only justification for Socialist activity. Now the S.D.F. is dead, but the evil that it and the I.L.P. did lives on in the Labour Party, and everything that the S.P.G.B. foretold has come to pass.

Immediate demands

The S.D.F. had a long list of “palliatives” or “immediate demands”; items to rally the workers and be brought at once into operation while we were waiting for Socialism. In the list exactly 50 years ago were such trifles as abolition of the House of Lords, abolition of the monarchy, and repudiation of the national debt. Of course, none of these demands has been carried, and hardly anyone in Labour Party circles now even wants them.

If someone had the temerity to propose them today at the T.U.C. or Labour Party, the delegates would be dazed with astonishment. What, abolish the dear old Lords, where superannuated Labour M.P.s can now go and draw their three guineas a day? No more medals and honours from the Queen, and no more garden parties at Buckingham Palace? Repudiate the national debt, where millions of pounds of trade union funds are invested? The only monarch abolished in these 50 years was Edward VIII, forced to abdicate by a Tory government, and the monarchy now has no more fervent supporters than the Labour Party. Of course, there were many other immediate demands in the list that have been carried, but without the slightest effect in alleviating or palliating the condition of the workers. One of these was the. demand that M.P.s should be paid. Free, gratis and for nothing we offer to any enterprising vote-catcher the idea of fighting an election on a demand that M.P.s should be deprived of the increase of pay they recently voted themselves while the Prime Minister was chiding the workers for their ill-advised wage claims: he would be certain of quite a lot of votes from the envious citizenry.

The Independent Labour Party also had a list of  reforms, described as “means” to Socialism. It was a less ambitious list than the one used by the S.D.F. and, therefore, more of its valueless demands have been achieved, but widows, orphans and the sick and disabled are still whistling for the “adequate provision” and “state pensions for every person over 50 ” that the I.L.P. had in its programme at the beginning of the century.

Restricted Rents and Restricted Wages

The S.D.F. fifty years ago had an "immediate demand” on housing. It was for the "compulsory construction of healthy dwellings for the people, and such dwellings to be let at rents to cover the cost of maintenance and construction only.” It will be noticed that it had two aims, low rents and the abolition of slums. The Tory Party and the Labour Party have both introduced much legislation on these questions, though the Tories have the distinction of first having introduced rent restriction and now being well on the way to abolishing it entirely.

The reformist demand for restricted rents is part of the myth that the workers’ problems would be solved by low prices. In the 19th century it was the Liberal Party, representing the manufacturers, who wanted low prices and low rents, and it was they who secured the abolition of the Corn Laws so that cheap food imports would lower the cost of living—and wages. The Tory landlords lost, and the Liberal manufacturers gained, but not the workers. The same thing happened in 1915 when rent restriction hit the landlords and kept wages low, to help the manufacturers. Now, by a curious reversal of roles, it is the Labour Party that speaks for the export manufacturers and points out that higher rents will mean higher wages and hamper exports. The manufacturing capitalist’s interest in low rents and low wages is understandable, but from the workers’ standpoint it forgets that we live under capitalism in which the workers’ living depends on what wages they can get. The Tories did not introduce rent control in 1915 in order to give the workers the benefit of low rents with high wages, but as part of a campaign to prevent wages from rising. And the Labour Government carried it on with precisely the same aim. While they were in office from 1945 to 1951 they used every effort to keep wages down, in spite of a rising cost of living. Official information on wage rates and the cost of living proves this, and it was admitted again by Mr. Harold Wilson, M.P., in the House of Commons on 25th July, 1957. Speaking officially for the Labour Party, he said:—

"I believe that the Unions have shown great restraint since the war. In a seller’s market they could have made and exacted much bigger claims for their members than they have done." (Hansard, 25th July, Col. 637.)

To put the matter in perspective, we may take the figure given by the Labour Party spokesmen in the Rent Control debate on 21st November, 1956. They said that the new Rent Act would add about £100 million a year to the workers’ rent bill. This may be compared with the Labour Government’s policies which added thirty per cent. to the workers’ cost of living between 1945 and 1951. That thirty per cent. rise added, not £100 million a year to the workers’ cost of living, but at least £1,000 million a year, and probably very much more. Against the opposition of the Labour Government, with its “wage restraint” policy, the workers had to fight continuously for higher wages, and fell far short of catching up, though by a more aggressive policy since the Tories came in they have now succeeded.

No Care for Slums

The second part of the old reform demand was “healthy dwellings’’—the abolition of slums. Every government has promised to deal with slums, but the problem is greater now than at any time in half a century, and the number of slums is growing fast. This fact is the Tories’ excuse for abolishing rent control on the ground that with restricted rents old houses are not kept in repair and are falling into slumdom by the hundred thousand. The Labour Party does not deny this; that is why they are not prepared to re-introduce the old restrictions if they get back into power. In the Labour Party pamphlet, “Homes of the Future” (1956, page 49), appears the statement:—

"Rent control has been quoted as the main reason for the deterioration in the condition of rented property since 1920. That it is one of the reasons cannot be denied, but it is by no means the only one.”

In the same pamphlet is the admission that the Labour Party policy of having rented houses taken over by the local authority and put in good repair will also mean higher rents, described as “a moderate increase in rent." (p. 13). In short, the reformers cut their own throats. They wanted capitalism to give them low rents and also the abolition of slums, and the one destroyed the other. They thought they were being “practical,” not impossible, like the S.P.G.B. They thought of everything except the one thing that matters, that we are living under capitalism.

According to the original band of “socialists” who wanted to work through reforms, it was all supposed to be a quick way of achieving the objective of Socialism. And after fifty years of it capitalism is as firmly entrenched as ever, and if a Labour Government comes in again its position will actually be reinforced, for the latest nostrum of these “socialists” who have no time for Socialism, is that the Labour Government will buy shares in big companies! Muddle-headed as the S.D.F. and I.L.P forerunners of the Labour Party were, this would make Hyndman and Keir Hardie turn in their graves. 

Edgar Hardcastle

Letter: The Collapse of Capitalism (1934)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Collapse of Capitalism

Attitude of the S.P.G.B.

A correspondent (C. L., Victoria, Canada) states that a speaker of the Canadian Co-operative Commonwealth Federation asserts that the attitude now adopted by the S.P.G.B. on the question of the so-called collapse of capitalism is not the attitude adopted before the War. The speaker asks when we changed our view.

First, we ought to explain that the term "collapse of capitalism” is itself used with widely different meanings. Some people have used it as a colourful way of describing the periodical crises into which capitalism falls. So long as it is made clear that nothing more is meant, this use of the phrase is not open to any serious objection. It happened, however, during and after the Great War that the phrase was popularised with a very different meaning. The American writer, Herman Cahn, in his “The Collapse of Capitalism” and “Capital To-day,” revived and elaborated the theory that capitalism, through the development of its own contradictions, would reach a stage of final, devastating physical collapse. The particular feature Cahn seized upon was the growth of the cheque system, and the war-time currency inflation which he saw going on in various countries. He not only forecast the collapse of capitalism but was rash enough to give it a date.

Writing apparently in or about the year 1917, he said: —

Its. (i.e., capitalism’s) downfall, root and branch, will be positively assured by a continuation of the war for, say, another year. That downfall will then be like an act of nature, and not dependent on the mental and moral preparation of the peoples of the world for a new form of society which must, perforce, be completely social. (Page 38, “Collapse of Capitalism.”)

He did not, however, tie himself down to the continuance of the War, but added (page 118) that, war or peace, the “days of the rule of gold are numbered,” and with it the days of capitalism also. If war went on, capitalism’s downfall would be early and sudden. If war ended, there would be a “lingering death struggle.”

The broad idea that capitalism in one of its periodical crises might come to a point of collapse in the sense of chaos or a complete stoppage of production, is a very old one. Its principal danger (apart from its misreading of crises and the ability of the capitalists to muddle through) is brought out strikingly in the point which Cahn strongly emphasised. Throughout his writings, and in the writings of leading Communists in the early post-war years, the point is constantly made that the early and inevitable collapse had made Socialist propaganda and the conversion of the majority, to Socialism unnecessary and useless. The catastrophe, they said, was already about to break over us. There was no time for educating the workers. All that we could do was to! seize the “psychological moment” when it came, and lead the blind masses to Socialism with or without their knowledge and consent. In the cant phrase of 'the time the revolution was (and still is) just round the corner.

With that preliminary explanation we can now answer the questions about the S.P.G.B.’s attitude. On the major question, the impossibility of achieving Socialism without first convincing a majority of the population, the S.P.G.B. has never at any time held any view but the one it holds now. Right from the first issue of The Socialist Standard, that, more than almost any other point, divided the'S.P.G.B. from the other parties calling themselves Socialist. Never at any time did the S.P.G.B; accept the notion that Socialism could be forced on a non-Socialist population by leaders taking advantage of discontent during a crisis. See, for example, the answer given in The Socialist Standard in August, 1905, to a correspondent who had said that the S.P.G.B.’s attitude could be summed up as, “Preach economic considerations as the sole factor in social development, and wait until the crash comes.” The reply given to him was that this was “decidedly not the policy of the S.P.G.B. . . . It is inevitable that economic development will bring things to a crisis, but whether from out of this crisis will arise the Socialist Commonwealth depends upon whether sufficient of the working class have been made Socialists, and have been class-consciously organised.”

Whether or not the phrase ”collapse of capitalism” was used by writers in The Socialist Standard in the pre-war years, we are unable to say. If it was used it would always be against the background of the above contention that there could be no Socialism without an organised Socialist working-class; for that point was always being made and it is certain that no writer could have held any other view. What is possible is that some members of the S.P.G.B. in the early years had never had occasion to consider closely the question whether or not a crisis of capitalism could properly be called a “collapse,” in the sense used by Cahn and the Communists later on. That being so, there may be expressions used in early articles, which reflect the writer’s lack of definiteness on the point. We have, however, not been able, so far, to find any. It must be remembered in this connection that the S.P.G.B. does not claim that, with the formulation of its Declaration of Principles in 1904, it had reached definite and final conclusions on all the aspects of capitalism and Socialism. All that was aimed at was the indispensable minimum which would constitute a sufficient basis for a Socialist Party. Nothing has occurred to warrant departing from the Declaration of Principles, but the members of the Party, in the course of years, have been able to clarify and extend their knowledge over a much wider range of subjects, for they have had the advantage of the knowledge of the men who formed the Party, and have been able to study many phases of capitalism (e,g., a world war) which had not occurred within the lifetime of the founders. 

It was not until the end of the War that the idea of a catastrophic collapse had its rebirth and popularity, and it is therefore only natural that the present member of the S.P.G.B. knows more of these theories and is better informed and more definite as to their fallacies than was the average member before the War. If, however, the question had been raised before the War in its post-war form, there is no doubt whatever what the answer would have been.

ED. COMM.

Blogger's Notes:

I'll take an educated guess that "C. L., Victoria, Canada" was Chris Luff. If it was him, he was still politically active well into his 90s. He's mentioned in a report of two SPGBers visiting comrades in North America, which appeared in the March 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard.

At first glance there's not a lot of information about Herman Cahn on the internet. No wiki page, no material over at the Marxist Internet Archive. However, I did find the following brief biographical sketch about him over at Libcom:

"Not much is known about the forgotten Marxist theorist Herman Cahn. He probably lived somewhere between 1850–1930. He migrated from Germany to the United States as a young adult. He was a founding member of the Socialist Party in 1901. His daughter Anita C. Block (1882–1967) helped found the socialist New York Call. He was on the leftwing during the war (i.e. not a pacifist). Cahn's book Capital to-day; a study of recent economic development (1918) was called by Mary Marcy 'the most momentous contribution to an analysis of capitalist society since Marx' . . . 

. . .  It is like an American version of Hilferding's Finance capital; a study of the latest phase of capitalist development. He further wrote The collapse of capitalism (1919). His theory of money was clearly inspired by Hilferding's (which was a revision of Marx's)."

Party News Briefs (1949)

Party News from the September 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Debate at Edgware was held on Friday, July 22nd, between Mr. F. Martell, representing the Liberal Party, and Mr. J. D‘Arcy, representing the Socialist Party of Great Britain. D’Arcy opened the debate by pointing out that, although the Liberals now called themselves Liberal Radicals, they were in no way different from the old Liberal Party, and their policy was just as it had always been, a policy of Capitalist reform. The S.P.G.B. has Socialism as its object. It aims at the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments of wealth production. The Socialist Party is opposed to all other parties. A member of the Liberal Party had recently said that Capital and Labour should get together. This was an old cry and it really meant that the working class should give up the struggle against the Capitalist class. There can be no such unity between the classes. The workers are in the position of having to sell their labour power to the capitalists, they have no claim to the wealth that they produce. The object of the workers must be to overthrow the system that keeps them in subjection— a system based on their exploitation. In capitalist society, the wealth that is produced by the workers becomes the property of the small minority, the capitalist class, which owns the means of production. Socialism will convert the means of production to social ownership. Wealth will then no longer be produced for profit, but solely for use. The sellers’ market, that we have heard so much about recently, is ending and the buyers’ market is commencing. As the sellers' market diminishes, so does the market for labour power. It is untrue that the more the workers produce the more they get. The more they produce the sooner they are out of work and the less they get. The only solution is Socialism and this the Liberal Party opposes.

Martell said that the Liberal Party claims that workers are in control in this country and no capitalist can have any effect on what the workers decide to do. It is not the working class that is ground down, but the workers who are doing the grinding. They do as they like regarding wages and working hours, they demand what they want and get it. 99½ per cent. of the population works to-day and we are all capitalists because we all give our energies and receive back wages, which are our profits, and with which we can do as we please. How can the S.P.G.B. alter this? They cannot lay down rules whereby we all get what we want because human nature makes us all different. This must be arranged to suit all sorts of people. Political liberty is one of the greatest possessions of this country. Will the S.P.G.B. allow the free vote to continue when Socialism is established? The world may be imperfect, and what happens in other countries affects us, even though we have no concern in those countries. How will Socialist England compete with other countries? Man should be allowed to do as he likes providing he does not interfere with others, but there must be some rules or a few will take advantage. Let there be floor space for everyone and a ceiling for all, each to make his own ceiling. The workers should have a fairer share of the wealth, hence the Liberal Party’s profit sharing schemes. The Liberals propose that a certain share of the profits should be set aside in case of a bad year and all the workers in the particular industry concerned should share the rest. Capitalism has made this country what it is—the finest in the world.

D’Arcy replied to the Liberal talk about political freedom and liberty by pointing out that it was the Liberals who opposed the Chartist movement. The Liberals confused human nature with the way in which people behave. There is no organic difference between capitalist and worker, only an economic difference. It is nonsense to say that if the capitalists did not use their brains the workers would suffer economically. Profit sharing schemes would only result in getting the workers to weaken their struggle, and in more surplus value for the employers. Socialism is as international as is Capitalism.

Martell claimed that Liberals stand for freedom. There could be no freedom under Socialism. Anyone with a house would have to stay with it. Every one would have the same, whether they needed it or not. With common ownership, those in control would be dictators. There is only one class on earth—the class of human beings—and there is no system that all will like. Would the S.P.G.B. be prepared to stand for re- election after five years in office?

D’Arcy explained that political parties are the expression of class interests. With the establishment of Socialism, class society will end and political parties will cease to exist. That includes the S.P.G.B. What will happen to the profit sharing schemes when the world’s markets are glutted and the workers are unemployed? The Liberals do not oppose Nationalisation, only the inefficiency of its operation. Socialists oppose Nationalisation. Socialism will result in every man standing in equal relationship with all others towards the wealth that is produced—free and unrestricted access.

Martell concluded by accusing the S.P.G.B. of being dictators because D’Arcy had said that all other political parties would be suppressed. D'Arcy had not told him what the S.P.G.B. would do when it took power—the S.P.G.B. had no solution. S.P.G.B.ers are idealists, they have never thought things out. Liberals take a middle course between Toryism and Labourism and take the best of both sides. The S.P.G.B. stands for Capitalist State ownership; it is idealist.

The Delegate Meeting will be held at the Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, W.C.l, on Saturday and Sunday, September 24th and 25th. The following items of interest have been culled from the Executive Committee’s report to the meeting. Membership at the end of June was 1,051.

There has been an increase in the total number of meetings held during the first six months of the year amounting to 100 per cent. since 1947. This is also an increase of about 27 per cent. over 1948. But literature sales and collections have not increased in proportion, which indicates a drop in the average literature sales and collections per meeting.

The Socialist Standard has been increased in size from 12 pages to 16 pages, and commencing with the June issue there was an increase in the size of the type used. Also, commencing with the June issue, the number of Socialist Standards printed was increased by 500 copies to 6,500, but the increased sales that made this advisable have not been maintained. Although sales have increased since the war years, the total sold is still below pre-war level. The paper position has improved recently, but renewed restrictions on imports may cause it to worsen during coming months. The total pamphlet sales during the six months under review amounted to approximately 6,000 copies. There are still large stocks of many pamphlets available at Head Office.

A series of introductory classes were held during last Autumn and Winter. Four sessions, each of 12 weeks duration, were held and were attended by 50 students. Twenty of these students have since conducted classes themselves and others have prepared material for classes which will commence in October this year. As new tutors develop, the original ones will be free to conduct writers’ and speakers’ classes which are scheduled for the coming Autumn. Classes of a specialised nature have begun and, it is hoped, will develop in size and scope this year.

Only 50 copies of “Collected Socialist Pamphlets” are now available for public libraries.

During the first six months of the year there was a decrease in our financial receipts amounting to £506 compared with the corresponding months of 1948, due mainly to a falling off in literature sales and donations to funds. At the same time, expenditure has increased by £221. The General Account balance has fallen by £444 in six months. The Parliamentary fund has increased by £64 to £219 0s. Id. If the Parliamentary campaign is not to completely drain our financial resources we must have your donation now and regularly, until the end of the year at least. The financial position is the discordant note in an otherwise harmonious report. YOU can remedy that.

During the period under review a new companion Party for Socialism was formed in Ireland and the S.P.I. is now digging itself in.

A social and dance will be held at the Conway Hall on the Saturday evening following the first day of the delegate meeting. It promises to be as great a success as was the one at Easter. It certainly should not be missed. Once again. We need funds. R.S.V.P.

St. Pancras. The branch recently challenged all three local Labour M.P.s to debate. Mr. Robinson stated that he had too many other engagements and gave a courteous refusal. Dr. Jeger and Mr. Hadyn Davies, on the other hand, stated that they were too busy fighting Capitalism to find time to debate. Both were convinced that it was a waste of time. Dr. Jeger stated that it was “not his custom to provide audiences for opposing organisations.” The good Doctor evidently fancies himself as a star turn or box office attraction. “Blessed is he who bloweth his own trumpet.”

In any event we are still prepared to let him demonstrate his drawing capacity by accepting our challenge.

Mr. Davies, our other “hero,” is convinced that a debate with the S.P.G.B. is “purely a matter of academic interest.” He concludes his letter with, “In any case I am far too busy fighting the enemies of the workers, namely, the Conservative Party, to be able to waste my time on anything else.” Had Mr. Davies been an “academician,” he would not have inferred unconsciously that he is already wasting his time as his letter seems to indicate. We agree that he is wasting his time.

The truth is that both these “stalwarts” were so busy supporting the Emergency (Strike-breaking) Powers Acts against the Dockers, that they had little time for anything else, least of all Socialism.

Hackney Branch will commence a series of indoor meetings at Bethnal Green Town Hall on Wednesday, 5th October, at 8 p.m. and will continue on Wednesday evenings during the winter months. The branch has also applied to Poplar Borough Council for the use of Bromley Town Hall on Sunday evenings. They hope to commence here on October 2nd. All old and new supporters are invited and Hackney members hope that the East End meetings will be given wide publicity.  

W. Waters.

Blogger's Note:

On the SPGB Debates wiki page, the Socialist Party speaker listed for the debate with the Liberal Party was Harry Young. Jim D'Arcy was obviously parachuted in as a late replacement speaker. The Party — and Jim D'Arcy — debated Martell for a second time, in 1962 at Conway Hall. By that time, Martell was a right-wing libertarian and he was speaking on behalf of the National Fellowship, an organisation he had founded in the same year.

I'm a big fan of Bill Waters exhaustive Party News reports. They are a good source of information about the Party's history.

Letter: Non-market, revolutionary socialism (1987)

Letter to the editors from the Winter 1987-88 issue of the World Socialist 

Non-market, revolutionary socialism

As a frequent reader during the past twenty years of the Socialist Standard and the Western Socialist when it was being published, I welcome the World Socialist as an international publication for non-market, revolutionary socialists and a much needed weapon in the struggle of the international working class against the international ruling class. I especially want to commend you for the quality of the articles and the attractive format.

The single feature that I feel may limit its effectiveness is the last paragraph in your "Declaration of Principles": "That as political parties are but the expression of class interests, and as the interest of the working class is diametrically opposed to the interest of all sections of the master class, the party seeking working class emancipation must be hostile to every other party."

If by "party seeking working class emancipation" you mean only those national parties listed on the inside front cover, then the "principle" seems not only untrue but also rather jingoistic — a sort of narrow party patriotism. For certainly you must know that there are other groups that hold a vision of the future society that differs only superficially from yours.

During most of the time I was reading your publications I was a member of the American Socialist Labor Party. Certainly I didn't feel hostile to the WSP and the SPGB, nor is the SLP the expression of class interests hostile to the emancipation of the working class. And the same can be said for many other parties and groups, which you — and I for that matter — may feel have most deplorable errors in their views on the value of participating in elections or the way society will be organized but who stand with us in their vision of a classless, stateless, moneyless future society.

All this is not meant as a plea for unity among such groups and parties. I think our differences are far too great for us to live together comfortably in the same organizational household. We come from very disparate traditions of socialist thought — syndicalist, council communist, anarchist, revolutionary industrial unionist. But what we can do is find out something about the programs and positions of other "third force" socialist, as they might be called. Perhaps we will learn something. And more important, we will save our hostility for those who deserve it: the Leninist and social democratic perverters of socialism who, given the chance, would lead our class into a new slavery.

Readers who are interested in a forum for "third force" socialists that currently features an ongoing debate/discussion involving supporters of World Socialist can obtain a free sample copy of the Discussion Bulletin along with subscription information from P.O. Box 15 64, Grand Rapids, MI 49501, USA.

Yours for World Socialism, 

Frank Girard

 

 

Reply

We appreciate Frank Girard's support for The World Socialist and endorse his aim of making possible debate and discussion between those who stand for a classless, stateless, moneyless society.

When the Socialist Party of Great Britain was formed in 1904 it accepted as members only those who adhered to revolutionary socialist principles. To have entertained in its ranks other workers, perhaps agreeing with some of our principles but not others, would have had the effect of possibly swelling our ranks, but certainly eliminating the unity which has allowed us to survive as a movement. All of the parties of the World Socialist Movement accept a common set of principles, all are dedicated solely to the achievement of the clearly-defined socialist objective and therefore all members within the ranks of our movement are equals, bound together by class consciousness as well as class interest As early as 1904 the Socialist Party of Great Britain recognised that there were other workers outside its ranks who shared its vision of socialism; you have only to look over the early issues of the Socialist Standard to observe that we made no claim, as a numerically very small party existing in one country, to monopolise socialist knowledge. In retrospect we can see that the early years of the century did witness the emergence of a number of working-class groups and tendencies — some of which are listed by Girard — which shared an outlook very close to our own. That is not to say that there were not sharp differences of principle concerning certain important points: for example, the syndicalist and anarchist rejection of the crucial necessity for democratic political action by a class-conscious working class or the fallacious acceptance by the industrial unionists of the SLP of socialism in one country or the scheme to allocate consumer goods using labour vouchers, thus negating the concept of a society without exchange or money. These principled differences separated workers into different organisations, although it was often the case that the differences were mainly over how to achieve socialism or details concerning the working of the new system. In short, in the early years there was a good deal of consensus within a body of workers broader than the parties adhering to the Declaration of Principles as to what socialism meant; means rather than the end divided us.

In 1914 the reformist (or social-democratic) parties were shown in their full anti-socialist colours as they lined up to support their masters in the butchery of imperialist war. 1914 proved to the small socialist movement which then existed the immense value of sticking to our principles. Of course, we were not alone in the world in opposing the war, but we were virtually so and it was quite clear that our differences with the so-called socialists who had claimed to be going our way in previous years were of fundamental significance. Then in 1917 the Bolshevik coup in Russia won converts to the illusory, state-capitalist ideology of Leninism: once again it became clear that our difference with the Leninists was not about means, but about the very objective of socialism. History vindicated our position of principled hostility, not only to the ideas of the open defenders of capitalism, (to the ideas, it must be emphasised, not to particular workers holding then) but to those of the phoney socialists who were nothing of the sort.

Frank Girard quite clearly agrees with us that socialists must be unequivocally opposed to the bogus socialists of the reformist and Leninist left-wing of capitalism. What he is suggesting is that a position now exists where there are workers outside of the world socialist movement who share our vision of socialism and should not be alienated from us by the expression of our hostility towards them. We accept that such people do exist — possibly far more than our limited knowledge of the development of ideas globally allows us to perceive. Quite obviously, the more workers there are worldwide who seek the establishment of socialism the better that is, for not until there is a majority of socialists will there be a socialist society. If such people who are outside the parties of the World Socialist Movement wish to disagree with us about the precise means of bringing socialism into being it is in our interest to discuss with them in an open-minded fashion, and there can be no question that, as we are not a sectarian movement, if others can come up with a better means of achieving socialism than we know about we are willing to learn from them.

Editorial Committee

S.P.G.B. Lecture List For October 1911. Johnny Holmes

Unlike the posts for A. Barker and Frederick S. Leigh, this October 1911 Socialist Standard adjacent post is not connected to Keith Scholey's founding members document.

Johnny Holmes was not a founding member of the SPGB. He first joined the SPGB via its short lived Earlsfield Branch in August 1909. A regular outdoor speaker for the Party in the period of 1910-1911, he primarily spoke at outdoor meetings in South and West London (Battersea, Tooting, Paddington and Peckham). There is no record of when he lapsed his membership, but we do know that he rejoined the Tooting Branch of the SPGB in April 1921. Sadly, there's no record of when he left the Party for the second time. 

'John Henry Holmes' is briefly mentioned in a couple of books I have encountered on my political reading travels. His son, Len Holmes, speaks of his father in the Hugh Jenkins' 1980 book, 'Rank and File'. Jenkins was the Labour MP for Putney from 1964 until 1979 (defeated by David Mellor at the 1979 General Election) and was firmly on the left-wing of the Labour Party. 

'Rank and File' was a collection of interviews with Labour Party members in his Putney Constituency Labour Party, and the purpose of the book was to give a human face to that much maligned figure in the 1970s and 1980s: the left-wing Labour Party activist. During this period of political history, the tabloid press had the scent of blood in its nostrils at the notion that student radicals and 'bedsit revolutionaries' were infiltrating the Labour Party up and down the country in order to deselect such sedate centrist characters as Reg Prentice and Bob Mellish. There's no denying that Trotskyists were sending their members into the Labour Party during this time - the Militant Tendency being the best known example - but Jenkins - and most of the people interviewed in his book - represented a longstanding Labour Left tradition rooted in left-wing reformism and such single issues as nuclear disarmament and anti-apartheid.

Len Holmes was one such left-wing local activist, and he said the following about his father:

". . . I was born in Wandsworth and my father, Johnny Holmes, was a well-known leader of the unemployed workers’ movement between the wars. He was a great character but no one would employ him and so with seven children and my mother dying of cancer we had hard times. My wife was born not far away in Wimbledon.

. . .  You mentioned your father?

"Yes, Johnny Holmes was well known as a pacifist in Wandsworth between the wars. During the First World War he drank a lot of water before medical examinations and was always rejected because this increased the pulse rate. He was a street-corner orator and he fought a parliamentary election in Wandsworth as an independent although he eventually joined the Labour Party. He was a friend of Saklatvala who held Battersea briefly for the Communist Party and at one time was a member of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. He was put in Wandsworth Prison for six weeks after leading a demonstration against Wandsworth workhouse. He marched into the institution and demanded that the inmates be fed proper food instead of pigswill. Once he lead a 50,000 strong demonstration of the unemployed to the Cenotaph. He was stopped by the police because he had a banner which read: For those who are dead and not forgotten and for those who are here and are forgotten. My father brushed the police aside saying that they would fight their way there if necessary and he successfully led the demonstration to Whitehall. However the demonstration was broken up there by mounted police and my

father was kicked in the head. He was injured quite badly but eventually recovered and was soon attacking the Royal Family from a soapbox on the corner of Magdalen Road. My father wanted clean sheets and bed linen for the workhouse inmates and porridge and bacon and eggs for breakfast. When he was taken to Wandsworth Prison there were demonstrations outside every night with singing of the Red Flag until the authorities removed him to Brixton. When he came out there were several thousand unemployed to meet him and they marched all the way to our house in Wandsworth.

Quite apart from the fact that there was no money for it, my father did not believe in paying rent to private landlords and was always being taken to court for non-payment. He accumulated £500 in arrears and never paid it. He argued his own case and the landlord said he wished my father was on his side. He was a very clever man. He studied what the magistrate had said on other occasions and quoted him. Once he was offered a job on condition that he changed his politics but he would have nothing to do with capitalism. He was an ardent socialist and knew all the leaders of those days, Lansbury, Greenwood and Bevin but he became a bit disillusioned with the Labour Party. They were not nearly socialist enough for him." (pages 54-56.)

I can't find any record of his father standing as an independent candidate in Wandsworth at a parliamentary election, and I have to wonder how plausible it could have been that a long term unemployed man could have raised the money for an election deposit in the interwar years. It would have been a substantial sum of money. Maybe Len Holmes misremembered. It happens.

The second mention of Johnny Holmes is in Harry Wicks' posthumous memoir 'Keeping My Head: The Memoirs of a British Bolshevik'. Published in 1992 by the independent Trotskyist publisher Socialist Platform, 'Keeping My Head' is a very readable account of Wicks political journey from his teenage political awakening in Battersea in South London just after the end of World War One to the YCL sending him to the Lenin School in Moscow in the 1920s to his central involvement in the earliest days of the British Trotskyist movement.

As a Battersea boy, Wicks encountered members and ex-members of the SPGB. One of those was Johnny Holmes. As he recalls:

Unemployed agitation in the years of 1918 and 1919 emphasised the indignation felt by the ex-servicemen at the conditions they met on their homecoming. The long dole queues and the paltry demobilisation payments never matched the politicians’ promises. The old comrades’ association was most vociferous in its demands for mass protest. When the short-lived postwar boom ended inSeptember 1920 the unemployed agitation discarded its ‘No charity, give us justice’ image, and took on amore aggressive tone. From all over the country, local unemployed committees and associations met in conference and launched the National Unemployed Workers Movement with the demand for ‘Work or Full Maintenance’.From the first, Battersea’s NUWM became widely known, a constituent part of the local labour movement. Hunger marches from all parts of the country found shelter and sustenance ready for them at Latchmere Baths. A Battersea contingent were always marching in the London demonstrations, which in those days all too frequently ended with a police baton charge. 

A host of speakers and agitators sustained the ceaseless campaign at the local guardians for outdoor relief. The memory of one or two is vivid to this day. Johnny Holmes was one such agitator. A short, rather tubby man with a sunshine face, he was on and off unemployed platforms for a decade. His early training as a speaker had been in the SPGB. In his pocket, he always carried a scrapbook of newspaper cuttings which functioned as his speaker’s notes. Many still remember the meetings he addressed during the 1921 miners’ lockout. Johnny talked on the income of the Duke of Northumberland, a big coal owner. Thirty bob a minute was his income, as much as a miner received for three days’ work at the coalface. He had an infectious smile, as though he was laughing at his own speech:

‘Imagine, 30 shillings each minute of the day. Whatever the Duke was doing, going to bed, eating his bread and cheese or sitting in his bathroom having a sh-sh-sh-shave.’

Each itemisation of the crowded minutes in the Duke’s life brought fresh convulsions of laughter from the crowd.

. . . Another outstanding unemployment speaker in the 1920s was Tom Waller, affectionately known as Workhouse Waller. He too had got his Socialist education from the SPGB. Like his voice, his speeches were strong and rasping. Wage slavery and capitalism were his enemy, a Socialist society his objective. When the local board of guardians said that there was to be no more poor law relief without task work — which meant the workhouse — he was ready with the answer: ‘We enter the workhouse all together.’ (pages 20-21)

Wicks' book also provides a brief biographical note of Holmes in the appendix to the book:

Holmes, Johnny. Ex-SPGB, Secretary of Wandsworth Unemployed Committee and member of Communist Party. Very active in 1921 and 22. See Michael Ward The Unemployed in South West London 1918-23 (draft manuscript), and Red Flag over the Workhouse, Labour and Social History Group, 1980. (page 199)

S.P.G.B. Lecture List For October, 1911. Frederick S. Leigh

Following on from the standalone post for A. Barker, a similar style post for Fred Leigh, another founder member of the SPGB. Again, the details below are from Keith Scholey's unpublished document 'The Founding Members of the Socialist Party of Great Britain'.

Leigh, Frederick S

         Paddington branch. Leigh was an Executive Committee member 1904-6 and spoke for the Party 1904-12. He seems to have had some theatrical aspirations (as would be implied by the somewhat eccentric garb he wore to the 1905 Conference), writing a small play “Wasted Lives” about the 1905 Russian Revolution, which was performed for the Battersea branch on 9 December 1906 (Socialist Standard January 1907). He was lapsed from membership on 28th January 1914.

S.P.G.B. Lecture List For October, 1911. A. Barker

In recent months, when I have posted details of the Pre-World War One monthly lecture list on the blog, I have tried where I can to give some extra information on the listed speakers. That only seems fair when covering a period in the SPGB's history when it was so active and visible in working class politics in London. For example, just looking at the lecture list for the October 1911 issue of the Standard, you have advertised over a hundred meetings in London alone listed with 20 plus speakers.

Sometimes, the added information on the listed speakers is only the basics gleaned from the early SPGB membership records: a speaker's full name; their branch; when they joined the SPGB; if and when (and why) they left the SPGB. Sometimes I'm more fortunate in that there might be a wiki page for a speaker (see R. M. Fox, Frank Dawkins and Tommy Jackson, for example). On other occasions - if a speaker has 'lasted the course' - it might be an obituary in the pages of the Socialist Standard (see J. E. Roe, Alex Anderson and Jack Fitzgerald, for example). Whatever the case - and wherever I can - I try to flesh out the bones of the early history of the SPGB and the Socialist Standard. It's important that that information is readily available for anyone interested in the history of our tradition.

In keeping with that 'mission', posted below is a potted political history of the Socialist Party member, A. Barker, who was a listed speaker in the October 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard. The words below are not mine. It's from an unpublished document entitled 'The Founding Members of the Socialist Party of Great Britain', which was written by Keith Scholey a number of years ago. Keith was an excellent archivist and historian of the Party - he is no longer a member - and this document was an attempt to provide as much background as possible on the founding members of the SPGB. If I can get his permission, I may post the full document on the blog.

Barker, A

Tooting branch. Barker was very active for the Party before the First World War, being a public speaker in 1909-14 and serving on the 1906-7 and 1908-9 Executive Committees. At a local level he served as Tooting branch secretary in 1905-6 and was a local election candidate for Tooting Ward, Wandsworth in 1906 and again in 1909. He had previously been a local election candidate for the SDF in 1903. Barker probably left the Party during the First World War, rejoining on 16th June 1927. He was again most active, for example being nominated as the prospective Parliamentary candidate for North Battersea in the 1929 election (in the event however the deposit could not be raised to contest the seat). Barker finally lapsed on 25th June 1943.

Letter: Who did what in the war? (1975)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

Who did what in the war?

Going back to the year after the war I lived in London and used to come along to your meetings and debates with other parties. I used to come to Leicester Square to one on a Sunday evening. In London recently I bought one of the SPGB books, on war, and I must say I enjoyed reading it.

You state that the Communist Party supported the war at first, then in October 1939 they were against it. Well, didn’t the Communist Party give Harry Pollitt the sack during the changeover? I think I am right when I say that later on in the war Harry Pollitt put up in a by-election at Silvertown as a “Stop the War” candidate. And when did the Labour Party join Churchill’s government? They opposed them.

Now in your book Questions of the Day you write about Parliament and the elections. Well, does the ruling class go to the country when it suits them? From 1931 to 1945 the Tories only had two elections, and in 1910 and 1974 there were two elections in one year.

I must say there have been a lot of wars since the SPGB published the book War and the Working Class in 1936: all the killings going on in Ireland at the moment.

With best wishes to the SPGB.

L. J. Taylor 

Peterborough.

Reply:

The answer to your question about the Communist Party is as follows. In March 1939 the Daily Worker published an appeal to Attlee and Sinclair, the leaders of the Labour and Liberal parties, and Churchill for the Conservatives, to get together and form a “Popular Front” government to oppose Germany. On 2nd September this demand was affirmed in a manifesto issued by the Central Committee of the CP for success in the war about to start. Harry Pollitt wrote a pamphlet How to Win the War, in which he said: “The Communist Party supports the war, believing it to be a just war”.

A month later the CP changed its mind and issued a fresh manifesto published in the Daily Worker on the 12th. It said: “The manifesto of October 7th corrects the declaration issued on September 2nd. The present war is not a just war, but an unjust and imperialist one.” Pollitt was relieved of his job as General Secretary of the CP, but continued as its leading propagandist after he had made an abject confession of error. The CP continued to oppose the war and, when the coalition government it had asked for was formed in May 1940, yelled indignantly: “What a man [Churchill] to take under the wing of the Labour Party!”

The reason for the change was, of course, keeping up with Russian foreign policy. Pollitt assumed that the CP would support a war against Germany without taking into account the Russo-German pact of August 1939. When Germany invaded Russia in May 1941 the CP again became vigorous supporters of the war and the Churchill government.

On your second question, the frequency with which governments “go to the country” depends on their assessment of the need to have the support of the working class demonstrated or reaffirmed. The chief reason why there was no general election from 1935 to 1945 was the war, in which the coalition government (not the Tories alone) assumed itself to have general support with a desire for as little disruption as possible.

Blogger's Note:

A later version of the Questions of the Day pamphlet is online on the SPGB website.

The South London Impossibilists (2026)

A wee 'As Others See Us' post.

If you click on the linked Brixton Buzz post mentioned elsewhere on the blog, where the SPGB local election candidate, Anya Krycek, lays into the hypocrisy of the local Lambeth Labour Party, and scroll down to the comments section, you'll find the following interesting post:

Nette says: Mon 5th October, 2026 at 12:21 am

It’s heartening to see the SPGB out campaigning here again. This is where the party was born (the impossibilists of the old Battersea branch walked out of the SDF in 1904 ) and it’s good to have a tradition back on its home streets. They make no promises they don’t intend to keep: just the argument for abolishing the wages system, put honestly at hustings and on street corners. In an age of careerist triangulation, that plainness feels like a breath of fresh air. Good to have them keeping the argument alive where it started.

It's always nice when a friendly critic 'gets us'.

Blogger's Note:

For a flavour of those early impossibilist comrades in Battersea (and elsewhere), click on the following links for a couple of activity reports from the Socialist Standard from its first year of publication: October 1904 and November 1904 .

Alwyn Edgar

I just discovered in the past couple of weeks the sad news of the passing of the longstanding Socialist Party member Alwyn Edgar. At the time of his passing, at the age of 97, Alwyn was probably both the oldest living SPGB member and longest serving member. He joined the Party in the late 1940s as a young man after hearing Socialist Party speakers at outdoor meetings at Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park in London. 

I'm not sure if he was ever a Socialist Party speaker,  but his articles and reviews were a feature of the Socialist Standard going back to the late 1940s. For a number of years in the 1950s and 1960s he wrote the regular column in the Standard entitled the The Passing Show, and from the late 1970s onwards he wrote an occasional humorous column called The Diary of a Capitalist, which took great pleasure in puncturing the pomposity of the super-rich.

 

I've compiled below a chronological list of his articles, reviews and cartoons that appeared in the Standard over the years. This list will be updated as and when more of his writings are scanned in and posted on the blog.

Also, cut and pasted below, is a non-political obituary for Alwyn that appeared on the Eastern Daily Press website. A Bevin Boy, a barrister and a teacher: he definitely lived a full live. An obituary for Alwyn will appear in the Standard in the fullness of time.

 

Eastern Daily Press

Historian, schoolmaster and musician Alwyn Edgar has died 

by Staff Reporter

27th August

An historian who devoted much of his life to researching the Scottish Highland Clearances and whose first two books were published in his nineties has died.

Alwyn Edgar, who was 97, also appeared as a resident historian on Radio Norfolk and performed as an actor and violinist into his eighties at the Sewell Barn Theatre in Norwich.

He had lived at Stratton Strawless since 1987 and was married for 67 years to Janet, a former nursery school headteacher in Norwich, who survives him. 

A graduate of Oxford University, Alwyn taught history and English in schools and began writing about the Clearances in 1963.

He was fuelled by his sympathy for the displaced Highlanders and his belief that accounts of that period were generally inaccurate and written from the landlords’ perspective.

His work on the subject amounted to one and a half million words spread across five volumes. 

 Two have been published – Clans and Clearance and The Sutherland Clearances – and the remaining three, all fully written, will be brought out in due course.

Alwyn was born in 1928 in rural Canada, where his father was a Methodist minister.

The family returned to England just before Alwyn’s fourth birthday but his recollection of those early years in North America remained crystal clear throughout his life, even though he never returned there.

His father’s work led to a peripatetic childhood in which Alwyn attended four primary and five secondary schools in various parts of the country.

He lived in London during the Second World War, once having to move from the school hall to the basement halfway through an exam when an air-raid siren sounded.

A talented violinist, Alwyn rejected an offer to join the National Youth Orchestra, preferring to follow a path to university, but first he was required to undertake National Service.

For this, he chose to work in a coal mine in south Wales, a romantic notion in which he followed a path trodden by his ancestors, but he would later question his decision, not least when cheating death by seconds as a ceiling collapsed in a passage through which he had just walked. 

 After leaving Oxford he became a barrister but soon opted for teaching instead.

He left London to start a family in Lowestoft, where he and Janet became regulars at the Seagull Theatre.

In 1982, shortly before playing the part of Don John in Much Ado About Nothing, Alwyn took the theatrical exhortation to “break a leg” too seriously and had to portray the villainous character in plaster and with a limp.

After moving to Norfolk he and Janet joined the Sewell Barn, where he never passed up the chance to play the fiddle in a production.

He performed in – among other plays – Coriolanus, The Government Inspector, The Merry Wives of Windsor and Under Milk Wood.

The last of those, Dylan Thomas’s Welsh classic, underlined Alwyn’s proficiency for speaking in different accents, an ability he acquired, he said, through necessity as a child in order to fit in at new schools as he moved around the country.

He also made a couple of appearances at the Maddermarket, particularly enjoying his role in Guys and Dolls.

Although he focused on Scotland, Alwyn was also a keen student of Norfolk history and for two years from 1990 appeared each week on Keith Skipper’s Radio Norfolk lunchtime show in the Bran Tub feature. 

A village would be drawn at random and Alwyn would visit its inhabitants and buildings to discover its past and report his findings on returning to the studio.

Alwyn had two children, Bob and Bill, and five grandchildren: Robert, Barnaby, Arthur, Josh and Hannah. 

Articles

Nov 1949: Raw Recruits

Feb 1950: War Propaganda, Past and Present

Jun 1950: The Class Struggle

Apr 1952: The Jamaica Plan for World Peace

Aug 1953: Kenya and Berlin

Sep 1953: Who are the Victors in Korea?

May 1956: Workers' Paradise (Cartoon)

Jun 1956: Don't Be Sidetracked By Automation (Cartoon)

Feb 1959: How Labour Helps Capitalism

Apr 1959: The Church's One Foundation

Jul 1959: The Politics of Hate (Cartoon)

Oct 1959: The Use of
 the Vote (Cartoon)

Jul 1960: Hagerty in Tokio

May 1963: Property-owning democracy

Sep 1967: Primitive Accumulation

Apr 1978: Natural and Supernatural

Nov 1978: Race—having it both ways

Oct 1979: Mountbatten: ruling class casualty

Jan 1980: The seventies

Jun 1980: Tito and Balkan Capitalism

Jul 1980: Carter, Reagan and the Cargo Cult

Jun 1982: Messages in the Media

Mar 1993: The Politics of Fire

Feb 1995: It's a bloody lottery!

Nov 1999: Overlords and underlings

Nov 2000: Oscar Wilde and Socialism

Apr 2003: Quiz – Ten questions to answer

Jun 2003: News from the madhouse

Aug 2003: News from the madhouse

Sep 2003: Violence at School: Contradictions in the classroom 

Oct 2003: Capitalism, war and atrocity

May 2004: Labour and the reform of capitalism

Jan 2007: Iraq in Chaos

Jul 2007: The Hanging Gardens of Bombay

Jul 2007: The Haves and the Have-Yachts

Jun 2008: Las Vegas and the environment

Mar 2009: Boom, boom Brown

Apr 2009: Northern Ireland: a return to violence?

Jan 2010: Horror-Scope for Non-Socialists

Feb 2010: Christmas bombers

May 2010: Puppets on a string

Oct 2010: Aliens (Short story)

Dec 2010: All in it together?

Jan 2011: A mining incident

Dec 2011: Rouble-makers - Part 1

Jan 2012: Rouble-makers - Part 2

Feb 2012: Death of a Dictator

Apr 2012: Syria: Bashar Lives Up to His Name

Apr 2012: The Titanic: A Member Writes . . .

Aug 2013: An Unlikely Story (Short story)

Dec 2013: By The Way

Apr 2016: Tony Blair – Big Business, Big Dictators, Big Money 

May 2016: The Panama Papers: All in it Together

Aug 2016: Why Do We Behave As We Do?

Nov 2016: Where is Everybody?

Dec 2016: The Last Trump?

Jan 2018: Burns Night

Book Reviews

Oct 1960: Ten Blind Leaders of the Blind by Arthur M. Lewis

Nov 1960: The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell

Dec 1960: Thinking to Some Purpose by L. Susan Stebbing

Jan 1961: The Soul of Man under Socialism by Oscar Wilde

Jun 1961: The Waste Makers by Vance Packard

The Passing Comments columns

Jul 1950: Visit to Malaya

Aug 1950: The City

Dec 1950: China

Mar 1951: Why we don’t get the coal

Apr 1951: Tito

Jul 1951: General Election

Aug 1951: Reformists

Sep 1951: Mutual Admiration Society

Oct 1951: Unsolicited Testimonial to Mr. Gaitskell

Mar 1952: Aggression

The Passing Show columns

Sep 1952: Houses

Oct 1952: The Eternal Triangle

Dec 1952: Vote for Tallulah

Apr 1953: Ready-made argument

Jun 1953: Hay while the Sun Shines

Jul 1953: Indo-China

Mar 1956: Declaration of Washington

Apr 1956: I hire 'em, I fire’em

May 1956: Success . . . .

Jun 1956: The last days of Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen

Jul 1956: Cat out of the bag

Aug 1956: The Vanguard

Nov 1958: ’Ardies’ ’At

Dec 1958: Time and Money

Jan 1959: The Optimists

Mar 1959: Misrepresentation

Apr 1959: Another Colonial Plot

May 1959: The Cart Before The Horse

Jun 1959: Hand in hand

Jul 1959: National Anthems

Aug 1959: Gallant Christian Gentleman

Sep 1959: The Devlin Report

Oct 1959: The BMC Strike

Nov 1959: Change of Mood

Dec 1959: Well-being Promoters, Ltd.

Jan 1960: Churchill at Omdurman

Feb 1960: Fifth Column

Mar 1960: African Edition

Apr 1960: No excuse for less work

May 1960: South African Revolution

Jun 1960: Concentration Camps

Jul 1960: South African Realities

Aug 1960: The Truth about the Arandora Star 

Sep 1960: Labour rebels

Oct 1960: Bare-faced Cheek

Nov 1960: Violence

Dec 1960: Freedom of the Press

Jan 1961: The fruits of leisure

Feb 1961: The Congo

Apr 1961: As such

May 1961: To guard the country

Jun 1961: Russian "Socialism"

Jul 1961: Democracy

Aug 1961: Public Opinion

Sep 1961: From the top

Oct 1961: No paradise

Dec 1961: Ghana Visit

Jan 1962: What it Means

Feb 1962: Goa

Mar 1962: Accidents

Apr 1962: Class co-operation

May 1962: Bill Sikes

Jun 1962: Censured

Jul 1962: Agitators

Aug 1962: The pace-makers

Sep 1962: The Psychologist

Oct 1962: The Wall

Nov 1962: Details

Dec 1962: Ambition

Feb 1963: The Aucas

Mar 1963: Implication

Apr 1963: Aggrieved

Aug 1963: Mr. Wilson on class

The Diary of a Capitalist columns

Apr 1978: Rolls-Royce

Aug 1978: Living the high life at Claridge's

Nov 1978: Christmas for the Super-rich.

Dec 1978: Princess Anne

Jan 1979: World cruises

Mar 1979: The British Super-rich

Jul 1979: British Landed Aristocracy

Nov 1989: Martin Edwards and Manchester United

Dec 1989: Shelter and homelessness

Jan 1990: The resignation of Nigel Lawson