SPGB Meetings (1966)

Party News from the March 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1974)

Party News from the February 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Notes:

• 'S. Stefen' was the pen-name/party name of Stephen Shenfield.
• Howard Weaver's obituary was posted elsewhere on the blog.
• Stephen Bodington was the author of the 1973 book, Computers and Socialism. He was associated with the Labour Left.

SPGB Meetings (1972)

Party News from the October 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1973)

Party News from the October 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

Obituary: Jim Fleming (2022)

Obituary from the April 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is with sadness that Glasgow branch has to announce the death of James Fleming on January 30th at the age of 85. James – Jim to his friends – was born in Glasgow’s Rottenrow hospital on the second of September 1936. He lived with his parents in a one room rat-infested flat with an outside toilet shared with 17 other neighbours in the Maryhill district. He attended the local school where he excelled at art his favourite subject. He was also proficient enough to be selected for the school football team where, coincidentally, the goalkeeper was Dick Donnelly, a future comrade in the SPGB. Also in the team was Bertie Auld, who would achieve legendary football status as a member of the Celtic team which in 1967 was the first British club to win the European Cup. Rubbing shoulders with famous personalities would be a constant throughout Jim’s life.

Jim was introduced to politics at a young age by his parents who would take him along to the Glasgow Workers' Open Forum where people of different political persuasions would participate in heated debates. One of Jim’s fondest memories was of his father straining to read Capital by the light of a candle. His father was an accomplished accordion player who would entertain their neighbours who would cram into their tiny home during air-raids. As a railway employee, his father was tasked with overseeing a group of Italian prisoners of war put to work on the rail tracks, during which he would sneak them away to their home where Jim’s mother would share their meagre rations.

Jim’s first job at the age of 15 was in a hat shop in Glasgow’s Buchanan St where on one occasion he was instructed to accompany a customer to another hat shop to purchase a hat that was out of stock in Jim’s place of work. The customer was Maurice Chevalier. After the war Jim obtained work at Renfrew Airport as a warehouse boy where he worked really hard eventually attaining the position of Cargo Manager for Glasgow and Manchester airports. As a manager Jim was required in the event of an industrial dispute, to represent the employers as was the case when he found himself seated across the table from the shop steward who incredibly, was also an SPGB member, and who prior to the meeting had been coached by Jim about avoiding saying anything that could be interpreted as weakness. The union won the day.

Jim had innumerable flights during his 40 year career but undoubtedly the most memorable resulted from a last minute memo requiring representation at a meeting scheduled for later that day in New York which would be an impossibility by a conventional flight. His boss had other ideas and Jim found himself aboard Concorde arriving at the venue just as the meeting was about to commence.

After coming into contact with the SPGB he became a member in October 1961. A very capable speaker, Jim had an uncanny knack of exerting a calming influence on any belligerent member of the audience who took exception to being referred to as a wage slave. However, on one occasion when speaking in Paisley, his ability was ineffective with one man who threatened him with violence before departing and then reappearing, brandishing a discarded empty milk bottle which he smashed against a wall before rushing the platform, then realising that all he was holding was the neck of the bottle. He then bolted. Jim returned to Glasgow to meet up with the other members in the Horseshoe bar after they had concluded their meeting in Royal Exchange Square. He related the bottle tale which was met with much hilarity, including from the one non-member who had attended previous meetings and had been invited to join the members in the pub – Billy Connolly, who in a later album told a tale about being threatened by a drunk guy with a beer bottle which he smashed…

Jim was still active, attending branch meetings until Covid struck. Away from the Party, his main activities were golf, ballroom dancing, and walking, which he continued as long as he was physically able. We extend our heartfelt condolences to his children, Peter, Kirstyn and Karl.

A.Mc.N.

Party News (1994)

Party News from the July 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

On Sunday 12 June a social was held in London at the Mucky Duck pub. Fetter Lane, in the City to mark the 90th anniversary of the Socialist Party.

Ninety years previously, also on a Sunday, 137 working men and women, from the London area, many of them active trade-unionists had met at the Printers’ Hall, Bartlett’s Passage, and had founded a new political organisation, the Socialist Party of Great Britain. Most had been members of the Social Democratic Federation, which had pioneered the propagation of Marxian ideas in Britain, but had either been expelled for opposing its reformist practices and its lack of internal democracy or had left in disgust at this.

They adopted an object ("the establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community") and a declaration of principles which remains the basis of the Socialist Party to this day. These committed the party to pursuing the sole aim of socialism and to not advocating reforms to capitalism as well as to organising democratically without leaders to pursue this aim.

The members present at the social visited Bartlett’s Passage (the Printers’ Hall, together with the rest of the area, was flattened in a bombing raid during the last world war), next to the pub. where they heard a short historical account of the founding of the party.

The social had a second purpose, and that was to mark the end of the most ambitious election campaign ever undertaken by the Socialist Party. Four candidates were put up for the European Parliament and over one million leaflets distributed to voters by the Post Office. The elections were won by abstentionists who outnumbered voters by nearly two-to-one. Nevertheless, a total of 5,324 voted for a society based on equality, cooperation and meeting people’s needs and no to a society based on profit, privilege and competition.

The full results in the four scats we contested were:

BIRMINGHAM EAST

Abstentions 365,743, Crawley (Lab) 90,291, Turner (Con) 35,171, Cane (LD) 19,455, Simpson (Green) 6,268, Cook (Soc) 1,969, Brierley (NLP) 1,885.

GLASGOW

Abstentions 303,698, Miller (Lab) 83,953. Chalmers (SNP) 40,795, Sheridan (Militant) 12,113, Wilkinson (Con) 10,888, Money (LD) 7,291, O’Brien (Green) 2,252, Fleming (Soc) 1,125, Wilkinson (NLP) 868, Marsden (ICP) 381.

LONDON CENTRAL

Abstentions 333,516, Newens (Lab)75,711, Elliott (Con) 50,652, Ludford (LD) 20,176, Kortvelyessy (Green) 7,043, Le Fanu (UKInd) 4,157, Slapper (Soc) 1,593, Hamza (NLP) 1,215, Weiss (Rainbow) 547.

LOTHIANS

Abstentions 319.393, Martin (Lab)90,531, Brown (SNP) 53,324, McNally (Con) 33,526, Campbell (LD) 17,883, Harper (Green) 5,149, McGregor (Soc) 637, Siebert (NLP) 500.

Scottish Parliament Elections: Glasgow (1999)

Party News from the April 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

No to Holyrood, No to Westminister, Yes to World Socialism

Holyrood Hysteria

The press and television are screaming at us about the importance of this first Scottish Parliamentary election.

“The most important event of the century . . . ”

“A moment of destiny that will change all our lives for ever.”

It’s all nonsense of course. The day after the election we will find that it is business as usual.

Men and women of the working class will return to the office, the factory or the hospital where we work for a wage or a salary. That is those of us “lucky” enough to have a job. The same round of work, insecurity and poverty will continue irrespective of the make-up of the new parliament in Edinburgh.

Why We Are Standing

THE SOCIALIST PARTY is taking this opportunity to reach out to as many workers as possible. We are not after your unthinking support. We do not want your vote unless you understand that the present system of society—capitalism—cannot be made to run in the interests of the majority.

We want you to consider an alternative society to the present production for profit rat-race that is capitalism. We want you to look at present-day society and ask yourself: does it operate in your and your family’s interest?

Let’s look at this society and see how it operates against the majority and only favours a tiny handful of wealthy owners.

The Present Rat-Race

The whole purpose of producing anything today is to sell it and make a profit. No profit, then no production. That is why so many live in sub-standard housing while building workers are unemployed. That is why people throughout the world are undernourished while farmers are paid not to grow food.

Production for profit means that the world is armed to the teeth. Billions are spent on armies, the whole purpose of which is to protect markets, trade routes and sources of raw material.

Wars are inevitable under capitalism. Capitalism is based on competition, and the logical outcome of global competition is military violence.

Our Opponents 

At this election you have a wide choices of parties. Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Labour, Nationalist, Green, even some calling themselves “socialists”.

There are many differences in their policies, but what have they all got in common? They want your vote on the basis that they could run the system better or more fairly. Despite their differences they all want to run the buying and selling system of capitalism, and this applies as much to the “left” as the out and out supporters of capitalism.

This system is based on the production of all wealth by the working class for a wage or salary. The owning class live off the unpaid labour of the working class.

To talk of “fairer” capitalism is like talking of “fairer” robbery.

What Is To Be Done?

As capitalism cannot work in the interest of the majority, it must go. It must be replaced by a new society based on common ownership and democratic control. There must be production to meet people’s needs instead of production for profit. We must all be free to take what we require to satisfy our needs, without being rationed as today by the size of our wage packet or giro cheque.

This new society can only come about when a majority want it and are determined to get it. Nobody can bring it about for you.

So it’s up to you, not the politicians. The future is in your hands, not theirs.

If you agree with the aims of THE SOCIALIST PARTY you will vote for our list, if you are interested in the ideas of socialism you will contact us.

About Ourselves 

THE SOCIALIST PARTY was formed in 1904 with only one object: the abolition of the wages system and the establishment of a society based on common ownership and democratic control.

As part of the world socialism movement, we want a democratic world without frontiers or separate “nation-states”.

We campaign to get workers to say no to a society based on profit, privilege and competition and yes to a society based on equality, cooperation and meeting people’s needs.

THE CANDIDATES ON OUR LIST ARE: Hugh Armstrong, Richard Donnelly, James Fleming, James Robertson, William Ross, Henrietta Vallar, Victor Vanni.

Go for a million update (1993)

Party News from the December 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our plans to contest four seats in next June’s elections to the European Parliament are well advanced. The candidates have now been chosen and we are preparing the information pack to be sent to the thousands of replies expected to the million leaflets that will be distributed by the Post Office.

The four Socialist prospective candidates are Ron Cook (Birmingham East), Jim Fleming (Glasgow), Clifford Slapper (London Central) and Brian Gardner (Lothians).

Those replying to our leaflet will be sent a socialist information pack containing a special issue of the Socialist Standard and leaflets on particular subjects as well as a personalized covering letter. This will be the main work of the campaign and will be organized at our Head Office in London. The plan is to have a team of up to twenty people working there over the election period and immediately after. If you would be available to help over this period in London (last week in May to third week in June) by opening letters, answering the phone, keying in names and addresses, and putting the information packs into envelopes, please get in touch with us.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all those readers, members and sympathizers, both here and abroad, who have contributed to our Election Fund. We are well on the way to achieving our target of at least £20,000. At the time of writing (mid-November) the amount paid into or pledged to our Election Fund stood at £14,883. So we still need a further £5,000

If you want to help finance this biggest ever campaign to get Socialist ideas across and have not yet contributed you can do so by sending a cheque or postal order (made payable to the "Socialist Party of Great Britain") to Election Fund, 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN.