Proper Gander: Lights . . . Camera . . . Political Action? (2024)

The Proper Gander TV column from the February 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

The response to Mr Bates vs The Post Office was a surprise reminder that TV programmes can still have an impact, even with so much else on our screens competing for our attention. The four-part series shown on ITV dramatised the campaign by ex-Post Office staff against their convictions for theft, fraud and false accounting. Between 1999 and 2015, hundreds of sub-postmasters were prosecuted, with thousands more suspected of fiddling their accounts. Consequently, many lost their homes as well as their jobs, fell into debt and some ended their own lives because of the pressure. Their convictions were based on discrepancies and shortfalls recorded on their Post Office branch’s accounting software, Horizon. When some sub-postmasters realised there was a pattern of innocent people being convicted, they grouped together and formed The Justice For Sub-postmasters Alliance to co-ordinate their campaign. In 2019, England’s High Court ruled that the Horizon system was faulty, acknowledging the real source of the accounting discrepancies. So far, only 93 sub-postmasters have had their convictions overturned. In 2020 the government established a public inquiry which was ongoing while Mr Bates vs The Post Office was being broadcast.

Toby Jones portrays Alan Bates, who founded the campaign group and persistently worked to persuade lawyers and MPs that the convictions were unjust. The story is one of ‘skint, little people’ as Alan says, who found themselves victimised by the rules, procedures and economic prerogatives of powerful institutions, and who are fighting back. The Post Office is represented and defended by then-Chief Executive Paula Vennells and Head of Partnerships Angela van den Bogerd, both played as shifty and conspiratorial. The IT company behind Horizon, Fujitsu, is depicted as a cold, shadowy institution, but perhaps with less emphasis than might be expected. While the drama ends with a call for the government to take more responsibility, it puts Conservatives such as James Arbuthnot and Nadhim Zahawi (who appears as himself) in a very good light. Blame is placed on the Post Office rather than the economic and legal framework which allowed for the whole situation.

While Mr Bates vs The Post Office has raised awareness of the scandal beyond its 10 million viewers, it has been reported extensively before. Problems with the Horizon system were first highlighted in 2009 by Computer Weekly magazine, which has since published hundreds more articles, alongside investigations by Private Eye, Panorama (see Proper Gander June 2022) and journalist Nick Wallis, whose 2021 book The Great Post Office Scandal was serialised in the Daily Mail. The issue has been in the background for years, but Mr Bates vs The Post Office has managed to give it unprecedented attention. After its episodes were first screened in early January, a different angle on the topic was reported on news media each day: the way that suspects were interrogated, the millions paid to Fujitsu, the petition to strip Paula Vennells of her CBE, new legislation to quash the convictions, and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak supporting a knighthood for Alan Bates.

Why has it taken Mr Bates vs The Post Office, rather than any of the previous exposés, to galvanise this action? As Marshall McLuhan said, ‘the medium is the message’, and the docudrama format of Mr Bates vs The Post Office enables it to have more of an impact than a straightforward documentary or written article. All these formats are interpretations of research into what happened, with the difference between them being in how this research is presented. In re-enacting what happened, a docudrama can employ the techniques used in filmed drama to engage the viewer. Dialogue is carefully chosen by the writer and rehearsed by the actor, often working with the real people being portrayed. Scenes are lit, filmed, scored and edited in ways intended to draw in the viewer to how the producers want the story to be told. When this is done proficiently, the re-creation of an event can have more of an emotional impact than being told about those events or even watching real footage. This gives docudramas an advantage in making the viewer feel emotionally invested in an issue, which is needed to fuel any political action. Only knowing that something is wrong or needs changing isn’t enough.

Previous docudramas have succeeded in shaping prevailing attitudes to events. The most well-known remains 1966’s Cathy Come Home, which showed a family becoming homeless and then being further persecuted by the state machinery and lack of adequate support services. The script was based on thorough research and largely filmed on location (a rarity at the time) with hand-held cameras and improvisation, giving additional authenticity. While Cathy Come Home drew attention to homelessness and led to the formation of the charity Crisis, the only reform to legislation it prompted was to allow husbands to stay with their wives and children in homeless hostels. As for wider change, director Ken Loach said that the film hasn’t achieved this: ‘it all gets smothered in this bear-hug of approbation, so that the energy of it is dissipated’ (tinyurl.com/3uasacat). A docudrama which had a particular impact on policy was The Day After, broadcast in America during 1983. This prediction of what a third world war would be like convinced then-president Ronald Reagan to pull back on nuclear proliferation. Hillsborough, shown on ITV in 1996, took a different approach to these by portraying real people, as does Mr Bates vs The Post Office. Hillsborough dramatised the campaign by the families of those who died during the Sheffield Wednesday football disaster to overturn the official verdicts of accidental death. When the deaths were instead ruled unlawful in 2016, MP Steve Rotheram stated the docudrama was ‘massively influential’ in the outcome (tinyurl.com/yeyucap4).

The momentum generated for a couple of weeks in January by Mr Bates vs The Post Office looks like it will speed up a resolution for the sub-postmasters which will hopefully improve their situations. However, the government’s apparent enthusiasm for the convictions to be overturned is perhaps due more to them wanting to attract support in a general election year than to them being concerned that the campaign will develop further if they don’t take action. Still, Mr Bates vs The Post Office has reminded us that TV has some strength, especially in the format of a docudrama, and the programme also optimistically shows how people driven by a common cause can self-organise and co-operate.

Mike Foster

Blogger's Note:

Correction from the March 2024 Socialist Standard

February's Proper Gander (print version) stated that Shelter was founded as a result of Cathy Come Home. The programme in fact inspired the creation of the charity Crisis. Apologies.

Meanwhile in Barnsley (2019)

From the September 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

Washington DC was preparing for its bombastic military parade. It seems the US president had been inspired by his new friend in Pyongyang. Meanwhile, a few thousand miles to the east, another more modest, though worthwhile, procession took place through the streets of Hoyland Common, Barnsley.

Led by a brass band an invited group walked from the Saville Square pub where they’d assembled along a short route to an unassuming terraced house. The occasion was the unveiling of a blue plaque honouring Barry Hines, the author of A Kestrel for a Knave. Written in the 1960s, it became the film Kes directed by Ken Loach who took part in this event.

The honour of unveiling the plaque fell to Barry’s surviving brother who delivered a short speech about how the son of a South Yorkshire miner came to write the book that made his name. Speeches concluded and, following a final couple of tunes, instruments returned to their cases, it was time to return to the Saville Square for lunch.

In the foyer of the pub stood a full-size fibreglass version of the bronze statue, sculpted by Graham Ibbeson, which is to stand in Barnsley in Barry Hines’ honour. The money for this has been raised through a vigorous funding campaign led by Ronnie Steele and a dedicated group of volunteers. Beginning in January 2018, through a mix of crowd funding, the sale of bronze maquettes and live public performances by an eclectic mix of musicians, the statue has been cast and paid for.

It depicts the central character of the story, young Billy Casper, his arm extended with the kestrel perched on his hand. It presently stands in Barnsley’s new library, but the group intend that eventually it will stand on a plinth outside for all to see. Ronnie Steele gave a brief speech of thanks to all involved before declaring the buffet open. While people ate there were songs by performers Dave Cherry and Del Scott Millar, and Celtic-style traditional music by Barnsdale Hood.

There are a few political points to be drawn from this event. Common arguments against socialism are that people will not work for free and, as people are naturally greedy, free access to resources will result in people taking far more than they need.

The many, actually uncounted, hours of often quite tedious work by Ronnie Steele and his group to organise the campaign and events was entirely voluntary. The performers who gave their time to play at those events did so unpaid. All they required was a shared objective.

The buffet itself was greatly over-catered. However, people did not eat more than they wanted, each more than capable of deciding when enough was sufficient and then stopping. People had to be almost pleaded with to take remaining food away and then no one scooped up armfuls. Just a paper plate or two for family or friends who would appreciate the largesse.

And this is very much in the context of capitalism where selfish individualism is supposedly the driving force behind how people act. While this is not socialism of itself, it is a glimpse of possibility, that people without state or company direction can organise and act in a social way.

The world of mining communities as depicted by Barry Hines has gone, but the potential of the working class remains, if still largely untapped.

Dave Alton

Proper Gander (at the movies): The Benefits Trap (2017)

The Proper Gander Column from the January 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

Film Review: 'I, Daniel Blake' director Ken Loach

The most important film of 2016 was undoubtedly Ken Loach’s passionate response to the government’s austerity measures, I, Daniel Blake. The eponymous main character (played by stand-up comedian Dave Johns) is a 59 year-old joiner living in Newcastle. The story begins with Daniel recovering from a heart attack. His GP has judged him not fit to work, and has signed the ‘med 3’ form (used to be nicknamed a ‘sick note’, now renamed in doublespeak as a ‘fit note’) he needs to claim Employment and Support Allowance sickness benefit. However, at the ‘work capability assessment’ which claimants have to undertake to continue to be paid, he is judged to have enough capacity to find work. Perversely, this decision by a ‘healthcare professional’ trumps that of the GP. So, Daniel (almost literally) half-heartedly looks for employment, but feels unable to accept jobs because of his GP’s advice. He makes a claim for Jobseeker’s Allowance, but struggles with the procedures for looking for vacancies online. In the job centre, Daniel meets Katie, who with her young children has been relocated from a homeless hostel in London to a flat in Newcastle. She is claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance, but her claim gets suspended (or ‘sanctioned’) because she’s late for an appointment. Without an income, she is forced to instead turn to prostitution and food banks.

The script was researched with the assistance of Department for Work and Pensions employees, who remain anonymous in the credits for fear of losing their jobs. The film doesn’t dwell on the reports of job centre workers having targets for the numbers of claimants they sanction, although it features staff being told off by a manager for being helpful. Other details in the film are familiar to anyone who’s tried to navigate the benefits system, such as the questions in the work capability assessment: ‘can you raise either arm as if to put something in your top pocket?’. Similarly accurate is the music heard when Daniel inevitably gets placed on hold when phoning the benefits office. What would Vivaldi think now if he knew that was the use to which his Spring would be put?

I, Daniel Blake has had a wider impact than Loach’s recent films. In November, the film’s pivotal scene of a spray-paint protest was played out for real when the words ‘I, Daniel Blake’ appeared on the wall of Exeter job centre. In a Prime Minister’s Question Time session, Jeremy Corbyn suggested that Theresa May should watch it when he was criticising the ‘institutionalised barbarity’ of the benefits system in relation to unwell claimants. Someone who hadn’t seen the film was Damian Green, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, who nevertheless felt able to describe it as ‘monstrously unfair’. One of his predecessors – Iain Duncan Smith said ‘The film has taken the very worst of anything that can ever happen to anybody, lumped it all together and then say ‘absolutely, this is life as it is lived by people’. And I don’t believe that’. A DWP spokesperson chipped in with ‘This film is one person’s artistic interpretation of the benefits system. … It is a work of fiction, not a documentary’.

Loach has said that he finds politicians criticising the film ‘predictable’. In a comment to the Press Association, he said ‘If they don’t know what they are doing to people they are incompetent and shouldn’t be in government. If they do know what they are doing then they are not fit to be in government.’ Elsewhere, Loach has criticised the Tories for the ‘conscious cruelty’ of the benefits system. He’s a fan of Corbyn, but isn’t a member of the Labour Party, having previously backed Left Unity before it was eclipsed by Labour’s shift leftwards. He still calls Labour ‘the party of the working class’. While Loach may be a left-wing reformist, his film doesn’t openly advocate reforms to the benefits system. Instead, it shows the bureaucratic trap where many people too unwell for work fall (being unable to fall into the other trap of employment), and allows us to draw our own conclusions. The film is likely to reinforce the views of those who back reformism, but could equally be interpreted as illustrating how the whole system of which the welfare state is a part is unworkable. Once he has to rely on the benefits system, Daniel finds that it’s not really there to benefit him, and its rules and procedures seem designed to make it harder to maintain a claim.

At the age of 80, Ken Loach has lost none of the anger at how capitalism affects people which his previous films have expressed. I, Daniel Blake takes elements from his previous work, such as the title echoing that of My Name Is Joe, his 1998 film about a recovering alcoholic. And he hired a stand-up comedian to play the lead role, as he had with casting Chrissie Rock as a victim of domestic abuse in 1994’s Ladybird, Ladybird. Most obviously, I, Daniel Blake shares its target with Cathy Come Home (1966), both criticising the failings of the welfare state, and both having an impact beyond the screen. Loach himself has said that it’s ‘shocking’ he’s made a film in a similar vein to Cathy Come Home fifty years on.

Mike Foster

Cathy — no home to go to (1970)

From the November 1970 issue of the Socialist Standard

Cathy — shall we ever forget — was the fair, slim, lovely young girl whose family and life were wrecked simply because they could not find a home. They went from one hopeless situation to another, from verminous slum to wet tent to reception centre. She was parted from her husband and then from the last of her children. In the end she stood by the roadside with the passing lamps of the lorries playing across her face. She was going home, back the way she had come.

The play was an instant success, owing nothing to the fact that it was the work of an ex-Etonian. There were one or two rather half-hearted attempts to debunk it but the author had got in first; all the incidents in the play, it was announced at the beginning, had happened, in London, during the previous year. This was reality. Shocked, everyone agreed; something must be done about the homeless.

That was several years ago. Since then, there have been countless promises and schemes to deal with the problem. Statistics have been computed, weighted, published. Speeches galore have been made and applauded. And last month the latest figures came out. in the annual report of the grandly titled Department of Health and Social Security.

That name in itself sounds enough to assure us all that health and security arc in good hands, that there is actually a department full of civil servants with higher civil servants at the head and a Minister of the Crown over them all to make sure that we are all healthy and secure. Surely, with such an army of talent and diligence to serve us, a little matter like the homeless would simply wither away?

As a matter of fact, this latest report includes a special write-up on the homeless, commissioned by Richard Crossman when he was at the head of the Department and before the electorate decided that they were so dissatisfied with the way the Labour government were dealing with these matters of health, security and so on that they would try the Tories again. And this write-up indicates that the late government have been less than successful in this field, where they made so much political capital while the Tories were last in power.

The report said that in 1969 20,820 people lived in emergency accommodation. In 1967 the figure was 16,176. which means that during the past two years the numbers of homeless people have risen by one third. Even a government like Wilson's, which was constantly nagging about increasing production, must feel proud at such a steep rise in that particular field of production, even if it is the production of misery.

It is bad enough to contemplate the rise in the homeless. What is worse is to do so against the background of the political manipulation which goes on, the pledges which are given and the idea which all the capitalist parties put about, that the problem can be cleared up simply by carrying out one or two policies which are to be found in their programmes. On housing, there seems no end to the politicians’ cynicism.

In the 1966 election, the Labour Party programme said that their first priority was houses. Note that: their first priority. They intended to achieve a target of 500,000 houses a year by 1969/ 70, and then to go on to higher levels still. Three months later, in June 1966, the Ministry of Housing were admitting that the present target of 400,000 a year could not be met and by the end of the year there had been what the Daily Telegraph called a “drastic” fall in house building. (At the same time, despite all those homeless, the builders were complaining about a fall-off in demand).

The same month these figures were announced, saw the launch of Shelter, heralded with a procession of grim statistics: three million families in Britain in slums, near slums or in grossly overcrowded conditions; in Glasgow 100,000 unfit houses, in Liverpool 73,733; a waiting list in London of 150,000 families, in Birmingham 38,000. This, apparently, was a fall-off in demand.

Nevertheless, the Labour government bounced back. The very next month blunt Bob Mellish, who won a reputation for straight speaking because he was MP for a dockers’ constituency and who was at that time Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing, lashed out with his own figures. He claimed a big advance in tackling the housing problem and audaciously predicted that London’s slums would be eradicated by 1972. Of course, at that time the Labour Party were rather worried about their chances in the elections to the GLC which were looming over an unpromising horizon but bluff Bob was too honest to be diverted by such considerations, wasn’t he?

About fourteen months later, in May 1968, Mellish’s Minister, Anthony Greenwood, enlarged on his claim. Perhaps, since Greenwood was a higher Minister than Mellish he thought it only right that he should be rather more ambitious. At any rate, he was not content to think just of London’s housing; he talked about ending the entire housing shortage “in about five years’ time”. He even went as far as to mention a surplus of housing, although he also said that nobody could forecast what the demand (that word again) would be in the 1970’s.

This startlingly confident approach was obviously considered a winner by the Labour government who, following Wilson’s dictum that in politics a week is a long time, must have thrilled to think how much longer is five years. In February 1969 Kenneth Robinson, who held the grand title of Minister of Planning and Land, coolly repeated the Greenwood line in the Commons:

By 1973 we should have a margin of about one million more houses than households. That should be just about enough nationally to give us the 5 per cent we want for mobility of labour and orderly working of the housing market. The national housing shortage should then be over . . .

One wonders what those builders, preoccupied with their visions of falling demand, thought about all this cheery talk of a surplus. Perhaps, keeping their heads like solid business men, they knew that it was all politicians’ blather. When the figures for 1969 housing came out. in January of this year, they showed a slump in the construction of new homes to 366,793 — the lowest total since the bad Tory days of 1963. Somehow, Greenwood could not bring himself once again to talk about ending the shortage; he fell back on the old Labour sport of Tory-bashing. “In the last five years,” he said, “there have been five houses built for every four built in the last five years of the previous government.” Which was not, probably, a remark which helped Labour win the last election.

And that brings us to the last batch of manifestoes, and the promises in them, again, to end the housing shortage. Labour’s are for the moment irrelevant; the Tories said that they will

. . . house the homeless . . . concentrate on slum clearance and . . . provide better housing for those many families living without modern amenities.

Good enough to warrant a standing ovation at a Tory conference, but in reality worth no more than all the other, similar pledges made before. (The Tory programme also said that the problem of the homeless “. . . is concealed by unrealistic official statistics. We will lay down a more sensible definition . . " That must have got past the censor.)

And that brings us to the present, and to the latest figures of homeless. One criticism which was made of Cathy Come Home was that Cathy and her husband were such nice, good-looking, intelligent people that they did not represent a homeless family, who are usually of the more inadequate, lower paid variety of worker. There may be some point in this, but if there is it only highlights the fact that housing difficulties are part of a poverty problem and that the deeper the poverty the worse the housing situation.

Poverty is ineradicable under capitalism but the system’s leaders can never admit their impotence to deal with it. They must go on. with their promises and their assertions and their programmes. Meanwhile, the harsh reality remains. This is what Enoch Powell, who sometimes comes uncomfortably near the truth for the peace of mind of his fellow-misleaders, once said about it all:

For fifty years we — my brother politicians — have practised in regard to housing the oldest and cruellest of all the deceptions which politicians practise on their victims — to persuade them that we will make a thing cheap and plentiful for them by holding down the price of it by force. (The Guardian, 29 November 1968)

“Cruel . . . deception . . . victims . . .” What words to use, about the work of what is supposed to be an honourable profession. But what other words can be used, about the people who are prepared to lie and cheat to gain some advantage for their particular method of running capitalism, and when they coldly do so knowing that they are playing with the health and the happiness of human beings?

Capitalism has no home for Cathy, only endless misery and despair, with lives broken and all in the name of privilege. We are right to be angry but at the same time we must remember that there is work to be done, to set up the new society of abundance and hope.

Ivan.

A message for Cathy (1990)

From the September 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

Somewhere in the middle of the Byline broadcast 'Cathy Where Are You Now?' (BBC1, 9 July), which was promoted as a sequel to the twenty-year-old documentary drama 'Cathy Come Home', viewers may have heard a familiar lament to the effect that we all "have a right" to a roof over our heads. Let us state at the outset that if there is one essential need among many others that under the capitalist system we have absolutely no right to it is a home. Were it otherwise none of us would be without one. Cardboard City could exist only as a sick joke in a tuppenny historical satire. That exploiter of human need, the landlord, would have gone the way of the slave-trader and the witch-burner.

What failed to emerge from the broadcast in any other than an incidental sense is that housing, far from constituting an inalienable right, carries no higher status than that of an entitlement conditional upon the would-be purchaser's having enough money to pay for it. Since most of us are dependent on a wage or salary, what we finally own is not a home, which is the property of the money-lender, but a mortgage. Moreover, as with any other commercially-negotiated loan, it has to be paid for—"serviced", as the euphemism has it—and expensively at that. Mrs Thatcher's "property-owning democracy" is, for most of us, a shadow of a thing, productive of nothing more substantial than nagging worry if not illness and, for a desperate minority, even suicide. That this judgement applies as absolutely to those of us who are buying "our" council houses as to any other house-buyers is axiomatic (Mrs Thatcher’s "gift" of a qualified ownership has already been paid for in rent over the years). Erstwhile council tenants can be—and indeed are being—evicted where they default on their new mortgages.

And what, exactly, have these council tenants been offered? A quick trip round the average council estate should disabuse even the most hostile among the self-styled "middle classes" that its occupants, where they are able or willing to buy, are "getting something for nothing". Built on the cheap, many of these mean ghettos have degenerated into underserviced and infested slums, veritable universities of disaffection and crime, where the policeman enjoys a higher profile than the social worker or the health visitor. The sorry truth is that thousands of council tenants, far from being able to buy their all too basic accommodation, stand in arrears of rent and are in no position to clear their debt.

For many—nowadays a majority—who are obliged to resort to the private market, theirs is in many respects an equally depressing plight. While government ministers juggle cynically with their recurrent financial crises (an endemic feature of the capitalist system they so enthusiastically espouse) house-buyers are finding their mortgage repayments increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to meet. Let borrowers introduce the term “rights" when they next meet their building society manager in yet another effort to renegotiate their loans. Their reward must be, if not the uncomprehending stare, then the patronising smile of the worldly-wise money merchant whose primary purpose is to safeguard the building society's assets, not to provide shelter for the "impecunious".

Skid Row and Cardboard City

In the case of that increasingly large number of erstwhile "proud home-owners" who are forced onto the street, there remain the hotel room and the shared kitchen and lavatory already discovered by so many single parents—usually abandoned young mothers—and their children. A few statistics provided by the Byline programme help to illustrate this growing scandal. In 1966, homeless families in emergency accommodation numbered 4.400; in 1989, that figure had risen to 38,000. In what was described as an average hotel of thirty-six rooms the occupants shared one kitchen bookable in advance, forcing many to resort to the junk food market or to shift for themselves late at night— too late for the children, who had to make do with a stop-gap meal earlier in the evening.

In these circumstances it is hardly surprising that so many homeless people are prepared to risk police and local authority harassment by taking to the road in converted vehicles, or living in tented dwellings. Squatting continues to provide some homeless with a roof but relentless official pressure backed by changes in the law have made this option much more difficult. Such makeshift arrangements as vehicle conversion, fixed of mobile, do at least afford a measure of independence, tenuous though that may prove to be. The long-tolerated experiences of traditional travelling people such as the gypsies, for whom harassment of one kind or another has always been a hazard, are visited upon these more recent and, in many cases, involuntary nomads. Authority in its various manifestations has always and everywhere found it difficult, both socially and politically, to come to terms with those who demonstrate a readiness to break free from its magisterial control. Police harassment. often prejudiced in itself, is in reality a response to any uninformed public resentment which may contain more than a hint of jealousy.

The final depth for all too many, however, has to be the cardboard boxes of Skid Row. During a recent Nick Ross phone-in the Housing Minister, Michael Spicer, was heard earnestly reminding us that Cardboard City is populated by the single homeless male—as if, even were it entirely accurate, this dismal fact constituted an extenuating circumstance for government to cling to as it peddles its miserable excuses. We are now informed that the government will commit fifteen million pounds to the task of clearing city pavements of their down-and-outs. That this is cosmetic—mere political opportunism—is searingly obvious. What an advertisement for "popular capitalism" in Britain, one of the world's richest countries (but rich for whom, one wonders?) that visitors to London should have to run the gauntlet of the cardboard squats of the moneyless and jobless as they negotiate the precincts of the concert halls, bridges and underpasses of the capital city. Why. even poor old Mother Theresa confessed to shock. So they'll find a barracks for them and then amend the law to prevent them from returning to be stumbled over. Out of sight, out of mind. Charles Dickens would have relished such material: Spicer's ugly cant would have made his mouth water. So what is to be done?

Providing homes no problem

At this point the 'Cathy' follow-up collapsed into bathetic nonsense of the “nobody should have more than one home” variety. "People who are prepared to work hard should be allowed a loan. Security? Why, the house they promise to build, of course”. ‘‘Bricks and mortar should be released for all who want them". ("Released"? There's a euphemism for "sold", if you please!). Nowhere in the broadcast was it even hinted that, were we all to enjoy, as of right, adequate housing the capitalists, who control the building industry would be bankrupted. Abundance in any commodity spells ruin for the profiteers. Prices would plummet and production cease.

Paradoxically, the planet itself is made of building materials. And in this country alone the necessary skills abound. Thousands of building workers are unemployed. The accumulated experience of centuries could be brought to bear on matters—heating and ventilation, for example—that even the Romans could approach with confidence. It could all happen but for one baleful impediment: under capitalism capitalists must capitalise—or perish. This inescapable requirement applies as surely to state capitalist Russia and China as to the mixed economies of Japan and the USA. The money system serves to facilitate what amounts to a form of rationing in the means of life itself. And the misery this entails is allowed to continue in order that a small minority class of parasitical manipulators should be maintained in the life-style to which it is accustomed.

So the only answer to housing deprivation, as to all other such “problems” under the capitalist system, remains unfettered production to meet need (as opposed to profit). Which means the end of capitalism. All of which leads to one unavoidable conclusion: whereas the world's capitalists understand this perfectly clearly, which is why they make—and have always made— such monstrous and unprincipled efforts to conceal the truth from the rest of us, we, the working class, who produce everything, have hardly begun to. Until we do, the Cathys of this world must remain homeless.

Richard Cooper

Proper Gander: Whatever Happened To Political Drama? (2016)

The Proper Gander column from the April 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

The phrase ‘cops ‘n’ frocks’ has been used to sum up the current state of British TV drama, with its lazy reliance on crime (Happy Valley, Silent Witness etc.) and the past (Call The Midwife, Downton Abbey). The range of dramas has narrowed considerably from previous decades, and the idea of televised drama being used to voice radical political ideas or critique social trends is sadly now more old-fashioned than a cathode ray tube.

From the 1960s, many plays found their homes in anthology series, a format which is as obsolete as political drama itself. Theatre 625 (1964–1968) featured dramatisations of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists and works by George Orwell, August Strindberg and Franz Kafka. More widely remembered are The Wednesday Play (1964–1970) and its successor, Play For Today (1970–1984). Their emphasis was on original screenplays rather than adaptations, and therefore they concentrated on more immediate issues which otherwise might not have received much public attention. Around 600 plays were produced in these three BBC series, many of which were lost when their tapes were wiped in the belief that they had exhausted their economic potential. Notable productions include two plays about homelessness written by Jeremy Sandford, who slept rough as part of his research: Cathy Come Home (1966) showed a young family’s downward spiral into homelessness, while Edna The Inebriate Woman (1971) followed a woman’s life on the streets and in hostels, prison and a psychiatric hospital. The Spongers (1978) showed the devastating effects of welfare cuts on services for disabled people. The Black Stuff (1980) by Alan Bleasdale told the story of five Liverpudlian tarmac layers whose struggles with unemployment were subsequently described in its sequel series The Boys From The Blackstuff (1982).

As well as Bleasdale and Sandford, other prominent film-makers included director Ken Loach, producer Tony Garnett and writer Jim Allen. Outside the anthology strands, Loach worked with them on The Rank And File (1971), based on the Pilkington Glass strike which took place in a climate of trade union leaders being seen as too close to a government proposing laws against unofficial strikes, Days Of Hope (1975), which followed a family in the years after the First World War, and The Price Of Coal (1977) about a Yorkshire colliery community.

These plays are remembered as being ‘gritty’, focusing on hardship and aiming for realism by being filmed as if they were documentaries. However, the anthology format allowed for differing styles and messages, and even Ken Loach made an offbeat musical for The Wednesday Play. Other BBC series were thought experiments offering ‘what if…’ scenarios about possible drastic changes to society. Doomwatch (1970–1972) was set in a fictional government department which investigated threats from scientific developments, such as genetic engineering and behaviour modification. Distrust of the notion of scientific progress runs through Doomwatch like words in a stick of rock. ‘Progress’ has connotations of continual improvements, but science exists in a changing political and social context which shapes how it develops. In this series, politicians and scientists are depicted as secretive, self-serving and blinkered, suppressing awareness of unwanted side effects to further their own interests. Survivors (1975–1977) used the starting point of a pandemic wiping out most of the population to explore themes of replacing capitalist institutions, communal living and self-sufficiency. These dramas are less overtly political, perhaps because they aren’t based in real situations. The scenario described in nuclear war dramas The War Game (1965) and Threads (1984) fortunately hasn’t happened either, although these plays clearly criticised real-life government policies about preparing for and supposedly coping with armageddon.

Even children’s programmes occasionally tackled serious matters without talking down to their audience. Noah’s Castle (1980) was set in a near future where rocketing inflation leads to scarcity of basic commodities. The school-based Grange Hill (1978-2008) examined issues such as drug addiction and bullying as well as criticising the effects of funding cuts to education.

By the mid-‘80s, Grange Hill became less vocal about government education policies and Play For Today had had its day. Television drama was no longer a place to consciously voice political ideas, and instead the emphasis shifted to discussing more personal issues through soap operas such as EastEnders and Brookside. Soaps are more about juggling characters’ relationships than ideas, so the format doesn’t lend itself to exploring the impact of political and economic forces.

The mid-‘90s saw the final flowering of political TV drama. By this time, the documentary style of previous decades was going out of fashion, although the sense of anger remained. Cardiac Arrest (1994–1996) was a serial based on the experiences of writer Jed Mercurio when he worked in hospital. He describes a health service where staff have to rely on cynicism and cutting corners to cope with the hierarchies and impossible workloads. Our Friends In The North (1996) was Peter Flannery’s ‘state of the nation’ play, spanning thirty years in the lives of four people shaped by changing housing policy, police corruption and the miners’ strike. The plot of Alan Bleasdale’s GBH (1992) echoed events in the early ‘80s when Militant influenced the Labour Party and Liverpool city council. The other political dramas of the 1990s also had their roots in previous decades; Tony Garnett was an executive producer of Cardiac Arrest, and attempts to bring Our Friends In The North to the screen began since it was performed as a stage play in 1982.

All these plays passionately examine how people with little power or influence react to wider economic and political forces. They tend to be from a left-wing, rather than a revolutionary viewpoint, but still present experiences and situations from which we can draw our own conclusions. Why is television no longer an outlet for this kind of expression? These days, the BBC doesn’t want to alienate the government in case this leads to further funding cuts. It places more weight than it used to on its supposed ‘impartiality’. Any programme which presents a different viewpoint to acceptance of the status quo would be seen as ‘partial’, and therefore would not be produced. Even documentaries which expose injustices and corruption presuppose that the basic set-up of society is sound. This doesn’t mean that successors of Loach, Garnett, Allen and the others are clamouring to make political dramas and getting knocked back by conservative TV executives. What few successors they have probably realise that it’s not even worth trying.

Mike Foster

Mixed Media: Barnsley: Working Class Culture in the Tarn & Gilbert Daykin at the Cooper Gallery (2014)

The Mixed Media Column from the November 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

Barnsley: Working Class Culture in the Tarn

Barnsley's history has been dominated by the glass industry and coal mining but marked by disasters that befell the working class such as the 1838 Huskar pit disaster when 26 children were killed, and in 1866 the worst pit disaster in England at Barnsley Oaks when 361 miners were killed.

The Barnsley Museum at Barnsley Town Hall is well worth a visit and showcases Barnsley's coal mining history, with many artefacts from the class struggle that was the 1984-85 Miners' Strike such as an Orgreave police riot shield. The museum also houses the NUM Yorkshire Area North Gawber Branch banner 'from darkness into light' i.e. 'socialism' via various reforms such as nationalisation and ’employment for all’.

British cinema is represented by the 1969 Ken Loach film Kes filmed in Barnsley, based on the novel A Kestrel for a Knave by Barnsley writer Barry Hines. This working class film publicised as 'They beat him. They deprived him. They ridiculed him. They broke his heart. But they couldn't break his spirit' starred Dai Bradley, a non-professional from Barnsley. The 1996 film Brassed Off filmed in Grimethorpe near Barnsley was set during the pit closures programme of the John Major Tory government in 1992 when 31 out of 50 remaining deep mines faced closure with the loss of 31,000 jobs. In 1980-81 Grimethorpe Colliery had produced 1.2 million tonnes of coal. Barnsley is famous for Charlie Williams, the son of a Barbadian and a Barnsley girl, who was a miner and footballer at Upton colliery then joined Doncaster Rovers in 1948, and was later the first black comedian on British TV in the 1970s.

It's just like watching Brazil is an exhibition about Barnsley Football Club, founded in 1887, nicknamed the 'tykes' with a motto of 'spectemur agendo!' ('let us be seen together in action!') from Ovid's Metamorphoses, and an emblem of a glass-blower and miner. Barnsley were FA Cup winners in 1912 but the exhibition title is from the 'cherished 1996-97 season' when Barnsley were promoted to the Premiership. In March 2014 Barnsley football supporters would unfurl an Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign banner '30 Years of Lies, No Justice, No Peace, Never Forget, Never Forgive' at the Oakwell ground. Tommy Taylor, according to John Roberts in The Team That Wouldn't Die: The Story of the Busby Babes learned his skills in Barnsley on 'the bog, a rock-hard piece of ground where local boys played in clogs, pit boots or bare feet.' Taylor worked in the pit, then aged 15 signed to Barnsley as a ground-staff boy, and in 1948 his weekly wage was £2, 8s, 1d. He was signed for a transfer fee of £29,999 to Matt Busby's Manchester United but was later killed in the 1958 Munich Air Crash aged 26.

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Gilbert Daykin at the Cooper Gallery

The Hidden Art of Barnsley at the Cooper Gallery in Barnsley highlighted the work of coal miner and painter Gilbert Daykin. Daykin was offered a bursary from the local Miners’ Welfare Committee to enable him to study part-time at Nottingham School of Art. His work was also brought to the attention of the then local MP Malcolm MacDonald, son of the Prime Minister. Daykin was invited to London and met the Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald and the Duchess of Portland (she 'cared for' the Nottinghamshire Miners, an example of 'the heart-burnings of the aristocrat'). Daykin would appear on the front cover of the Daily Mirror on 3 August 1931. Daykin's 1938 oil Symbolic-Miner Enslaved is heroic and evokes Renaissance paintings of Saint Sebastian. His Choke Damp is quite macabre and underlines the dangers of working underground. Markham's Ponies portrays coal miners pushing a truck of coal while his The Results of Labour is a somewhat idealized portrait which had been commissioned by the Staveley Coal and Iron Company. Daykin could never afford to give up mining and concentrate on his art, and tragically was killed in a pit accident at Warsop Main colliery on 20 December 1939.

Seven miles from Barnsley is the old pit village of Goldthorpe where in 1984 during the Miners' Strike two teenage brothers Paul and Darren Holmes were killed while collecting coal when an embankment collapsed. In April 2013 an effigy of Thatcher was burned to celebrate her funeral. Since Goldthorpe colliery closed in 1994 the village has 'died' and the Goldthorpe and Highgate NUM Club is subtitled 'Lest We Forget' those from the 'great class war' that was the 1980s Miners' Strike. At NUM headquarters in Barnsley there is a monument commissioned by NUM Yorkshire Area, sculpted by Graham Ibbeson in 1992, and unveiled by Arthur Scargill, President of the NUM in July 1993 which portrays a miner, his wife, young daughter and a babe in arms, and says 'In memory of those who have lost their lives in supporting their union in times of struggle.'

Lenin was of the opinion that 'the field of art in particular should be imbued with the spirit of the class struggle being waged by the proletariat' which Barnsley culture could be said to demonstrate but tragically the Barnsley working class does not 'constitute itself as a class for itself' (Marx) as the area still elects four Labour MPs.

Steve Clayton

Left Unity - for Socialism or for Reformism? (2013)

From the October 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

In March, following the relative success of his nostalgic film about the post-war Labour government The Spirit of 45, Ken Loach launched an appeal for the formation of a new left-of-Labour (not to say Old Labour) party. The ball was picked up by others and a new Left Party is to be founded at a meeting in London on 30 November.

Loach’s appeal brought in some 9000 replies, though well under  a thousand of them seem to have followed this up by getting involved in local ‘Left Unity’ groups. An appeal published in the Guardian (12 August) sets out the general aim of those calling for the new party:

‘We urgently need a new party of the left. Labour will not provide the opposition to coalition politics that the situation demands. We need to provide a genuine alternative to the austerity policies which the three main parties support. A party that is socialist, environmentalist, feminist and opposed to all forms of discrimination.’

A meeting in May of those who had responded to Loach’s appeal decided that the new party should be an individual membership organisation. This was in deliberate contrast to a previous attempt to form a new left-of-Labour party in the early years of this century – the ‘Socialist Alliance’, which was in effect an electoral alliance between the SWP and Militant and which eventually fell apart because of rivalry between these two Trotskyist groups.

The individual membership decision was, and was meant to be, a rebuff to such groups, though their members are still free to join as individuals. Some Trotskyist groups – ‘Socialist Resistance’ and ‘Workers Power’ – have accepted this. This is likely to cause the new party problems in the future as it is a well-known tactic of such groups to ‘enter’ a bigger party, form a ‘faction’ (whether open or clandestine) within it, and breakaway away at some point with, they calculate, more members than they went in with.

But why another Left party? Aren’t there already a number of left-of-Labour parties which contest elections? Scargill’s SLP, Galloway’s Respect Party, the SWP, Militant (now calling themselves SPEW), TUSC and even the Communist Party of Britain (who run the Morning Star). The aim seems to be to form a party of a different type, one that is neither dominated by a single individual nor organised on Leninist lines; an open, more or less democratic party like, in the British context, the old ILP. Supporters of the new party cite existing European parties such as the Party of the Left in France, Die Linke in Germany and Syriza in Greece as examples they want to follow.

The general orientation of the new party has yet to be decided. That’s going to be settled at its founding conference at the end of the November. In the meantime three ‘platforms’ for discussion at the conference are circulating amongst those who signed up to Loach’s appeal.

One – the Left Unity Platform – is that of those who took the initiative to call for setting up the new party. They want a broad party that will attract any and every one to the left of Labour. In other words, an opportunist, catch-all party. They have the support of one of the Trotskyist groups, ‘Socialist Resistance’, which claims to be the genuine ‘Fourth International’ and is the successor of the old IMG of the 1970s of which Tariq Ali was a prominent member.

More interesting is the second one, called the ‘Socialist Platform’. It seems to be the initiative of one of the constituents of TUSC – the ‘Independent Socialist Network’, which caters for individuals who support TUSC but are not members of SPEW or of the RMT union. In fact the ISN seems to be on the brink of defecting from TUSC to the new Left Party.

The third – the so-called ‘Class Struggle Platform’ – can be dismissed fairly quickly. It has been put forward by another Trotskyist group, ‘Workers Power’, and just reproduces their programme. These people are nothing if not brazen. The new party has not yet been formed and they have already founded a ‘faction’ within it.

The ‘Socialist Platform’ is reproduced opposite. As can be seen, it is written in the same sort of language that we use; in fact we can agree with a large part of it, especially that ‘capitalism does not and cannot be made to work in the interests of the majority’ and clauses 6, 7 and 9. There are of course differences. For instance, clause 2 could imply that a ‘state’ will continue to exist in socialism. Clause 3 does not say explicitly that socialism has to involve the complete ending of production for the market. Clause 5 ends with a peculiar formulation on Europe (even though this is an advance on the No2EU embraced by most of the Left). Clause 8 is the real stumbling block from our point of view as it opens the way for the party to campaign for reforms.

Others, too, have noticed its similarity with what we say. A supporter of the Left Unity Platform has offered the following criticism of it:

‘There is no acknowledgement that fighting for reforms in the short term is entirely compatible with aiming for socialism in the longer term. Absent is any idea that a fight for reforms can raise people’s self-activity and point towards escalating demands; instead we are offered something approaching impossibilism. Current struggles are played down in favour of visions of a utopian future.’

If you follow the link from the word “impossibilism” it takes you to a Wikipedia page which explains that the main current exponent of this in Britain is us (see: leftunity.org/which-way-for-left-unity-the-case-for-the-left-party-platform). The author, Tom Walker, is a member of a breakaway group from the SWP. So this is a case of a Trotskyist criticising the ‘Socialist Platform’ for being too like the SPGB, a damning argument amongst Trotskyists.

One group of Leninists who have signed it are not satisfied with it, but because they see it as non-Leninist. This group, calling itself the ‘Communist Party of Great Britain’ (even though they have nothing to do with the old, now defunct CPGB) and publishing the Weekly Worker, have proposed a series of amendments intended to turn it into a Leninist statement.

For instance, where the original version says:

‘The Left Unity party is a socialist party. Its aim is to bring about the end of capitalism and its replacement by socialism’

they want to change this to:

‘It seeks to bring about the end of capitalism and its replacement by the rule of the working class. Our ultimate aim is a society based on the principle of ‘from each according to their abilities; to each according to their needs’, a moneyless, classless, stateless society, within which each individual can develop their fullest individuality.’

On the face of it this seems more explicitly socialist and of course we too want a ‘moneyless, classless, stateless society’, but what this is actually doing is introducing the Leninist distinction (which we reject and which was never in Marx’s writings) between ‘socialism’ and ‘communism’. We call a moneyless, classless, stateless society ‘socialism’ (or, occasionally ‘communism’, as the two words mean the same) and this may well be the view also of some of those who have signed the original platform. For us, this is the immediate aim, but for those behind the amendment it is only a far-off ‘ultimate aim’, just as it was for the government of the old USSR. Their immediate aim is a so-called ‘workers state’ in which money, classes and the state will continue to exist.

There is no chance of the ‘Socialist Platform’ being accepted at the founding conference of the new party. The Left Unity Platform will be adopted and a new wishy-washy, leftwing reformist party will come into existence.

The trouble, for them, is that such a left-of-Labour party already exists in the Green Party. The only difference is that the Green Party does not claim to be ‘socialist’, only ‘environmentalist, feminist and opposed to all forms of discrimination’. Apart from that, the policies that the two parties will be advocating will be the same, for instance, defence of the welfare state, bringing the utilities back into ‘public’ ownership, failed Keynesian policies as a supposed alternative to austerity, against overseas military action… So, to succeed, the new party will have to replace the Green Party. Which hardly seems likely.

Then there are the other smaller left-of-Labour parties competing on the same ground. They are not going to go away. Nor will the Trotskyist groups that have decided to ‘enter’ it. So the new Left Party is likely to be a non-starter and will probably end up as just another such small party, so adding to the confusion as to what socialism is and how to get it.

The only positive thing that could come out of this is for some of those who signed the ‘Socialist Platform’ to realise that a socialist party, on sound socialist principles, already exists and is already campaigning for socialism and nothing but.

Adam Buick

Statement of Aims and Principles for the [Left Unity] Party (‘Socialist Platform’)

1. The [Left Unity] Party is a socialist party. Its aim is to bring about the end of capitalism and its replacement by socialism.

2. Under capitalism, production is carried out solely to make a profit for the few, regardless of the needs of society or damage to the environment.  Capitalism does not and cannot be made to work in the interests of the majority. Its state and institutions will have to be replaced by ones that act in the interests of the majority.

3. Socialism means complete political, social and economic democracy. It requires a fundamental breach with capitalism. It means a society in which the wealth and the means of production are no longer in private hands but are owned in common. Everyone will have the right to participate in deciding how the wealth of society is used and how production is planned to meet the needs of all and to protect the natural world on which we depend. We reject the idea that the undemocratic regimes that existed in the former Soviet Union and other countries were socialist.

4. The [Left Unity] Party opposes all oppression and discrimination, whether on the basis of gender, nationality, ethnicity, disability, religion or sexual orientation and aims to create a society in which such oppression and discrimination no longer exist. 

5. Socialism has to be international. The interests of the working class are the same everywhere. The [Left Unity] Party opposes all imperialist wars and military interventions. It rejects the idea that there is a national solution to the problems of capitalism. It stands for the maximum solidarity and cooperation between the working class in Britain and elsewhere. It will work with others across Europe to replace the European Union with a voluntary European federation of socialist societies.

6. The [Left Unity] Party aims to win support from the working class and all those who want to bring about the socialist transformation of society, which can only be accomplished by the working class itself acting democratically as the majority in society.

7. The [Left Unity] Party aims to win political power to end capitalism, not to manage it. It will not participate in governmental coalitions with capitalist parties at national or local level.

8.  So long as the working class is not able to win political power for itself the [Left Unity] Party will participate in working-class campaigns to defend all past gains and to improve living standards and democratic rights. But it recognises that any reforms will only be partial and temporary so long as capitalism continues.

9.  The [Left Unity] Party will use both parliamentary and extra-parliamentary means to build support for its ultimate goal – the socialist transformation of society.

10. All elected representatives will be accountable to the party membership and will receive no payment above the average wage of a skilled worker (the exact level to be determined by the party conference) plus legitimate expenses.

The Spanish Civil War Revisited (1995)

Film Review from the September 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ken Loach is a considerable film maker. He directed Cathy Come Home for BBC TV in 1966, and his credits also include the unforgettable Kes (1970), The Price of Coal (1977) and Hidden Agenda (1990) and Raining Stones (1993) - both winners of the Cannes Jury Prize. And now comes a film about the Spanish Civil War Land and Freedom (Curzon West End, Chelsea Cinema, Renoir, Screen on the Green and selected cinemas across the country from October) another Cannes winner and, by any standards, a major achievement.

Through an impressive flashback devise, Loach unifies life in contemporary Liverpool with Spain in the late 1930s. An old man collapses on a Liverpool housing estate. He has had a stroke and he dies on the way to hospital. His granddaughter, sorting out his things, finds an old suitcase with letters, clippings and photographs of the civil war. And as she reads them and reflects, her grandfather's story unfolds on the screen.

David leaves to fight fascism. He joins an international section of the Republican militia on the Aragon Front and is wounded. He is sent to hospital in Barcelona where he discovers that factions on his own side - the so-called communists - are more concerned with internal disputes than with fighting the war against fascism. david's war ends tragically. The Militia are disarmed by the Stalinist Popular Front (sic) and one of his comrades is killed.

The film works on many levels. As an attempt to tell a compelling story which captures something of the spirit of the times -  the revolutionary idealism of the Militia, the sickening poverty of Spanish peasants, the internal conflicts amongst the republicans, the unfolding story of David's love affair with Blanca and its tragic conclusion - this is a well crafted piece of film-making. But more than this Loach offers us a series of powerful political snapshots of Spain in the mid/late 1930s. He might have made an even more effective film if the dialogue had painted a clearer picture of the background to the war, but nevertheless this is a splendid film  - a substantial piece of political story telling which will have great interest for socialists.

There are perhaps three defining moments. First, a fascist-held village is captured and the villagers meet to discuss what to do with the land. Jim Allen's script and Barry Ackroyd's camera linger over the fascinating, heated discussion. The villagers are united only in their opposition to fascism. Some want to move towards common ownership of the land by collectivising farms. Others want to confiscate only fascist's land, and to divide this amongst the peasant community. Whilst a third group want largely to retain things as they are. The scene demonstrates what socialists already know: that there was no majority in favour of a socialist revolution in Spain in 1936, but rather the remnants of a coalition of anarchists, republicans, Stalinists and, so-called, revolutionaries.

Second, in the streets of Barcelona, David becomes involved in fighting between anarchists, Stalinists and revolutionaries. Later he tears up his membership card of the British Communist Party and, voice over, writes witheringly in a letter home of the betrayal of the revolution by the Stalinists.

Third, as David's coffin is buried his granddaughter gives the clutched salute of the Spanish Militia. Loach seemingly wants us to draw parallels between the Spanish Civil War and relevant actions which the working class might take in contemporary Britain. We are presumably to conclude that the ideas and actions of latter-day Spanish-style militants are relevant. Not so. The only actions which are pertinent to the working class revolutionary are those which are concerned with the enlightenment and empowerment of the class to which they belong, and the collective transformation of capitalism into socialism. Not for us a re-run of anything akin to the Spanish Civil War, no matter how heroic and well-meaning many of those who fought on the republican side might have been. We have a different war to fight: to enfranchise a socialist majority and, by so doing, to end all wars.

Michael Gill

Spirit of 45 (2013)

Film Review from the May 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

Spirit of '45 directed by Ken Loach is an impressive but sentimental documentary about the Attlee Labour government of 1945-51 which is nostalgic for 'Old Labour' and the 'cradle to grave' welfare state. The use of Hubert Parry's choral music to Jerusalem is an added touch of emotionalism.

Loach twice shows part of Attlee's election victory speech at Westminster Central Hall when he says it is a 'Labour movement with a Socialist policy' and that 'His Majesty the King has asked me to form a government.' There is footage of Aneurin Bevan, architect of the NHS and the Housing Plan declaring 'nothing but the best for the working class.' The description of the 1951 Festival of Britain as a 'celebration of working class heroes' is hyperbole. All this gives the impression that the Attlee government was running capitalism in the interests of the working class which is absurd and impossible. In 1945 the working class firmly rejected Churchill (there is footage of the working class recalling Churchill sent the army into Tonypandy and killed striking miners in 1910). Churchill's speech in June 1945 is important as it links Hayek's eccentric paean to capitalist market libertarianism The Road to Serfdom, and today's capitalist economic ideology: 'there can be no doubt that socialism is inseparably interwoven with totalitarianism and the abject worship of the state.'

Loach looks at the nationalisation programme of the Attlee government particularly the railways and the mines. There is no socialist analysis identifying that 'nationalisation' is state capitalism (the wages system under new management), and the working class still have their surplus value robbed and need trade unions and the strike weapon in order to protect themselves from their employers.

The welfare state and the NHS are held up as beacons of enlightenment. The end of the commercial relationship between doctor and patient is trumpeted although private practice was allowed to continue, and some charges on the NHS were swiftly brought in soon after its creation when the capitalist state realised how expensive it all was. There was no socialist analysis in the film identifying the welfare state and NHS as essentially a 'redistribution of poverty among the workers', insuring the capitalist class against working class discontent and maintaining a sufficiently healthy and efficient working population. For the capitalist class the welfare state and the NHS meant increased profits and were seen as 'a necessary expense of production.'

Loach looks at the 1947 National Dock Labour Scheme which 'de-casualised' dock work although no reference is made to the 1945 Dock Strike which was condemned by the Labour Government. Attlee even sent the army in. In 1989 the Thatcher government abolished the National Dock Labour Scheme thereby re-introducing casual labour. In the film there is talk of the 'dignity and respect of work' in capitalism which underlines the lack of socialist consciousness. Marx put it eloquently when he wrote 'instead of the conservative motto a fair day's wage for a fair day's work, they ought to inscribe on their banners the revolutionary watchword Abolition of the Wages System.'

Sam Watts, an 87-year-old working class Liverpudlian makes some accurate and pithy statements towards the end of the film such as 'the profit system is rotten and corrupt and the quicker it goes the better' and 'the working class can change the whole of history but it has not grasped that it has this power.’

Spirit of 45 is about taking 'the crumbs off the Master's table' when what the working class need to do is demand the whole loaf, take over the bakery and have common ownership of the wheat field.

Steve Clayton