From the front. (1912)

From the December 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Archbishop of Canterbury, in dealing with the “labour unrest” at the Church Congress, suggested that in order to achieve industrial peace, the employers should get in personal touch with their men, see the conditions of their work and of their home lives with their own eyes. Also that the workmen should try and understand the conditions under which business in these days of international competition has to be carried on. But why not an actual change of places ? The worker would then understand the real function of the capitalist—luxurious loafing—while the capitalist would be able to enjoy the benefits that are said to be inseparable from “honest toil.” Both suggestions are equally practical—and nonsensical.

* * *

Referring to the attitude of the Church towards “labour unrest,” his Grace said: “There is above all the disputes and passions of men, a will of ‘God’—that conscience knows it, and that obedience to it is, and keeps all things, right.”

Conscience knows it—God’s instructions are so unmistakable—yet the Archbishop says the Church “has no commission from its master to take sides, or to invest any particular scheme or policy with his authority.” And this in spite of the fact that, in his own words, “capital is responsible for the condition of the labour it employs—in railways and factories at home, or in rubber plantations abroad,” and that “even now multitudes of children are born into an environment where the only chances are downward.” And the Church still claims to be on the side of the oppressed.

How pitiful these high humbugs appear in their futile endeavours to reconcile their interested attitude with their creed !

* * *

Bernard Shaw has at last told why he “left off lecturing on Socialism.” He says : “Nine-tenths of the art of popular oratory lies in sympathising with the grievances of your hearers.” When his audiences were no longer of the working class he changed his tune.

The lesson is clear. Shawism is for the shirkers, while Socialism is for the workers.

Bernard Shaw is not by any means the only one to adapt his principles and bend the truth to suit his audience. Prominent Labour men have said more than once that “those who pay the piper call the tune.” As this is said in tones of reproach, because the workers do not pay, we can only infer that all “Labour” men are capitalist agents.

The Welsh Messiah, too, subscribes to the Shavian creed. When advocating social reform—greater economy in administration—he tells his audience that “seven per cent. of the people in the great cities live in a state of chronic destitution. Thirty per cent., or nearly one third, live on or below the poverty line.” Or: “There is something wrong—where the labourer, working hard from morning till night in spring, summer, autumn and winter, in rain and sunshine, only to receive his eleven shillings a week in vast areas in England—in a country where you give thousands of pounds to men who do not labour at all.”

These are extracts from his speeches, called to mind by their publication in “Better Times.”

When the question is one of taxation, however, he claims that all sections profit equally by good government, and all should, therefore, contribute.

* * *

For downright contradiction the above is hard to beat ; but the same gent goes one better than his previous best. His “good government,” on another occasion, becomes a class government guilty of legislating in their own interests. He says : “There are about six million electors in this country at the present day, and yet the government is in the hands of one class. It does not matter up to the present which party is in power, you have practically the same class governing the country.”

* * *

Women’s Suffrage is the cry of the Pethicks and the Pankhursts, who want votes for propertied women. In their efforts to enlist the sympathy and support of working class women they tell them that their wages are lower than men’s because they have no political power. With political power, they say, women would become a force to be reckoned with, and would be able to demand higher wages and better conditions.

This bait, however, will not do for the women in the hosiery trade. They are actually afraid of higher wages. According to the secretary of the Hosiery Union, Leicestershire, “women are paid a lower rate than men in every branch of the trade. We want them to demand the same as the men, but they insist on the difference and say : ‘Oh, no, in that case we shall not be wanted.'”

Sir Alexander King, Secretary of the Post Office, has threatened to discharge women and employ men if the demand for the same wages is conceded. Women engaged in many occupations are in the same unhappy position. They dare not demand high wages, even when they do the same work as men, because they would be sacked and men would do the work. Men, however, demand higher wages and sometimes get them, only to find themselves, sooner or later, in the same position as the women, because machinery has been introduced.

Truly, almost every move of the workers on the industrial field is trumped by the masters.

* * *

Mr. Ramsay MacDonald has discovered in a New Zealand Government report, striking confirmation of his own views on Tariff Reform. According to this instructive report the cost of living has risen because of Tariff Reform, 16 per cent. On this statement he builds up a case against Protection—a case which collapses like a house of cards when one remembers that the rise in the prices of the necessaries of life in Free Trade England, over the same period, is according to Professor Ashley, 24 per cent. Pity the blind!

* * *

The quarrel between Liberals and Tories over Banbury’s amendment, although not likely to make them forget their mutual interests and their opposition to the workers, nevertheless revealed the hooligan nature that is always one of the characteristics of those who live by plunder. As far as it went it should teach the workers that the so-called respectable and cultured class can be as vicious and vulgar as Parisian bandits. It is on record that Mr. Will Crooks did much to ease the situation by a timely rendering of “Auld Lang Syne,” while Mr. Barnes told an interviewer that the Labour Party would do their best to preserve the Parliamentary machine. Labour Members render yeomen service. They are especially good at dispute settling in the interest of the class that employs them at £400 per year—for Auld Lang Syne.

* * *

A censor of cinematograph films is the latest precaution taken by the representatives of the master class. Pictures that show the way “not to successfully burgle” are to be taboo, presumably because they excite the spirit of emulation in the minds of ambitious youngsters. By the manner in which such freaks are magnified, the worker is almost encouraged to believe that there is no such thing as unemployment and poverty leaving thousands only the choice between starvation, crime, or the workhouse.

* * *

But not only must property be protected—capitalist morals have to be safeguarded. The respect and veneration with which the workers have been taught to regard their rulers must be preserved. With that object in view pictures are to be excluded that represent royalty, aristocracy, judges or other State dignitaries in ludicrous or undignified positions. Yet with all their care, discontent becomes greater, and Socialism—the end of all things capitalistic—makes steady progress.

F. Foan

Ideology and censorship in capitalist society (2003)

From the December 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

The ideas of the ruling class are, in every age, the ruling ideas; i.e., the class which is the dominant material force in society is at the same time its dominant intellectual force (Karl Marx).

Censors were magistrates in ancient Rome, usually two in number, who were elected every five years but held office for eighteen months only, in order to take the census of the official list of citizens and carry out the solemn lustrum (purification and protection from evil influences). The censors exercised a general supervision over the conduct of citizens, their power and prestige deriving from the senators, the ruling force in society. The censor worked to protect the Roman social order. In recent times, we have seen this tradition carry on in the commissar, McCarthy, and still today with the Pope and other Ayatollahs. Now this function has more or less been privatised to the media, editors of TV, radio and the national press, where authorities seem confident it will be administered sagaciously. Here the punishment and jailing, once frequent in a more ruthless age, has now been replaced by disregard, barring and ostracism—keeping the political airwaves sanitised from evil influences—though the Internet is beyond their ability to control easily.

The approach to censorship from media editors is two-fold. First, there might well be blatant political acts to censor alternatives to the present order of society which provides for them, and their masters, a comfortable life. Second, and much more common, there is a censorship of a more subtle kind. Gone are the days when the direct Victorian approach, “you are not allowed to have books to corrupt your mind”, would be acceptable for most. Editors themselves are a product of society, and, with others who would influence society, come to their work and their social gatherings with a worldview, a set of preconceptions that may provide the framework for their analysis of, and actions in, the world. A worldview constructed by influences gathered from a lifetime exposed to bourgeois ideology—this we can call their “ideological baggage”. This consists of anything from their views on genetics, abortion or testing on animals to the wider political scene, on economics, ethics etc. These preconceptions enter at both an explicit and implicit level, but even when they are invoked explicitly, unexamined and unexpected assumptions underlie them. Alternate opinions and philosophies lacking in popularity which seem at odds with general thinking are destined to remain off the mainstream media, for fear readers and viewers will either object or simply not understand the points being made—as might not the editors themselves. Where once conspiracy or direct force would be used to hold a political line, now “ideology” carries out the daily lustrum.

Unlike propaganda, ideologies are systems of thought and belief by which dominant classes explain “to themselves” how their social system operates and what principles it exemplifies. Ideology is the deeply and unselfconsciously held views of the dominant class in any social order. We distinguish these beliefs from views held in a more pietistic or even cynical fashion to manipulate or form the opinions of those who are not members of the ruling classes. Ideological systems therefore exist not as fictions but as “truths”, and not only evidential truths but moral truths.

A given society with a particular mode of production and accompanying social relations requires a certain mode of thought, leading to a certain conduct among individuals operating or living in that society if it is to function. Here in the struggle for our ear, the ruling authorities have an advantage in that they appeal to cultures and traditions, which since our earliest schooling have been put to work on us. Wherever we are in the world, we’ll hear the same old appeals to words and phrases from our leaders, and the rich and their media tools operating there. Appeals to nationalism—“win for your country”; law and order—“punish the criminals”; private property—“you can’t have…”; competition and contest—“the world would die without it”; foreigners—“asylum seekers go home”; work ethic—“no money no life”; leadership—“we’d be lost without the men of ideas”; etc, etc.

A Socialist Outlook

It is not the individuals who hold official power, or indeed those in whose interests they hold that power—their rich paymasters—but the overarching ideology of the bourgeois epoch that must be exposed and censured. Ideology here, like the rules of a game which all players must obey, or where in a drama production the storyline, script actors and costume, etc, must conform to the constraints of the theme, demands that we conform to its strictures, which are often also prescribed in law to ensure that we do.

The wings of the capitalist party, left, right and centre, take up various positions within a narrow spectrum of opinion and debate, giving a superficial appearance of differences, adding to the semblance of a thriving democracy in line with bourgeois ideology. So close are their remedies for society’s ills that they would be almost indistinguishable but for their talent for exposing the shortcomings of individuals. Indeed this has become the stock-in-trade of the body politic within the capitalist parties. “A very nice turns of events to blame individuals and let the system ideology off scot-free”, might say some.

Non-socialist readers will perhaps join socialists and feel “disgust” at the poverty, hunger and sickness and early death among us workers; “anger” at the strangeness, enmity, competition and violence between us; “sadness” with the coldness, childishness, wickedness, treachery and greed from many of us; and “apprehension” at the ignorance, hopelessness and ambivalence displayed by others. Then think nothing of a society split into, countries, races, cultures, religions, sexes, ages, classes, sectarianism and criminals; of human production organised around wage-labour, unions, bosses, money, trade and exchange commodities, and private property; of the need to protect society with law and order, punishmen, and war. Non-socialists think of all these “structures” with “elements”, “philosophies”, “standpoints”, “practices” as normal and necessary for humans in a modern society.

Socialists see that bourgeois ideology illustrates a characteristic where pictures of how things actually happen in society appear back to front. God creates Man instead of the reverse. In ethics, people are said to derive judgements from an absolute moral principle of some sort, whereas it is their judgements, reflecting their class conditions and interests that have constructed over time (and through generations) this principle. The belief that in politics the state grants its citizens certain rights, where in reality the people using their vote have abnegated their social power to the state. The view that the government represents the people, where actually it governs in the interest of our masters. In history, we are lead to believe that “great men” and ideas decide the course of events, where in reality, events, combined with their underlying conditions, establish the limitations and opportunities which determine in broad outline who shall be “great men” and which ideas will triumph.

In economics, people think that they decide where they work and what they buy, but really, the jobs and commodities available determine both. Also that businesses serve the community by their investment in the production and jobs where really it is the community which serves the businesses by giving them the lion’s share of what is produced, including the right to decide on questions of further investment into goods and jobs. Lastly and most crucial in the principles for this society, the most pernicious piece of ideology is where workers believe, with their “hourly rate” in their mind, that this represents payment for all the hour of their labour.

Capitalist ideas dominate the political economic and social scene for the capitalist own and control the means of propagation, education, information and news. Thus, all discussion and debate is undertaken on their terms. It should be clear, then, that bourgeois ideology serves capitalist interests not only when it provides pro-capitalist solutions to pressing social problems but also when it confuses people, or makes them overly pessimistic and resigned, or makes it difficult for them to formulate criticisms or imagine alternative systems.

William Dunn

Letter: BBC independence? (2003)

Letter to the Editors from the November 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors,

In dealing with the ongoing spat between the government and the BBC, Pik Smeet (Socialist Standard, September) is of course, absolutely correct in stating that the elite control the media through structural predispositions than an automatic chain of command.

Nevertheless, government does directly invoke its powers of veto over BBC programmes when it thinks fit: for instance its suppression of programme material on Northern Ireland in the shape of the omission of the speech track on TV coverage of legally elected members of a legitimate party – Sinn Fein – in 1988.

These powers of government control over programme content, originally spelled out in the 1927 BBC Charter, appear also in the latest Charter renewal of 1996. and as before, BBC is not even required to publicise the fact when government so instructs it.

In any case, it would be difficult to envisage an institution, set up and operating under government licence, and being government funded, which could escape some level of complicity, however subliminal, with government, however vacillating and unclear the government line may be. For as Lord Annan pointed out in that section of his 1974 Committee on Broadcasting Report, headed “External Pressures”, which dealt with the compromising dependence of journalists on political sources for information, “the constitutional authority of radio and TV to function at all stems from an organ that political parties control”.

What seems to be overlooked is the glaringly obvious doublethink involved in appeals to government to preserve BBC independence. If government action can affect its alleged independence, then BBC is clearly not independent.

W. Robertson, 

Brighton

Socialist Party of Gt. Britain’s statement to the Annan Committee (1977)

From the August 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Having submitted evidence to the Annan Committee on the Future of Broadcasting the Socialist Party of Great Britain were invited, along with other contributors, to comment on the subsequent Report of the Committee on the Future of Broadcasting published in March. We reproduce our statement below.

‘Rights’

1. The reason for the media's general persistence in refusing the Socialist Party of Great Britain the opportunity to state its views through the media is explained in para. 3.14 which states that minorities have no “rights” of access to the media. The report states that the media is “not a dialogue” but a “form of publishing”. In other words it is a one way process which gives the owners/controllers of the media a monopoly over the minds of those affected by ‘the process’. As a revolutionary party the SPGB is not so naive as to expect “rights” to be granted to us by a Royal Commission of reform, but see it as our responsibility to destroy the capitalist class monopoly over people’s minds through political organization for a classless, democratic world society. The report states that “our broadcasting system with a limited number of channels [cannot] perform such a service when the uniformity and cost of broadcasting makes it generally unsuitable as a means of communication between small numbers.” In other words, in capitalist society principles like democracy come second to those of “uniformity” and “cost”.

Cliches

2. In para. 3.18 the report states that the media “tends to reinforce the cliches, say, about sport or money of our times”. Indeed, that is one of the principal reasons why the media is so heavily subsidized by the state in whose interests such cliches are preserved. The SPGB has the duty, not the right, to challenge the “cliches of our times”.

Rôle of the State

3. In paras. 3.20-3.23 the report deals with the  rôle of the state in relation to the media it is suggested that broadcasters ought not to be allowed to decide what is “good for society” as this might lead to their taking control of the media for their own personal ends. Therefore, according to the report, the state should have ultimate control of the media. This implies that the state is in some ways a democratic representative of the people’s interests. This analysis is deceptive: the state is in existence to represent the interest of the ruling class. State control of the media therefore means class control of the media.

Broadcating Complaints Board

4. The report makes the specific proposal that a broadcasting complaints board be set up. The significant issue to us is the method which such a body would employ to determine the validity of a complaint. Would such a body be purely concerned with factual errors which are commonly accepted as being erroneous, or would it allow an organization putting a complaint to substantiate its case against inaccurate information? As one example of many we may cite the numerous organizations, governments and armies which the media refers to as being “Marxist”, thus discrediting genuine Marxists, even though many of these organizations do not even claim to be Marxist and many of those that do are not.

Access programmes 

5. Para. 18.9 deals with the criteria for selection of organizations for access programmes. One criterion not mentioned is that political parties are not allowed access to broadcasting unless they are advocating reforms. Thus, the National Front were recently given an access programme to put forward their views about immigration. The SPGB, because we are a revolutionary party standing for a single object and not for reforms, is therefore excluded.

Bias

6. In para. 17.15 there is a misrepresentation of the contribution of the SPGB to the Annan report. We did not say that there is a bias by the media against the Left wing and we strongly object to being coupled with the Communist Party of Great Britain in having made this alleged remark. Any bias by the media is not, in our opinion, based on a conscious effort to exclude or discredit Socialist ideas, but on a total unawareness of what Socialism means. In this the workers in the media are not alone and so the Socialist Party of Great Britain will continue to propagate our ideas in every way available to us.

'Wild Isles' (2023)

TV Review from the June 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

David Attenborough had, among his no doubt many friends, the Queen, so this and his advanced years, which cast him of another generation with all the expectations that brings, might excuse him from being too reactionary. I have to confess that he is, to me, the Bruce Forsyth of television nature programmes – a safe bet and someone the BBC can place before the viewing public in the knowledge that he is not going to ‘say it as it is’ and upset anyone.

I must also confess that I do not have a television and have not ever felt the need to own one; of course if you mention this people are quick to tell you how you are missing out on ‘all the wonderful documentaries’… maybe, but I take the view that I like to do things myself all the time I am physically able and not sit back eating a pizza with a remote in one hand watching someone else even if it is to see a wildebeest getting ripped to bits by a lion with the commentator telling you that ‘the wildebeest is getting ripped to bits by a lion’. It was, therefore, with some effort that I managed to find a friend who was happy for me to go over to his house and watch the ‘controversial sixth episode’ of the latest of David Attenborough’s wildlife documentary series. Despite not having looked at the media or listened to the news for the last nine months it was physically impossible not to have heard of ‘Wild Isles’ – his latest series in which he looks at nature ‘at home’. I suppose even the legendary Mr Attenborough can’t carry on lying around among a harem of gorillas forever, particularly in his mid-nineties.

Episode 6 was not shown on mainstream television and the word had it that it was ‘too controversial’. This, of course, fired up my interest; at last! Sir David was going to put things straight and he was going to catch me, King Charles and the BBC totally unprepared and whilst lying in some long grass in Epping Forest, hugging a badger, would say ‘The capitalist system is both dangerous to wildlife and to people. The wealthy are becoming more wealthy and the only way we can ensure that wildlife on our planet will thrive is to end the profit system now and smash the capitalists…. Workers of the World Unite!’

This sadly was absolutely not the case. I sat down as my friend fiddled with iPlayer and as the programme began I tensed up waiting for a purple-faced Attenborough railing against the system but on came the beautifully shot dolphins, flowers, eagles and ancient oak trees. The photography was, as always, absolutely stunning but no even slightly ‘edgy’ comment. It was like a balloon that you find behind the sofa 10 months after the New Year’s Eve party….

I am baffled as to why this episode was not shown… a little research suggested that the BBC had only ever intended five episodes, odd… then why make six? Others say that they could not be seen to show an episode linked to charities. Apparently the WWF, National Trust and Greenpeace were involved. Well, I suppose the National Trust do have some very revolutionary coffee cakes, perhaps that’s why? While the viewer was entertained with wonderful camera work Sir David spoke in short simple statements: ‘The Cairngorms are a wonderful place’…. (20 second dramatic pause)…’Just enough of the natural world remains to recover’… (20 second pause)…’It starts with us’…. (20 second pause) … ‘Vast swathes of countryside are now silent’… (20 second pause). Rachel Carson was saying that over 60 years ago, I wanted to shout, and nothing’s bloody changed…! And so it went on, tame, totally dumbed down – nothing that could be considered a rallying call or reason to do anything other than scoff the pizza and call for another lager.

I’d like to say more but what can you say… ? Okay, perhaps I should try… the programme left me feeling the same old way, once again here we are faced with a person who has nothing to lose (at his age) and who is in a prime position to get a message over, to really say some hard-hitting truths but instead, like so many people who really could exploit their privileged platform, squanders the chance with some meaningless platitudes.

Am I being unreasonable? Can capitalism really be made to work in the interests of nature and wildlife? Surely the answer is staring us in the face – everywhere I look, everything I hear, ALL the evidence points to the profit motive coming before the environment, so, clearly, no!

I have no doubt that Sir David cares for the life he has so deeply involved himself with over all those years but why is it that such an obvious answer to the plight of all the animals he has talked about and seen during his long life has not occurred to him? Like so many others he believes that reforms are the answer.

I decided to look a bit deeper and see if he really had not considered how the system itself was the cause of the decline wildlife. A quick search reveals that, indeed, he has expressed thoughts on the system and, indeed on capitalism itself, so here are a few:

‘Human beings have overrun the world’

‘Greed does not lead to joy’

‘Our system is based on profit but capitalism is not dead’

Make of these what you will. Furthermore, and in the series itself, he does, as is often the case in the media, resort to the ‘guilt trip’ approach. I have to admit that this is one of my pet hates and I have railed against it before; he says things like ‘Do we really not care for nature’ or ‘Our blind assault’ (on nature) or ‘We have just enough nature (left) to save our wildlife’ and ‘Real success can only come if there is change in our societies (note the plural here – he is not saying society as a whole) and in our economics and in our politics’.

The latter says both all and nothing and still begs the question – well what do you want to replace it with? The former do the usual thing of turning the problem to the sort of abstract ‘we’ or ‘our’ as if we as individuals are personally responsible for albatrosses choking to death on plastic or ancient woodlands being cut down to shave 5 minutes off a train journey to Birmingham… Maybe Sir David really does want to explain the real problem but has his wings clipped… just as he is straightening his tie and the makeup artist dabs on the last of the greasepaint the producer says ‘steady on with the socialist stuff Dave, we don’t want a bloody revolution, just give them the cuddly take, and remember the series is running a hefty profit so stay off the red, eh?’

It really doesn’t take a naturalist to tell us that nature is endangered but it will take socialism to put it right.

Glenn Morris

Proper Gander: send in the crowns (2023)

The Proper Gander TV column from the June 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

Both of May’s big events were marked by corny rituals, ridiculous costumes and celebrating a country’s figurehead, with the hype cranked up high. While the Eurovision Song Contest comes around every year, there’s a longer gap between coronations. Over the seven decades since the last one, the reach of the media has grown in ways which those who huddled round a small black-and-white screen in 1953 could scarcely have imagined. Then, as now, the TV coverage of the coronation shows us that its pomp and pageantry is a world away from the difficulties endured by the vast majority. Whether the coronation is seen as an affront or a temporary escape from rising prices and struggling public services depends on our individual point of view.

The point of view pushed by the mainstream media was that Charles’ crowning should bolster a sense of pride not just in the monarchy but in the country’s ability to ‘put on a do’ when so much else isn’t running well. The latter also applies to Eurovision, and another similarity between the two events was the central role of the BBC. The corporation had the monopoly over footage filmed in Westminster Abbey during the coronation ceremony, with an agreement that they would be paid royalties (as it were) by other broadcasters using it. As reported by the Guardian on 5 May, this arrangement was made murkier by the coverage being produced by BBC Studios, a for-profit arm of the corporation, with ultimate say over what could be shown decreed by the royal household. On the day, this was communicated to broadcasters every five minutes, with some parts of the ritual vetoed beforehand, such as Charles being greased up with ‘holy oil’. The National Union of Journalists, in particular, was concerned ‘that a public event, paid for by the people and televised for them to be able to pay their respects should be censored in even a small way’. The BBC’s coverage wouldn’t have been much different without these restrictions, though, as it was overseen by Clare Popplewell, whose favour with The Firm was shown by her being appointed as a commander of the Royal Victorian Order following her work on televising 2022’s platinum jubilee.

This explains why the BBC gave only the briefest mentions of the anti-royalist protests, whereas Sky News, for example, gave them more airtime in its own reports. Otherwise, Sky News’ commentary aimed for the stateliness of the BBC’s, throwing in predictably bland phrases such as that Charles is ‘fulfilling his destiny’ and that the ceremony is ‘both ancient and modern’. Anyone tuning in to GB News would have had Nigel Farage and David Starkey for company, lapping up all the tradition. Later, on his Tonight programme, Mark Dolan hosted a ‘coronation party’ for a panel of pundits wide-eyed with enthusiasm for the royals. He talked about the spectacle in sycophantic superlatives, while against protester ‘numpties’ he said that ‘our day’ was an advert for ‘modern Britain’, adding that if the republicans win we would only get a faceless public servant as a figurehead, such as ‘president Gary Lineker’. GB News’ coverage had levels of tackiness you at least wouldn’t get on the BBC.

Channel 4’s coverage was less reverent, with a package of programmes on its website including documentaries reminding us about Diana’s death and Prince Andrew’s incriminating interview with Emily Maitlis, the latter to be the subject of an upcoming drama from Netflix. Sitcom The Windsors’ coronation special saw the event relocated on the cheap to Slough’s Holiday Lodge Express and Charles abdicating. For all its cheekiness, The Windsors ended up with the family reconciled on the Buckingham Palace balcony and the crowd below rejecting a ‘fiscally responsible, slimmed down monarchy to suit these straitened times’ for one that’s ‘full on’. Like all Channel 4’s output, it wasn’t as radical as it would have us believe.

ITV’s coverage has the honour of the most complained about programme of the year so far, following actor Adjoa Andoh saying ‘there is a bit of me that has gone from the rich diversity of the Abbey to the terribly white balcony’. She was perhaps forgetting that in the real world, the nobility isn’t going to be as diverse as that imagined in her show Bridgerton.

A short piece broadcast on Al Jazeera pointed out that jewels used in the ceremonial trinkets brought out for the coronation are a product of the state’s colonial background, including the slave trade. ‘Their king is a symbol of our bitter past which unfortunately translates into our very difficult present’, according to Everisto Benyera of the University of South Africa. Otherwise, the commentary on Al Jazeera was drier and less involved, with historian Linda Porter saying that while the pageantry is something people ‘can be pleased with’, it may not have a wide impact on ‘national pride’. There’s a contradiction in trying to make people feel part of an institution which is outside them. This applies not just to the British monarchy, but to any monarchy, including that of Qatar, whose state funds Al Jazeera.

The various broadcasters’ coronation coverage differed in tone according to their niche in the market, although they still relied on the ‘money shot’ footage from inside Westminster Abbey controlled and sold by the royals and the BBC. For all the mainstream media’s efforts to present the coronation as something for everyone to rally around, within a day there were calls from leaders of commonwealth countries in the Caribbean to ditch the monarchy, and complaints that the police were too keen to use their new powers to arrest protesters. The coronation has exposed tensions in society as much as its glossy spectacle has been a distraction.

Mike Foster

Editorial: No Freedom of the Air for S.P.G.B. (1954)

Editorial from the July 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the current argument between the Labour and Tory parties about the respective merits of commercial and non-commercial television both sides have something to say about the extent to which the one or other method will give a stranglehold to monopoly and crowd out small groups. The Labourites, in line with their general support for government control maintain that commercial T.V. would give a monopoly to large and wealthy commercial interests; to which their opponents retort that State monopoly has even less regard for weak independent views. The S.P.G.B., not being enamoured in the least of either private or State capitalism, can see no merit in either point of view. It is true that with commercial T.V. (or sound broadcasting) the capitalist rule prevails that the freedom of the air is for those who can afford to pay for it but it is also true that in all the 32 years of State controlled broadcasting in this country the S.P.G.B. case has never once been allowed to be heard.

This is not for want of trying. On numerous occasions application has been made but always some reason is found for refusing it. The latest application, made in August, 1953, has ended in the usual way. Not, of course, a blunt declaration that there is no intention to allow us to broadcast, merely polite reasons why it cannot be this time—but as these polite refusals extend over decades they add up to the same thing as a final no.

The first reason for refusal is that Party political broadcasts are reserved for parties represented in Parliament or putting forward a certain number of candidates at a general election. When we pointed out that this arrangement tests on an agreement of the large political parties and in effect gives them a monopoly to the exclusion of small organizations the B.B.C. replied saying that they resented this imputation. The exclusion of the small organizations from that series of political broadcasts did not, said the B.B.C. give a monopoly to the big organizations because there are other political broadcasts outside that series.

Fine, so we applied to come under one of them, as we have done before, and in order to fit in with the suggestion thrown out by the B.B.C. we related our proposed broadcast to the 50th anniversary of the founding of the S.P.G.B. To this we received the reply that our proposed statement does not offer a basis for a broadcast because there would not, in the opinion of the B.B.C. be sufficient public interest in the anniversary of the S.P.G.B.

So this latest attempt to get on the air meets the fate of the several earlier applications—a number of different ways of saying no.

We would add, for the information of Labour Party supporters who may think that things are different under Labour Government, that we received the same treatment under Labour Government as under the present and pre-war Conservative Governments

In the recent correspondence we reminded the B.B.C. that in 1949 the Broadcasting Committee under the chairmanship of Lord Beveridge, had recommended the B.B.C. to consider the possibility of a kind of “Hyde Park of the Air,” in order to give all minorities which had a message, “religious or otherwise," some time to broadcast. (Report Para. 257). They also expressed the view (Para 259) that the allocation of opportunities to ventilate controversial views “should not be guided either by simple calculations of the numbers who already hold such views or by fear of giving offence to particular groups of listeners."

Those recommendations evidently fell on deaf ears at Broadcasting House.

Living in a Free Society – a recent experience (1999)

From the May 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

The following is offered without comment. It tries as honestly and comprehensively as possible to offer an objective account of the events surrounding an invitation to appear on a television discussion programme earlier this year.

A couple of months ago I was invited to take part as a representative of the Socialist Party in a Kilroy programme about Jack Straw’s “three strikes and you’re out” policy for burglars.

Two days before the programme was due to be recorded I was telephoned by a research assistant who wanted to know what kind of thing I would like to say. I offered two thoughts. One, a tactical objection to dispensing with juries, and thus with the whole idea of tying justice to particular circumstances—not least the personal circumstances of the criminal. And two, an objection to a discussion about burglary which failed to acknowledge that society was based on the legalised exploitation of one class by another.

The researcher wanted to know more about the latter point, so I offered a brief summary of the Socialist Party’s position. “Oh,” she said, “I’m not sure about that. You have to remember that our viewers are very ordinary people. I think they would find that very difficult. I certainly do.” I suggested that the ideas were not so much difficult as novel, and offered the opinion that having been invited onto the programme as a representative of the Socialist Party, I would expect to have an opportunity of putting our case. The researcher was unhappy and suggested that I come as an individual and make only the first point. I observed that I thought it ironic that the programme would be discussing the automatic imprisonment of individuals and here she was telling me that I was also to be imprisoned: I wouldn’t be allowed to say what I wanted, only what she wanted me to say. I wondered whether when members of the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties were invited to appear on the programme they, too, were told that they wouldn’t be given an opportunity of putting their parties’ cases? The researcher didn’t answer, but withdrew her invitation to me to attend.

Michael Gill

Between the Lines: No sense in censorship (1994)

The Between the Lines column from the May 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

No sense in censorship

The government is currently proposing an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill which seeks to ban videos which present what is termed "an inappropriate model for children". This follows allegations that the behaviour patterns of children are being adversely affected by violent video films which are sometimes "cut" for TV or are shown at times that children aren't supposed to be watching.

The Liberal intelligentsia, ever-watchful of further moves towards censorship, is already on the attack, as well it might be. The idea that "video nasties" are a prime mover in causing psychological disturbance is being seriously questioned, particularly — as today seems to be the case — if it is being put forward as virtually the sole explanation of rising violent crime today, by the government. One letter-writer to the Guardian (7 April) repudiated the government’s analysis well enough:

"I eagerly await the archaeological and historical evidence that Caligula and Nero were regulars at the local XXX-rated "adults-only" cinema, that Torquemada was a closet Texas Chainsaw Massacre fan, that Genghis Khan's bloody rampage across Asia and Europe was a search for more horror movies, that the Waffen SS ’s idea of a good night in was a few cans and some video nasties, and the discovery of the VCR from Mr and Mrs Stalin '.v living room on which young Josef watched pirated copies of I Spit On Your Grave. How else can we explain the atrocities committed throughout the history of the human race?"

Clearly, violent and other anti-social behaviour did not begin with the advent of such external factors as television and video. But this still leaves another question unanswered — do TV and video on occasion exacerbate tendencies that are already extant in society? They may not be the cause of psychological disturbance and violent behaviour, but this doesn’t mean they play no part at all.

The warp factor

If videos and TV have little influence over children — and adults for that matter — why do the bosses spend billions every year in advertising? Their research shows that TV and video footage can have a major influence on the way people think and act. Other research backs this up. The British Medical Journal in February this year reported the (separate) cases of two teenage boys who were diagnosed as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after watching a spoof BBC1 horror documentary. Regular viewing of violent TV shows and so-called "video nasties" may, therefore, have more deleterious effects than some may wish to think.

This entire debate on the role of TV and video has been given another airing recently with the arrival of a new general of violent cartoon programmes from the United States. In the forefront of this new craze is a cartoon series about two delinquent American teenagers called Beavis and Butt-Head.

Kicking butt

Like a dog that has returned to lick its own vomit, Channel 4 puts out Beavis and Butt-Head late on Friday nights as a replacement for The Word, presumably under the false impression that this will stop children watching it. For those of you who don’t already know', Beavis and Butt-Head are quite an anti-social pair. Their only apparent skill is for starting fires, and in one episode, censored for British TV, they blow up a cat by placing a firework up its backside. They are violent, sexist and only have respect for teenage gangsters older and more daring than themselves.

The supposed intention of this programme’s makers has been to satirize the low-culture world of modern American youth, and by and large, they succeed. But as with other forms of satire, there is a danger. Many viewers, enveloped in the same sort of dire culture as Beavis and Butt-Head, may simply see it as glorification of their lifestyle, just like the Tory racists who thought all along that Alf Garnett was a really good bloke.

Attempts were made to ban Beavis and Butt-Head in the UK for precisely this reason. But banning and censoring programmes doesn’t work. Time and again it has just driven them underground - if the market is there that is all that matters. In any case, censorship — no matter how repellent the programme under consideration — is the reactionary’s way out. Who has the right to do the banning and censoring of things other people might want to watch?

The real problem is not so much that violent, horrific and anti-social programmes and films get made but that capitalism provides such a ready market for them. A society based on cut-throat competition, where everything is to be bought and sold, including humans, degrades and brutalizes us all.

The "no future" nihilism of Beavis and Butt-Head is a particularly worrying manifestation of this and it has to be countered by socialists in open debate. One thing is for sure — capitalism will not be able to tame the horrors it has so far unleashed. Only a socialist society dedicated to peace and co-operation can do that.

Dave Perrin

Pathfinders: Say It Loud (2021)

The Pathfinders Column from the September 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

Say It Loud

If you want to take a pessimistic view of humanity’s future, there’s no shortage of evidence. And because the news cycle feeds primarily off bad news, it’s the easiest evidence to find. You have to look a bit harder for the positive news stories to back an optimistic view, but they do exist.

Like the story about the massive expansion of sharing app Olio, where people go out of their way to provide free stuff for people who are in need. Volunteers collect unsold produce from Tesco supermarkets, list it all in an app, and then superintend the hand-out process as local people come in to collect whatever is available.

What’s in it for Tesco? Cynically, one might say it’s good optics, as they are being seen to care, plus it saves them the costs of disposal. Less cynically, they are to some extent undermining their own profits by giving stuff away, so this is at least a concrete act that is a world away from the empty rhetoric and vapid virtue signalling of most capitalist companies.

What’s in it for the volunteers? A nice feeling, presumably, of doing some good in the world, to counteract all the loudly advertised bad stuff. ‘If everybody did something small but meaningful, we’d live in a much, much better society,” says one volunteer, who gets up at 7am every Saturday to collect Tesco cast-offs. And he’s right, of course. But any sentence that starts with the phrase ‘If everybody did…’ is really a political statement about how the world ought to be, and as we know, politics is about more than people just being nice to each other. It’s about thinking big.

Socialism is about thinking on the largest, global scale. And we know that’s a problem because a lot of people don’t seem able or willing to think at that scale. Not even when it comes to an existential threat like climate change. Even though the capitalist money-machine has blindly bulldozed its way across the planet destroying lives, cultures, landscapes and wildlife, people still have a dogged faith in the market system and its governments and politicians to find solutions to the very problems they’re causing.

And here’s a little anecdote about Glasgow and the run-up to COP26 in November which is nothing if not ironic.

Property owners in Glasgow are exploiting the shit out of COP26 by hiking their rents to astronomical levels during the conference period, in a bid to make big bucks out of a climate emergency. Greedy, grasping bastards indeed, but this is capitalist logic at work. If you’ve got a commodity that’s in high demand, you charge the maximum price you can get for it, and never mind scruples.

So it turns out that many climate activists from around the world who want to go to Glasgow to demonstrate their belief in the market system’s supposed magical ability to clean up its own mess, now can’t afford it because of the normal operations of the market system.

Fortunately, not everyone is a greedy, grasping bastard, even when capitalist logic tells them they ought to be. A network of Glasgow house owners has come together to express solidarity with climate activists by offering them very cheap accommodation over the course of the November climate summit (bbc.in/3mnSIbc). There aren’t enough of them, and they’re already oversubscribed, but still it’s some comfort to know that, destroy whatever else it may, capitalism never quite manages to destroy the capacity of humans to treat each other with decency.

Given this, the failure of people including climate activists to engage with the concept of a decent society at a global scale is astonishing and alarming. All kinds of cognitive biases are at play here, as people perform mental contortions to rationalise the irrational world around them, when it would be so much easier to say ‘you know what, capitalism is turning into a catastrophe, let’s get rid of it.’

The problem is the alternative. Influential environmental campaigner George Monbiot has publicly acknowledged the fact that capitalism is the problem, ‘a weapon pointed at the living world’, a conclusion he freely admits he came to slowly and reluctantly, after he had run out of ways to excuse it. Unfortunately he is under the impression that the only alternative is state (ie. soviet-style) ‘communism’, a prospect he is understandably not attracted to and which he recognises had ‘more in common with capitalism than the advocates of either system would care to admit’ (bit.ly/381QB4p).

In fact, soviet ‘communism’ is no alternative at all, it’s a travesty. We said so in 1918, mere months into Lenin’s coup d’état, but it seems our voice is not loud enough to reach Monbiot’s mighty ear. Meanwhile he’s wrestling with a mishmash of trendy behavioural and economic models that stand little chance of being put into practice and in any case don’t address the core problem, the existence of private property and markets, which results in a tiny class who own all the world’s resources and enrich themselves by impoverishing the rest of us and the planet.

People just can’t say the unsayable, which is that we have to abolish private property and markets, and dispossess the capitalist class. Why can’t they say that? In Monbiot’s case, as a regular writer for the Guardian newspaper, he must be aware that the Guardian is known for dumping writers who say anything too radical, as it dumped comedian Jeremy Hardy and even award-winning journalist John Pilger (bit.ly/37ZYFme). Science journalists are in a similar position, depending on employers for their wages. Ditto academics. Ditto social media influencers. No one can speak their mind who relies on the ‘king’s shilling’. Ever wondered why we don’t take commercial ads in the Standard? That’s why.

So there is a lacuna of silence surrounding the biggest question of humanity’s future on Earth. It’s not some deep-state conspiracy. It’s just the normal workings of capitalism. It creates an artificial dependence on money, and then pays everyone money not to question the money system.

As Black Panther activist Assata Shakur famously remarked, no one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them. People are starting to question capitalism like never before. Well, it’s about time. But capitalism is not going to encourage that conversation. That’s why socialists need to be vocal, and not just vocal but loud, as in Glasgow this November. The world’s people need an alternative to the market system that plays to human strengths of cooperation and mutual support. It’s up to people like us to show them there is one.

Paddy Shannon

Between the Lines: Freedom and finance (1988)

The Between the Lines column from the June 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Freedom and finance

The Financial Times (4 May) carried an article by its TV critic, all full of fury and libertarian sentiments. The FT's man imagines that he has spotted an anomaly. On the one hand, he observes, the Government is going mad trying to sell off as much of the media as can be flogged, all in the name of increased "economic freedom", while at the same time the same Government is, through its sickening attempts to out-Stalin Stalin, acting as a dangerous threat to whatever remnants of political freedom TV producers still have left. If the Government really believes in freedom, asks the FT innocent, why do they not extend this to political freedom? The FTs TV critic would be well advised to go away and play with his toys. Surely it does not require very much intelligence to see the intimate connection between so-called market freedom and actual political tyranny. After all, if the Government is really serious in its efforts to make TV a suitable area for capitalist investment, then it is only proper that it must ensure that TV will serve the class interest of those who are being invited to invest. The campaign of arrogant persecution has ranged from the appointment of Her Thatcherness's own poodle. Marmaduke Hussey, to run the BBC, to the raid by the police upon BBC Scotland when they planned to show a documentary which the Government considered to contain information unfit for the eyes of the witless proles, to the most recent threat by the Prime Minister to punish the Independent (sic) Broadcasting Authority for having the audacity to show a This Week documentary (ITV. 28 April. 8.30pm) exposing the shoot-to-kill tactics being employed by the louts of the SAS.

Journalists working within both BBC and ITN newsrooms will testify to the extreme political pressure which they are currently experiencing. This should come as no surprise to the FT. the relationship between freedom and finance has never a happy one. In the USA. where "economic freedom" has been dragged further down into the gutter of "free enterprise" than it has yet to be over here, TV studio discussions are shown in which it only becomes clear after you have been watching them for a while that they are paid adverts for particular commodities. You switch on your TV to watch an apparently free studio discussion on skin care, when all of a sudden the presenter pulls out from his pocket a tube of chemical garbage and, with the sort of smile that you thought went out of style with Japanese torture camps, says. "Well, I for one never come into the studio without my packet of Ripoff's Miracle Wart Remover". This opens up a whole range of possibilities for British TV. Perhaps we could have Rupert Murdoch sponsoring a new Sun-style News At Ten, the directors of Guinness sponsoring Crimewatch, and the SDP sponsoring One Man And His Dog. (The latter is assuming that The Two Davids could be reconciled for a suitable fee.)

Realspeak

Most political discussion on TV is as phoney as hell. It consists of people who know nothing making statements which mean nothing about subjects which amount to nothing. More often than not such emissions of unadulterated wind are presided over by that Know-Nothing-In-Chief, Sir Robin Day. On a recent Question Time programme a member of The Socialist Party who was in the audience managed to mention the party's name and indulge in 30 seconds of TV free speech. Sir Robin looked bemused, an expression which matches perfectly his level of political intelligence. Thirty seconds of permitted questioning from the audience is not enough for revolutionary socialists and if the BBC thinks that is. then we will have to convince them that they have made a mistake. Amidst the flow of incessant hot air and tripe which is presented in the name of TV debate, After Dark (C4. 11.30pm-4am on Saturday/Sundays) is a breath of fresh air. At last here is a studio discussion format which actually allows real talk to occur. There have been some very stimulating programmes in the recent series. The memorable debate on homelessness when "Spider", the homeless punk, told the Tory backbencher that he was talking out of his backside and that whoever is elected. Labour or Tory, they would all carry on running capitalism; the discussion on the Grand National — of all things — in which the obnoxious racing commentator for Channel Four declared that all the unemployed in Liverpool are indolent scroungers and all socialists are the scum of the earth and a local worker from Aintree tore the bigot's prejudices to pieces and exposed the capitalist constraints involved in modern sport; the discussion about fashion in which the designer, Bruce Oldfield, who apparently makes dresses for Di, the Royal Clothes Horse, was confronted most eloquently by an Asian trade unionist from the West Midlands who spoke about the sweatshops where the fancy clothes of the rich are produced; there was that beautiful moment when the General who was discussing terrorism explained that there was no war going on in Ireland, but British troops had a right to shoot Irish workers without asking questions first because there was a war on.

These are good discussions because they are unconstrained by time limits and interfering presenters. They are good — but only as far as they go. What has been desperately lacking from so many of the After Dark debates has been any hint of a solution. How necessary it was. when the subject of homelessness was discussed for over four hours! Just one studio guest could have explained how easy it would be to provide decent homes for all if only the barrier of production for rent, interest and profit was destroyed. When they discussed terrorism it was fundamentally important that at least one person should point out the need to examine the root cause of killing in the modern world, regardless of whether such barbarism is practised by thugs paid by the state or thugs who want to set up a new state. The programme on the war in Ireland on 7/8 May was an excellent example of the crying need for socialist comment on After Dark. Before the programme we had written in to the programme's producers telling them about a socialist from Belfast who is well qualified to offer a unique, non-sectarian, revolutionary analysis of the Irish situation. It seems that the producers at C4 did not want to let such comments infect the minds of the viewers. Our comrade was not invited to appear. Instead, the so-called socialist analysis was presented by Eamonn McCann of the Leninist SWP. Rarely has the socialist label been so miserably betrayed. McCann is an IRA fellow traveller, and a very eloquent one too. But he was asked several times during the discussion. "Okay, Eamonn, you are a socialist, you claim to have a solution to the Irish question, what is it?" McCann did not even offer half a solution. All that he did was repeat the worn out cliches of radical republicanism which will never take the workers of Ireland anywhere. After Dark is, without exaggeration, one of the most important developments in the format of TV discussion in the history of the medium. Thanks for the great format; now let's fill it with a bit of hard socialist talk.

Loadsamoney

Friday Night Live (C4. Fridays. 10.30pm. series now finished) is a show which I watched with a mixture of irritation and amusement. It was a showcase for so-called alternative comedy, and after a decade or so of The Benny Hill Show and Terry and June, even death by hanging would be a pleasant alternative. But . . . Ben Elton, the show's presenter, seems to think that he can make a career out of simply not being Jimmy Tarbuck or Jim Davidson. Most of us are not as unfunny as Tarby or as filthily racist as Davidson, but we do not expect to get paid for it. Alas, it is not enough to simply not be a bloody awful comedian to be a good comedian. The trouble with Elton is that, despite all of his pious and strained efforts to be different. he is just another comedian who wants us to laugh every fifteen seconds at his preconceived gags. Ben Elton is a Labour Party supporter who in the Labour election rally in Islington last year was seen waving his manifesto about and joining with the other reformists in the undignified effort to publicly crawl up Kinnock in the way that Tarby and Monkhouse and the other creeps crawled up Thatcher. If Elton thinks that he is radically funny because he can squeeze a few giggles out of a trendy left audience at the expense of Norman Tebbit or Edwina Currie, then he is wrong. He is not poking fun at the system — and humour is a great weapon for doing that but, like the prefects at the public school revue, making a few near-the-knuckle gags against the present exploiters. Maggie will not be shaking in her boots.

The character who has come out of the series as a quite brilliant comic talent — comparable, I would argue, with the Hancocks, the Alf Garnetts and the Cleeses who seem somehow to transcend comic conventions and make people laugh about things which we had not laughed at before — is Harry Enfield. His Stavros is a fine illustration of great comic observation. But, much more importantly from the perspective of those of us who seek the establishment of a moneyless world society, his "Loadsamoney'' character summed up so much of what capitalism is deforming many workers into becoming. A man who cares for no one and no principle, who is obsessed by the wad of thick banknotes which he waves in the air to affirm his identity, and whose humanity has been absorbed into a single phrase which expresses his fragile security. Also funny is Enfield's other creation. ''Buggerallmoney". the macho northern worker who is as hard as nails and as thick as a brick. The humourless SWP, which likes the image of hard-as-nails northern, macho workers, has attacked Enfield for depicting a character which is supposed to insult the Newcastle unemployed. In an interview in Melody Maker (30 April) Enfield rightly accuses the SWP of not knowing their Marxism. He goes on to make the important point about the capitalist system's failure to provide for "the human factor": "That doesn't just mean people on the dole; there are also the people in jobs who are being dehumanised by it all". Quite right. We look forward to Harry Enfield's next character. "Letsabolishmoney". Mind you, if we started doing that, what would Ben Elton's agent have to say, and what would the dummies at the FT have to write about?

Steve Coleman

Blogger's Note:

With regards to Harry Enfield, from an obituary for John Crump:

  " . . . John [Crump] retired early and returned to live in York, where he had spent most of his academic life teaching politics and Japanese studies at the university there. Anecdotally, one of his students was the comedian Harry Enfield who, under his direction, wrote a dissertation on the SPGB."

Voice From The Back: Salt In The Wound (2006)

The Voice From The Back column from the April 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

Salt In The Wound

The capitalist class hold the working class in contempt, but they seldom display it in such an arrogant fashion. “Workers at a doomed crisp factory yesterday slammed bosses’ parting gift – a free 36p bag of low salt and fat variety. Many of the 250 staff, who will lose their jobs when the Walkers’ plant in Swansea shuts next month, blamed them” (Daily Mirror, 9 February). When executives lose their jobs they sometimes get a “golden handshake”, but this is the first time we have heard of what amounts to a “Golden Wonder” handshake.


Double Standards

In the USA at present, especially in border states, there is a great anti-immigration movement. Thus, with an election pending in Texas $30 million is being allocated to building three fences between the USA and Mexico. The trouble is, though, US capitalism needs cheap Mexican labour despite their political posturing. “Golden State Company which calls itself ‘the top fence contractor in California’ was recently caught for the second time in as many years employing illegal immigrants” (Times, 27 February).  When the fences don’t work, for workers are good at dodging, the local authorities have got to get someone to evict Mexicans from the Land of the Free, so who do they get? Mexican immigrants — they’re cheaper. “The city employs them to do it. They are paid to throw themselves off the land.” Is capitalism a crazy society, or is it just us that think so?


The Rewards Of Age

After a lifetime of toil many workers look forward to the comfort and leisure of old age. Alas, for many it is just another of capitalism’s illusions. “A third of pensioners are so poor that they cannot afford a day out or treat themselves to a meal in a pub, according to a report that paints a stark picture of retirement on a low income” (Times, 3 March). The report, published by the charity Age Concern, is entitled Just Above The Breadline and reports that many old workers are resorting to heating just one room, buying food on its sell-by-date and searching out second-hand clothes. As the Good Book says “Well done, good and faithful servant.”  But then you don’t have to worry about that, do you? Because you will never grow old. Will you?


Underhanded Censorship

The BBC often report on the government censorship that applies in the media. Only in foreign countries of course. Surely no one could imagine the BBC to be subject to government censorship. Think again. “The BBC launched a wartime purge on communists including Ewan MacColl, the folk singer and his wife Joan Littlewood, the theatre producer, documents declassified by MI5 reveal today…. From the late Thirties until the end of the Cold War, MI5 had an officer at the BBC to vet all editorial applicants, stamping the personnel records of anyone suspicious  with a distinctively shaped green tag, or ‘Christmas tree’” (Observer, 5 March).


Promises, Promises, Promises

The job of politicians is to promise things at election times and then explain later what stopped the promise from being kept, but promise things will be different next time. Here is a recent example. “Tony Blair pledged to cut the number of children living in poverty by a quarter, from 4.1 million in 1999 to 3.1 million by April 2006, as part of an ambitious three-stage drive to halve it by 2010 and eliminate the problem altogether by 2020…. new figures from the Department for Work and Pensions revealed it has fallen short by 300,000” (Guardian, 9 March). A red face for the Labour Party? Hardly. After all the 1945 Labour government promised to abolish poverty completely in its first term of office!


Ain’t What It Used To Be

“A billion just isn’t what it used to be, said Luisa Kroll, Forbes magazine’s associate editor, revealing the 20th rich list in New York” (BBC News, 10 March). It is true there are a couple of songs that claim “Fings Ain’t What They Used To Be” and “The Old Grey Mare Ain’t What She Used To Be”, but we imagine the billionaires on the latest role call won’t be grieving too much. Bill Gates ($50 billion), Warren Buffett ($42 billion) and Carlos Slim ($30 billion) can hardly be feeling nostalgic about the past.


War Is Hell — For Some

The conflict in Iraq has killed and maimed thousands, destroyed housing and made life unbearable for millions, but it is not all bad news. “British businesses have profited by at least £1.1 billion since coalition forces toppled Saddam Hussein three years ago, the first comprehensive investigation into UK corporate investment in Iraq has found” (Independent, 13 March).

Between the Lines: Raiders of Zircon (1987)

The Between the Lines Column from the March 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Raiders of Zircon

When I was a little boy (not all that long ago; never all that little) Zircon was the sort of thing that made you sit on the edge of your seat in sci-fi movies. They Came From Zircon. Not to worry: the inter-galactic space warriors (always Americans with traffic warden uniforms) will beat off the alien enemies. The lesson of all those science fiction films was clear enough: us traffic wardens fight hard when it comes to defending Planet Earth against hostile beasties from the Outer Cosmos. It was not until I grew a few hairs on my chest that I discovered that Planet Earth is already occupied by hostile beasties called capitalists whose function in life is to rob blind the majority of earthlings who produce all the wealth.

Last month agents of the capitalists raided the offices of BBC Glasgow for the purpose of confiscating the film of a series of programmes called The Secret Society. You see, the series was made to show that Britain is becoming a dangerously secretive society in which almost anything worth knowing is being declared by law to be secret. How dare the BBC sponsor such subversive untruths? Britain, a police state — where do they get these ideas from? So Special Branch sent the boys down to do over the studio and confiscate the film and make sure that viewers will never see just how many secrets they're missing. Puts your mind at rest, doesn't it?

One of the programmes was about the Zircon project, a spy satellite which none of us are supposed to know about — which is funny really, because it is supposed to be spying on our behalf. Now, had the programme been shown it is doubtful whether many workers would have been much the wiser about Zircon. But with the aid of that idiot cunning for which the present government now has a Reagan-grade reputation, the police raid had the effect of making large numbers of workers want to know what it is that the state is so eager to hide from us. Censorship will not succeed in stopping people wanting to find out what is happening in the world. Back in the good old days the men from Zircon would have exterminated Malcolm Rifkind with a laser gun but last month all we got was a mundane emergency debate in the House of Commons in which Gerald Kaufman (whose jackets might well have been designed by the firm which used to produce laser guns) said that the whole affair was intolerable.


News From the Nozzers

If Zircon doesn't make you think of creepy things in black and white movies nozzers certainly should. Nozzers are skinheads with legal permits: trainee members of the Royal Navy BBC2's four-part series (Mondays. 10.15pm) was called Nozzers and about what it is like to suffer the misfortune of becoming one.

A nozzer s life is not a happy one. Most of them joined to see the sea; instead they spent their first week's training learning how to straighten the pillows on their beds and shine their boots and march up and down like clockwork Nazis. No wonder they all felt homesick. This was one of those films in which the producer allows the viewer to relish the suffering of some other sucker. What can be better after a day at Dagenham screwing bits onto Ford Fiestas than watching a bunch of nozzers being sent on an assault course which involves crawling through mud-filled pipes and running through cold water? At least someone else is having it worse than you.

When nozzers go down to the pool for a swim it does not involve a few lengths and a bit of splashing about: in Nozzers we were shown them being poked with sticks by the swimming instructress to test their readiness to drown in icy water. Alas, most of them were all too ready. How can human beings descend to such undignified thuggery? But watching Nozzers they seemed more pathetic than contemptible: wage slaves driven into a sick institution as an alternative to unemployment or other forms of dullness. Prince Edward was no fool. (Well, perhaps that is something of an overstatement). Not for him was the life of a nozzer — or whatever the marine equivalent may be. He decided to retire while the going was bad. But the poor kids shown in this series — what is the alternative for them?


Plague-Ads

While it may or may not be the case that all the nice girls like a nozzer, if they have been watching the TV ads carefully they will be insisting that he wears a condom. TV ads have travelled a long way since they used to just advertise Omo and going to work on an egg. In recent times ads have been used to mould public morality, warning us about smoking and drinking and now "unsafe sex”. The symbolism of the AIDS ad is about as subtle as a Bernard Manning gag. Rocks, hammers chipping away at them, darkness — why can't they just come out with it and tell us what's naughty instead of all these laboured hints?


The Tabun and Sarin Show

A scientist holds up a cube of sugar: "A piece of tabun or sarin of just this size kills 2,500 people when it is dropped on them". Tabun and sarin are chemical weapons, a means of murdering vast numbers of people which is just as deadly as nuclear weapons. These weapons are currently possessed by Russia, the USA. France, Iraq, Syria, Israel and South Africa. As many as fifteen countries might possess such weapons and many more soon will.

Iraq has been using these weapons in its war against Iran and that was the subject of Panorama (Monday, 2 February. 9.30pm. BBC1). Chemical weapons have been outlawed internationally for some years, just like CND would like nuclear weapons to be. But that has not stopped them being used. As Tim Renton, the British Foreign Minister, admitted, no law can stop "unscrupulous" companies making profits out of selling chemicals to governments intending to use them for weapons.

Now what can Mr Renton mean about profit making being an unscrupulous pursuit? After all, was it not Norman Tebbit who, as Minister of Industry, defended in the House of Commons the sale of torture equipment by British companies to foreign dictatorships on the grounds that such trade was part of the usual competitive process? In fact, Panorama showed that Iraq's chemical weapons production complex at Samarra was constructed partly by German, British, Australian and Indian firms.

If, by the most remote possibility, there was ever an international decision to outlaw nuclear weapons it would be as wholly unenforceable as that concerning chemical warfare. And even if it was enforced, what would stop governments which had previously used nuclear weapons threatening the world by converting to chemical weapons? There will be no solution to the hideous weaponry of modern warfare — all too clearly depicted in its awful effects on the Iranian casualties shown in Panorama — until the war-producing system is abolished, together with its Zircon Project, its nozzers. its moral sermonising and the rest of its blemishes which pop out like sores from our TV screens.

 Steve Coleman

These Foolish Things: Progress (1996)

The Scavenger column from the December 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Progress

In 1886, the bottom 10 percent of manual workers earned 69 percent of the median manual wage, while the top 10 percent earned 143 percent. Despite the huge shifts in manufacturing over the next 90 years—the growth of new' industries, the rise of trade unionism, the impact of two world wars—the relative position remained virtually unchanged. But since 1977 the relative position has worsened for the bottom 10 percent of manual workers who now get just 61 percent of the median against 161 percent for the top 10 percent. 

Guardian, 10 October.

Oh God!

The Reverend Stanley Mast, of the LaGrave Avenue Christian Reform Church, offered an invocation that should become the official fund-raising prayer of both parties. “O God. as we gather together tonight to honour important people in our country', we pause to acknowledge that you are master of the universe and Lord of the nations.” the Reverend prayed. “As we focus on finances and politics, we give you thanks for the gift of wealth, we thank you for the privilege of living in America, this great land of freedom, a land that not only allows but even encourages the individual pursuit of wealth. We thank you, O God, for the success so many of us have had in that pursuit. . . . Bless our guests of honour. May their generosity and faith inspire us all. Bless these upcoming elections. May the right people be elected. And God bless America. Amen.” 

New Yorker, 5 August.

The City Editor says . . .

Much more hot air, and some acute cases of handwringing have been prompted by a United Nations report that the combined wealth of the world’s 358 billionaires equals the combined incomes of the world population’s poorest 45 percent, or 2.3 billion. Leaving aside the mismatch between wealth and income in that comparison, so what? It is not ownership that is important so much as what the owners or controllers of wealth do with it.

William Kay, Financial Mail on Sunday, 28 July.

Twice kicked

A Midland care assistant was unceremoniously sacked by health chiefs after being injured in an attack at work, it was claimed today. Jenny Jennings, of Solihull Lodge, said she was so badly kicked in the knee by a resident at a Chemsley Wood home that she was unable to do her job . . . Mrs Jennings said it was the second time a member of staff had been badly injured by the resident but the trust management had not acted to prevent it happening again . . .  Solihull’s Healthcare’s director of personnel Mr Nick Gillard said the resident’s care would have been addressed following the first attack. “Having gone through channels and followed policy to the letter Mrs Jennings’ employment was terminated due to ill health,” he said. 

Evening Mail, 16 August.

Now you see it . . .

The Saudi government has tightened its controls on satellite TV, forcing viewers to dismantle dishes and subscribe to its own TV network. On offer is a mixture of Arabic and international programming selected by the Ministry of Information. A five-minute delay has been introduced on foreign channels so that “unsuitable material” can be censored.

           What Satellite TV, 13 October.

      The Scavenger