imposs1904
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Is it too much to hope that the text for the election manifesto will be a bit spikey for a change? If nothing else, just to have a change of tone. See if it catches people’s attention more.
To use an old pop music analogy – which I’m sure I’ve used before – less Beach Boys ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice‘ and more MC5’s ‘Kick Out The Jams‘.
William Morris was a famous ‘Cuk’, so I’m not a fan of the term. Even as a joke.
I prefer the observation that Change:UK is almost like ‘Chuk’, which practically spells out ‘Chuka’. I think it highlights his narcissism.
Back in the day when Labour MPs would write to the Socialist Standard to engage in a debate about socialism and materialism:
Another one from the archives that’s just been scanned in. From a 1953 issue of the American socialist journal, The Western Socialist, ’30 Years of Scottish Bombast’.
An article written by a Scottish SPGBer for an American readership. Note in the article the opportunistic Anti-Americanism of the British Communist Party, and its leader Harry ‘Pollute’:
Link: ’30 Years of Scottish Bombast’
The Twitter hashtag #OnThisDay is telling me that Tony Benn died on this day in 2014.
From the January 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard, an interview with Tony Benn. The timing is interesting because this period would have been the height of ‘Bennism’ and Corbyn, if nothing else, is a political heir of Benn:
Finished scanning in the August 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard.
Of especial interest in this issue is the detailed report of a debate between the SPGB’s Alex Shaw and the Communist Party’s Peter Kerrigan in Clydebank. Though Kerrigan may not be a well known name nowadays, for many decades he was a leading member of the Communist Party in Scotland and, at the time of the debate, was the CPGB’s Scottish Organiser. That such a ‘leading’ member of the CPGB was prepared to debate a SPGB representative suggests that the SPGB were making enough of a nuisance of themselves in Glasgow and the West of Scotland, that the CPGB had to take them seriously.
In the same issue there are details of Alex Shaw being physically attacked after another meeting in Clydebank. It appears the SPGB were stepping on various political and religious toes at this time.
LINK: August 1931 Socialist Standard
Content includes:
– The Socialist Party and War: The Socialist attitude to war.
– Letter: The Value of Emotional Appeals.
– Letter: A New Reader Asks Some Questions.
– Movements Abroad: Socialist Party of Australia and the Socialist Party of New Zealand
– Editorial: The German Crisis
– Brutal Attack on A Speaker: Socialists physically attacked.
– A Tribute From An Unexpected Quarter: Labour Party careerism
– The Socialist Party v. The Communist Party. A Debate: SPGB’s debates the CPGB’s Peter Kerrigan.
– A Great Thought for To-day: J. H. Thomas, the Labour Party and divine intervention
Just finished scanning in the January 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard. Published in the aftermath of the 1923 General Election, and just before the incoming first Labour minority government, Details below:
LINK: January 1924 Socialist Standard
Content includes:
– After The Poll: Report on the 1923 General Election
– Socialism and Ethics: William Liebknecht
– The Reward of Genius: The tragedy of Johannes Sophus Gelert
– Tom Mann Retracts!: Tom Mann and the General Strike
– Rates, and Rates of Wages: The cost of living for the working class.
– Items of Interest in the Election: Winston Churchill and Ben Tillett
– Editorial: Election Reflections
– Where the Labour Party Fails: Labour Party reformism.
– The Capital Levy: The Labour Party’s economic policy.
– On Reading: S. P. B. Mais
– By The Way: British Capitalism in recession.
I’m sure there’s something for everyone.
Just a heads up that if you’re on Twitter, I’ve just set up a Twitter page for the Socialist Standard Past and Present blog. Please follow, retweet . . . etc, etc:
The above reminded me of an anecdote in a 1969 Socialist Standard article that I just scanned in a few days back:
“Still more serious was the case of a young man who, some years ago, became interested in the World Socialist Party. A somewhat timid young man, he was pulled in by the political detectives of Glenravel Street Barracks, in Belfast. He was advised that he was being foolish in having anything to do with the Socialist Party and that he should steer clear of our local office. Later he was again pulled in and the same political cop who had ‘advised’ him against attending our meetings suggested that he should now resume attendance at our meetings and let him know what was ‘going on down there’. The unfortunate man was assured that his services would not leave him out of pocket. He was given the impression that he had fallen foul of a dangerous conspiracy and, such was the fear transmitted by the police officer, that for a time he tried playing both ends against the middle, all the time fearful of what we might do to him if we discovered he was a police informer. In fact, we used him to feed back the most remarkable stories! In the end he emigrated to America.”
For those interested in that sort of thing, just a heads up that the entire issue of the August 1988 Socialist Standard is now online:
LINK: August 1988 Socialist Standard
Content includes:
– Editorial: Political organisation
– Apartheid, Capitalism and the ANC
– Money games (football and big business)
– Herewego — Where next? (aggro culture in Britain)
– Czechoslovakia’s brief Spring (A look back at the Prague Spring)
– Afghanistan: the Russian Withdrawal
– Armenia: the Background to Events (Ethnic unrest in the Soviet Union)
– Between the Lines: A speculative review (What will tv be like in a socialist society?)
– Book Review of Inequalities of Health: The Black Report edited by Peter Townsend and Nick Davidson; The Health Divide by Margaret Whitehead. Penguin Books
– Official Secrets (Britain’s secret state)
– 50 Years Ago: Churchill on atrocities (He’s in the news, click on the link)
– Book Review of Status. Power and Conflict in the Kibbutz by Eliezer Ben-Rafael
– Marx, class and socialism
– Why socialists do not vote for capitalism (Internal party drama played out in the pages of the Socialist Standard)
– Piper Alpha oil rig disaster
– Film Review of Cry Freedom (Denzel Washington as Steve Biko)
– Film Review of Wall Street (“Greed is good . . . ” that bloke)
– Book Review of Anti-Parliamentary Communism by Mark Shipway
I’m sure there’s something for everyone.
For those interested in that sort of thing, just a heads up that the entire issue of the April 1984 Socialist Standard is now online:
LINK: April 1984 Socialist Standard
Content includes:
– What’s new about Tory racism?
– Review of Alec Nove’s The Economics of Feasible Socialism
– Leninism v Democratic Socialism
– Socialism or Reformism?
– Letters: Socialists against religion
– Editorial: A Lesson for CND
– Death on an empty stomach
– Letter: Sceptical about Socialism
– Fabianism
– Cuba under Castro
I’m sure there’s something for everyone.
For those interested in that sort of thing, just a heads up that the entire issue of the April 1938 Socialist Standard is now online:
LINK: April 1938 Socialist Standard
Content includes:
– Will There Be Another War?
– Letter: Socialism and Equality
– CPGB opportunism
– Trotsky-Stalin Feud: An American View
– Letter: Further Criticism of the Object of the S.P.G.B.
– The German Drive Through Central Europe
– Letter: Land Values and Socialism
– Another Russian Sacrificial Feast
– An Open Letter to the Electors of East Ham North
– At the Graveside of Karl Marx
I’m sure there’s something for everyone.
