Greasy Pole: What It Was All About (2015)

The Greasy Pole Column from the October 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sprawled out across the lawn it was warm and relaxing until Janet, who was into her third glass of Tesco Finest Chardonnay, blurted: 'So what's all this about Jeremy Corbyn then? I'm going to his meeting at the Town Hall on Wednesday. If I can get in, that is; he's had thousands at his other meetings with overflows so I might have to stand outside'. Jeremy Corbyn. A couple of months before none of them had heard of him but now it was different. Janet told about a friend of a friend who is one of his constituents; they admire his rebelliousness in parliament, where he has voted against the whips' instructions over 500 times (they called it 'challenges') and he was very helpful to her when she took a particular problem to him. At all events he couldn't be much worse than Ed Miliband and that lot who lost the last election. And who were those Labour MPs against him? That Liz Kendall saying she loved Labour but talking more like a proper Tory. What had Andy Burnham ever done to make us think of him as a future Prime Minister? Yvette Cooper? Won't she just perform like Ed Balls tells her to? And Blair having the cheek to prescribe a heart transplant for anyone who voted for Corbyn .

Corbyn

It was in February last year that the Labour Party, nursing some delusions about their chances of winning the next election against the increasingly fragile coalition, adopted a new system of electing its leader. Until then they had fumbled through a three-way performance in which a third of the votes would be cast by each of the Parliamentary Party, the trade unions and individual members. The new procedure was designed to be quicker and simpler and more democratic –one member one vote, to include registered supporters who would be allowed to vote on payment of a fee of ￡3. The Deputy Leader Harriet Harman was satisfied enough with this arrangement to describe it as 'a robust system to prevent fraudulent or malicious applications'. But the flaws in it were exposed when the Daily Telegraph suggested that the whole procedure could be disrupted by Conservative Party supporters – as well as anyone else with the same intentions – paying their ￡3 and going on to disrupt the election by voting for the most unsuitable and divisive candidate who would ensure that Labour lost the next general election. And in that role was Jeremy Corbyn of the relentlessly left-wing opinions and breaches of Parliamentary discipline. Piteously threatened, Andy Burnham warned that 'The Tory press are so desperate for Jeremy Corbyn to win that they're making up stories to give the impression that he already has'. Nominations in the leader election had to be supported by 35 MPs, which Corbyn reached by the narrowest of margins, with only minutes to spare on the closing day.

Austerity

He promised to stand for drastic changes in Labour policy –- like making amends for Blair and his lies by apologising for going to war in Iraq. There would be no more pandering to Tory discipline through austerity, such as in a recent report by the Department of Work and Pensions that between December 2011 and February 2014 there were 2,380 people who died within fourteen days of being struck off Employment and Support Allowances (ESA) after a Work Capability Assessment (WCA) had ruled that they were fit for work. Andy Burnham described the WCA as 'punishing' and promised that a Labour government under him would ensure 'a humane approach to benefits' – in spite of the fact that the punitively inhumane machinery of the WCA was set up by the previous Labour government. This same Andy Burnham also assured the voters that if he is ever Prime Minister he will reduce the National Debt '...towards its sustainable pre-global financial crisis levels' which avoids the crucial question of why and how the 'crisis' came upon us. Then Yvette Cooper, who supported the war on Iraq and the continuation of Trident, promised that she would ensure her government would '...reset Labour's relationships with business'. And Liz Kendall made it all sound so easy: 'We will bring debt down as a proportion of our GDP and will make surpluses in the good times' – assuming that capitalism's economy is always, easily, controllable.

Democracy

As the leadership campaign began the Labour Party were pleased to represent it as an admirable exercise in democratic organisation. But this confidence collapsed when Corbyn came on the scene and took so convincing a lead. In response there was a move to concentrate the opposition to Corbyn by persuading two of the other candidates to stand down. Or to abandon the contest altogether until the party could re-write the rules so as to prevent the emergence of another candidate like Corbyn. These were not examples of democracy in action but of the subterfuge and denigration typical of relationships within a party of capitalism. No wonder that Corbyn should appeal to people like Janet and her husband Dave, with their mortgage and their jobs and two children coming up to their GCSEs with all the attendant stresses. As a couple they are something of a pollster's dream. Dave's grandparents came over here at the time of the Empire Windrush and now he manages a busy section of a local authority housing department. He sees the brutal reality of austerity every day, putting him under remorseless pressure. Janet has the same type of experiences in her work in one of the caring professions. These two are an example of what David Cameron - as did Ed Miliband - cynically calls Hard-working People. Neither of those twisters used phrases like Ruthlessly Exploited People. Repeatedly Deceived People. Contemptuously Disregarded People. So what was all that about Jeremy Corbyn? We have been here before, when the larger, more established parties were in such turmoil and confusion as to temporarily benefit some smaller, more outlandish group like the SDP and UKIP. It may be that Corbyn succeeds for a time in his stated objective to bring about some changes in society and its politics but our experience tells us that these will be no more significant or enduring than all those others, who are now part of capitalism's disreputable history. That is what's all about Jeremy Corbyn.

Ivan

Clause Four Resurfaces (2015)

From the September 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

As we go to press, it is with the Labour Party leadership battle raging and its four contenders spouting all manner of promises to secure votes. At the forefront of this contest is the long-serving and perhaps unusually principled left wing MP, Jeremy Corbyn. For a Labour MP, he is as radical as they come and a genuine throwback to the days when Labour was considered by many in Britain to be ‘socialist’. His attack on everything Blairism has come to represent, his stance on nuclear weapons, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and many social issues, has won him much support, a lot of it from other parties on the left.

In early August came news that Corbyn was championing Labour's old Clause 4 – its supposed socialist commitment to common ownership of production, distribution and exchange. ‘Corbynmania’ kicked in almost overnight, with social media sites buzzing with news that ‘socialism’ was back on the agenda, whilst the rightwing press, big business and big Labour donors have done all in their power to discredit him and anything to do with old Labour.

Liz Kendall, another Labour leadership contender and avid Blairite said: 'Life has moved on from the old Clause 4 in 1994, let alone 2015. We are a party of the future, not a preservation society.' Big Labour donor and businessman Assem Aklam, who swelled Labour’s coffers with £300,000 in donations, said he would stop funding the party if Corbyn became leader, announcing that he would not back a 'dead horse'.

Fabianism

Nostalgic workers, who mourn the demise of Clause 4 in the 1990s, would do well to remind themselves of its authors and who they actually were – the Fabian Society – and what they actually thought about the working class. Perhaps the closest we come to a definition of the Fabians is Engels' description of them as 'a clique united only by their fear of the threatening rule of the workers and doing all in their power to avert the danger.' What danger? A danger that had been prophesised by the ILP when they wrote 'that should there be a workers' revolt in Europe, there is nothing save a narrow strip of sea between us and what would then be the theatre of a great human tragedy.'

With Engels description in mind, however, we can begin to set Clause 4 in its real context. For it was penned in November 1917, when news of the Bolshevik takeover in Russia was still making news in Britain, when there were uprisings in Germany, Hungary and Ireland, when the Bolsheviks were arguing the case of peace with Germany, when workers all over Europe were war weary and sick of the social problems the war was creating, when crime rates in Britain were spiralling and when the ruling elite were beginning to realise that the Britain the soldiers would return to would not be, as Lloyd George had promised, 'a land fit for heroes'.

The fear of insurrection amongst the ruling elite – amongst whom the Fabian Society considered themselves – was real enough. The Fabians had in fact felt such qualms for thirty years, seeing in the working class not a mass of exploited workers, impoverished workers, in whose united strength resided their own emancipation, but rather a seething mass of potential revolutionary fervour that must be contained at all costs.

In the 1890s, Beatrice Webb could expect 'no hope from these myriad of deficient minds and deformed bodies – what can we hope but brutality, madness and crime?'  Two decades later, her views had not changed, for she saw unions as nothing but 'undertrained and underbred workers'. Bernard Shaw even toyed with a solution – 'sterilisation of the masses' – an idea later to be taken up by Churchill and Hitler.

From the outset, the Fabians did not wish to abolish capitalism and thus remove themselves from their privileged positions. They wanted to reform capitalism, to soften some of its harsher effects, to make capitalism worker-friendly. They wanted peaceful, gradual change from capitalism to what Shaw was to describe as 'state socialism'.

Rejecting the Marxian view that the state was a manifestation of the domination of the capitalist class, the Fabians believed the state to be impartial, neutral, to be used by anyone who could take power. However, the idea of the workers taking control was anathema to everything they stood for.

Their idea of socialism was one in which the state was controlled by experts and professionals 'like themselves' – trained in the new social sciences. They were, it appears, technocrats, believing that the technical administration of society should take the place of party politics. They certainly did not believe that the upsurge of protest against capitalism could be led by a class-conscious majority intent on social change in their own interest.

Moreover, the Fabians did not care who took their ideas on board and even harboured the notion of selling their wares to the Conservatives and Liberals.

They were arrogant, held the workers in contempt, feared them and were more than guilty of the charge of blatant class collaboration. Neither was Clause 4 written out of a genuine sympathy or empathy with the workers and with a view to changing the existing social system. It was penned to assuage, to pacify that section of society that was beginning to nurture the idea that it was time it took matters into its own hands.

Clause 4 was penned in an attempt to persuade that section of society that posed a threat to the ruling class that their lot could be bettered if they put their faith in an elite, an intellectual vanguard, who would work on their behalf in parliament and at a time when workers elsewhere were attempting to change society themselves, even if this was proving to be without any foresight.

State capitalism

Clause 4 did not mean socialism, only ever state-run capitalism, the nationalisation of capitalist industry, which would continue to be run according to the dictates of the profit system, only by a state-appointed board, not by private capitalist firms.

The 'common ownership' clause, which would eventually be reproduced on every Labour Party membership card was nothing short of a Fabian blueprint for a more advanced, as they saw it, form of capitalism, and with its adoption the Labour Party became the foremost advocate of state action to control and humanise the operation of private enterprise – which has nothing to do with socialism, because the profit system and its myriad shortcomings still exist and workers are always subject to the worst excesses of its contradictions.

To be sure, the idea of 'socialising' the means of production and distributing wealth was by no means a new idea in 1918. The notion had been mooted by previous Labour Party conferences and, although the idea attracted a lot of support, it never appeared in the party's constitution. Whilst many a delegate regarded themselves as socialist, it was believed that such a blatant expression of 'socialism' would be a vote-loser.

This is an important point, as it shows that the Labour Party then, as now, was not so much interested in promoting ideas that threatened the hegemony of the capitalist class, but in securing the most votes. What made it possible, and indeed urgent, that the Labour Party should adopt Clause 4, without it being an electoral liability, was the radicalisation of workers brought about by war. But the time would come when Clause 4 was seen as an electoral liability.

Electoral liability

In 1955, Labour had lost 1.5 million votes compared with the 1951 election. Conservative seats rose from 319 to 345 seats and Labour's share fell from 293 to 277.  At the 1959 election, Labour lost a further 196,000 voters, whilst the Tory tally rose by 448,000. One Labour commentator, Douglas Jay, speaking of nationalisation, said: 'We are in danger of fighting under the label of a class that no longer exists.'

After the 1959 defeat, the then Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell decided there had to be some serious changes in Labour Party policy.  At a specially summoned post-election conference, previous defeats were discussed. Gaitskell declared: 'In my opinion capitalism has significantly changed, largely as a result of our own efforts and the changing character of the Labour Party. Importantly, he argued, Labour had lost votes through its identification with common ownership – Clause 4'. Conference listened quietly, but cries of derision greeted his next words: 'Standing as it does on its own, this clause cannot possibly be regarded as adequate ... it implies that the only precise object we have is nationalisation, whereas we have many other socialist objectives.'

Although Gaitskell's idea to drop Clause 4 was supported by many, including Bevan, it was quickly rejected.

Seemingly, it was Mrs Thatcher who eventually brought the question of Clause 4 back to the debating table, when she decided to privatise anything that stood still long enough to be privatised.

In 1983, the Labour Party manifesto claimed that common ownership would be expanded. The following year, the party conference passed a resolution on a show of hands that reaffirmed: 'Clause 4 Pt 4 of the Labour Party constitution is the central aim of the Labour Party,' and called for 'repossession of all parts of the public sector privatised by the Tories.'

At the 1985 conference, Roy Hattersley asked for support for a resolution on 'the need to extend social ownership and democratic planning into a significant number of key organisations, in banks, manufacturing, new technology and the service sector.' Conference obliged. It also supported a resolution which called on 'the next Labour government to return all privatised services ... and all privatised industries to public ownership, and to repeal any privatisation legislation.'

By the time of the 1987 election, though Labour pledged to take back only BT and British Gas under 'common ownership', neither company would be in line to be nationalised. Instead, existing shares would be converted into new bonds, including varieties of ‘deep bonds’, designed to be attractive to institutional shareholders. Again, at the 1987 conference, the NUM moved a resolution to renationalise all industries privatised by the Tories. The union block votes were wheeled in and the motion was lost 3,869,000 to 2,397,000 votes. Within a few short years there was a gradual acceptance of Tory ideas that would continue.

Another nail in the coffin of 'common ownership' through nationalisation was the support for increased share ownership. Bryan Gould, Labour's campaign manager in 1987 argued, in an amazing piece of Tory logic: 'The idea of owning shares is catching on and, as socialists, we should support it as one means of taking power from the hands of the few and spreading it more widely.'

Enter Tony Blair

After three successive defeats at the polls, many in the Labour Party were now intent on burying Clause 4. One thing was certain, argued new Labour leader Tony Blair – if Labour was to stand a chance of winning the next election, Clause 4 as it stood had to be ditched. Blair declared this to be his intention at Conference 1994 and the party's new Clause 4 appeared in March 1995 in time for a specially summoned conference on April 29th.

The vote was put to the membership whether Clause 4 should be reworded. Jarrow CLP became the first to vote in favour of holding on to the original Clause 4, but only three more would oppose it.  Blair's new version won the day. A discussion document – Labour's Objectives: Socialist Values in a Modern World – had been available before the vote. If Labour Party members had studied it – Clause 4 aside – many would probably have resigned in the belief that it was penned by Margaret Thatcher. The document explained that the idea of common ownership only came about because 'there was a genuine revulsion at the sheer anarchy and exploitation associated with the free market of Victorian capitalism.' The reference to 'Victorian capitalism' was a clever piece of trickery, giving the reader the idea that capitalism in the 1990s was no longer 'anarchic' and was now worker-friendly.

And what of the new Clause 4? Again we could see regurgitated the same old lie that 'The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party'...which aims to put 'power, wealth and opportunity in the hands of the many' which was something Thatcher had claimed privatisation was doing. This startling new 'socialist' objective claimed 'we work for a dynamic economy' in which ' the enterprise of the market and the rigour of competition are joined with the forces of partnership and cooperation to produce the wealth the nation needs.' Little wonder the Sun could announce (of Blair) 'He speaks our language.' Little wonder that when Labour took power, Thatcher could proudly inform a gathering of the Tory faithful that Tony Blair was her 'greatest achievement'.

It was a mammoth achievement for the Tories, so much so that Labour continued to lurch further to the right year on year.

Never was socialist

For over a hundred years this journal has been arguing that Labour was never socialist. Even with Clause 4 being held up as a sign of its commitment to real change in the interest of the many, it has always been a party of capitalism and, in office, ever willing to serve as the executive arm of the capitalist class, never hesitant to use the might of the state to club the workers into submission whenever they became uppity, whether using troops to break strikes, creating the Special Patrol Group, internment in Northern Ireland or supporting and indeed initiating myriad conflicts throughout the world, from World War I, right through the Vietnam War and up to the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. For over 110 years, Labour has hoodwinked the workers, and endlessly led them down the blind alley of reformism, always mindful that its real allegiance was to the master class who own and control society.

Make no mistake. A Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn would make no departure from the historical record. Its task would be primarily to try to make capitalism – a system based upon the exploitation of one class by another – work in the interests of the exploited. Labour, under Corbyn, would not really control the economy, it would control him. The historical record shows that if the dictates of capital demanded, the workers would have to be lied to, betrayed and made out to be villains of the peace and a threat to the economic interests of the country. No Labour leader to date has failed to be cast in a mould created by the capitalist class, no matter how noble their intentions.

If workers are really attracted by ideas of common ownership they would do well to realise that a party which has stood uncompromisingly and unwaveringly for real common ownership and, more, real democratic control of the earth's natural and industrial resources, is still in existence – the Socialist Party.  Moreover, you will find no aspiring leaders within the Socialist Party, slugging it out and making rash promises to the membership, only a membership of equals in which Party affairs are decided democratically by the membership.

Neither are we keen on reforming capitalism or prostituting our principles on the high altar of opportunism as Labour has been doing since its inception and will continue to do even with Corbyn as leader. We seek the abolition of capitalism and all it represents, replacing it with a system of society in which money has been abolished, class antagonism eradicated and in which each person has free access to the necessaries of life.

John Bissett

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Clause IV of the Labour Party Constitution, as originally drafted in 1918 and subsequently amended

Objects

1. To organise and maintain in parliament and in the country a political Labour Party.

2. To cooperate with the General Council of the Trades Union Congress, or other kindred organisations, in joint political or other action in harmony with the party constitution and standing orders.

3. To give effect as far as possible to the principles from time to time approved by the party conference.

4. To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.

5. Generally to promote the political, social and economic emancipation of the people, and more particularly of those who depend directly upon their own exertions by hand or by brain for the means of life.

Inter-Commonwealth

6. To cooperate with the labour and socialist organisations in the commonwealth overseas with a view to promoting the purposes of the party, and to take common action for the promotion of a higher standard of social and economic life for the working population of the respective countries.

International (Gaitskell amendment in 1959?)

7. To cooperate with the labour and socialist organisations in other countries and to support the United Nations and its various agencies and other international organisations for the promotion of peace, the adjustment and settlement of international disputes by conciliation or judicial arbitration, the establishment and defence of human rights, and the improvement of the social and economic standards and conditions of work of the people of the world.

SPGB News Release - Corbyn (2015)

SOCIALISTS WARN OF DEAD-END FOR CORBYN BAND-WAGGON

Members of The Socialist Party of Great Britain have warned the public not to be taken in by claims that Labour Party leadership candidate Jeremy Corbyn offers any alternative to austerity in Britain.

Campaigning in North London this week, Bill Martin, who stood for the Socialist Party against Corbyn in his Islington constituency earlier this year, said Corbyn was right to lay the blame for the slump on the economic system, but claimed he was “just a traditional Labour MP, who puts forward the case for state intervention in a capitalist economy: Harold Wilson 2.1.”

“The cause of austerity is not the Tory government, or the absence of a Labour one. It’s the profit system which causes boom and bust,” said Bill Martin. “Governments can only spend at the expense of profits.  Corbyn should know better.  It was his Labour Party in the 1970s that tried to spend it’s a way out of a slump and it didn’t work then.”

Joining him was Adam Buick, an editor of Socialist Standard magazine who commented: “There is a lesson in the failure of the left-wing Syriza government to end austerity in Greece.  While capitalism is in a slump it can’t be ended. It was an impossible demand.”

He said Corbyn and his supporters should “stop wasting time trying to reform the market system and instead join our campaign to replace the capitalist system of class ownership and production for profit by a socialist system of common ownership, democratic control and production directly to meet people’s needs. Only then will austerity be ended forever.”

Letters: Passage from Marx that Jeremy missed (2015)

Letter to the Islington Tribune, 7 August, 2015

HAVING seen off the might of the Socialist Party at the general election, Jeremy Corbyn has clearly got cocky, and thinks he can take on all-comers.

I notice he has gone on the record as saying: “I haven’t really read as much of Marx as I should have done. I’ve read quite a bit, but not that much.”  

Maybe this is the bit he missed: “The working class ought not to exaggerate to themselves the ultimate working of these everyday struggles… Instead of the conservative motto: ‘A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work!’ they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword: ‘Abolition of the wages system!’” (Value, Price and Profit).

Mr Corbyn does not call for the abolition of the wages system. As the Labour leadership election campaign goes on, he reveals that all he has to offer is the ghost of Harold Wilson warmed up.

BILL MARTIN

North London branch, The Socialist Party

Jeremy Flogs a Dead Horse (2015)

From the August 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

On Thursday 9 July, I attended a public meeting in Birkenhead Town Hall where Jeremy Corbyn delivered a speech as part of his campaign to become leader of the Labour Party. The meeting attracted some 250-300 people, male and female, young and old alike. Outside all I had seen were a handful of sellers of The Socialist and leafleters for the People’s Assembly and a Socialist Appeal campaign for ‘Red Labour’. Although I arrived with five minutes to spare, inside the vast majority were already seated. With hindsight, this was the first clue this wasn’t as independent a ‘public meeting’ as first appearances suggested. As the platform warm-up speakers progressed, it became clear that the platform were the rabble-rousers and we, the audience, were the chorus line. Our chorus? Enthusiastic applause on cue. This seemed more like a Labour members’ and trade unionists’ rally and the absence of comedian Mark Steel (who was billed) didn’t seem to matter. 

Without Mark Steel, it was altogether less humorous, with trade unionists and a Labour councillor speaking before Jeremy pushed some left-wing buttons. He was in CND, he was against austerity, he supported the trade union link with Labour and was leading the Stop the War Coalition. His tones were reminiscent of a less inspiring Tony Benn, but actually less contemporary. Corbyn had been in the Campaign for Labour Party democracy since its inception in 1970, it seemingly never occurring to him to stop flogging a dead horse. He also raised issues from his constituency in London, not something of interest to the Birkenhead audience.

His supporters were keen to talk him up, but he himself wasn’t so much, for Labour party leaders and followers this isn’t always effective. His conclusion was interrupted loudly by a lady from the Woodcraft Folk. ‘Span the world with friendship, Jeremy’, something about as inane as children’s programme My Little Pony’s slogan ‘Friendship is Magic’. Questions followed the standing ovation, but the level of support made meaningful discussion pointless, so I left early.

DJW

My Election Contest With Jeremy Corbyn (2015)

From the August 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our candidate who stood against Jeremy Corbyn in Islington North at the general election looks at his politics.

After seeing off the challenge of the Socialist Party at the general election, Jeremy Corbyn clearly feels himself invincible, taking on all -comers and challenging for the leadership of the Labour Party. To some he is the left-wing rejuvenator of true Labour values; for others, he is the lunatic left and ultimate Islington socialist.

Often at hustings in previous elections, I had found myself clearly more radical than the cautious Labour candidate, as they tried to control expectations, and put forward achievable demands. Against Jeremy Corbyn (along with a fairly radical Green candidate, and a Tory smart enough to talk to the needs of the constituency), this wasn’t the case. It would often depend on who got their turn in first, to put a radical anti-capitalist analysis of the problems of health care, housing, mental health or education.

One event illustrates this neatly. We were asked for a song that epitomised our campaign. After deciding that my own preference, Slayer’s ‘War Ensemble’, wouldn’t quite cover it, I fell back on what I knew would be most Socialist Party member’s preference: John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’. As it happened, I was asked before Corbyn was, and he would have chosen the same song.

Throughout the campaign, people asked me why we were standing against Jeremy Corbyn, since ‘he is a socialist.’ I wrote a letter to the local press, pointing out that whatever he stood for, he would still a member of a party that explicitly supports capitalism. The last sentence, that a vote for Corbyn was a vote for poverty and unemployment was mysteriously excised by the paper (surely not for reasons of space). I noted several times that despite his opposition to nuclear weapons, and the fact that he would vote against it, a vote for him would (in effect) be a vote for a Labour Prime Minister committed to replacing Trident.

He clearly takes some pride in his rebellious voting record. Normally, as befits a comfortable incumbent who is certain to win, he was able to shrug off my barbs and jibes (indeed, he affably accepted that our campaign was happening and never himself asked why we were standing against him). When, however, I mentioned our Party’s democratic policy of binding mandates for delegates, he took umbrage at the idea of MPs voting as instructed. The fact that his party is not itself democratically organised does at least excuse his position.

He is certainly a passionate advocate of the needs of the poor: throughout the campaign he would come back to the notion that children should have warm dry beds to sleep in; he raised the issue of the horrific drowning of economic migrants in the Mediterranean (instead of merely focusing on local bread and butter issues); he linked mental health issues of poverty and exploitation. It was clear he knew his patch well, and, again, gazumped me by rattling off the same facts about Islington that I’d spent my time researching and learning. The problem, though, is not his analysis of the problems of capitalism, but his approach to trying to resolve them.

An example: at one hustings a very local matter came up. It was a detailed and specific question about the renovation of a council estate in Islington, and the apparent withdrawal of councillors from liaison with the tenants and their proposed designs. I hadn’t heard of the matter, even in the local press, and didn’t know the facts. My cold reading of the matter was that it was probably down to public administration law, and the nature of state property as private property of the council. Corbyn, who mercifully answered before me on this one, confirmed as much, noting that the tenants’ interests had to be balanced against the overall needs of Islington’s property estate.

When it comes down to it, he is better described as a statist, rather than a socialist (in our terms). He believes in state action: laws to reduce knife crime; public ownership of the NHS rather than private ownership; controls on rents and security of tenancy; expansion of council housing, etc.. He confirmed as much after the election, describing the Miliband manifesto as ‘basically good’. Indeed, a look at his Labour leadership campaign manifesto shows that he is far from being the frothing radical the right-wing press love to depict him as. In his response to Osborne’s July budget, he wrote: ‘I am calling for a people's quantitative easing – and asking my fellow candidates to join me in that call… The Bank of England must be given a new mandate to upgrade our economy to invest in new large scale housing, energy, transport and digital projects.’ Put another way: his leadership would be just Harold Wilson warmed up.

The real source of his radical image is his persistent stance on foreign policy. First, backing dialogue with Sinn Fein back in the 1980’s, and nowadays being at the forefront of campaigns for the Palestinians. Indeed, one clear point of attack from some within the Labour Party has been the meeting he addressed where he welcomes ‘our friends’ from Hamas and Hezbollah. When questioned about that on Channel Four news, his response was to aggressively pushback, and try and get the issue back to resolving the Israel Palestine conflict. There’s no doubt that he is a passionate advocate for peace, but also, clearly, a practical politician willing to work with the existing ruling groups, but he is clearly in hock to the dismal ideology of nationalism and national liberation.

The right wing press has gone mad over him. Some Tories, taking advantage of the Labour Party’s new open primary system of electing a leader, where anyone can pay three pounds to become a ‘Labour supporter’ (and sign a declaration that they are not a supporter of any other party) and get to vote, gleefully announced that they would join up and vote for Corbyn, because he will take the Labour Party into the wilderness for decades to come. The reality, perception aside, is that Corbyn is simply a traditional Labour MP, who puts forward the case for state intervention in a capitalist economy. The only thing he does differently, is that he believes in putting the case openly, instead of pitching to a marketing strategy in order to win power to make reforms on the quiet.

He is a decent, intelligent and committed politician, but he wouldn’t have survived in politics so long without a certain amount of steel. If he surprises everyone by winning the leadership, he could surprise the gloating smooth-faced Tory mockers by actually winning a general election. The biggest, surprise, though, would be just what a staid, unradical government it would be in reality. There would be noise, but the detail is clear, he would have to work within the possibilities of capitalism and its overall profitability. We’ve seen it before in the 1960s.

If he does triumph in the leadership election it will be because the process of installing increasingly sophisticated party and electorate management policies by the Labour leadership have run out of steam, and the desires of workers (however misinformed and locked into the logic of markets) will have forced their way into the halls of power. The media and party managers cannot paper over the lived experience of millions in this country who feel they have no voice nor control.

If he does become Prime Minister, I’ll be telling people it’s all my fault, until then, I’ll continue doing my best to stop him.

Bill Martin