Greasy Pole: Peter Hain - a case of mistaken identity (2006)

Hain's sticking it to the 'Man' years.

The Greasy Pole column from the September 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

With things as they are anyone wanting to lead the Labour Party must be driven by such pronounced tendencies to self-harm as to classify them as, if not certifiably mad, then clearly unsafe to be let out by themselves at night. So what can be said about anyone whose ambitions run, not to the leadership, but to election as Deputy Leader? How can we take seriously anyone who is willing to work so hard to get a job with so bitter a history of crushed ambitions?

A job held by the likes of Morrison, Brown, Healey, Hattersley, Prescott? Well there is reason to think that politicians can survive only through a stubborn ability to distort reality, which would explain why even now, with the Labour Party in such disarray, there is no lack of candidates eager to take over as second-in-command of the party’s ragged army when, eventually, Blair steps down and presumably takes his Deputy Prescott with him. Among this hopeful, if hopeless, assembly is Peter Hain who, taking the long view, has busily fertilised his campaign with support among the party grass roots and the trades unions.  There have been a variety of descriptions of Hain. In his book The Rise of Political Lying Peter Oborne exempts him,with some other Labour ministers, from “… lying or deceiving the public in a serious way”.

However a blogger on 11 July, who may be closer to public opinion, referring to his policy on Northern Ireland devolution, described him as “a duplicitous tosser”. David Blunkett thought that “If there’s anyone who upsets colleagues more than I do it’s Peter (Hain)” – a characteristic which in August seemed to extend beyond Hain’s colleagues when he fell asleep during an interview with a man who had come to see him about the investigation of his son’s murder in Northern Ireland. Hain upset Robert Mugabe – whom he once supported in the struggle against white minority rule in Zimbabwe – by backing the white farmers in that country. But of course all of this is common currency among politicians; what may recommend Hain to the voters is his presentation, in the words of Andrew Rawnsley (Servants of the People) as “Curly  headed and perma-tanned, the former anti-apartheid activist …a member of the soft left trusted by Number 10”.

Robbery

So is it to be another case of mistaken identity, of the voters misreading a politician’s future intentions through disregarding their past? Hain is no stranger to identity problems. In 1976 he was on trial for the attempted robbery of a bank near his home in Putney. The prosecution case was that Hain had gone into the bank, snatched £490 and ran off, chased through the local streets but got away. The bank cashier involved in the snatch identified Hain, if with some reservations. In any case Hain had some convincing alibi evidence, which persuaded the jury that he was not the robber. It was suspected that the case had been an attempted frame-up by the South African security services, in reprisal for Hain’s stand against the apartheid laws. (A few years before the robbery he was sent a letter bomb).

Hain was born in Kenya but brought up in South Africa where his parents were active campaigners against apartheid; he grew up accustomed to his home being raided by the police and to a system which legally banned his parents from speaking to each other. The family came to London, to continue their campaign; Hain was the leading light in the protests aimed at stopping the England cricket team touring South Africa and to disrupt the Springbok Rugby tour to England (the pitch invasions by shaggy youths certainly upset the boozy blazers and duffle coats in the stands at Twickenham). For a time he was in the Young Liberals – who were then rated as more “radical” than Labour – and was elected their president before he switched to the Labour Party, in which his career has been more notable for conformity than for disruptive protest.

Hain is the 'Man' years.

In Government

Hain was elected in 1991 as MP for Neath, in South Wales – one of those constituencies where Tories have been something of an endangered species. His majority climbed to over 30,000 in the heady days of Labour’s 1997 triumph; since then it has steadily fallen with the Blair government’s decline in popularity but he still holds more than half the votes cast. He is Secretary of State for Wales as well as for Northern Ireland and has held other jobs such as Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the Commons. So he has been firmly in position to live up to the promise of his early days as a determined, principled “radical” who would justify the expectations of his admirers. And now, how has it turned out? Has it been a case of mistaken identity, has Hain been wrongly assessed as someone he is not? Or is he guilty of gross deception?

As an opposition back bencher he showed that his talent for being disruptive had not deserted him when, as the Major government was approaching its final days in power, he tried to unseat some Tory MPs by getting them declared bankrupt after losing money as underwriters at Lloyds, which would have forced them to resign their seats. The government had just lost two formerly rock solid seats at Christchurch and Newbury and they were understandably nervous about the prospect of having to face any more by-elections. The Speaker obstructed Hain’s scheme but the details of individual losses were published in the Independent. One of the MPs was Edward Heath, who furiously denounced Hain for his “…sleazy desire to get Tories out”.

Hain also managed to upset the Labour Party in Blaenau Gwent, a seat once held by Aneurin Bevan and Michael Foot. The Welsh Assembly Member there, Peter Law, was keen to be the next MP for Blaenau Gwent but the party insisted that the Labour candidate would be selected – foisted on the local party – from an all-female list, which he opposed. So he persisted in standing as an Independent. In an attempt to get round this awkward situation Law was offered a peerage in return for not standing – according to reliable evidence, Peter Hain was the person who did this particular piece of dirty work. In the event Law defeated the official Labour candidate; he died earlier this year and at the by-elections in June his wife stood for the Assembly and his agent for Westminster. Both won, again as Independents. (Not surprisingly, in spite of the evidence, Hain has always denied having been involved).

Iraq

But Hain’s betrayal of his reputation has extended far beyond Wales. During his time he has been a strong supporter of the government on many issues which at one time, consistent with his record, he should have opposed. He has been a strong supporter of ID cards which, according to the government, are essential to prevent suicide bombers blowing up aircraft or tube trains. There is little evidence to support this but what is known is that the cards will be useful in chipping away what civil liberties are available to us. He was firmly in favour of those same student top-up fees which Tony Blair trumpeted as vital in the struggle to make the very best in education available to everyone, rich and poor but which will in fact lead to workers emerging from university under an enormous burden of debt. And of course he has been an ardent supporter of the war in Iraq, which was justified on the grounds that it would usher a parliamentary democracy into that ravaged country but which has resulted in a chaos of strife and slaughter, all in the cause of American capitalism taking a grip on that vital area. And Hain has justified this abominable attitude with typically sickening Blairite verbiage: “Sunday will be a historic day for Iraq, and the extent of Iraqi participation in the elections is  enormous, with 8,000 candidates, 150,000 officials and thousands of polling stations” (27 January 2005) and later “The future of Iraq is about building democracy and not succumbing to terrorism…”(17 March 2005).

Perhaps Hain will become the next Deputy Leader of the Labour Party or even, against precedent, the party Leader and Prime Minister. If any of this happens we shall be subjected to the customary drivel about a different, radical way of organising this segment of the capitalist system. This may impress the voters for a while, as it did with Blair, until capitalism itself unmasks it and there will be no more mistaken identity.

Ivan

Letters: Work and leisure (2008)

Letters to the Editors from the March 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

Work and leisure

Dear Editors

Although I agree with much of what the editors write in reply to the letter by N.B. (February Socialist Standard), I think there is more to say about work and leisure in a socialist world.

N.B. writes “People need a contrast between work and leisure in order to appreciate and enjoy their leisure time.” The editors comment on this: “Of course, there will still be a distinction in socialism between organised work to be done during set hours, even if enjoyable, and recreational activities carried out at the individual’s discretion.”

Both N.B. and the editors assume that the line commonly drawn between work and leisure by people in capitalism will also be drawn by people in socialism. I question this. A few people today—some retired workers and some capitalists who are more than non-employed parasites—are able to live productive and enjoyable lives which they don’t divide into work and leisure segments. In socialism I expect many more such people and society will be the better for having them.

In capitalism it is understandable that workers do divide their lives into work (paid employment) and leisure (mostly as customers of the leisure industry). In socialism there won’t be employment or the leisure industry. Instead there is likely to be a division (though not a hard and fast one) between socially committed activities and individually chosen activities. Both types of activity will straddle what we today call work and leisure.

Most of us will commit some of our time to being, for example, train drivers, classroom teachers, members of orchestras or football teams. Most of us will also spend some of our time doing things that don’t require being with other people at a specified time and place—for example, handicrafts and individual sports.

Michael Schauerte (in the same issue) writes of the socialist revolution: “The first change that seems likely, for a number of reasons, is a major reduction in the length of the working day.” Michael shows too little creative imagination about what work will mean for us in socialism.

Certainly we won’t want to spend more time than we have to on activities or in circumstances that we find unpleasant, boring or damaging. But why should we be concerned with “the length of the working day”? Some activities and interests—socially committed or individual chosen—may be so absorbing, thrilling or delightful that it wouldn’t make sense to long to reduce time spend on them.

People will have much more choice about their lifestyle than they do now. Some may choose Marxian multi-tasking: hunter, farmer, critic, philosopher, blogger, all in one day. Others may devote their whole lives to one interest or activity, bordering on the obsessive. I guess most of us will be somewhere between these two extremes.

Stan Parker, 

London NW3.

Northern Rock

Dear Editors

The Tories have always presented themselves as the party of low taxation, and with another ‘former left’ turned New Labour Cabinet Minister carcass for them to succulently devour (Peter Hain over allegations of sleaze), are naturally revelling in the government’s current dilemma over whether to either nationalise completely Northern Rock or initiate a cobbled up tax funded financial scheme that acts as a veneer for doing something.

The principal question therefore for a party which is allegedly in opposition and whose fundamental tenet of ideology is low taxation to promote free enterprise (albeit also rigidly upheld by New Labour) is why don’t they let this tenet do the talking, by insisting that Northern Rock is an unequivocal market failure and should, like other failed firms, go into liquidation to save the billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money necessary to prop it up?

The reality is, despite all the hype and bluster between both, neither they or New Labour could possibly allow this to happen because if a financial institution of this magnitude were allowed to collapse it would expose to the voting public at large the underlying fragility of the entire capitalist system. Hence this is why most mainstream financial commentators seem reluctant to emphasise that Northern Rock is the first obvious symptom in the UK of a far greater endemic problem of the global financial system where borrowing and speculation has basically outweighed actual economic growth. Indeed the term ‘credit crunch’ is simply a useful euphemism that conveys the myth that it was all down to politicians or financial gurus failing to exercise foresight beforehand. In fact the majority of mainstream politicians in parliament today simply oversee these inept ‘fat cat’ policies as a formality, regardless of the detrimental effects they have on the livelihoods of millions of their constituents particularly if they are working class or homeowners with mortgages.

So for the Tories, as long as New Labour carries the can for this Northern Rock debacle the better. However for the average voter, where the whole fiasco and the billions that are conveniently found to save it should be precipitating a public revival in socialist thinking in some shape or form, the chronic ideological vacuum that exists in British politics today is comprehensively exposed.

Nick Vinehill, 

Snettisham, Norfolk

Reply: 

Good point. The ideological supporters of capitalism like to preach the virtues of competition eliminating lame ducks, but the government – guardian of the interests of a national capitalist class as a whole – doesn’t always let this happen, especially not in a case like Northern Rock which could have a domino effect and even if this costs “the taxpayers” (i.e., the rest of the capitalist class) money. 

Editors.

 

The Hull Floods

Dear Editors

Last year’s floods were the widest spread, if not the worst on record, in Britain. Great swathes of the country were affected including the West Country and Yorkshire. Worst affected, however, was Hull, my home town. Local events did not attract much attention in the national media. Hull is a visually uninteresting town, off the beaten track, with few rich people to make a noise (it is the ninth most deprived area in England). The death toll was low, with only one person killed, and, unlike in Gloucester, the floods did not generate any stunning aerial views. However in terms of human impact the northern port was certainly in the front line as can be seen in the recent “The June 2007 Floods in Hull: Final Report by the Independent Review Body”.

Stated simply the rainfall on the 25 June was exceptionally heavy and followed in the wake of another heavy storm ten days earlier. The soil was already completely saturated and the drains filled to capacity. There was just nowhere for the water to go. This is a matter of some concern for the area is completely flat with much of the built up area below sea level. Nearly 9,000 homes and 1,300 businesses were affected and 91 of 99 schools in the area damaged, 43 severely so. Institutions affected included the University, where the library (once run by poet Philip Larkin) was badly damaged. As might be expected, the poorer areas, including Bransholme (said to be one of the worst estates in Britain), suffered most. Some 6,300 people had to seek temporary accommodation; around 1,000 are still living in caravans, upstairs or in lodgings.  The trauma of being flooded out has been considerable and, with repairs badly backlogged, long lasting.

Immediately after the event great play was made in local papers over the state of the roadside drains. Undoubtedly in some cases these were blocked due to reductions in street cleaning budgets. However the official report largely negated claims of any major impact. The Independent Review Body did find there were “serious issues” with the drainage facilities, specifically a failed pumping station on Bransholme, and commented “detailed information about the performance and operation of water utilities’ drainage systems should be in the public domain”, a clear condemnation of the damaging privatisation undertaken over the past quarter century. It also picked up on insurance problems faced by many, recommending that the state underwrite flood risks.

Ironically given these proposals of intervention by the state (which clearly isn’t interested), it was the community response which provided back up to most people: “The people of Hull showed extraordinary levels of goodwill, comradeship and willingness to help neighbours during the floods”. So much for selfish human nature.

Keith Scholey,

Hull

Political Notebook: Jack Cohen is dead — Long live Jack Cohen (1979)

The Political Notebook Column from the May 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

The apologists for capitalism are not known for their high principles. Profits come first under their system. This month’s Notebook takes a look at what a few of the twisting hypocrites have been up to lately and comes to the not surprising conclusion that the sooner the working class stops supporting the lot of them the better it will be for us all.

Jack Cohen is dead — Long live Jack Cohen

Sir John Cohen—described in one obituary as ‘the golden barrowboy who became the supermarket king'—died last month at the age of 80. According to the press reports, Cohen's was a 'rags to riches’ story of a man who pushed his way up the capitalist ladder until, at the time of his death, his Tesco stores' annual turnover is breaking the £1,000,000,000 barrier. The reason for this success was, according to The Jewish Chronicle, that

 Sir John was a redoubtable entrepreneur renowned for his aggressive salesmanship . . .

In fact, Sir John, just like any capitalist businessman made his profits by exploiting the working class. His own level of education or intelligence was, fortunately for him. another matter. But there is one thing that might puzzle the readers of Cohen’s sycophantic obituaries. If you go into any Tesco store you will observe that, despite the death of the owner, things are carrying on just as usual. It’s almost as if the dull, witless workers are able to organise things without the capitalists to tell them how to do it.

People's Democratic Prisons

It is a well known fact that China is a People's Democracy. And just like the other People’s Democracies, if workers have the audacity to complain that rich leaders are living it up at the expense of the poor toilers, they're locked away in a democratic people’s prison to punish them for their cheek. Increasingly in recent times, wall posters in Peking have criticised the undemocratic character of the Chinese State. The first reaction of the Communist Party was to lock up these bolshie proletarians for having the nerve to try and dictate to them, but more recently, according to The Guardian (14 March)

  China’s wall-poster protestors have won a major victory with the release from prison of a group of students who were the first to call for the establishment of ‘socialist democracy’ and a proper legal system. The leader of the group, Li Zhengtia, spent nearly four years doing forced labour in the mines or in prison or in the southern province of Guangdong. Posters on 'Democracy Wall’ in Peking have claimed that as many as seven hundred people were punished for their connection with the group.

Chinese workers are correct to doubt the value of their ‘People’s Democracy’. But under Chinese capitalism the liberty of the commodity comes before that of the people.

Exploitation without discrimination 

When apartheid is overturned it will not be because of the whining of trendy liberals like Peter Hain, but because the capitalist class who have interests in South Africa will see the profitability of the equal exploitation of all colours. An item in Boxing News (9 February) shows that South African fight promoters have discovered that mixed fights pull in larger audiences and so make them more money. So, these principled gentlemen who sincerely believe in the good sense of racial separation drop their high principles before the temple of Profitability. The situation now is that

   Blacks can manage and train whites. Whites are permitted to manage and train blacks. Blacks can promote major tournaments and whites have gone out of their way to assist blacks with better training facilities and financial support. Several major South African companies have come to the aid of boxing and Alan Proctor, a director of Sanyo, is looked upon by many as a godfather. Sanyo have poured thousands upon thousand of Rand into boxing and have just completed a Sanyo Boxing Academy in Soweto.

Other companies to invest in South African boxing since mixed fights started have been Old Buck Gin, Nashua. King Korn and Datsun. The spread of anti-racist liberalism? No bloody fear! All that’s happened is that the capitalists have seen the value of exploiting without discriminating against colour. Which must make liberals like Peter Hain terribly, terribly happy.

The Moronic Martyr

Robert Relf is a racist clown who has been on a hunger strike in gaol after being convicted under the Race Relations Act for posting up stickers saying that black people spread diseases and should live in the trees. Relf’s opinions can only be treated seriously in a psychiatric sense, but it is worthy of note that when he appeared at the Court of Appeal on 12 March to threaten the Court with his imminent martyrdom Lord Justice Lawton declared that

  if Relf wants to commit suicide that’s up to him. We are not going to be blackmailed . . . the sooner that is appreciated by him and others like him the better it will be for law and order in this country.

Readers may like to consider the fact that this great believer in law and order was himself a member of, and candidate for, Mosley’s British Union of Fascists in the 1930s. The main difference between Relf and Lawton is that the former is a moronic lout who is willing to act as a stooge for the sinister ambitions of his National Front leaders, while the latter is a professional hypocrite who is willing to act as a stooge to a rather wider section of the ruling class.

Steve Coleman

Letters: Not So Obvious (1979)

Letters to the Editors from the May 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

Not So Obvious

I am writing to ask if you have ever thought of participating in an alliance of left-wing parties to the left of the Labour Party. I am thinking of the Communist Party, the International Marxist Group, the Socialist Workers Party and the Workers Revolutionary Party. Such an alliance, based on areas of common agreement which I am sure can be found, could become a very strong force in British politics. Opposition to capitalism— both national and international—is obviously the most important common denominator between your various parties. It seems to me that the time has come to accentuate what you all have in common, and to put aside the differences until the struggle against capitalism is won.

Tom Rubens,

Leicester

Reply

The object of the SPGB is the abolition of the wage labour and capital relationship and its replacement with socialism, a society of common ownership and free access. Such a revolution can only be brought about by the democratic political action of a majority of class conscious workers.

The end of private and state ownership of the means of production, and hence of production for the purpose of exchange and profit, is not part of the left’s programme. Far from envisaging a society in which classes, buying and selling, employment and politics itself are absent, the parties mentioned campaign for the capitalist Labour Party at election time. They also confuse nationalisation (state capitalism) with socialism, support the ‘Right to Work' movement (there is no such right), dismiss our insistence upon the capture of the powers of government and the state machine and generally follow the anti-Marxist views of Lenin on questions such as leadership, nationalism and democracy. Needless to say, they have a wide variety of reforms on offer too.

For a socialist party, only one course is open: unceasing hostility to all parties that administer or lend their support to the capitalist system. This includes the left, whose militancy and spurious theory they cloak in the name of socialism, making our task that much more difficult. As to an alliance, the Pope will take up ballroom dancing first.

Editors.

Shallow Reporting

Following a recent article in the Socialist Standard entitled “Media Harlots" another example of shallow reporting showing effect rather than cause could be seen on one of the Tonight programmes during the week.

A reporter from CBS showed us all the effect of drunkenness on the Indians of NW Canada. We had the typical view of drunken apathetic Indians reeling about the streets while their young children plundered the local schoolmistress’s house for food and bedding. Another man was interviewed in his meagre house where he tried to feed up to fourteen children before he too went "under the influence”.

After showing all these effects we were then given the cause of this wanton drunkenness amongst the Red population. Apparently research has shown that due to their diet, the red man’s blood does not withstand as much alcohol as the white man’s.

This report concluded the case by suggesting even by some of the Indians themselves that the only cure was to ban alcohol. Only one man came near to a more realistic conclusion when he suggested that perhaps the Indians were being unfairly treated as he stated that the Government subsidies only extended to alcoholic drinks and not to such "luxuries” as housing, food and transport.

Surely a community forced to abandon their own beliefs and live in an alien society i.e. the capitalist society, will be left to subsist on handouts the profiteers choose to pass on to them thus ensuing their second class way of life.

I would be interested to know how far the Socialist Party has become established in Canada and ‘free’ America and how it stands in regard to such minority groups as the Indians and Eskimos.

Dorothy Williams, 

Mablethorpe, Lincs.

Reply

In a sense. Dorothy Williams has answered her own question. She points out that the alcoholism of the Indians in NW Canada is largely due to deficiencies in their diet, which in turn is an effect of the pressure of property society.

There are many such examples of the alienating and destructive effects of capitalism, beginning in the process of industrialising large areas and forcing people to abandon a rural way of life, only to be herded into the slums of the cities.

Socialists are not indifferent to such suffering; indeed as members of the working class we ourselves experience, day by day, the indignities and demoralising effects of capitalism. What distinguishes us from other political organisations is that we insist that it is futile to concentrate on just a part of capitalism’s problems— slums, poverty, war, the plight of the Eskimos and so on.

Since capitalism is responsible for all these problems—and many others—it follows that the only effective policy is to campaign exclusively for its abolition and replacement with socialism.

There is a Socialist Party of Canada, companion to the SPGB and other socialist parties in the world. But the difficulties of the struggle for socialism are even more formidable in Canada than in this country, and the SPC remains small. Its offices are in Victoria. British Columbia.

Editors.

Do We Oppose NF?

Regarding On Banning the the National Front — Socialist Standard January issue.

Because the opportunity to discuss their racist policies with them, either at their meetings or otherwise, is not often possible can I ask whether you agree that your members and supporters should also assist to make the elector aware of those policies by the issue of anti-NF explanatory leaflets as issued constantly by the Anti-Nazi League?

Yours hopefully.

FD (Essex)

Reply

It is not only the National Front who are shy about discussing their policies. The Socialist Standard has recently written twice to the Anti-Nazi League, asking Peter Hain if he would agree to being interviewed by a socialist as part of an article we plan to publish on the ANL. Both letters were ignored.

As far as our resources in terms of membership and money permit we publish a great deal of literature analysing all aspects of capitalist society. Articles on racism appear regularly in the Socialist Standard and we have published two editions of our pamphlet on the Racial Problem.

What we don’t get involved in is a preoccupation with any one aspect of capitalism’s problems, be it racism, sexism, unemployment or whatever. We argue that anyone concerned with any of these problems should be concerned with the abolition of them all — by the abolition of capitalism.

We analyse and attack the ideas of racism just as we oppose all anti-working class theories, including the reformism of organisation like the Anti-Nazi League.

Editors.

Berk of the Month

January’s “Berk of the Month Award" must go to the Sunday Mirror columnist Mr. Wardrobe Wyatt. From "Britain’s most influential columnist" comes this little gent "We have strikes because some people enjoy the excitement of them’’. Our friend Woodrow has obviously not experienced the “excitement” of standing in sub-zero temperatures, for hours on end with only the pittance of strike pay in their pockets, with about as much action as the Queen’s garden party.

Rob Bishop

Pudsey, Leeds, 

W. Yorks.

The fool's tale (1983)

Book Review from the November 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Democratic Alternative by Peter Hain (Penguin Books)

Like a good comrade I agreed to review one of several books offered to me by the Socialist Standard. Like a loser I picked this one and had to plough through 180 pages of muddle-headed nonsense. Peter Hain’s intention in writing this book is to outline how he thinks the Labour Party can win back the support it has lost and get back into power. This is to be achieved by what he calls “socialist policies", which inevitably turn out to be just another collection of reforms of capitalism.

For example, he wants to see the pound devalued, exchange controls re-imposed, price controls, a statutory minimum wage, the drug companies nationalised, a windfall tax on bank profits and, for good measure, Bobbies back on the beat. Of course, even if all of these reforms were enacted we would still be living in capitalism: the workers would remain an exploited class.

Hain still believes, despite all the evidence, that capitalism can be managed and controlled by a future Labour government. All that would be needed is the will to do it. He wants the next Labour government to work with the unions in developing yet another “National Plan" which would regulate production, trade and investment. But no government can plan these things with any hope of success because it cannot know what future market conditions will be like or what action other governments may take. In other words it cannot act independently of what is happening in the rest of the world.

Hain’s answer to the current slump is the old one of spending-your-way-out-of-it, the spending to be financed by increased government borrowing and heavily taxing the rich. This, he claims, will rejuvenate the economy and bring unemployment down; but it is not as easy as he thinks. Increased government borrowing causes interest rates to rise to levels where many employers cannot afford to borrow just to survive let alone expand. Indeed, in the last few years this “lack of liquidity" has caused many companies to go down the drain and with them a their workers' jobs. And the more taxation is a raised then the less profits the capitalists will have for re-investment or dividends. If profits fall to the point where investors are unwilling to invest then this, too, will act against reducing unemployment. Incidentally, another of Hain’s ideas for raising capital to finance extra government spending is to lay hands on trade union pension funds!

Other sure-fire vote losers proposed by Hain include giving the rank and file of the armed forces a say in the selection of military leaders, turning the diplomatic service into an instrument of “international socialism", and Britain to sell armaments only to those who ". . . are advancing the cause of human justice". Needless to say he is thinking of the likes of Mugabe of Zimbabwe, whose forces are responsible for the murder of thousands of that country's citizens.

Over and over again Hain reveals his ignorance of even the simplest aspects of capitalism’s operations. He thinks that wages are paid out of profits when, of course, profits are what is left to the enterprise after all costs, including wages, have been met. He also thinks that trade unions protect their members against exploitation. If that were the case then those workers would be producing no surplus value at all. What trade unions do, to one degree or another, is to minimise the level of exploitation. As any genuine socialist knows, exploitation of wage-labour by capital is a feature of capitalism and will only be ended by socialism.

Although this book is studded with references to socialist-this and socialist-that, nowhere does the author reveal any knowledge of what a socialist society entails — a worldwide system of common ownership of the means of wealth production and distribution. A system that will exclude exchange relations and all the things that go with them such as money, prices, wages, profits, banks and pensions. On page 116 Hain writes: "What do we mean by . . . socialist?”, but he never tells us. Maybe this is what he meant when he warned us in the Preface that he wouldn't be "dotting the i's and crossing the t’s”.

Vic Vanni

Watching the detectives (2002)

TV Review from the December 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

The three-part documentary True Spies which finished its run on BBC2 last month was an illuminating insight into one of the oldest–and most disreputable–professions. Looking at how the British intelligence services have since the 1960s systematically infiltrated those organisations considered to be "subversive" of the state, it united the spies and the spied-upon in a visual history of their secret combat.

The range of the organisations targeted for infiltration by the British "secret state" was a long one, encompassing some still surviving and many others that are long gone. On the left, it transpired that the Communist Party, the SWP (formerly IS), the WRP, Militant and the IMG were among those with paid agents of the British state in their ranks from the late 1960s onwards, many of whom were part of the so-called special branch "hairies" who specialised in entering the entryists so deeply that they assumed positions of power, influence and knowledge within the target organisation, as well as their habits and dress code. While most of their number will continue remain secret for obvious reasons, several spoke to camera of what they did and of how they did it. So too, did their handlers: bluff Northern policemen with anti-union agendas and cockney commie-bashers from Special Branch with a love of Queen and Country.

A small number of the "hairies" went native as their attempt to dialectically interpenetrate their opposites led to an unexpected outcome. But by the mid-1970s internecine rivalry between Special Branch (viewed as the grammar school boys) and MI5 (the public school-educated "sophisticates") led to a scaling-down of the operation and the use of occasional or periodic paid informants rather than long-term "sleepers".

Interestingly, their informants included over twenty top officials from trade unions who leaked information on potential industrial unrest and political militancy. These apparently included not just the usual right-wing hatchet-men but the former leader of the National Union of Mineworkers, Joe Gormley, and others of a similar ilk. When asked to comment on this, Arthur Scargill–the man who succeeded Gormley as NUM President–expressed his surprise that there weren't even more, and for once it is tempting to agree with him.

Many of the other political (or former political) activists interviewed went to great lengths to express their astonishment that they had a spy in their ranks and that they may have been betrayed by someone close to them. In this category came current Cabinet Minister Peter Hain, formerly a leading light of the Anti-Apartheid movement and the 1970 "Stop the Tour" campaign (about the visit of the South African cricket team). Also in this category was the actor and former member of the "Shrewsbury Two" Ricky Tomlinson, who had been jailed for his secondary picketing activity during the 1972 building workers strike. Whether his surprise was real is difficult to gauge, though if it was, the level of naiveté involved is breathtaking.

Did the likes of Hain and Tomlinson really think that the forces of the state machine wouldn't take an interest in their activities? It does seem unlikely, especially in the case of Tomlinson–someone who used to delight in calling himself a "Marxist".

I am not a number?
The security services didn't just–and don't just–target the far left or trade unions of course. Fascist and nazi organisations, Irish nationalists, animal rights protesters, anti-nuclear campaigners and anti-globalisation activists have all fallen under the MI5 spotlight, as the programme demonstrated quite ably. Current and former members of the intelligence services estimated during interviews that at the end of the Cold War there were files on about one and a half million people in Britain held by Special Branch and MI5. That was roughly one in every thirty adults.

Though many of these files have now allegedly been destroyed the surveillance continues, of course. Stella Rimmington, former head of MI5, took visible delight in putting the "end of history" argument in her piece to camera about surveillance of the far left, saying that they had been vanquished. But it was clear from some of the interviews conducted with current security service operatives that there are still paid agents attached to all manner of political organisations in the UK. While much of the resources at the disposal of MI5 in particular have been directed towards the 400 or so members of the IRA in the last decade, surveillance of other political "subversives" continues apace–even if not quite at the heady levels attained in the 1970s.

It is quite possible–indeed likely–that the Socialist Party itself has been a target for the repressive agencies of the state over the years. While not allying ourselves with any foreign power (which is what made the Communist Party such a threat) we nevertheless places ourself firmly within the revolutionary tradition in this country–unlike, we would argue, the fake revolutionaries of the far left who have always sought a change of bosses rather than a real change of social system.

But as the Socialist Party has no leaders and no led, and has no secret meetings or cabals, we would have presented a different proposition to the security services altogether. No Socialist Party meetings are ever closed to non-members and as the fullest possible democracy replaces the diktat of a leadership, any "hairy" infiltrating our organisation would have been on a cushy number indeed. If such a person (or persons) has existed, their interview on a programme such as this might have made fascinating viewing–and we would certainly have been interested in hearing of their experiences.

We have never been believers in the need for a tightly-knit gang of conspirators, who are ever mindful of agents and infiltrators. Instead we rely on the strength of our case against capitalism and in the power of a democratically organised working class movement–the movement of the majority expressing the interests of the majority. Whilst we do not underestimate the power and intent of those who seek to uphold the vested interests of the owners and controllers of UK PLC–or the disruption that they can sometimes cause–neither do we think that they could stop a democratically organised socialist mass movement. History demonstrates that the activities of tiny minorities can never hold back the tide of the overwhelming majority for long, so–"hairies" or no "hairies"–we don't think they have any more right to claim that history is on their side than their adversaries in vanguards like the SWP.

Dave Perrin

Trendies, get stuffed! (1980)

From the March 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is time the working class declared war on the trendies. Radicals, liberals, cult musicians, progressive poets, campaigning journalists, revolutionary feminists, long-haired vicars, nose-picking punk heroes, populist academics, counter-culture creeps, Leninist demonstrators, ecologist friends of the earth, health food nutcases, real beer bores, fringe theatre goers and people who talk in loud voices about Trotskyism in Hampstead pubs. These denimed crusaders constitute one of the biggest diversions the working class has been confronted with since Martin Luther nailed his theses to the door of the Church at Wittenberg.

Trendies want capitalism to ban the bomb, clean up the atmosphere, give equality to women, rock against racism and legalise dope. Those who disagree with their ideals—for so long as they try to enact them by marching up and down Oxford Street listening to the echo of their slogans they will remain idealists—are labelled 'reactionaries'.

Socialism is a materialist proposition, based on the incentive of human self-interest. It is dependent upon logic, not 'good vibrations'; reason, not rabble-rousing. We want a society in which men and women will fully control their own lives because they will own and control the means of producing and distributing wealth. The socialist case has developed out of a scientific analysis of the capitalist system which oppresses us. The system cannot be reformed in the interests of the working class. It must be abolished.

Trendies couldn't care less about abolishing the system. Those in the SWP and IMG are more concerned with supporting the latest fashionable reform than organising for revolution. Their political aims are determined by the very narrow confines of the system which only some of them have vaguely perceived.

Some trendies stay trendy all their lives. Peter Hain, the personification of a long yawn, is attempting to keep it up until he gets his pension. Reg Birch, the mad Maoist who recently retired from the TUC, did keep it up until he got his pension. From adolescence to senility, with nothing in between, they follow every movement, every demonstration, every cult that is thrown up in the name of the modern secular religion, Progress. What Progress is and where it leads to nobody knows. Others grow weary of their trendiness. At thirty they cut their hair, buy a suit and get a job in an office. By the time they reach sixty they tell their trendy grandchildren how they too once went through a rebellious period. "You'll grow out of it". And one day the workers will grow out of it. We'll grow out of the ideology which tells us that hope is the passing affliction of the young and uneducated. The working class will then grow up to socialist political majority.

Steve Coleman