SPGB Meetings (1971)

Party News from the September 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

Obituary: Ric Best (2026)

Obituary from the January 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Kenneth Alaric Best, who has died after a short illness, joined the Party in 1972 and soon after became a self-described hooligan in Bolton branch, after which he was a founder member of Lancaster branch. His merciless wit as a speaker, honed at a time when adversarial debate was considered a martial art, often left opponents feeling like they’d been machine-gunned. A smart and iconoclastic thinker, he ranged restlessly into all areas of socialist theory. People who spent time with him needed to stay on their toes, because he had little patience for those who couldn’t keep up.

But he also knew how to put the ‘social’ into socialist, with ganja-fuelled parties at his house after every public meeting, which is undoubtedly the reason why Lancaster meetings were so well-attended in the 1980s and 90s. He was an entertaining raconteur with a natural comic timing, and could make even young children laugh. He had a never-ending store of very funny and often salacious stories, sometimes at the expense of other Party members.

Bolton-bred, he spent his formative years in the fire brigade, then later became a computer engineer who embodied the Silicon Valley philosophy of ‘move fast and break things’, running several successful computer businesses. These commitments sadly caused him to drift away from Party involvement in his later years.

Our sympathies go to his wife Kay and children Jo, Jamie and Bill.

PJS

DAP adds:

Ric Best was the first Party member I ever met – it was early 1987 and a meeting in The Liverpool Pub in the business district of the city where what was to become Merseyside Branch gathered. Ric was studying for his Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering at the University as a mature student, and I was a young politics undergraduate. We were different but got on, as we both liked debating. Ric told me he had joined the SPGB as the Party case was the best means he’d ever come across for winning arguments. I can testify that this is something he pursued with great vigour as many other students at the University at the time still vividly remember (as would our political opponents).

Ric was also a great advocate of democratic participation and all it implied. He claimed many times that the best weapon the Party had in its armoury was that it was scrupulously democratic and could – and should – attract people on that basis, being the most democratic political organisation in existence.

There is little doubt Ric was one of the Party’s great ‘characters’ – an overused word perhaps, but rarely more appropriate, and those who knew him will miss him and the energy he somehow imparted wherever he went.

SPGB Meetings (1988)

Party News from the October 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

Interesting to see that the debate with the left-wing Labour MP, Ron Brown, is listed as being on the 2nd of November, and that the SPGB speaker was to be the late Pieter Lawrence. According to this piece in the September 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard,  which gives the details of a Special Branch report on the meeting, the debate took place on the 7th December, and the SPGB speaker was Steve Coleman. Maybe Ron Brown debated the SPGB twice in the space of a month? I doubt it. Obviously the debate needed to be rearranged, and a new SPGB speaker sought.

SPGB Meetings (1989)

Party News from the June 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1987)

Party News from the September 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

The Turf Hotel in Wrexham is the pub featured in the Hulu documentary Welcome to Wrexham. So, 34 years before McElhenney and Reynolds were pulling pints, you had the SPGB in the same pub putting the world to rights. The circle of life.

SPGB Meetings and Debates (1989)

Party News from the April 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

Obituary: Frank Riley (2000)

Obituary from the September 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are sorry to have to report the death of Frank Riley, who will be remembered by many comrades in the North West as a staunch member of the former Merseyside Branch before, some years ago, he moved to Central Branch.

Frank—who joined the Party in 1986—was a former hospital dialysis machine technician who had, ironically enough, previously worked at Aldermaston at an earlier stage of his employment. In later life he became an enthusiast of the computer age, finding in information technology a discipline to extend his keenly scientific and practical mind.

Unfortunately, ill health struck Frank in the last few years and this limited the contribution he was able to make to the Party; however, until very recently he was still able to compile the indexes for the bound volumes of the Socialist Standard from his home on the Wirral.

Frank will be remembered by his comrades as a quiet, thoughtful and thoroughly decent man who was appalled at the injustices of the world around him and, in particular, at the squalor and degradation which has blighted the land to either side of the River Mersey since the advent of industrial capitalism. Frank knew that the world had to be a better place and was staunch in his belief that socialism remains the only way this can be attained.

In mourning his passing we extend our deepest sympathies to his family.

DAP

Obituary: Bob Miller (2004)

Obituaries from the July 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

Bob Miller

Bob Miller, who died last month aged 67, first joined the old Merseyside Branch of the Party in 1970 after having been active in the National Secular Society, but left the Party for a time after a branch disagreement. When Merseyside Branch revived in the 1980s, Bob rejoined and was a stalwart at meetings and worked hard selling the Standard, most typically at Williamson Square in Liverpool for many years. At one point BBC local radio used recordings of Bob on his pitch there in one of their programmes analysing the distinctive Liverpool ‘scouse’ accent.

For a short while Bob served on the Party’s Executive Committee and took his duties seriously and with a certain degree of dedication. He remained a staunch socialist until the end, the last 15 years or so of his life blighted by unemployment, this being in no small part related to his activities as a militant trade unionist in Merseyside during the 1970s and early 80s.                                       

DAP