A touch of Blaired vision (1994)

TV Review from the November 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

Watching last month’s Labour Party Conference on BBC was a heady experience. The splendour of the Winter Gardens ballroom. Blackpool, the green-blue space-age set, the forward looking slogan “New Labour, New Britain" boldly outlined for all to see. the pinstripe suits, the floral ties and the presence of that nice young man Mr Blair, all combined to give the effect that was intended by the media men and spin doctors — Labour is back, but this time with a difference. Today it is a Labour Party that you could take home to meet your mother without the worry of it doing anything to embarrass you. This time round father can safely talk to it about how the plants in the greenhouse are coming along. Gone are the bad old days when it wore a donkey-jacket and was the political party from hell spitting on the pavement and farting in public. Labour is back, they say. and it has brought a bunch of chrysanths round and a box of Terry's Old Gold.

Not that Labour hasn’t tried to impress before. In 1992 it tried to sneak its way in the backdoor with claims that it had presents for granny and the young children, but father said he didn't trust it being in same room as his wallet. And father should know — he bitterly remembers being mugged by Labour back in the 1970s. It may all have happened on a dark night but he vividly recalls the bushy eyebrows. Father is not fooled by the new image and won't have Labour in the house again, let alone near his precious greenhouse.

But mother and the kids are not so sure. After all, Labour looks so attractive these days, and says some awfully nice things. It really is a charmer. And it's so boring having the same people round time and again — the bloke from number ten is always popping in with tales of woe. Nobody likes him and even the woman who did the catering for him doesn’t want to see him any more. The chap in the hush puppies from number eleven is no better and father suspects him of siphoning petrol out of the car. Compared to them, Labour seems like a breath of fresh air, but you can never tell can you?

Telling it like it isn’t

Labour is now busy convincing everyone that it is a bad egg that has reformed. Its conference was, in reality, not a conference at all, but an extended Party Political Broadcast aimed at Mr and Mrs Viewer with this end in mind. Its only discernible message was "you have nothing to fear from us — we are on your side”. Capitalists and workers, bosses and unions. Labour loves you all. Co-ordinated by the image-men for the benefit of TV, it was a stream of tepid speeches and meaningless assertions designed to connect with the hopes and, to some extent, prejudices of its potential voting fodder, generally workers whose views are moulded by the self-same media and advertising gurus.

And how the politicians tried to please. TV loves the soundbite, and there were plenty of them to be going on with "Tough on crime, and tough on the causes of crime", “traditional values in a modern setting", “a strong economy and a just society" rang out like a mantra, and all to demonstrate that Labour has a new user-friendly identity. Pity the poor TV interviewers, bombarded by a stream of verbal diarrhoea for five days. Sheena MacDonald, the anchor presenter, gritted her teeth every time she was forced to interview one of the front-bench robots, while on other occasions, such as when she had to interview John Prescott, she had to visibly stifle laughter at what are now vainglorious attempts at sobriety.

Tony Blair = I’m Tory Plan B

The Chief Robot’s speech was the ultimate triumph of form over content. Expertly delivered with the help of idiot boards, it was 62 minutes of a vision of a capitalist utopia that has never existed and which, with all certainty, will never exist. He even had the cheek to call it socialism, claiming that socialism was based on the understanding that “the individual does best in a strong and decent community of people with principles and standards. and common aims and values". How many in capitalist politics are going to disagree with that? Answer that question and you are well on the way to understanding what Blair and "new Labour" are all about.

But despite the hours of prolonged tedium, the TV coverage of the Conference did provide a few minutes of welcome relief just before Blair's speech. It is then that the Labour Party “Merit Awards" are handed out to long-serving Party members. The first up was an 86-year-old gent who had worked to help the strikers in the General Strike of 1926. To the palpable embarrassment of those around him, he delivered a speech which denounced the market economy and the world capitalist system and then singled out the drug religion as one of the greatest evils in modern society. Quite what he had been doing in the Labour Party for seventy years wasn’t clear, but it certainly took the cheesy grin off Blair’s face. If only Sheena MacDonald had done us all a favour and interviewed the old guy afterwards she would have found herself confronted by a critical intelligence for the first time all week. 

Dave Perrin

Snap, crackle, pop . . . (1987)

From the June 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Those who are experienced in such matters tell us that all brands of cornflakes taste the same. It has also been said that they all conform to a standard of nutrition which results in the package having more food value than the flakes. It is rather like this in the political field. The parties which are likely to get into power in this election all offer the same low level of social nutrition and politically they all have the same flavour. Their only difference is in their presentation - their packaging - and this is where they are in competition, their programmes and their leaders dressed, decorated, obscured so as to bear little relation to their true character.

This is the work — indeed, the preoccupation — of a band of manipulators known as public relations personnel. The first example of their work to spring in mind is Margaret Thatcher. Her transformation is now part of history. Her image-makers saw her hair and said it was all wrong; that is why some hapless hairdresser now labours daily to maintain that famous blonde, forehead-revealing sweep. Her voice, they found, displeased their ears; so she had to be induced to tone it with a soft huskiness. That neck-straining angle at which she holds her head when she is being interviewed for TV is not something she was born with; it was taught to her by those public relations people.

When they had finished they looked on their work and thought it was good. Then it was the turn of the experts in political presentation. The Labour government of 1974/79 had been notable for its confusion and vacillation; Thatcher would adopt the contrasting image of the prime minister who. through thick and thin, stuck to her guns because she had firm convictions. This was the stance she adopted during the Falklands war. while British and Argentinian workers were doing the actual fighting and dying. It should have cost her a lot of votes, among people who think it preferable to have peace in the world. Instead it did a lot to help her to victory in 1983.

Among her recent triumphs was her visit to Moscow, to talk weaponry with Gorbachev who, had he been a Tory election agent could hardly have done more to help Thatcher back to power. Thatcher argued that the talks would never have taken place but for Gorbachev's respect for the nuclear arms of British capitalism; therefore people should not vote Labour who are in theory pledged to cut back on those weapons. Cleverly stage managed, the tour was a veritable banquet for the media, who seemed to overlook the fact that Thatcher and Gorbachev had done little more than catalogue each other’s arsenals of mass destruction. There is still no hope that the world is safe from the great powers' capacity to destroy it many times over. The triumphant achievement of the visit was to provide Thatcher with a Gorbachev factor to help her win this election, as the Falklands factor did in 1983.

While Thatcher was strutting in Moscow, Neil Kinnock was blundering through a brief, disastrous meeting with Reagan in Washington. (Reagan has never made any secret about being an election agent for Thatcher). Labour's public relations workers are desperate to change their image but the Washington trip turned out to be another of their recent debacles.

But the work goes on; the transformation of the Labour Party cannot be allowed to rest. Their political packaging experts have decided that their historic bondage to the Red Flag was a vote loser so they have substituted a pink rose. They symbolised the new era by changing the party's campaign colour from red to a restful blue, grey and red. They prohibited Neil Kinnock to any longer thatch his hair across his baldness; Labour's Mister Nice Guy, they said, must appear frank and unashamed of such things.

Under this packaging lie the same policies which have failed in the past: basically. Labour presents the same remedies for the ailments of British capitalism as it did in 1974 . . . 1964 . . . 1945 . . . Now they are able to use this tactic that unemployment, poverty, bad housing, war and other such problems have been caused by Tory rule — as if these things did not exist before Thatcher came to power in 1979.

This election will be won by the party which comes off best in the political packaging contest. Millions of votes will be cast for what the capitalist parties appear to be — what they encourage us to think they are — and not for what they actually are. Discerning workers, asking themselves how they should vote to change society in an effective way. will peel back this packaging. They will find that these parties all taste the same, that they offer an unvarying, unnutritious deception. And that — if they will forgive the phrase —- will be the crunch.

Ivan

TV Review: What’s in a Load of Rubbish? (2001)

Benjamin "the Binman" Pell

TV Review from the February 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

What’s in a Load of Rubbish?

Last month Channel Four screened a documentary called Scandal in the Bins that was the remarkable story of a remarkable man—Benjamin Pell. Until recently very few people had heard of Pell and today, the majority still haven’t. But Pell has been popping up in the pages of Private Eye for quite some time and has recently had some exposure in the national press. Many who have heard of him know him by one of his other names—”Benji the Binman”.

“Benji the Binman” is what some might call “a great British eccentric”. Others might call him a simple thief. But essentially he is a collector. A collector of rubbish—indeed, a freelance collector of rubbish. For the last few years Pell has earned a living of sorts through scrabbling round amongst the refuse of the rich and famous, their agents and solicitors. A staunch Zionist, he began by raiding the bins of pro-Palestinian organisations in London and then moved on from there. The story which really made him—and which turned him into a household name among Fleet Street editors if nobody else—concerned Elton John’s financial difficulties and how they had been brought about through his mammoth and conspicuous consumption.

From that time on Benji has hardly looked back. He claimed in the programme that he is so obsessed with newspapers he used go down to Euston station every Sunday and collect them off the trains but in the last couple of years he has become a key contact for editors and newsroom managers and has had stories that he has ultimately been responsible for printed in almost every national newspaper in Britain. A man with an “anti-establishment” air about him, it is alleged that he has been heavily involved in everything from the Fayed/Hamilton case to the recent leaking of the Philip Gould memos about Blair.

Although his recent successes are reputed to have netted him £100,000 in the last year or so he lives a frugal life at his parents’ modest north London semi, spending a fair proportion of his time in the garden shed where he stores his dozens and dozens of bin bags. Frail and unkempt, his immediate ambition in life is to get a second shed.

Pell’s doctor describes him as an obsessive compulsive and this evidence was used in his favour during some of his many court appearances (whether as a witness, like in the Elton John case, or as a defendant). His interviews for this programme showed that he is certainly eccentric and probably what social workers, years ago, would have called “maladjusted” too. But what the programme also showed— and was at pains to point out—is that whatever he is, he is clearly not mad.

Aware of his eccentricity, Pell will accentuate his unusual behaviour even further to achieve a desired end (such as if and when he gets arrested). In the Elton John case he appeared in court dressed from head to toe in bizarre Elton John memorabilia and took little time convincing the court that he was a harmless nutter who was incapable of being part of any conspiracy of any description. On his late night scavenging forays he will make sure he smells as badly as possible lest he get arrested, as was demonstrated when one of the programme’s hidden cameras showed him being stopped by a police officer who, after a few seconds of questioning, started to search Pell and then hesitated, pulled a face, stopped and then left him to fester in peace.

Rat trap

Scandal in the Bins did a good job showing the human side of Pell—his eccentricity, his very real fear of going to prison and his sheer craftiness. Although Neil and Christine Hamilton were featured saying that Pell had been one of the people who had helped to ruin their lives (as if they hadn’t had a hand in it themselves) Pell showed himself to be at least as hostile to the press as they now find themselves to be. Rightly or wrongly, he sees himself as someone getting as much out of the press as he can by putting his compulsive disorder to use making a living. In the process he causes trouble to the powerful and—more often than not—as a lonely one-man band is the victim of the news corporations’ manipulations, not their primary cause.

Pell claimed that British newspapers are just as corrupt as the people they are allegedly exposing and, naturally enough, he has a ready audience for that view as few outside the British media would disagree with it. Scandal in the Bins had plenty of evidence for it as well. In the most revealing section of the programme two of the most powerful men in the British media—PR guru Max Clifford and Sun political editor Trevor Kavanagh were shown up, with help from Pell, for being the hypocrites they really are.

Clifford’s own PR façade slipped when he walked out of an interview with the programme’s makers shouting and screaming at the film crew for asking him questions about his business methods (even though he didn’t bat an eyelid at their seemingly irrefutable evidence that he had perjured himself in a court case) while Trevor Kavanagh was heard telling an interviewer that the Sun had never paid Pell for a story or for any of his illegal activities. As the tape played, the screen showed copies of News International’s invoices regarding payments to Pell for services rendered. Brilliant television, achieving what few—if any—have previously managed to do.

This is not to give the impression that Pell is an entirely blameless character either—he certainly isn’t. He has done his fair share to upset the lives of those he had otherwise no reason interfering with and has readily accepted payment for doing so. The point is that despite his own clear shortcomings his (partial) co-operation with this documentary did as much to expose the systematic hypocrisy and double-dealing of the British press as anything yet shown. If Channel Four repeat it soon (and no doubt they will) try and catch it if you didn’t see it first time around.

In the meantime, it is worth asking yourself when you next see an eye-catching article in the press—whether it be a “serious” investigation by Insight in the Sunday Times or an expose of some pop star’s business dealings in the tabloids—about where the information for the piece came from and of the unbridled skulduggery that took place to get it into print so more newspapers could be sold and more advertising attracted. And when you’re doing that remember to spare a small thought, at least, for a poor Jewish boy from north London with an obsessive compulsive disorder and a shed full of bin bags.

Dave Perrin

Proper Gander: Fashion Victims (2023)

The Proper Gander column from the December 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

Online clothes retailer Boohoo has found its niche as a go-to site for image-conscious teenagers and twenty-somethings looking for a bargain. Its business model is that of ‘fast fashion’: producing versions of the newest clothing trends and getting them on sale cheaply and quickly while the style is still the latest and demand is at its highest. The working practices Boohoo has adopted to achieve a speedy turnaround have attracted complaints which prompted an official review of the company and its supply chain. Published in early 2021, this found that the allegations of poor working conditions were largely true. Boohoo responded by vowing to overhaul its methods, and detailed how in its ‘Agenda For Change’ plan. An edition of BBC One’s Panorama: Boohoo’s Broken Promises aimed to show that the agenda hasn’t been followed and not much has changed.

Reporter Emma Lowther goes undercover at Boohoo’s head office in Manchester by getting a job as an admin assistant. Her colleagues’ roles are to negotiate deals with smaller companies which make and supply the togs which Boohoo flogs. She uses her hidden camera to film other staff saying they lie to suppliers about invented rival offers in order to secure the cheapest deal. And even after a contract has been agreed, Boohoo staff have later imposed further reductions to the price.

The starting point for a deal would be low anyway. Boohoo’s clothes are often made in factories across Asia where workers’ pay is lower, conditions are shoddier and methods are more polluting than usually found in Western countries. Reports of workers making clothes for Boohoo in dismal circumstances haven’t only come from outside the UK, though. Boohoo and other traders use dozens of suppliers in Leicester, whose staff have held protests for more job security and higher wages. Another undercover reporter gets a job at one supplier, MM Leicester Clothing Limited. He covertly films people being shouted at by a manager who demands that they work late on an order. The rush is due to Boohoo wanting the ‘lead’ time between when it orders its stock and when it receives it to be as short as possible.

In January 2022, Boohoo opened its own flagship factory at Thurmaston Lane in Leicester, supposedly to demonstrate the reformed practices of its ‘Agenda For Change’. Panorama suggests that Thurmaston Lane is more like a PR-friendly front, distracting from how Boohoo still favours different sources for its stock. The ‘centre of excellence’ which is Thurmaston Lane only makes 1 percent of garments sold by Boohoo, and hundreds of orders contracted from there were really made in other factories in Leicester and Morocco with lower costs and standards. Boohoo says that this doesn’t break any rules as although it has banned subcontracting within the UK since 2021, it allows contracting, which it claims is what it’s doing, as Thurmaston Lane is part of Boohoo and can therefore contract out.

Boohoo’s various tactics for securing cut-price deals from its suppliers mean that one of the brand’s dresses costs the company £4.25 each to buy in from a UK supplier. This is then sold on to consumers for £15, making a hefty profit for Boohoo’s owners. The documentary features Peter McAllister and Chris Grayer, specialists in the field of ‘ethical trading’. McAllister describes this margin as ‘completely bonkers’, while Grayer calculates that a ‘fair’ amount for Boohoo to buy each dress for would be £7.23, allowing the supplier to make 10 percent profit. Boohoo’s lawyers’ justification for the big mark-up in the cost of the dress is that its suppliers still make a profit and their staff are paid at least the minimum wage.

Boohoo’s approach has been pushed by its multi-millionaire co-founder and Executive Chairman Mahmud Khamani. Following the review of Boohoo’s practices which preceded its ‘Agenda For Change’ programme, he has meant to be getting less involved in the company’s day-to-day running. But he still has an ‘iron grip’ by sending out arrogant motivational videos to staff and personally approving all deals with suppliers. He and the other senior staff featured in the documentary share the same sad motivation: to make money by maximising the exploitation of those lower down the chain.

Lowther lasts ten weeks working in Boohoo HQ before getting sacked for making mistakes, and she’s even less likely to get a good reference now they know she’s a journalist. McAllister and Grayer say that what her footage and research has revealed is ‘unacceptable’ and ‘unethical’, flouting multiple rules and guidelines about how companies are meant to function. Regulators, along with professionals like McAllister and Grayer, want Boohoo (and, by extension, capitalism) to be run in a ‘fair’ way: decent working conditions, sufficient wages, honest trading. This utopian aim doesn’t take into account how legislation can only ever try to make exploitation less unpleasant, nor how strong the drive to cut costs and corners to maximise profits is. Boohoo has gone further than other companies with how exploitative its methods are. Its approach has worked, if measured by how in 2022 it had sales of £1.7 billion from 18 million customers. Panorama’s investigation illustrated some of the objectionable aspects of the fast fashion industry: misleading deals, appalling workplaces, forced overtime, low wages, which together enable high profits for the few. But the documentary’s findings didn’t damage Boohoo’s standing. Its share price rose a little in the days after first broadcast, suggesting that its tawdry practices fit in well with how the market operates.

Mike Foster

Sting in the Tail: Spot the Difference (1991)

The Sting in the Tail column from the August 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

Spot the Difference

A typical piece of left-wing mythology is that it is only the Labour Party leaders who are opportunists and obsessed with "image” while the rank and file are concerned with principles.

This fallacy was exposed once again when The Guardian (July 8) published a selection of letters from readers advising Neil Kinnock on how to win the next election.

One Labour activist suggested:

Learn how to hold your hands when strolling on camera. Look grave on suitable occasions.

Another suggested:

Open the door to electoral reform. Not too wide: that would expose the divisions on the subject within the Labour Party the wrong side of a general election.

A third told him to keep Labour voters happy by being:

. . . less lenient and understanding to criminals.

The thinking of Labour leaders and the rank and file is not nearly as different as the left-wing imagines.

Good Morning Blues

Should any of our readers have the misfortune to be rising for work at 6.30am take our advice — don't switch on the TV.

It's bad enough being a wage slave, who has to rise in the middle of the night to go to work, without being greeted by the mindless pap of breakfast TV. The item that grates with this writer is the Stock Market News.

Some earnest young whiz kid prattles on about the Nikkei Index and the Dow Jones Index, the Balance of Payments Deficit and exciting news — the Weakening Pound.

Who is this stuff aimed at? Do they imagine the working class are interested in the Stock Market? Surely all members of the capitalist class are snugly tucked up at this unearthly hour?

The other morning, after yawning through this drivel, Scorpion phoned in sick; switched off the Bright Young Thing in mid-sentence as he enthused over Invisible Earnings (a reference to Scorpion's wage packet?): and returned to bed to contemplate the intricacies of Supply Side Economics —- it's all good sleep-inducing stuff.

Deep Thinker (1)

The mental bankruptcy of Militant is well demonstrated by Derek Hatton in his book "Inside Left".

Even in a totally socialist society there will always be the need for independent trade unionists.

So here's a "Marxist" who thinks there will still be trade unions when capitalism, the system which spawned them, has been abolished!

And what makes a Liverpudlian? According to Hatton:

It's that philosophy which produced the Beatles, the Cilia Blacks, the Jimmy Tarbucks . . . It's a natural spirit of competition coupled with a belief that you're not simply as good as anyone else. You are better.

Deep Thinker (2)

Speaking of mental bankruptcy, the news that Yorkshire County cricket club are to hire players who are not "pure bred Yorkshiremen" has provoked a Yorkshire Labour MP, Roland Boyes, to table a Commons motion regretting this move.

It is my beloved Yorkshire that I am concerned about. We have a proud tradition and I feel a little part of me has been destroyed.

(BBC Ceefax July 12)

Obviously the "little part" Boyes is referring to is his brain.

Up the Poll

If you are baffled by the ups and downs of recent opinion polls then spare a thought for the Labour Party.

No matter how many problems face the Tories — rising unemployment, big rows over Europe, public distrust over their NHS policies, etc., somehow they are doing well in the polls.

Many weird and wonderful reasons are offered for this. The Tories put it down to their "sound policies", some pollsters say that many voters are simply rewarding John Major for not being Mrs Thatcher, while Labour can only gulp and stare at the polls like a rabbit hypnotised by a stoat.

Whatever the reasons for the topsy-turvy polls may be, the voters' fickleness is not caused by any doubts about the ability of politicians to solve capitalism's problems, only about which bunch of tricksters to entrust with the job.

That's Entertainment? (Part 1)

The news that a supremely talented artist like Woody Allen is to produce TV commercials for an Italian supermarket for a reported $2 million fee would depress any of his admirers who have enjoyed such films as 'Take the Money and Run" and 'The Sleeper'; so it is heartening to know that capitalism has not yet completely ruined artistic integrity.

Advertising signs that con you 

Into thinking you're the one 

That can do what's never been done 

That can win what's never been won 

Meanwhile life outside goes on 

All around you

Sang Bob Dylan in the sixties and it would seem that after all the trappings of commercial success he can still take a rational view about the phoniness of capitalism:

You know things go better with Coke because Aretha Franklin told you so and Maxwell House coffee must be OK because Ray Charles is singing about it . . . I'm not gonna live or die behind that — I’m not selling breakfast cereal or razor blades . . . Everything is just too commercial, like a sprouting octopus, too much part of the system. Sometimes you feel you're walking around in that movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers and you wonder if it's got you yet, if you're still one of the few or are you "them" now. You never know do you?

The Guardian (July 2)

Well, how about it? Has the system got to you? Have you become an orthodox unthinking zombie? Or is there still the spark of human individualism and criticism burning out there?

That's Entertainment? (Part 2)

In discussing the suicide of Nick Massey, a Public Relations man in the Pop business, The Independent on Sunday (July 7) revealed some of the deceits that go on in the business that is cynically called Entertainment

Dusty record columns, titled Disc or Parade, became Bizarre or the White Hot Club and sparkled with increasingly malicious rumours. Elton John had connections with rent boys; Andrew Ridgely broke his nose in a nightclub brawl; the Beastie Boys swore at disabled kids — all were untrue.

Elton John sued The Sun for £1 million. Andrew Ridgely had actually had a nose job; the "brawl" story explained the dressing. And the Beastie Boys? Well, that story was just too good not to use. . . "You might bend or curve or shape something, but what is fact?" Rick Sky said to Q magazine. "What is truth? Everbody around you, PRs and stars, is lying".

Yes indeed, there is no business like show business — and there is no system like capitalism for deceit, hype and cheating.

House Journals (1960)

From the July 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Newspapers and magazines, like every other commodity under capitalism, are produced primarily for profit. But there is one type of publication which capitalists are quite content to run at a loss. That is the house journal—a company’s own organ, specially designed for its workers and sometimes also for its trade customers. According to the current issue of the Newspaper Press Directory, there are today in Britain no fewer than 642, of which more than 250 were launched last year. And by the end of 1960, despite mounting production costs, the number is expected to top 800.

House journals demand heavy, continuous subsidies. That is why only the bigger capitalist organisations are prepared to publish them. For unlike the national and provincial press, they reap no large advertising revenues. Even those which. carry advertisements, at purely nominal rates, far from cover themselves. Unlike their big brothers in Fleet Street, their circulations can be counted in thousands. A few publish weekly, but the vast majority appear monthly or quarterly. Given away or sold for a penny or two, they are either distributed in the factory or mailed direct to the worker’s home so that Mum and the kids can read them as well.

Until recent years, most house journals were the work of enthusiastic amateurs—personnel officers, social and sports club secretaries, or sales promotion managers with a bent for journalism. Their pages were packed with a stream of sentimental slush about the boss and “puffs” about his products. Issue after issue, with nauseating regularity, carried pictures of a beaming chairman addressing the annual staff dinner (“We must all pull together, chaps”), or of a director’s wife, distributing Sports Day trophies to the “lower orders” or of Bill Bloggs receiving his reward for half a century of “loyal and faithful” service to capitalism—an oak-cased clock.

Now many firms have begun to realise that the house journal can be forged into a more effective propaganda weapon. To a nation fed on the slick, streamlined mass-circulation daily newspapers and television, the old, sycophantic “God Bless the Boss” approach is as out-dated as a belief in the divine right of kings. So the professional publicist, the Public Relations officer, with an “understanding” of the masses, is being brought in to give the house journal a new, dynamic personality. Imitating the giant national daily newspapers, he dispenses the propaganda in potent, but subtle, doses—through brightly-written news stories, eye-catching pictures, arresting headlines and attractive make-up.

Why does Big Business, notorious for its opposition to wage increases, lavish so much money on its own publications, sometimes to the tune of £20,000 a year or more? Socialists know full well that capitalists do not play Santa Claus; that there is a sound commercial reason for any philanthropic front. House journals are no exception.

Their rapid rise is due to two major factors:

First, a growing acceptance by business chiefs of the theory that a happy worker makes a more productive worker.

Second, a growing interest by workers in the activities of the organisation which employs them.

For years, industrial psychologists have, in the name of greater efficiency, called for better staff relations. “Give the workers a sense of belonging,” “Make the men feel the boss really cares” and other similar pleas have been dinned into the ears of top management. The house journal can help to create “a happy family atmosphere” in the factory, with its prospects of greater surplus value. This is particularly important where frequent labour disputes cause havoc with production, and where employers find it difficult to attract or retain workers.

Similarly, more and more firms are concerned to “sell” themselves to their workers and customers. Company affairs are coming under a stronger spotlight from the mass-communication media. The beam rarely reveals the nature of 'capitalist exploitation, but it is bright enough to illuminate many interesting aspects of management. As a result of this development, capitalists are being forced to pay increasing attention to public criticism. The house journal makes a useful platform for justifying attitudes and actions. For example, many of these journals carry from time to time charts and diagrams, seeking to prove that the shareholders, not the workers who produce all wealth, are the poor relations of industry. To study some of them, one would think that if dividends dropped any lower, the capitalists would be signing on at the Labour Exchanges.

But large or small, well or badly produced, free or sold cheaply, all house journals are alike in one essential respect—they are the voice of the boss. As one of Britain’s leading P.R.O.’s reminded the 1958 Conference of House Journal Editors: “Few house journals are ‘steeped in liberty.’ Yours, let us face it, is not a free press, but a controlled one, subject to the dictates of top management.” Workers should never forget that the basic purpose of the house journal is to strengthen support for an individual capitalist concern. And as such, it helps to project the capitalist rat-race as the best possible, indeed the only workable, social system.

P. R. O.

Look to the Future (1998)

Editorial from the June 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

What are we to make of New Labour’s first year? Have we really noticed any real differences from the last administration other than the fact that the Conservatives were “old and stale”? A dispassionate analysis must answer “no”.

What we have witnessed in the last 12 months is the victory of “Style over Substance”—this in itself now a hackneyed cliché. Indeed, the government’s main programme now appears to be aimed at drumming up support for cosmetic changes like devolution and regional authorities around the country. Ironically, this has been met with a less than enthusiastic response from workers in Scotland, Wales and London.

But New Labour’s problems run deep. As the world recoils from the Asian “Sell-out” we will once again see the impotence of any government when faced with an economic crisis. Britain’s industrial sector is now officially in recession—what will be Mr Blair’s response? The otherwise slick New Labour machine also appears to be on a collision course with an unpopular and probably unworkable European Single Currency. The Tory eurosceptic right must be licking their lips in anticipation! That this superficial, intellectually-challenged government will eventually unravel is only a matter of time.

The working class must learn from this. Are we going to waste the 21st Century as we wasted the 20th? Are we going to continue to make excuses for the slick con-men who exploit us? With current production levels and modern technology do we need the restrictions of the market and money? No we do not. The alternative is global Socialism but this can only come about when a majority of the workers organise for it. Socialism is not just a “nice idea”, it is a material necessity.

Editorial: Unacceptable Faces (1986)

Editorial from the January 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Many people acknowledge what a thoroughgoing job Saatchi and Saatchi have done for the Conservative Party. It is widely known that the Tory image-builders have changed Margaret Thatcher's hair and her make-up, have brought a huskiness to her voice, have persuaded her to arrange her head into that irritating slant whenever she is being interviewed for television. We can only guess how effective all this has been, whether it has actually influenced any votes. The entire operation rests on the theory that political leaders need to present themselves to the electors, not as they actually are but in an image, and that no matter what reality lies behind it, the most attractive image will win the most votes.

A corollary to this is that the working class, heedless of their suffering, can be persuaded to vote for a political party under a kind of social anaesthesia which renders them insensible to factual evidence and experience. This would explain why the Tories are now campaigning to convince us that they have not been cutting, but have been increasing, state expenditure on medical and social services; that hospital patients who observe the extra stresses imposed by staff cuts are deluded; that workers who are homeless, or existing in slum conditions in temporary homes, are imagining it all.

And perhaps the Tories have got it right. Perhaps, in spite of all that has gone on during their time in power, when it comes to the next election the workers will return them gratefully to power, in the expectation of another five years of Tory capitalism. One piece of evidence in this direction is that the Labour Party are also turning their attention to the matter of their political image. In fact this has always been a concern of theirs, except that in the past they have tended to rely on the amateur talents of leaders like the late Richard Crossman, who was in psychological warfare during the last war and who brought that experience to bear in planning Labour Party propaganda, or on the spare-time services of sympathisers in the public relations business. But in their present plight, and perhaps impressed by what Saatchi and Saatchi are supposed to have done for the Tories, Labour are giving rather more attention to the matter of public deception.

Their new general secretary, Larry Whitty, has begun a drastic reorganisation of the party administration, part of which has brought a young man — Peter Mandelson — to be head of Labour's Communications and Campaign. Mandelson describes himself as ". . . an extremely talented, bright high flyer" and claims that the next general election will effectively be fought from his desk (public relations people have never been famous for their modesty). Another move has been to sift out Labour’s shadow environment minister, John Cunningham, as the personification of the thrusting dynamism so essential to something called "positive credibility" (which means he's more likely than most other politicians to be able to get away with lies and evasions). The process through which Cunningham was selected for this role is wrapped in the mysteries of the market research teams and the image-makers. But chosen he has been, and soon he will be presented to us. shaped and gilded and packaged, as Labour's new image of dynamism and credibility.

He will have a difficult job. Labour have to persuade the workers that those years when they were the government were not as bad as they actually were; that one Labour government after another did not attempt to hold wages down while goading workers to work harder in the interests of their employers. They will have to obscure the fact that their last Chancellor, Denis Healey, did not have a policy of reducing state expenditure, that unemployment did not double under Labour, that there was no such thing as that final winter of discontent in 1978/9. They must try to convince the voters that any problems in those days were really avoidable mistakes, which Labour has since learned to avoid; the future under Kinnock, with Cunningham at his side to give credibility, is an assured path away from Tory destitution to Labour prosperity.

Well it could be that by the time of the next general election there will be enough workers disillusioned with the Tories to fall for Labour's new image. If so, they will again be ignorant of, or will be side-stepping. the real issue and the genuine alternative. At every election, the Socialist Party campaigns to the limits of our resources. We point out that capitalism cannot solve its problems, that social ailments like poverty — with all that it means — and avoidable disease can only be abolished through social revolution. We argue that war can be ended only by eliminating its cause, by getting rid of capitalism, and that campaigns to ban some weapons, or to make others less destructive, or even to abolish weapons altogether, are a futile waste of time. Our propaganda reaches only a limited field but the substance of it that there is a fundamental fault in modem social organisation which must be put to rights — is evident in every moment of working class life.

Socialists campaign, all the time, not on any spurious image or blown-up personalities to gloss over the harsh realities. We appeal to the working class with solid argument, backed with undeniable fact. We were formed, and we operate, on the principle that socialism will be the democratic act of a majority of politically conscious workers whose understanding of socialism will mean that they do not need leaders, however glamorous, to tell them what to do, how to think, in which square to put their vote — and to deceive them. Socialism will be the end of capitalism's desperate problems; it will be the next, highest, stage in human social evolution. It has a promise which stands in stark contrast to the public relations gimmicks and to the squalid wheedling so characteristic of capitalism.

A brief history of Public Relations (2011)

From the April 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

Are workers brainwashed by capitalism?

If you want to know the truth, you cannot rely on newspapers. We have that on good authority – in fact, on the authority of the more honest newspapers. (The more honest papers are those that are read mainly by capitalists who need reliable information about the world in order to make investment decisions, as opposed to those that are read mainly by workers.)

In a startlingly frank appraisal of the history and practice of the public relations (PR) industry, The Economist (18 December 2010) admits that PR was invented in the early 20th century to counter working-class struggles, and rising popular resentment against capitalism, by getting newspapers and journalists, until then sympathetic to the workers, on the side of the business class. American business was at the time worried by the rise of a new phenomenon: public opinion. The business élite feared this, especially as it was developing in an anti-capitalist direction, and were determined to take control of it and manipulate it for their own ends. PR’s founding father, Edward Bernays, was quite explicit about the aim: ‘the conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organised opinions and habits of the masses’.

That all this is true, and that the century-long and ongoing pro-capitalist PR campaign was and is a great success, to the extent that there are today no mainstream media outlets that are not pro-capitalist, is pretty much indisputable. This means that, today, newspapers and news programmes (those read and watched by the working class) are not what they appear and claim to be. Their role is not to enlighten and inform, but to mould public opinion so that it reflects the interests of the capitalist class and the state. ‘News’ is propaganda, not genuine journalism.

The truth of this has, however, led to a logical but erroneous conclusion among many radical thinkers – that the working class accepts capitalism because it has been brainwashed into it by clever capitalist PR. The argument can even take a Marxian-sounding form: capitalist society, say some Marxists, maintains and reproduces itself through the dissemination of the ‘ruling ideology’ – i.e., the ideas, beliefs and values of the ruling capitalist class – and its acceptance by the working class. The working class, in accepting these ideas, as they learn them from newspapers and so on, is thereby integrated into capitalism and comes to accept its own subordination. This theory has the added appeal, for Marxists, of seeming to explain something that stands rather in need of explanation in Marxian theory – the failure of the class struggle to materialise into the revolution predicted by Marx.

The argument is compelling but mostly false, as shown in an excellent essay by Conrad Lodziak in the journal Radical Philosophy (‘Dull Compulsion of the Economic: The Dominant Ideology and Social Reproduction.’ No. 49, Summer 1988). The essay, and the empirical data and ethnographic studies it draws upon, is obviously now dated in some respects. But its arguments are still strikingly relevant and persuasive. This article will reprise Lodziak’s argument and briefly consider its implications for socialist politics.

Dull compulsion versus brainwashing

The idea that working-class acceptance of capitalism can be ascribed to the workers’ ‘false consciousness’, Lodziak calls ‘the dominant ideology thesis’, and it is, he says, ‘taken as a self-evident truth amongst a majority of the left’. But is it true? It is, after all, a proposition capable of empirical proof or disproof. Do workers in fact believe and accept the ideas that make up the ‘ruling ideology’? The answer, says Lodziak, is yes – and no.

It is true that most workers accept certain key ideas that are essential to the continuation of capitalism – for example, they accept the justness of ‘a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work’, they accept meritocracy (the idea that it’s OK for people to rise above them in the social hierarchy if the rise is based on merit and talent), they accept that most people should get a job or career and strive to ‘get ahead’, and so on. They do not, however, universally accept or agree with other aspects of the ruling ideology, such as property and inheritance rights, principles of capital accumulation and the right to a profit, state neutrality, occupational structure, distribution of incomes, the right to manage, and so on.

At this point, a Marxist might say, OK, the ‘dominant ideology thesis’ is then justified: the working class does accept the most important aspect of the ruling ideology, which is the acceptance of the inevitability of working for wages. But this is not so, says Lodziak. To prove the ‘dominant ideology thesis’, you must show not just that workers accept certain ideas, but that those ideas are sufficiently important to them for them to commit to the ideas and act upon them. And this is where the thesis falls down: ‘the required degree of ideological motivation appears to be absent amongst a majority of the populations of advanced capitalist societies’. Instead, what you find is ‘an absence of belief’: passivity, resignation, bewilderment, confusion, disorientation and marginalisation are all more important in determining working-class actions than so-called ‘false consciousness’. And the explanation for this passivity is easier to find in ‘largely publicly identifiable features of the social environment’ than in ‘some mysterious process of class brainwashing or collective hypnosis’. 

The ideas which do dominate working-class thinking tend to be those ‘directly relevant to the practical and immediate demands of the everyday life-world as experienced’ – ideas related to things over which workers do have some control, such as deciding whether to resign and look for a new job, or wait for a promotion; whether to get married, or divorced; how to organise home life and what to do with free time, and so on. Workers’ thinking is, quite understandably and sensibly, focused on finding security, and avoiding insecurity. This is impossible without building relations of dependence and subordination with an employer, the state, or a breadwinner. Workers are materially, not ideologically, subordinated; economic necessity and state coercion are more important than ideology. Workers do what they do because they must – not because they’ve been tricked into thinking it’s a good idea.

This also goes some way to explaining why Marx’s prediction of revolution was premature, and why workers often eschew ‘oppositional’ politics. ‘Workers rightly believe that opposition may lead to redundancies or closures, and that it may be impossible to get another job.’ And the more intolerable the alternatives are, the worse the prospect of unemployment is, the worse pay and conditions workers will be prepared to accept – explaining the present government’s determination to push through punitive benefit reform, even though unemployment is on the rise.

In short, the consciousness of the working class is best understood not in terms of ideology, but in terms of ‘needs-based motivations’. By talking in terms of indoctrination, the left displays an ‘insensitivity to the lived experience’ of the working class.

Political conclusions

We in the Socialist Party are often accused by our opponents, and even sometimes by our supporters, of not having made any progress in our 100-year history. What the foregoing arguments should have made clear is that it is not within our power to make the kind of progress demanded of us. The working class generally is ideologically indifferent, and accepts capitalism because it must. The only thing that can disrupt this to the advantage of socialists is, says Lodziak, ‘effective oppositional practices inscribed with oppositional viewpoints’ – in other words, the development of the class struggle. We can contribute to the development of this struggle, and we do, but it is not within the power of a small party such as ours to determine its course. The failure of sufficiently large and powerful oppositions to arise is down not to a lack of energy or dedication on the part of socialists, nor the absence of a sufficiently clever socialist advertising campaign, but to the power of economic necessity and state coercion.

This article may seem to have argued itself into a corner. If all this is true, what can be done? The answer may not satisfy socialists who understand the urgent need for radical change, but it is inevitable all the same: we just keep struggling.

Lodziak has three other main concluding points of advice for any socialist opposition. (The commentary that follows the advice is of course ours, not Lodziak’s.)

First, participation in organised politics must be made sufficiently attractive to entice people out of their privatised worlds. This means that the boring treadmill of reformist politics and the ridiculous sectarianism, authoritarianism and leadership-dominated activity of Leninist sects is out. Of course, the Socialist Party has not been wildly successful at attracting people, but it is a commonplace on the left that we have at least managed to be human and charming, make our meetings places of free and open discussion, and our activity the result of freely arrived at decisions and voluntary activity. Our members tend to join and remain members for life; most rival leftist outfits operate a ‘revolving door’ policy.

Second, ‘effective opposition is, amongst other things, always an effective ideological opposition’, which means engaging in a ‘vigorous and continuous ideological contestation in the public sphere, not only in challenging the dominant, but also in the advocacy of oppositional alternatives’. Again, we cannot claim sufficient success in this area, but we have at least taken the challenge seriously, unlike the left generally, which is content to pander to prejudice rather than challenge it, propagate the ruling ideology rather than contest it, and mock the advocacy of alternatives as utopian. Credibility for socialism, says Lodziak, can only come from ‘the relentless public display of commitment to oppositional alternatives, and from the unwillingness of agents of opposition to compromise principles’. Yet again, the Socialist Party, unlike the left, can lay claim to a proud history of doing just that.

Third, we need to demonstrate the relevance of socialism to the needs of the vast majority. Most people will not struggle or even vote for abstract things or ideas, says Lodziak, but will fight to win material benefits to improve the quality of their lives and guarantee the future of their children. This might seem to argue against the Socialist Party’s case. Indeed, we are often accused by our leftwing opponents of doing nothing but try to win support for abstract ideas. This is not true: what we have tried to do is show that many of the material benefits people are fighting for are only possible of realisation in a socialist society. If what you want is a pay rise, then you can join a union. If you want to fill the lonely, empty nights, you can join an evening class or the local darts team. And so on – workers will need no advice from socialists on these counts. But what if you want a full and satisfying life for you and your children – with meaningful and enjoyable work, plenty of free time to spend with your family, friends and loved ones, and to pursue your interests and passions, a life free of stress and anxiety and boredom (if you’re lucky), and of extreme poverty and violence and war and environmental catastrophe (if you’re not)? In that case, you will have to think carefully about what socialists say. What we say is that this is a laudable aim – indeed, our rightful inheritance as human beings – but is impossible to achieve under capitalism.

This is clearly a difficult argument to make, especially to ‘ideologically indifferent’ workers. But we live in interesting times – capitalist crisis is to a large extent making our argument for us, and making it more strongly and reaching more people than we have ever been able to. As the foregoing arguments should have made clear, crisis can have the effect of making workers feel even more insecure and therefore even less likely to become socialist. But it also calls into question the viability of the system, and makes it more obvious than ever that it cannot satisfy our needs as human beings. This crisis has a dual potential: it makes aspects of the socialist case for us, even as it threatens to drive the working class further into the welcoming arms of capitalist domination and exploitation. Which way it goes is down at least in part to what socialists and workers think and do over the next decade. Our work as socialists is therefore more urgent than ever.

Stuart Watkins