Not fare (1982)

From the October 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

The famous “Fares Fair" scheme, by which some Labour members of the Greater London Council tried to ease London Transport's financial worries (and win some votes), pleased some people but enraged just as many more. Some complained that reduced fares were being paid for by higher rates while businesses claimed the increase would drive them to the wall and cause even more unemployment.

In the end the scheme was thrown out by the House of Lords and LT fares were doubled in March. This decision greatly pleased those other reformers, the Tories, but it did not solve LTs financial problems — the consequence was a massive jump in fare-dodging.

This fare-dodging has been a longstanding worry for LT but just recently it has come to a head because of several articles in the London evening newspaper, the Standard. Its August 10 article Find the Fare Fiddlers was all too reminiscent of similar headlines during the last two decades.

Back in January 1971 the Socialist Standard carried an article on this subject. At that time LT claimed to be losing only £1 million yearly due to fare-dodging, but as the article in the Socialist Standard stated: "The signs are that London Transport’s figure of £1 million . . . will be shown to be hopelessly underestimated”. In 1972 LT admitted that the losses were £5 million. By 1978 the figure was £12 million and in 1982 the loss is expected to be an astonishing £30 million — or over 5 per cent of LT's total income.

In 1966 plans were made to instal automatic ticket gates to control passenger entrance and exit. This was to have cost £10 million at 1966 prices but the rapidly escalating costs of the system have resulted in its partial introduction only. As most stations have no automatic gates many passengers simply pay the collector at the other end a fraction of the real cost of the journey.

In the past you could hand over a fivepenny piece and walk through the barrier with no trouble at all. but nowadays there is a marked change in the attitude of the collectors. They arc much more zealous in their duties, not out of any new-found loyalty to LT, but because many of them realise that the more they collect in excess fares the more they can keep for themselves. LT reckon that another £10 million is being lost to staff using this method, plus a variety of ingenious variations.

Not that Underground employees gel all of this £10 million to themselves, for LT’s bus conductors also have ways of keeping part of what they collect. These include the use of Black and Decker drilling machines to wind back the counters on ticket machines and. according to the Standard newspaper article, more than 2,000 of LT’s 13.000 bus conductors have already been cautioned for fiddling fares.

This conflict between LT and its employees is actually part of the ceaseless struggle between employees and employers, whether the latter be private companies or state or municipal concerns. The main bone of contention is usually wages and conditions of work but workers will also claw back a bit of what they can't get legally. Rare indeed is the worker who never goes for a read or does a “homer” in the company's time, never uses the photocopier for his or her own purpose, never takes home the company’s stationery or arrives late or leaves early. And it’s the same with the army of fare-dodgers. True, they aren’t employees of LT (no doubt many of them think LT belongs to them!) but hard-up workers will always try to supplement their earnings with a bit of free travel if they can.

Vic Vanni

News: Do the bosses still need the “race card”? (2001)

From the February 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

Do the bosses still need the “race card”?

According to a Home Office report released last month, Britain is facing its biggest rise in immigration for a generation. A combination of asylum seekers and people moving to join relatives are among the obvious reasons cited for this new trend, but, as the Times points out, “Britain’s need for workers has also fuelled the trend. The IT industry will need to recruit a further 540,000 people up to 2009, and the report suggests that the custom of employing migrants for seasonal work on farms could be extended to other areas”.

The message should be unequivocally clear. The needs of capitalism are always paramount, so, since a skills/labour shortage and an ageing society has emerged, we can perhaps expect to hear less perjorative language in the media about being “flooded” or “swamped” by “foreigners”. Indeed, Home Office minister Barbara Roche greeted the report by extolling the virtues of immigration.

This European-wide phenomena was picked up by the Economist last year, which ran a cover story telling non-EU workers to “go for it!”. Quite pragmatic, it would seem, for a right-leaning journal.

However, this will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the history of capitalism. Immigrant workers have always been used to correct a disequilibrium in the labour market. The mass immigration of the 1950s, which underpinned the post-war boom, is a case in point. All things being equal, a labour shortage causes wages to rise and thus puts workers in a comparatively stronger bargaining position vis à vis overall working conditions. Naturally, our masters will always seek to counteract such a situation by importing (often cheaper, more compliant) workers, which in turn intensifies competition among workers, potentially fermenting xenophobia and racism. Needless to say, when demand for labour and/or skills slackens off, the capitalists play the infamous ‘race card’ in order to keep the working class divided.

Historically, this does not depend upon which party is in government. Both the Conservatives and Labour have promoted immigration and denounced it according to the dictates of the markets. Ideology alone does not pay capitalism’s bills!

The working class needs to remember that despite the nationalist and patriotic poison which is rammed down our throats from an early age, our bosses are actually quite open-minded. They will invest anywhere in the world, blazing a trail in their blood thirst quest for profit. Our class enemies may indeed be international,, we, however, are global

The Peter Principle

The resignation of Peter Mandelson from the Cabinet for a second time—an act unprecedented in British political history—has brought allegations of sleaze back to dog the government. Mandelson proved to be a Mr Fix-it in more ways than one but he was caught out and has now paid the price quite publicly. The danger for Labour is that the Party is now tainted in the eyes of the electorate by allegations of financial sleaze and collusion, haunted for the foreseeable future by ghosts like Mandelson and Geoffrey Robinson. Luckily for them, of course, the Tories still have political ghouls of their own to exorcise in Jonathan Aitken, Jeffrey Archer and Neil Hamilton, and so do not present any coherent or principled threat.

In truth, every government since the war has been beset by scandals at some point. Even the Liberals can’t afford to sound pious as it was Lloyd George who made a habit of selling peerages at a time before the phrase “cash for questions” was ever heard of.

When people delve under the surface of these scandals only one thing of real importance emerges. It is that there was nothing uniquely corruptible about any of these people, any more so than there is about Mandelson today, even if so many people love to demonise him. All scandals like this really go to prove is that it is the system we live within—the system of ruthless competition, greed and the power of money—that corrupts individuals, not individuals who corrupt an otherwise irreproachable system.

No more yogic flying

The Natural Law Party has announced that it is giving up contesting elections in Britain. So we are no longer to be amused by Party Political Broadcasts which promise to reduce violent crime and international tensions by the mass practice of “yogic flying”. Laughable, but in the end no less incredible than the claims of other parties to be able to solve capitalism’s problems by less outlandish, reformist measures.

The NLP never got many votes but that was never the aim. Contesting elections—and getting nation-wide television broadcasts and the free distribudon of millions of rnanifestos— was a marketing ploy by an international business empire headed by an Indian fakir calling himself the “Maharish Mahesh Yogi”. The aim was to get people to buy its transcendental mediation courses, herbal remedies, oils, aromas, “healing” gems, Hindu horoscopes, books, tapes, etc.

The NLP’s reason for giving up was that “the election system is stacked against new parties”. Maybe, but the real reason will have been the coming into force of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act which requires registered parties to disclose their accounts. This would have exposed the accounts of the “transcendental” business empire that financed the NLP to public gaze.

The NLP never was as amusing as it seemed, but was a flagrant example of how, under capitalism, Big Money can undermine the proclaimed principle of political democracy according to which everybody is supposed to have an equal say. In fact, the more money you have the louder you can proclaim your views.

Transport workers on strike in London and Belgium

As London Transport workers ballot on whether or not to go on strike, and the employers and the media prepare to whip up a campaign against them for “inconveniencing the public”, they could consider copying what their counterparts in Brussels did recently. From 22 December to 1 January, the buses, trams and metro in Brussels were free, as workers continued working but prevented the ticket machines from functioning as they pursued a claim for better wages and conditions. The public were not all inconvenienced. Just the reverse. And it showed that it is workers, not money, that make the world go round. What would the Evening Standard and the Daily Mail be able to say if this happened in London? No doubt they would accuse both the public and the workers of cheating the employers. Technically, this would be true and the courts might enforce it.

Ironically, less than a month previously, a court in Brussels had done just that. Three members of a group advocating free transport were fined £300 each for deliberately travelling without a ticket, using instead a “right to transport card”. In court they pleaded that the Declaration of the Rights of Man proclaimed a “right to free movement” which charging for using buses and trains infringed. A good point. The judge replied that “this right can be exercised by going by foot”. Which about sums up the value of grandiloquent “rights” under capitalism.

The Problem of Transport (1967)

From the December 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

A constant and pressing problem today, especially in a greater conurbation like London, is the problem of transport. Crowded trains, buses late or cut out, the constant whine of jet planes, dirt, noise and fumes — the list is endless.

At the heart of to-day’s transport problems is the motor-car, loved and hated to an immoderate degree, transforming the very face of the country, as a century ago the steam locomotive was transforming it. Any tenth-rate comedian can get a laugh by just saying ‘Barbara Castle’, as if a change of personality at the head of the Ministry of Transport would make an atom of difference to the problem.

In an effort to ease the jammed-up roads, pleasant gardens and tree-lined avenues are cut up for wider roads, while parks and squares are ruined to make car parks, and even the humble pub garden becomes a little asphalt desert. Motorways run like a scar across the countryside, and winding lanes are ‘improved’ out of recognition. Worst of all is the ever mounting toll of accidents.

None of this is particularly new; it is merely a change of form. That profit is the only serious consideration, with human comfort and happiness coming a very poor second, is true to-day and has been true for as long as capitalism has existed. London, and all big cities, have for centuries been very noisy places. Iron clad wheels and horses’ hooves, clattering over cobbles, made a terrible din and congestion in London was notorious.

Rowlandson, in a typically unflattering series of etchings, drew a picture of traffic chaos in the early 19th century. In the late 1850’s the London General Omnibus Company alone had about six hundred horse-buses, and horse trams appeared on the scene in the 1860’s. Congestion in the City gave rise to plans for a pedestrian bridge over Ludgate Circus, and the first underground railway (imagine the “Met” with steam engines) was put through to relieve congestion.

By the 1890’s there were over 1,700 buses and about 900 trams in central London. Over it all rode the locomotive, a smoky monster that blackened the working class districts through which it cut into London. The childish squabbles indulged in by rival railway companies, as in 1884 when the District Line chained a locomotive in a disputed siding at South Kensington Station and three Metropolitan Line engines tried to pull it out, make the snarling of motorists at traffic light to-day seem very tame.

The protests at Motorways ruining the countryside echo the protests of a century ago when the railways were doing the same thing. No, the problem hasn’t changed, but the vast increase in population, and the much greater powers of production, have made it more acute.

Now, the canals that once drove men and horses hard for greater speed and profit are pleasant, green oases in endless suburbs, and the once hated steam engine a romantic memory. It is the internal combustion engine that dominates the 20th Century.

No other modern industry has had such a profound influence on the social and economic life to-day as the motor industry. Its development has resulted in the decline of once important industries, and has given an impetus to a mass of others that were unimportant at the turn of the century. It was one of the main factors in the migration of industries, from the North of England to the South and to the Midlands, that took place between the wars.

Like the steam engine that preceded it, the internal combustion engine began its existence as a static form of power, and was later adapted for locomotion. Steam cars had been in existence since the early years of the 19th century, but they were heavy and fuel was a problem. The internal combustion engine made possible a much lighter vehicle. More important, it could be run over existing public roads, unlike the railways which had to stick to a set route; this made for greater mobility. By the beginning of the present century the motor vehicle was with us.

Its application followed existing patterns, in the various forms of road transport in existence at the time—the private carriage, the bus and the wagon. In its early days the motor-car was still a luxury reserved for the type of people who could afford a carriage. The bulk of the population travelled by public transport.

The first motor buses appeared in Britain about 1898, and by the early 1920’s they had been joined by the long distance coach.

One of the selling points used by the promoters of coach travel before the war was that coaches took you through the heart of towns and villages, and gave you a better view of the country. Today more and more coaches trail along dreary motorways and by-pass towns and villages.

Slowly the motor buses pushed the railways into the background, and drove the tramcars off the road. The swing was first from the railways to public road transport; the golden age of the bus was the 1930’s.

But now, by changed production methods and a heavy reliance on hire purchase, the private car has become available to the mass of the people. There were four times as many cars on the roads in 1964 as in 1939 and the number is still growing. Furthermore, the number of people travelling to work from a fair distance away has grown steadily over the last 100 years. The resulting chaos has brought home the importance of the railways, with their much greater carrying capacity. Without their rail systems, cities like London woud seize up in the rush hour.

Since the war a favourite pipe-dream has been an ‘integrated public transport system’, with transport used in a balanced way to its best advantage. But capitalism doesn’t work that way. If profit can be made it will be made, however pleasant or unpleasant the result may be. If, on the other hand, something like the railways no longer pays, but is considered necessary to the general interest of capitalism, then it will be subsidised, but as cheaply as possible.

The grim railway arches that overshadowed the mean terraces of south and east London were held up as examples of the inhumanity of the Victorians, but the new fly-overs that overshadow houses to-day show the same contempt for the people who live underneath. Transport has changed. It will change again, we can only guess how; but one thing is certain. If capitalism remains the new transport will be as nasty as the old.

Les Dale

The London Bus Strike (By A Busman) (1954)

From the November 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

On October 18th, London was in the grip of an ever spreading bus strike. As each issue of daily and evening newspapers reported more and more garages affected and more services withdrawn, so the streets of London became increasingly crowded with motor cars and other vehicles and extra police had to be detailed for traffic control.

The strike, which by October 18th embraced 43 out of 84 Central London bus garages was the boiling over of a feeling of resentment that has been simmering amongst busmen for a long time. An understanding of the position requires a review of bus worker's history over the past 15 years.

Before the 1939-1945 war London busmen received a wage above the average paid to workers in other industries throughout Great Britain. They attained this position by their ready willingness to struggle and the favourable position of their industry. A passenger transport strike represents a dead loss of income to the employers. A stock of passenger rides cannot be built up in preparation for a strike and travellers do not take two rides in the place of one after the strike in order to recoup the employers for the loss. Further, it has a damaging effect on other industries.

During the war busmen were urged to sacrifice some of their working conditions in favour of the war effort. They anticipated that, after the war, they would not only regain the things they had sacrificed but receive many improvements in addition. They formulated a programme of demands which became known as the “Post War Policy,” to be achieved when the time was opportune. The time has never been opportune. With other workers, they were told that the country had to be put back on its feet, export markets had to be captured, the dollar gap had to be closed and the London Transport undertaking was financially “in the red.” There were no end of reasons advanced in favour of wage freeze and wage restraint and why the time was not opportune. A number of minor concessions were gained, an extra quarter time for Sunday work, 9d. per hour for Saturday afternoon work (see Socialist Standard, February, 1949), plus a few pay increases of 7/- or 8/-, the last of which was awarded at the beginning of this year. With the ever increasing cost of living the busmen have found that, despite their pay increases, they have been getting poorer and poorer.

This has resulted in a heavy staff wastage which the employment of more women conductors has failed to reduce. The wastage has become accelerated during recent years. British Transport Commission reports show that during a four year period ending 1952, 25.485 drivers and conductors left their jobs and from January 1st, 1952, to January 1st, 1953, there was a net decline in staff 1,012. In a sellers' market the opportunity was present for busmen to gain a higher price for their labour power.

The gaps in the bus services caused by this staff shortage have been partially filled by busmen working excessive overtime, an opportunity which many of them seized to build up their meagre pay packets. Early this year the busmen began to realise that they were missing a favourable opportunity and that whilst they contented themselves with getting extra pay for working seven days a week plus other forms of overtime, they were solving the London Transport Executive's staff problem and missing the boat that could provide them with improved wages and working conditions.

A ban on rest day and extra duty work was imposed at a few garages and gradually spread throughout the London bus fleet until it embraced almost 90 per cent. of the 114 garages and trolley bus depots. A demand for a £10 10s. weekly wage for all sections (Country Service sections now get a much lower wage than Central London busmen), a five day 40 hour working week and payment during periods of sickness became a rallying point.

The London Transport Executive claimed that this demand was far in excess of anything that they could concede and, although they made certain proposals for a longer working day with increases in overtime pay, they would not negotiate whilst the overtime ban was in operation. Then, without consultation with the men's Trade Union representatives and in a most provocative manner, they introduced into a few garages, a set of schedules that made drastic cuts in a number of bus services. This put the spark to the tinder and garage after garage came out on strike, many without the new emergency schedules coming out in support of those which had them.

The busmen are now claiming that workers in other industries have forged ahead of them and that the inconveniences of their job are not compensated for by the wages they receive. For getting out of bed during the small hours of the morning one week and getting home during the small hours of the morning the following week, for having irregular meal reliefs and a disrupted home life a bus conductor receives a basic wage of £7 14s. 6d. for a 44 hour week—a driver gets 4s. extra. Only by working on Saturday afternoons, on Sundays and national holidays and by performing irksome spreadover duties, can a man get his wage over the £8 mark. A high physical standard is demanded of new recruits but sickness is not catered for—no work, no pay, is the principle. A new contributor pension scheme, recently introduced, is so meagre that it is a matter for ridicule. Annual holidays must frequently be taken during the least pleasant months of the year. The system of rest days makes it necessary to work seven consecutive days before a busman gets a day off except when he has a series of Sundays free from work.

That was the case the London busmen were making on October 18th. A conference was called that day and the delegates from the garages decided by a heavy majority vote to call for a resumption of work and the lifting of the overtime ban in order to have the emergency schedules withdrawn and to allow negotiations to commence with the submission of a claim for higher wages, regulated overtime, to level up the rates of pay between the Central and the Country Services (the Red and the Green) and a number of other items.

The overtime ban had been welded into a strong weapon and it gave the busmen the initiative in the struggle. The introduction of the emergency schedules, by precipitating a strike put the busmen on the defensive and gave the L.T.E. the initiative. Whether it was consciously devised by the L.T.E. or not, it was an astute move and the busmen were snared. Now they impatiently await the outcome of the negotiation.

As with every other commodity, the price of labour power fluctuates with variations in supply and demand, but the fluctuations are not automatic. They are brought about by the efforts of employers to obtain cheap labour power when the supply is plentiful and by the struggles of workers to get more when the demand exceeds the supply. London busmen are working on sound lines in using the present high demand for their particular brand of labour power to force up its price.

As usual there are no end of well wishers and advisers who have cures for the case. Harry Pollitt and Arthur Deakin are for once in agreement in expounding a cure. They both accept that the financial position of the London Transport Executive precludes a satisfactory settlement to the busmen's claims. Some means must be found to improve this financial position and they both speak for a reduction in the fuel tax which would free the L.T.E. from a heavy burden of taxation and release a large sum of money which could be utilised to reduce bus fares and increase busmen's pay. This is an old, old, stinking red herring that dates back to the days of the agitation for the repeal of the Corn Laws. One section of the capitalist class considers itself unjustly treated in relation to another section and enlists the aid of the workers to secure advantages for itself. In the early days of the 19th century it was the heavy tax on com that was supposed to weigh heavily on the workers by keeping up the price of bread. Repeal the Com Laws, they were told, and bread will be cheaper and your wages will buy more. They fell for it. The Com Laws were repealed after years of effort and the workers had to fight against the drive to reduce their wages as soon as there was a tendency for the cost of living to fall. The position will be no different for London busmen. If a reduction in the fuel tax was achieved they would still have to fight to get higher wages.

Incidentally, the London Transport Executive have indicated that they are not interested in a reduction in the fuel tax. When a proposal was made to them by the Transport and General Workers' Union to use the backs of bus tickets to publicise a campaign for fuel tax reduction, they replied that they were a section of the British Transport Commission which relied mainly on railways for its revenue. A fuel tax reduction would assist their competitors, the road haulage companies, to more successfully compete with the railways.

A reduction in the amount of interest paid to bondholders by the Government and collected by them from the British Transport Commission is another proposal to put money into the Commission's coffers and so make higher wages for its employees possible. It is not unknown for a Government in such a case to waive part of the interest charge payable by a nationalised industry, but this would mean higher taxation so that the Government could continue to meet its own legal obligations to the former shareholders now holding Government stock. It would, however, not in the least lessen the efforts of the Board and the Government to keep wages down as much as possible. The general body of capitalists paying the increased taxation would press for lower fares and freight charges not higher transport wages.

The Press has been mildly sympathetic to the busmen. There are many who say that the busmen have a good case, but . . and the “but” evolves into a variety of schemes to get more out of them. One scheme in the forefront is to introduce one-man-operated buses on a wider scale. They have already been introduced in places on the outskirts of London and in the provinces. One man only is required to drive the vehicle and to collect fares, attend to the safety and comfort of passengers and, in general, conduct the bus. Some development of this nature is to be expected for it has ever been a rule of capitalism that, when the employers are forced to pay higher wages they look around for ways and means to reduce their total wage-bill by the introduction of labour saving machinery. That ultimately means, not less labour for all workers, but more labour for some and enforced idleness for others popularly known as a slump.

It may seem to busmen and all other workers that the position is impossible of improvement. Not so. There may be improvements for some of the workers for a long time and for all the workers for a short time, but the range of all improvements is very limited within capitalist society. Not a reduction in the amount of interest paid on investments but the abolition of investment; not struggles for higher wages but the end of the wages system; not joint consultation between employers and employees, but the elimination of employment and unemployment, a world wherein everyone produces to his best ability and has access to the wealth produced, in a word—Socialism. That is the only alternative to an indefinite continuation of the struggle to get enough to live on for those millions who constitute the working class.

Busmen have always had one weakness in their struggles—inter-garage rivalries, inter-section suspicions, inter-service jealousies and a lack of close communication to allow of concerted action. The overtime ban did much to overcome those difficulties and give a common purpose. The strike, as it was not complete, has recreated the difficulties. To achieve Socialism there must be a breaking down of the rivalries and antagonisms between all workers in all industries and a unification, on the political field, on the basis of a clear understanding and awareness of their interests—AS A CLASS.

W. Waters.

50 Years Ago: The London Bus Strike (by a busman) (2004)

The 50 Years Ago column from the November 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

On October 18th, London was in the grip of an ever spreading bus strike. As each issue of daily and evening newspapers reported more and more garages affected and more services withdrawn, so the streets of London became increasingly crowded with motor cars and other vehicles and extra police had to be detailed for traffic control. The strike, which by October 18th embraced 43 out of 84 Central London bus garages was the boiling over of a feeling of resentment that has been simmering amongst busmen for a long time ( . . . )

    

As with every other commodity, the price of labour power fluctuates with variations in supply and demand, but the fluctuations are not automatic. They are brought about by the efforts of employers to obtain cheap labour power when the supply is plentiful and by the struggles of workers to get more when the demand exceeds the supply. London busmen are working on sound lines in using the present high demand for their particular brand of labour power to force up its price ( . . .)

   

It may seem to busmen and all other workers that the position is impossible of improvement. Not so. There may be improvements for some of the workers for a long time and for all the workers for a short time, but the range of improvements is very limited within capitalist society. Not a reduction in the amount of interest paid on investments but the abolition of investment; not struggles for higher wages but the end of the wages system; not joint consultation between employers and employees, but the elimination of employment and unemployment, a world wherein everyone produces to his best ability and has access to the wealth produced, in a word – Socialism. That is the only alternative to an indefinite continuation of the struggle to get enough to live on for those millions who constitute the working class.

    

Busmen have always had one weakness in their struggles – inter-garage rivalries, inter-section suspicions, inter-service jealousies and a lack of close communication to allow of concerted action. The overtime ban did much to overcome those difficulties and give it a common purpose. The strike, as it was not complete, has recreated the difficulties. To achieve Socialism there must be a breaking down of the rivalries and antagonisms between all workers in all industries and a unification, on the political field, on the basis of a clear understanding and awareness of their interests – AS A CLASS.

(From front page article by W. Waters, Socialist Standard, November 1954)

"Tuppence all the way" (1952)

From the September 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

Or three sections for a penny! Those workers who were familiar with London Passenger Transport at the time of the so-called General Strike, and subsequently experienced unemployment, will have clear recollections of the trams which in those days were still under control of the London County Council and competed with the “private enterprise” passenger transport provided by the then London General Omnibus Company (L.G.O.C.) and the "pirate buses."

It was of great advantage for an unemployed worker who signed on at the City Labour Exchange or at his Union offices, to be able to board one of “our” trams at Camberwell Gate Walworth Road, and travel to the Embankment (Blackfriars) for a penny! This midday travel concession could also be taken advantage of on buses where they ran on parallel routes with the Trams.

Those living further out, in Lewisham or Clapham, were able to take advantage of the concession that, providing you reached your suburban destination before 4.30 p.m., it was “tuppence all the way ! ”

Most of us are now familiar with the development of the Control of London Passenger Transport: and, now that it is under state control, midnight of Saturday, July 5th, saw the finish of the last London trams, operating from the New Cross tram depot.

The increase in the cheap midday fares and their ultimate withdrawal was the inevitable outcome of the elimination of competition resulting from the setting-up of the London Passenger Transport Board (L.P.T.B.) and its culmination in the present-day London Transport Executive (L.T.E.) which is merely a department of that State octopus, the Transport Commission.

The workers today then, who require transport to and from their place of employment, are given the “privilege” of travelling threepence all the way, provided they reach their destination before 8 a.m. On the return journey home from work it is full fare ! Gone are the tuppenny and fourpenny workman’s return tickets—such are the fruits of “ progress.”

While many of us, no doubt, will breathe a sigh of relief that our ear drums will not any longer be offended by the rattling, grinding crescendo of noise that indicated the approach of a tram, we should remember that the unpleasant noise of travel is infinitely preferable to the even more unpleasant noise of war.

For, workers should not be under any delusion that the trams have been taken off the main roads of London for philanthropic reasons. Our masters may be much concerned that their racehorses or prize cattle are conveyed by the most up-to-date methods of transport. But we doubt that they lost any sleep on behalf of the crowded workers who endeavoured to keep on their feet—or their last meal down—as they swayed, swerved and rattled on their way to and from work, packed together like the proverbial sardines!

The antiquated London trams—often referred to by some workers as boxes on square wheels—could have been removed long ago and replaced by more modern and comfortable means of transport. But what this would have cost in millions of pounds far outweighed any alleged consideration for those workers who are not in a position (by reason of the limitations of the contents of the pay packet) to take advantage of other and more congenial forms of transport.

We would remind workers in London and elsewhere that it is also the intention of the transport authorities to cease from extending the trolley-bus services and to replace these also with the modern diesel-engine omnibus.

Workers might well ask themselves what all this points to. The cessation of trolley-bus services means an economy in the upkeep of a costly overhead system necessary to convey precious electrical current. The obsolete tram lines will yield thousands of tons of precious steel so necessary to the armament programme of British capitalism and its “allies.” Steel that Mr. Winston Churchill pleaded for in America recently. Steel that is required to build the weapons of war! For it is in war that capitalism finds the need for a modern and efficient fleet of mobile buses which, when workers are not required to shed their blood in their masters’ interests—will continue to convey them to and from their place of employment, on payment of the due fare, despite damage to roadways through bombing.

We saw the result of bombing in London during the second world war and its effect on passenger transport vehicles. If the overhead system of a trolley-bus service is laid on the ground as a result of “enemy” activity then those vehicles are immobile until repairs are effected; this makes apparent the limited availability of the trolley-bus in time of war and its inferiority compared to the independent diesel-engined modern bus, free to come and go !

Likewise the tram track which has been "hit,” necessitating a trunk bus service over that part of the tramway that is out of action. While it is possible to push trolley-buses off main roads, it is not a practical proposition to push a tram up a side street if the track is damaged or the tram has been put out of action. So, in addition to questions of relative cost the powers that be have also, no doubt, been influenced by the fact that it would be impossible to maintain an outmoded tramway system in an important metropolis like London in the event of World War III with possibility of large-scale devastation, resulting in streets made impassable by debris and craters and stranded trams adding to the chaos.

In war an important consideration would be facility for moving troops rapidly through London should the necessity arise. To this end a large fleet of modern double-decker buses could be a useful contribution. And it won’t be "tuppence all the way ! ”

Guido.

On the buses (1981)

From the October 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

Confronted with some socialist literature and an SPGB candidate at the last GLC election, one local newspaper responded in amazement that, while everyone else was worrying about problems like urban decay, unemployment, rubbish in the streets, high rates, inflation and the lousy bus service, our only solution was the prospect of a classless, moneyless world community. A candidacy like that, said our local rag, was eccentric to say the least.

As long as there are so few socialists then what we do is bound to seem eccentric to the rest; so let’s give the local newspaper their conventional point. But from our side of the fence the policies promised by the other political parties as solutions to the problems of the day are not just eccentric, they are laughable; and when workers keep their wits about them they agree with us. During the GLC campaign some members of the Labour party toured the constituency of Islington in an ancient, open-topped, double-decker bus, all festooned with balloons. Two women were talking on the pavement as it passed. They looked up and one remarked, “that must be the extra bus they promised in their election leaflet!”

Better than the most comprehensive set of facts and figures, heartfelt graffiti on the bus shelters reflect the situation; “They don’t bury people in Finsbury: they just stand them at bus stops”. All of the other political parties had promised to do something about the bus service in London it’s the one truly inexhaustible political concern. Voters can forget the bomb, but never the number nine bus.

A Dose of Capitalism

In the 1930s congestion, lateness and dropped services were blamed upon the trams, which were considered to be noisy, uncomfortable, expensive to run, inflexible and the cause of traffic jams at junctions. So they were phased out. In the 1950s the blame was put upon the trolley buses, which were considered expensive to run, inflexible and the cause of delays when their pantographs slipped off the overhead wires. So they too were phased out. Since the 1930s too we have seen the end of private enterprise when London and General were bought out by the London Passenger Transport Board in a partial nationalisation scheme; followed later by the London Transport Executive. Since those days when big was considered beautiful, London Country Services have been bought out by the omnivorous National Bus Company (which grew big by snapping up corporation bus systems that could not meet their financial deficits out of the rates) and the National Bus Company itself has become as famous as Beeching for cutting services.

The range of this history takes in what the politicians are offering today. With the rise in the price of oil since 1973 all concede that electric trolley buses would now be cheaper to run than diesel buses; but nobody can afford the outlay on a new overhead system. Others favour high subsidies from the rates, while their opponents insist that local industry is being crippled by the existing rate burden and that private enterprise buses are the only answer. So it’s back to trolleys, the London and General and square one perhaps. Meanwhile the buses suffer from a really bad dose of capitalism.

Runners and Chokers

Why does reality so rarely match the promise? What stops public transport from being a public service? The bus industry provides a set of jobs that display perfect symbolic parodies of the capitalist and worker relationship; so that, even without the administrative and technical problems above, it is unreasonable to expect anything except what you get.

The job routine can turn workers into mechanical beings, jack-in-the-boxes who pop up when the alarm clock triggers them off. Who better to observe this than the bus driver on an early turn?

There was I, driving along without a care in the world, I turned a corner and runners came at me from all directions. They seemed to come up out of the very drains, running, shouting and waving their arms. In two stops we were chock-a-block, I got three bells from my clippie and the old RT groaned along on sagging springs, steering like a pregnant camel. Four stops later they all poured off at the factory area and we were empty. Rape must feel like that.

A London Country driver 

This is not an essay in cynicism. To the bus company accountants there is no difference between hauling coal by road and hauling people, except that on the buses the load gets on and off of its own accord at each stop. The attitude of the bus crews to the passenger-commodities is a measure of the dualism that goes with production for sale. Passengers are both mere bundles of exchange value and living characters who kick when they are treated like cattle. What can a poor conductor do? If he takes the passengers’ side that buses should be a public service based upon need, then he would run the bus as the users desire, collect no fares, make detours from the schedule and get sacked when an inspector found out. If he takes the company side then he has to dawdle and pick up the maximum number of passengers, yet keep to the timetable within an accuracy of one minute, collect all fares on his fully loaded bus by every third stop, while helping mothers with push chairs, children and the disabled on and off the bus. Telling all and sundry the time and how long the next bus will be (time you bought a watch and twenty-seven feet).

Them Versus Us

It used to be worse of course. During the blitz in the last war the employers forced the crews to suspend the rule of five only standing downstairs (in the interests of national production) and for a time the throughput of passengers on London Transport approached that delight of first world war infantry, the French cattle truck, with its plate bearing the legend “cheveaux 8, hommes 40”.

Then, after years of austerity, in 1949 the bus crews flexed their trade union muscles and tried a half-day strike to wipe out a long-standing anomaly and achieve time-and-a-half for Saturday afternoon work and double-time for Sundays. The employers promptly invoked an agreement forced through during the war and threatened legal action against the strikers (this in a nationalised concern and under a Labour government). Fortunately the bus crews faced down the employers and got what they wanted.

But, as if to show that trade union action unlinked to a movement for socialism is futile, in 1971, when the crews were desperate for a pay rise, the employers faced them down over a strike and offered them half of what they wanted, on condition that they worked Saturday and Sunday at flat rate. The crews accepted and things got worse again.

There may exist a more tricky bunch of accountants than those employed by London Transport, but you'll never convince the crews that this is so. It is legendary at all garages that just before a pay claim goes in the fleet of cars that are held for the use of the managers at administrative centres like Chiswick, Crawley and Marylebone are all renewed. So, whatever the true trading position, the accountants can demonstrate to any tribunal that the board cannot possibly afford any wage increase.

These board members cannot be got at by the crews, but there are surrogates—the inspectors or jumpers, who jump the buses and have to get the crews to sign their cards so many times a day. An index of industrial friction at any shed is the number of crews who refuse to sign the inspectors’ cards, or do so only “under protest”.

Jumpers and cash

The bus crews and the jumpers are at war with each other, either openly or concealed, and the result is occasionally an absurd farce that can only be appreciated long after the event.

You’d never believe what we used to get up to. There was a rota with a dead journey from Luton back to Hitchin at 3.15 every Wednesday (dead because nobody ever travelled on it). My conductor at the time wanted to build a garden shed, but couldn’t afford new wood. So 1 rushed the bus out to a builder’s scrap yard in Luton at 3.15. In pissing rain we loaded the lower deck with half a ton of old timber and dashed back to his house at Hitchin. Halfway, I came over Offley Hill and there was a bleeding jumper with his arm out at a stop. If I picked him up we’d have both got the bullet. So I sailed past to his pitiful cries and covered the bleeder with spray. But the bastard saw the wood as we passed and there was hell to pay when we finished the rota that night. We stuck to the story that we didn’t see him in the rainstorm and as he couldn’t prove anything got away with it. But they came down on us all like a ton of bricks over the tiniest fault for months afterwards.

A London Country inspector (ex-driver) 

But most of the aggro between jumpers and crews centres on fiddling of fares. A wise conductor will be tardy over collecting upstairs fares on a bus where the passengers alight at a terminus. As they come down the stairs he'll run off a string of tickets at the lowest fare and pocket the difference between them and the real fares handed to him. Cunning ones will not dump the scroll run off this way in the used ticket box, because equally cunning inspectors search the boxes for them as the first pointer to a fiddler. The cash clerks at the shed, who receive and inspect the take at the end of a rota, here link up with the roving jumpers. Every journey has to be logged by the conductor and the take broken down into the number of tickets of each denomination run off; in this way the cash clerks build up the history of all such journeys. So when the take on a regular rota falls below the average and the number of low value tickets rises above the average, the word gets around and the jumpers start hiding behind cars and lurking in doorways at strategic points to catch the culprit.

It puzzles some people why services with a fare-box facility beside the driver are not supposed to provide change. Most drivers will oblige of course as it provides a fiddle that is impossible to trace. You give the driver fifty pence for a twenty pence fare, he gives you thirty pence change and as you move away he drops two coins in the box. They may be pennies, tuppences or fivepences, depending on how far the driver is pushing it. The only answer the company has to this is to police the buses with a large plain-clothed inspectorate.

The Political Terminus

Work on the buses is not unique, but it provides a caricature of the shifts and subterfuges, the collisions and the wrangles that go on wherever workers handle the revenue that keeps an institution going. Over the years the characteristically cynical attitudes of the bus crews to the passengers has been formed by their experience in the “public service vehicle industry” and any politician who fancies the chances of cutting through the omnibus jungle, uniting the employers, crews and passengers in a real public service is indulging in self-deception.

Even the abolition of fares would have little overall effect. To be sure the bus companies would save on fare machinery, the wages of conductors and cash clerks; while the omnibus jungle would be thinned out as each bus journey ceased to be a transaction between the public and the company. But another jungle of political wrangling would spring up around the problem of who pays for the service. Should the burden be equally loaded on the rate bills of shops, offices, factories and householders; or should the money come from central government? Such questions are the perennial concern of governments, whose battles are fought in the capitalist jungles of council meetings and offices, parliaments and civil services. You get ideological glimpses of these battles at elections and ultimately you may be called upon to do a government’s international battling when the fighting becomes real in war time.

There you are, just one industry, just one problem that all politicians promised to reform at the last GLC election. Yet it proved to be as tangled as the whole capitalist world.

Who are the eccentrics now? The socialists, who want production for use and free access—or the politicians who promise the earth for nothing?

B.K. McNeeney

More on free transport (1970)

From the September 1970 issue of the Socialist Standard

Free public Transport in London (see May Socialist Standard) is still under serious public discussion. It is finding supporters in some strange places.

The April issue of Commerce International, the journal of the London Chamber of Commerce, asked various people to comment on the suggestion that “London Transport without fares would b# more efficient”.

Some, like Sir Desmond Plummer Tory leader of the GLC, were against this on the grounds that it would encourage “financial irresponsibility”. By which we assume him to mean that the capitalist maxim of “no profit, no production” would not be applied so directly. Others, including the chairman of the Chamber of Commerces own Transport Committee, were in favour. Some of the figures given reveal the waste of capitalism. According to Tory Islington councillor John Szemerey “at present some two fifths of London Transport’s annual working expenditure is spent on collecting the money to pay for the service”.

The British architects’ association commented with remarkable insight in the May issue of their RIBA Journal:

  To abolish fares on all city public transport would make economic sense, social sense, and moral sense. And it would be practical and more efficient. It is a common sense reform which would immediately make life better for a lot of people; and in present conditions in London, it would be perhaps the simplest and most effective way of making the city a bit more tolerable for its inhabitants. You don’t even have to be a liberal, let alone a radical, to agree with this. But it isn't going to happen, of course, because it’s still too far fetched to make political sense. Moral: when people are told that something is 'utopian', it usually means that some other people don't want them to do it. (our emphasis).

Their views were commended by Labour councillor Sir Norman Prichard in a GLC debate on 12 May. He also pointed out that the Woolwich ferry across the Thames was an existing example of free transport paid out of the rates.

Although of course in a socialist society all transport would be free, to implement free public transport in London on its own would merely be another reform of capitalism which would at best only palliate the problem of traffic congestion. What interests us as socialists is that a proposal to abolish prices is getting such serious discussion. We want to extend this discussion and to hear the arguments of those who advocate free transport against our proposal that everything should be produced free for people to use and that all prices should be abolished, on the basis of the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production.

To those who have their doubts as to whether this is practical we can only repeat: when people are told that something is ‘utopian’, it usually means that some other people don’t want them to do it.

Free transport in London (1970)

From the May 1970 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the more obvious examples of the waste of capitalism is the common practice of making people buy a ticket before they can travel. Under this absurd procedure men and women are employed to issue pieces of paper for other men and women to punch holes in. People who cannot afford to pay for these tickets cannot use the buses and trains, while those caught travelling without one are liable to be brought before the magistrates and fined.

In a socialist society on the basis of common ownership travel, like everything else, would be free. Buses and trains would be provided for people to use as and when they wanted to.

Faced with this common-sense proposition many people are at a loss and can think of no sensible objection. They often do not know that even under capitalism public transport is provided as a free service in some places. Such people must have been thoroughly confused during the recent Greater London Council elections. For here there were Tories and Liberals, Labour and Homes Before Roads candidates, all saying that the GLC should run London Transport as a free service.

For instance, the “Homes Before Roads” group who stood in most boroughs declared:

  We believe that within the next ten years we will have to consider the idea of free public transport as a feasible solution to the congestion and pollution caused by the private motorist.

But it was not only amongst the minority party candidates that this was canvassed. In Islington, the idea had an able advocate in Councillor John Szemerey, a Tory. He wrote:

  It is six years since I first proposed to Conservative Central Office that public transport in London should be provided free as a public service, financed jointly from the Exchequer and from the rates. With all the resultant savings on manpower and machinery, increased mobility of labour and utilisation of public transport, and reduction in travel by private car, I still think there is a good case for this. (North London Press, 6 February).

When asked how much it would cost to provide free public transport in London the Tory GLC leader replied that “the abolition of fares on London Transport’s red buses and Underground trains would be equivalent to a rate of 3s. 4d. in 1970, or approximately £30 a year for the average householder’’ (North London Press, 6 March).

Szemerey’s Labour opponents in Islington were delighted. They challenged him to say he stood for “a 3s. 4d. a rate increase to make travel free on all the London Transport buses and Underground trains”, an obvious appeal to what they thought were popular prejudices against the idea. In Camden, incidentally, the same challenge was made to the Liberals by a Tory — a revealing illustration of the sham that conventional party politics is.

Szemerey replied, arguing in effect that even from a capitalist standpoint his proposal could be justified:

  My point was that the savings from having no tickets (savings in manpower, materials and machines) put together with the savings on road maintenance and improvements (many more would use free public transport and leave their cars at home) might well justify a totally new look at public transport policy and treating it as a public service paid from local and national taxation (rates and Exchequer).
  The statement by the leader of the GLC that free red buses and undergrounds in London would cost a 3s. 4d. rate or some £30 per year for the average householder, if paid entirely from the rates underlines my point. The balance of payments from rates and Exchequer still needs to be worked out, but even if paid entirely from the rates £30 a year per household would present an actual saving for most families . . . And for the old, who nowadays have to think twice before spending 6d. on a bas fare, it would open a new life. They could visit friends, go to the shops, make outings to museums or parks all at no direct cost to themselves (Islington Gazette, 20 March).

Because abolishing tickets was proposed by a conventional politician it got this serious hearing. Nobody suggested that, with free access to transport, there would not be enough seats for everyone. Or that the buses and trains would be jammed full of people travelling nowhere in particular just because it was free.

Free travel on London Transport has nothing to do with Socialism, as the fact that it finds such a keen advocate in a Tory shows. It would merely be another reform which, with class ownership and the wages system continuing, would exert a downward pressure on wage levels.

It is the implications of some of Councillor Szemerey’s arguments that are of particular interest. He argues that resources would be saved since there would no longer be any need for tickets, ticket machines, ticket collectors or accounts, and that people who now cannot afford to travel too often will have this restriction on their enjoyment of life removed.

But these arguments can be applied with equal validity outside transport. Think of the saving if other things like food and clothes and housing were to be provided free. There would be no need for any cashiers or accountants or bank clerks or security guards or rent collectors or salesmen. The list is almost endless since very many people are employed in jobs which have to do with the buying and selling rather than the actual production of wealth. There would be no need either for cash registers, safes, counting machines or sales ledgers. The saving would be enormous and could go some way towards providing the extra things that people would ask for if prices were abolished.

What an indictment of capitalism it is that there are old people who, as Councillor Szemcrey admits, “have to think twice before spending 6d. on a bus fare”. These same people also have to think twice before spending money on the food and clothes they buy and on the rooms they rent. The abolition of price-tags really would open up "a new life” for them.

Of course free access to wealth according to need is not possible as long as a privileged few own the means of production. It would first require a real social revolution changing the basis of society from class to common ownership, as opposed to the comparatively trivial reform Councillor Szemcrey proposes. It is up to him to explain why his proposal to abolish prices is restricted to transport. He must say why he wants to go on wasting society’s resources on the trappings of buying-and-selling and why he still wants to force old people to pay for the food and shelter they need.

Adam Buick

Morrison's Child (1936)

From the April 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

We Socialists are out for the common ownership and democratic control of the means of life, by, and in the interest of, the whole people. This is to be brought about by the education of the workers in Socialist principles, to the end that the workers will organise with us to capture the political machinery, and so be in a position to control the armed forces, and thus be able to dictate terms to the capitalist class. When we tell people this we are by many called dreamers, or told that such a proposal is too far-fetched, or too far off.

We are told that a more “reasonable” way, and one getting “better” results, is to lay such an object aside and go in for “something now,” and so gradually "build up” Socialism. This is a favourite method of the Labour Party, the I.L.P. and many ex-Liberals. They say that industry is to be gradually taken over and the owners compensated or given a guaranteed dividend, and their previously competing concerns amalgamated and run as a public utility corporation, responsible to nobody but themselves. This, we are told, is achieving “Socialism in our time.” Let us see how this pans out from the people’s point of view.

Some little time ago the various transport undertakings within 25 miles of London were absorbed into what is now known as London Passenger Transport Board, and a certain Mr. Morrison, Chairman of the L.C.C., played quite a part in “welding up” this concern, so much so that it is often referred to as "Morrison’s Child.” The scheme was initiated by the last Labour Government. Since it has been in actual operation, time and again the workers! conditions have been tightened up. Frequent stoppages have taken place on Green Line, trams, ’buses and trolley-’buses, so it may be taken for granted that the labour conditions are not all they might be. But for the owners, “the Board,” what a difference: No competition, no fare cuts, no “redundant” services now. Let the public wait and travel when and how we like; all fares now come in to us, and our income is more secure than before. That is how two out of the three parties stand.

Now for how the ”customers,” the public, are served.

There is no need to labour this point to Londoners. They all well know the morning and evening scrambles, and queueing up, and the delays in the centre through volume of traffic, and delays in the suburbs through depletion of services. A writer in Reynolds's (February 6th, 1936) gives details as to where the services have been cut down and "re-organised” since the amalgamations. He went to Broadway House for some explanations. He got them. This is what “the Board’s spokesman” told him: —

  “Our first duty, imposed by Parliament, is to our shareholders.”
  “To achieve the necessary financial results, we want to make sure that every train, tram and ’bus is filled as nearly as possible. Our idea is that there should be no empty seats. We want paying loads only.”

So that accounts for the delays and scrambles. Wait till they get a “paying” (profitable) load. As for your “getting there,” well, when we are ready, and don’t forget “our first duty is to our shareholders,” the capitalists, the owners.

That is a bit of Herbert Morrison’s “Socialism in the making,” and ’twere best left alone. The position is much the same with the Electricity Board and the Grid.

It is quite futile to waste time on such reforms and the parties which sponsor them. Organising for straight revolutionary Socialism alone is worth while for the working class, and to this end we ask you to join us.

C. V. R.

Cooking the Books: Fareless Transport (2018)

The Cooking the Books column from the April 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

Under the headline ‘German cities to trial free public transport to cut pollution,’ the Guardian (14 February) reported on a letter from German ministers to the EU Environment Commissioner. Their idea was to encourage people to use public transport rather than carbon-burning individual cars (and avoid Germany being fined for not meeting EU antipollution targets).

Free transport will be a feature of socialist society as part of general production to directly meet people’s needs. So, there would not just be free transport, but also free health care, education, communications, restaurants and laundries. There would be no charge to enter museums, parks, libraries, theatres and other places of entertainment and recreation. Houses and flats would be rent-free, with heating, lighting, water, telephone and broadband supplied free of charge.

Free public transport on its own within capitalism is a different matter as under capitalism everything has to be paid for. As the system’s defenders put it, there is no such thing as a free lunch. In the case of public transport, the body operating it has to spend money to provide the service, on buying and maintaining the buses, trams or trains, on maintaining the tracks, on fuel and electricity and general running costs, as well as on the wages and salaries of its employees. If there is no money coming in from fares, somebody has to provide the money to pay for all this. The transport authority has to be subsidised, from central or local government which will have raised the money from taxes and borrowing.

One capitalist justification for such a subsidy is that it would save money that would otherwise have to be spent on something else. The Guardian mentions that, according to the EU, ‘life-threatening pollution’ affects 130 cities in Europe ‘costing €20bn euros (US$24.7bn) in health spending per year in the bloc.’ Another reason might be to avoid employers in city centres having to pay higher wages because of the high cost of workers getting to work; in effect, a subsidy to these employers.

Free transport has in fact been introduced in some cities, and has worked to refute the silly objection that opponents of socialism have predicted will happen when anything is made freely available.

When in 1970 the GLC was considering whether or not to introduce free transport in London one Conservative councillor predicted that everybody would rush to take free rides and a contributor to the Local Government Chronicle (15 August) opined: ‘individual charges are a form of “rationing by the purse”, but they are rationing. If there were no individual payments and thus no rationing, buses and trains and so on would surely get even more overcrowded than they are today; powerful and unscrupulous would-be passengers would get places in the vehicles, but what about old people, children, and the disabled? They need transport most of all, but they would be likely sufferers in a free-for-all.’

This has not happened in the places where free transport has been introduced. In a follow-up article on the German proposal, the news website, the Huffington Post (22 February) reported on two cities which already have unlimited public transport free at the point of access. In Tubingen, in Germany, where residents pay a tax of €15 (about £13) a month towards the cost. In Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, there is also fareless public transport. In neither case has free transport led to a free-for-all as the physically strong push aside pensioners to grab a seat, nor to people ‘joy riding’ or ‘free loading’ just because it’s free. People only use the free transport to get from A to B when they need to for one reason or another. As they can be expected to do in socialism too,

No Fares Not Low Fares (1982)

Illustration by George Meddemmen.

From the March 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

Last May the voters of London elected a new set of leaders to run the Greater London Council. No more were they prepared to be governed by witless Horace Cutler and his fellow Tory rogues. The Labour Party swept to power on a wave of disapproval of Thatcher’s efforts and the radical rhetoric of reform was in the air. The press portrayed Ken Livingstone as the Joseph Stalin of County Hall, while Livingstone portrayed himself as the cleanest guy in town performing the dirtiest job in town. “Our Ken” was going to take on the might of the profit system. “Socialism in one city” was the battle-cry; the Metropolitan Police were going to be converted into a “democratic people’s militia”, it was to be the Paris Commune, Round Two. Leftist reformers fantasised with all of the impotence of old men in a porn shop: what they weren’t going to do to capitalism wasn’t worth doing. And the jewel in their crown—the Reforme Royale—was the new cheap fares policy for London Transport. “Fair fares for all” ran the advertising campaign, and the voters seemed to have got what they asked for. Little did they know that what they asked for was yet to come.

Under capitalism everything has to be paid for. After all, you can’t run buses without money, can you? Imagine trying to drive a bus from Brixton to Clapham without sticking pound notes into the engine! So Ken and the boys had to raise the cash. The answer they came up with was to increase rates by precisely the amount they were cutting fares. So, the rates went up and assorted Londoners hissed and booed and the fares went down and assorted Londoners (many of whom had been hissing and booing) cheered and thanked the Labour Party for making it cheaper to travel from A to B.

Not long after the fares went down and the rates went up, the Tory-controlled Bromley Council began to take legal action to outlaw the GLC fares policy. One thing can always be said about the Tories—they will stop at nothing to defend their system. First they went to the Appeal Court where they stated their case to Lord Denning—who was born in the nineteenth century and upholds the social conventions of the eighteenth century. According to the 1969 Transport (London) Act it is illegal for fares to be subsidised by the state and therefore Denning agreed with Bromley Council that the GLC—and the people who elected it—were aiming for something which is against the law. The GLC appealed to the House of Lords, which ruled that it was illegal not to run London Transport “along business lines”. Lord Wilberforce stated that LT had a duty to ensure “that outgoings were met by revenue” and Lord Diplock chastised the GLC for its “thriftless use of monies obtained from ratepayers and . . . deliberate failure to deploy to best advantage the full financial resources available to it . . . ” The result of this decision is that LT fares are due to rise by about 200 per cent.

The failure of the GLC “fair fares” policy is yet another indication of the utter futility of reformism. Back in May of last year the Labour Left were making promises and millions of workers were really believing them. It is not that the Labour Party did not intend to provide cheaper fares. But the Labour Party was elected with a mandate to run the capitalist system. When the SPGB GLC election campaign drew attention to the nature of capitalism our opponents in the Labour Party told us that we were wasting our time. So Labour won the election—they won it with the support of workers who supported production for profit. All that Labour voters wanted was the profit system without its unpleasant consequences—and that is a utopia. The benefits of socialism will not be won by applying the rhetoric of socialism to the administration of capitalism, but by conscious working class political action to transform society from production for profit to production for use.

Under capitalism production is for profit. If there is no profit in sight, production ceases. The same goes for the production of vital services: under capitalism they must be “economical”. It is more “economical” to close down hospital casualty departments and let people die than to keep them open and let people live. Now, “Our Ken” is no great lover of this. He wants to run capitalism without the nasty bits. The trouble is that when you play a rough game like rugby according to the gentlemanly rules of cricket you are likely to get hurt. Livingstone presumed that he could run a capitalist transport service “fairly”. Alas, what is fair for the profit system is what is fair for the ruling class and fairness for them equals a bad deal for us.

Socialists will not get excited about “cheap fares”. Why should we have to pay money to travel on buses and trains when we build them, drive them and produce the petrol for them? The problem is that under capitalism the workers produce all goods and services but we do not own or control them. In a sane society, where wealth is owned and controlled by the whole community, all people will have free access to everything. Under capitalism you can only have what you pay for. The transport technology exists today which could make mobility simple and available for all. Isn’t it time that workers stopped voicing the slaves’ demand for more of the cheap and shoddy and started organising for free access for all?

Steve Coleman

Running Commentary: Back to the Front (1982)

The Running Commentary column from the February 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

Back to the Front
Racialist propaganda does not come exclusively from forthright racialist outfits like the National Front. A far more menacing and insidious variety often comes from “respectable” sources and for that reason is not always recognised for what it is. During the trial, last month, of the editor of Bulldog, the Young National Front magazine, for publishing articles which were likely to incite racial hatred, some interesting information was revealed.

The articles in question included phrases urging the “white” population in Britain to “drive the immigrant invaders out of the country” and put an end to the British way of life being “swamped”. The editor was being prosecuted under the Public Order Act, 1936 for making “threatening, abusive and insulting” comments. A surprise was in store for some when David Martin-Sperry, defending the Bulldog editor, rose to inform the court that the comments should be regarded as acceptable as they had been lifted, hardly altered, from the national press.

Martin-Sperry read out original versions of some of the articles which had appeared in the Daily Express, and then went on to say to the jury, “And don’t be put off by words like ‘swamp’. They’ve been used by the Prime Minister”. He later attempted to claim further credibility for the general policies advocated in Bulldog by pointing out that other political parties shared its belief in the need for import controls and immigration control. We wonder whether members of the Communist Party of Great Britain, which has promoted both of these policies, will rally to the support of the fascists and give evidence to the English courts on the worthiness of such political measures?


Vive le Socialisme
If you believe the news bulletins and the papers then you will consider socialism to exist in France. How you would square your belief with various items of news from that country, we cannot be sure.

One person who probably isn’t all that bothered what political labels you attach to the French society is Marcel Dassault. He is usually known as France’s “most active capitalist”, and looking at some of his more recent exploits you can see why. Dassault, reputed to be the richest man in France, has just gone into partnership with a state company, after buying a 20 per cent share in Europe One, the continent’s largest commercial radio station, which is effectively controlled by a French state company.

Described on the French bourse as “the biggest share deal of the century”, Dassault will be hoping that his new investment, which carries with it interests in Tele-Monte-Carlo, several publications and a record company, will greatly boost his already gigantic unearned income.

If Marcel laughs himself into a fit when he hears people talking about socialism in France, then so must Yvon Gattaz, the new leader of the French Bosses Council. He has just concluded a deal with President Mitterand and the French unions and announced that he was pleased to find “that employers’ aims were the same as those of the government”. The most important feature of the trilateral agreement was that the unions had agreed to moderation in all their wage claims. Although the shared aims of the bosses and government were not explicitly stated a critical observer might describe the situation as ‘screwing the workers for the maximum profit’.

Before we leave France, just a couple of comments worth noting from Bernard Brune, the Minister for Social Affairs. Speaking about his new plans to fight climbing unemployment Brune said: “If all works well we shall have fulfilled our promise to keep unemployment stable at 2,000,000 this year” (Guardian, 8/1/82). Then on the subject of carrying the support of the bosses for his job training centre strategies, he proudly stated: “The employers are beginning to realise we are not a lot of bolshevists or a bunch of crackpots. We mean serious business". And “serious business” is, of course, exactly what he does mean.


God Help Us!
“Trust in the Lord and Sleep in the Street” is an old saying that his Holiness the Pope would not thank you for repeating. As a devout Christian he presumably believes that material matters in life are of less importance than ‘spiritual wellbeing’ and that your destiny is ultimately in the hands of that mysterious thing called god.

If we are humble and docile and meek, so the story goes, everything will be all right and we shall “inherit the earth”. F'or someone with such entrenched faith in the powers of beneficent extraterrestrial forces, Pope John Paul places an unusual reliance on down-to-earth man-made modern medical treatment. The Vatican has just had to pay £22,482 for the 77 days the Pope spent in hospital following the attempt on his life last May. We wonder whether it was this medical treatment which was responsible for saving the Pope’s life or divine intervention brought about by the prayers uttered to the skies by Catholics throughout the world?

Now that the Pope has recovered, we learn (Sunday Times, 3/1 /82) that he is to make his debut as a West End playwright next spring. The dramatic piece written by the Supreme Pontiff as a younger man is entitled The Jeweller’s Shop and examines attitudes about love and marriage. There were internal difficulties in persuading the Vatican to release the right, as catholic director Mike Murray explained: “The problem was that the Pope cannot be seen to be entering the commercial arena".

The author’s royalty will now be paid to the Vatican. Murray went on to elucidate: “There is nothing wrong with profit in the context of faith. Mediaeval tradesmen used to pin up a sign on their stalls which read: ‘For God and for profit’. That’s the trouble, capitalism without God is hopeless”. So the unemployed and the homeless and the thirty million people who are likely to die of starvation this year and those who are simply sick of being exploited can all take comfort in knowing that the only thing missing from their lives to make capitalism pleasant, is God

Any More Fares?

The Greater London Council’s experiment with cheap public transport, soon to fade away in a puff of diesel fumes, has been depicted in the media as a personal feud between Ken Livingstone and Lord Denning. All the clichés, however, obscure the real issues as effectively as an old-fashioned London smog.

High density urban living and modern commercial and industrial practice require that vast numbers of workers travel from their homes to their places of work at set times, and then travel back again approximately eight hours later. The means of transporting this army must be effective and reliable so as not to disrupt the profit-making process. The argument is really about how the total cost of transporting workers about is to be divided between different sections of the owning class, each of course wanting to reap the greatest benefit at the least possible expense.

The history of the bickerings over whether public transport should be made to pay for itself or be subsidised shows up party politics for the sham they really are. Ken Livingstone, the “red extremist”, turns decidedly pink (or is it grey) when compared to John Szemery, a Tory councillor on the Tory controlled GLC of 1970. Szemery wrote:

   It is six years since I first proposed to Conservative Central Office that public transport in London should be provided free as a public service financed jointly from the Exchequer and from the rates. With all the resultant savings in manpower and machinery, increased mobility of labour and utilisation of public transport and reduction in travel by private car, I still think there is a good case for this. (North London Press, 6 February, 1970.)

Szemery’s Labour opponents in Islington challenged him to say that he stood for a rate increase to make travel free on all London Transport buses and underground trains. Obviously pandering to what they thought were popular prejudices against the idea. All change please!

Our Winston

In a speech at Guildhall in November 1914, Winston Churchill said: “The maxim of the British people is ‘Business as usual’.” Even from his earliest days young Winston must have had a clear understanding of exactly what ‘business as usual' means in a class-divided society, and why for a minority there is every reason to try to convince the majority that the present order of society is worth preserving even at the cost of “blood, toil, tears and sweat”.

On 4 January this year the Public Records Office made available the census returns for 1881 and from them we find that our Winston, aged 6 and described as a scholar, was living with his parents at St. James Place in Pall Mall. His next door neighbour was Earl Spencer (occupation: Peer and Lord President of the Council).

The Spencers had 31 servants in residence, while Lord Egremont ‘next door’ on the other side only had thirteen. The Churchills had to scrape by with a mere eight servants, including the butler, the nursery maid and the cook. Hard times indeed, but he and his friends seemed to get a fair whack out of capitalism. What was it he once said, “Never in the history of class struggle has so much been taken from so many by so few”?

Gary Jay