The Books I Read In June

 As the two books I read this month had a total of 1,295 pages, I unfortunately only got through them and no more.

Fiction

'The Interpretation of Murder' by Jed Rubenfeld

I remember this book being everywhere when it came out in 2006 but I being passed a copy I only got round to reading it. Rubenfeld is a US law academic. The book is set during the genuine visit of the psychology pioneers Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung to New York in 1909 to give various lectures. They are fictional characters get mixed up in a murder of a young society woman and an attack on another both involving sado-masochist elements. There are a couple of protagonists, Dr. Stratham Younger, a fictional young US psychologist who is one of the hosts of Freud and Jung but is asked to counsel the second victim, Nora Acton. He tells his elements in the first person. The second is a New York detective, James Littlemore who struggles to get the cases investigated against the resistance of influential men in the city.

As you might expect the story involves a lot of psychological aspects and is a bit of a primer into Freud's thinking and how he an Jung began to diverge. It also features historically true opposition to the whole practice of psychologists by neurologists who believed that the treatment of mental health issues they believed to be solely neurological would be set back by 'talking cures'. Freud and Jung do not come off too well from this story. Freud is portrayed as an amiable incontinent old man and Jung a disturbed philanderer. Certainly Freud is shown as dogmatic and his insistence of just one approach to the sexual perceptions of children of their parents is shown to lead him astray in interpretations of what is going on and to be honest the reader is liable to agree with Rubenfeld's take on Freud's approach if not embracing the hostility of the neurologists.

There are strengths to this novel. The portrayal of New York in the era and the kind of society it had is very well done with lots of rich descriptions of various buildings and locales in the city and the surrounding countryside and of the corrupt, privileged and poverty-struck social picture. The plot is very twisty which I guess you would expect from a crime novel with psychology at the centre. However, you do feel that it is all wrapped up rather pat at the end and the psychological issues resolved too smoothly while resolution of another murder which comes to light is rather swept aside. I know as much about Freud's theories as the average general reader, but they seem to simply add weight to the patronising misogynistic attitude towards women and their 'neuroses' to the extent of repeatedly victim blaming. Though a pioneer Freud was very much of his time. However, you do feel that as a result Nora Acton's genuine feelings, especially her sexuality, is simply dismissed as something that could be quickly and easily 'resolved'. A romance is levered in too. Thus, I came to the end feeling that despite the involvement of this different aspect it simply reinforced what we would have seen in a novel set in that context without psychology featuring.

There are some good action scenes and as I say some fair twists. However, the narrative is very fragmented and we jump between various characters very rapidly even within a single chapter. There is a constant gear shifting especially as only Younger's narrative is in the first person whereas all the others that actually make up the bulk of the text, are in the third. I can see why the novel appealed at the time. However, you come away rather feeling it is 'ragged' and while the jerking about certainly adds dynamism, it does mean the book is not as strong as it might have been. In addition, while I am personally a fan of historical notes, Rubenfeld really undermines his own novel by extensively going into all the things he altered from the genuine history or simply invented. I imagine this comes from him being an academic but I felt it really undermined the reader's faith in the novel and could have been contained but handled without that undercutting of what had been written.

Non-Fiction

'The Benn Diaries. New Single Volume' ed. by Ruth Winstone

This is a single volume edition of the first six volumes of Tony Benn's diaries, for the most part focused on his political career 1964-1990. The compression does cause some issues as so many issues of the era when he was an MP and especially those when he was a minister too, are covered very quickly and at times you want to find out more. His 'journey' from being a technocratic Gaitskellite who actually socialised with Enoch Powell, to an outspoken anti-racist and opponent of nuclear power is hard to track in this book. You see it taking place, but there is less sense of why and what brought it about. You can certainly see him losing faith in technology as a solution to Britain's and the world's problems, certainly by the mid-1970s. His anti-royalist outlook is clearer throughout, though he remains polite to the Queen. To some degree only as a result of seeing him speak in the 1990s and 2000s, rather than from this book, could I tell why he moved so far on the European communities as he saw what became the EU as a defender of workers' and indeed simply citizens' rights. His sense that the structure especially the European Commission lacked the necessary democracy, is apparent from the outset and made him in the 1970s and into the 1980s hostile to what was at the time the EEC, per se.

One puzzle remains how so many of the newspapers were able to portray Benn as being a hardcore radical Socialist, indeed even a Communist. While he could see some elements of note in the Soviet bloc countries he visited, he is far from being a flag waver for those regimes and was critical of their behaviour especially over Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. In addition while he portrays himself as being on the Left of the Labour Party, he does not go along with Militant Tendency, though he likewise is unhappy with Neil Kinnock's steps against them.

I accept this is an edited and curated version of his life, but the policies featured here actually come across as often more Christian Socialist and indeed Liberal of the early 20th Century, like his grandfather. I suppose especially in the 1970s and 1980s he was an easy person to beat in the media, to portray as some crazed monster because he was unapologetic for his views. I think the fact that he spoke amiably though at times with anger behind it, made him very slippery to challenge than if he had been a ranter. Still, his candid views of some politicians do expose a harder side.

It is interesting that like Richard Crossman who Benn served alongside: https://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2025/04/the-books-i-read-in-april.html  Benn sees Harold Wilson as both nasty and ineffectual to a much greater extent that he was perceived by the public. The successive Labour leaders Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock are excoriated in this book, contrary to Benn's interactions with them in public. While he did not press party unity over everything, it is clear he would go a long way to try not to give ammunition to their opponents. To some degree given plans to overthrow Wilson were mooted it does show actually how little tolerance privileged figures were willing to give any policies which looked as if they were moving to a genuine meritocracy and even these have been clawed back since. Benn like Crossman has quite a dim view of many of the ministers of the time, but is fulsome in his praise of those he approved of, many of them now forgotten names of the Labour movement. He was also staunch in his attendance at working class events up and down the country.

The one aspect which perhaps is not a surprise is the personal side. His wife Caroline to whom he was married for 51 years until her death, was very capable and stalwart, but also critical when needed. She correctly predicted Benn's attempt to become deputy leader of the Labour Party in 1981 was a grave error for him and he grudgingly recognises it. Naturally as a father of four children he comes over as a family man, an aspect not referenced in the media as they were seeking to portray him as a monster, rather than anything like someone who might be your neighbour. In fact when people speak about political dynasties especially in the USA but also in the UK, no-one ever seems to mention that four generations of Benns have been MPs: Sir John Benn (1850-1922; MP 1892-1910), William Wedgwood Benn (1877-1960; MP 1906-42); Anthony Wedgwood Benn (1925-2014; MP 1950-60 and 1963-2001) and Hilary Benn (1953-; MP 1999-) again because they may worry it normalises them, perhaps makes them look like the Kennedys or the Bushes.

Overall this was an engaging read, but I think if I wanted to dig into any particular phase again I would go back to the original six volumes for the detail. I came away feeling that Benn had been normal though with a prickliness I had not picked up before. In many ways he comes over as an ordinary man granted insight to the top levels of politics and seeing how divorced so much of it is from the bulk of the population but with a massive and frightening impact on their lives. Even more than the troubles of the Cold War the utter bleakness of the early years of the Thatcher governments come out raw in the diary entries.

Animals - One Of Only Two Things That Will Get British People To Talk

A South African friend of mine who has lived in the UK for over a decade still complains about the lack of community in Britain and how that British people, even when neighbours, simply ignore each other.  I have lived in lots of different places in the past couple of decades from London to a rural Warwickshire village and many towns in southern England and some in the Midlands, somewhere in between in scale.  Aside from when I lived in Poplar in East London and that was in the 1990s, I have found her experience to be the same for me.  When people say 'they kept to themselves', in fact that goes for everyone in the street even the person the newspaper, radio or television journalist is talking to.  British people may gawp at their neighbours - I have had people literally standing in their front gardens staring at me but not acknowledging my greeting, most recently in the house I moved into this September, but they will not talk to them apart from in two exceptional cases.

This is in contrast to some other countries.  Yes, there is a fantasy of US suburbia where everyone talks.  I am sure my South African friend would find the community of her youth has now faded.  I have encountered it a bit in Belgium.  The pull by global society is always to be suspicious of your neighbour and have nothing to say to them.  The concerns about immigrants and terrorists, very often linked in people's minds, simply exacerbates this situation.  However, in some parts of some other countries, a basic level of communication has to be eroded.  In Britain, suspicion and silence come as the norm and it is only exceptional circumstances that shift this, not the other way around.

The first occasion when British people (and indeed anyone from abroad who catches on quickly) talk to each other, even those they may have been living next door to, is when something goes seriously wrong.  You need a whole spate of burglaries, not just a few, for the ice to be broken.  A murder or an abduction is usually necessary to really get people to talk to each other.  A big fire or a riot will have a similar effect.  There is a finite time for which this effect will last.  It is dependent on the severity of the incident and how long concerns about it go on.  The politician Tony Benn noted that when travelling on trains, people only began to talk to each other when the train broke down or was severely delayed.  Often once the journey resumed they returned to their silence.  Generally, if everything is going normally on public transport and you try to speak, people will distance themselves; will not respond and may even complain that you are a 'nutter'.

The tendency of crisis encouraging Britons to speak is probably declining itself as indignation, even fury, has replaced simply moaning as the UK's prime pastime.  These days I find it is mainly the elderly who speak during a problem; the younger people, even the middle aged, now simply text or tweet furiously about it or even shout into their phones, rather than complain about it with the people around them.

Twice over the past two years, I have discovered the other thing that will get British people to magically talk and that is animals.  It is said that the British love animals more than they love children and I think this is probably true.  While having a child can be a link to colleagues to strike up a conversation, an animal can do this with complete strangers, including your neighbours.  Two years ago I was renting in a room in a house owned by a Lithuanian family in South-West London.  They would often be out at work during the day and sometimes their bitch a golden Staffordshire bull terrier, who was very well kept and friendly and had the run of a large garden, would be whining to be taken for a walk when I got in, often hours ahead of the other residents.

One day to calm her I took her for a walk.  I had no experience in walking dogs except handling a friend's black Labrador for an afternoon about twenty years earlier.  In addition, I quickly learned that she only understood commands such as 'sit' and 'stay' in Lithuanian.  Lithuanian is one of the oldest languages in Europe which has not undergone much change except increase in vocabulary.  Proper nouns of all creatures including humans and dogs depending on whether they are the subject, object, being ordered, etc.  Anyway, with a gentle but firm hand I was able to walk the dog along the local river bank.  She was exceptionally well behaved, heeling and lying down if another dog approached.  The thing was that she was a key to suddenly a whole host of people talking to me.  Despite walking down the same streets five times per week, without the dog I was invisible; with her I seemed safe and worthwhile talking with to men, women and children of all ages.

A similar effect has happened now that I have returned to southern England.  As noted above, I have been renting this house since September, a little over three months now.  I have waved and tried to introduce myself to the neighbours in the close I live at the entrance to, to no avail.  No-one has given me their name or even responded to me walking up and saying 'hello'.  I know I look a little odd and people are particularly suspicious of middle-aged men, but the woman who lives in the house, who is younger than me, has had a similar reaction.  After three months, we have no idea of the names of any of the neighbours and apart from one man who drives a company van, no idea of what they do.  We have picked up scraps of information from seeing them coming and going, but nothing more.  If someone said to me that the person next door was called Mr. Smith and he was a local footballer or if they said he was Mr. Korzeniowska and he was a terrorist, I would have no idea if either of these statements was true or not.  I know he has two expensive cars, a blonde woman and small girl and a small dog, that is it.  I have not even seen his face in these dark evenings.

Now, this week something changed.  A cat decided that it lived in our house.  Every time we opened the front door it would run into the house and be reluctant to leave.  It is well tended and had a collar and bell but no tag.  We have been advised to check if it has a chip implanted but it is difficult to get her in our car and we do not know if we will have to pay to have this checked.  Given that this is a large housing estate with houses back-to-back and labyrinthine closes, she may have strayed off her usual patch and be confused how to get back.  She likes none of the food we have offered and keeps looking for toys we do not have.  The woman in my house went to everyone in our close and because it was about a cat suddenly they began talking.  It was none of theirs, but people who had ignored us repeatedly were suddenly giving their names and speaking.  Even the man who lives opposite who parks his van to block the exit of my car because he has lived in the close longer and feels he has that right, suddenly introduced himself when he saw us with the cat.  Putting up posters about her got complete strangers from neighbouring streets talking to us at random.  Our appearance has not changed; our behaviour has not changed, but abruptly we are perceived as people that can be spoken to.

 Dogs and cats like me.  Other people's dogs will often come to my heel or even get in my car.  However, personally I cannot stand them; they all stink.  Furthermore I think people who focus on cats and dogs lack an essential element of humanity.  Yet, it is clear now that they have an important use.  We are not allowed to keep any pets under our tenancy and we need to get this one back to the owner, who we fear may be abroad or away over the Christmas period.  However, in a couple of days she has done us a great service in making us appear acceptable and finally we have some of the communication we had wanted/expected.  How long we can 'milk' this opportunity I do not know.  However, I do recommend that if your British neighbours give you the silent treatment, borrow someone's cat or dog and it will change their view of you in an instant.  It is clear that buying a dog was the best thing the Lithuanians could have done to be accepted quickly in their particular suburb.  I have no understanding why this situation is the case, but it is something I have finally learned.  It does not make me a fan of either dogs or cats, but I can see their use.

I Don't Love the 1980s

Back in July 2007, I did a posting which sought to counteract the popular television series 'I Love the '70s' (2000) and its follow-ups, 'I Love the '80s' (2001) and 'I Love the '90s' which I believe was broadcast in 2002 so with its final programme about 1999 was talking about events of only three years earlier.  These programmes looked back in particular at popular culture in one year of each of the decades.  Whilst they did cover some of the political issues of these years it was much more about the upbeat or quirky aspects of pop music and culture of the times and talking to the people involved, though even then selection was careful, for example, the paedophile Gary Glitter (real name Paul Gadd) who had been incredibly successful pop star in the mid-1970s, with twelve consecutive top ten hits in the charts 1972-5, was not featured at all due to his later convictions for abusing children.  Consequently these programmes tended to give a rose-tinted picture especially of the 1970s and 1980s.  As someone who lived through those years, I wanted to counter-balance that perspective.  My view of the 1970s can be seen at: http://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2007/07/i-dont-love-1970s.html

My intention then had been to follow it up with a 'I Don't Love the 1980s' focusing on the decade which in many ways was even worse than the 1970s and yet almost had instant nostalgia about it, and an 'air brushed' history which focused on the extreme fashions and lively if rather artificial music culture.  Back in 2007, however, I had no inkling that we would be thrust abruptly back into a replica of the 1980s, in fact, with many of its worst aspects compressed into months rather than years.  At the moment we have the cut-backs and privatisation, the unemployment and the racism which took some years to unfold in the 1980s.  Interestingly, I do not seem to have been the only person alert to this, anyone who lived through the 1980s recognises the similarities and knowing what we are going to face in the months and years ahead makes it worse than when we did not know quite what to expect and the full horror was only revealed as the months passed.  Just surfing the television channels in recent weeks I have seen the movie 'This is England' (2006) set in 1983, the follow-up series 'This is England '86' (2010) and the 3-part documentary series 'Alan Davies' Teenage Revolution' (2010).  All of these focus on the nastier side of the 1980s which tends to be forgotten in the nostalgia, especially when it emerges from the USA.

Alan Davies's programme is really an autobiography (which to some degree 'This is England' is for director Shane Meadows, though with more fictional elements included) as he looks back at his teenaged years and how he interacted with the cultural and political trends of the time.  Though Alan Davies is less than two years older than me he was two years ahead of me in terms of schooling so went to university in 1985 whereas I only got there in 1987.  Being older in the early to mid 1980s he was active politically at the time when nuclear weapons were a real issue and the Miners' Strike 1984-5 was a key aspect of British life.  Davies came from a far more privileged background than I did.  I grew up in the Surrey suburbs but our house could have fitted into his at least twice.  I went to a comprehensive school that had been a secondary modern school until  four years before I had attended it whereas Davies went to a public school (i.e. an elite fee-paying school).  However, to the people who faced the blunt end of Thatcherite Britain, for example miners and their families, I lived a privileged life.  My father was never made redundant and my mother found work throughout the period; we never had our house repossessed.  We did know people who suffered these things but were spared them.  I felt hard done by in the 1980s because I was marginalised with my parents treating me as if I was mentally disabled (though ironically not detecting the Asperger's Syndrome symptoms which now seem so apparent) and by friends who looked down upon my family because we lived in the 'wrong' part of town (still leafy suburban roads that most British people would love to live in) and we did not have the consumer items that they felt were necessary for happiness.  My family were also distinct in being Socialists at a time when that belief seemed to be dead or perversely a complete threat to personal liberty.  I was patronised terribly by people who told me that I 'had to accept the need' for Thatcherite policies as if one day I would 'see the light' of how good they were.  I saw them as simply selfish and greedy as I still do today.

It was later than I realised how privileged I had been, when I spoke to man none of whose family had worked since ten years in 1987 and the only people in his village in Scotland who had a job were the man who engraved the gravestones and a gangster.  He moved to Botswana because he could earn a better wage (he earned £7000 per year there, which was ten times the national average salary of Botswana and better than claiming the dole back in Scotland).  Another woman, a white Englishwoman whose family had moved to Scotland where she faced constant prejudice as her father tramped from town to town trying to find work as a teacher.  Even these people did not have their lives wrecked by heroin or had to live in bed and breakfast accommodation.  We all have 'referents', people we compare ourselves too.  Everyone in Britain knows we are better off than most people in Afghanistan or Ethiopia, but when we lose our job or our house, we do not think 'well, it could be worse, I could be starving to death', we look at our referents and see how much worse than them we are.  Thus, I accept that my life in the 1980s was far better than millions of people in the UK, but I felt that I was unfortunate and, anyway, I felt angry for all those without jobs and being hassled by the police.  I suppose that is what being a Socialist is about, having an affinity for other people and striving to make the lives of all people not luxurious but at least decent and importantly, secure.

The one thing I feel that most programmes about the 1980s neglect is how much fear there was.  I do not remember a time when I was not fearful that my father would lose his job, that we would lose our house and anyway that we would be destroyed by a nuclear explosion.  In terms of politics I lived in a very Conservative area, well, that is how most of Surrey is, so rarely found people around me who had even a marginally similar perspective on the world compared to me.  Friends who constantly anticipated a Soviet invasion (the conviction of the reality of this was incredible, even a teacher of ours seeing a group of helicopters flying over the school which was near a NATO base, for a few moments really believed the invasion had come), bragged about how they would fight a guerilla war as they had seen on trashy US movies.  I never expected it to come to that, I anticipated nuclear armageddon.  We knew we had our own Soviet missile as we were near the base and any loud bang at night made me wake thinking the first warheads had hit London some tens of miles away.  That terror was always with us, fuelled by teachers who seem to love showing you movies like 'Threads' (1983) about the outcome of a nuclear war and all the books you would see on the shelves of W.H. Smith outlining similar things.

Another fear towards the end of the 1980s was around AIDS.  It was presented to us not really as a Biblical plague but more as one of those manufactured viruses gone mad that had featured in books, series and movies in the 1970s.  It seemed unstoppable and it also seemed dangerous in the way that it allowed people to be prejudiced, against gays, against people from Africa, though US cities seemed to be the main breeding ground of the disease at the time.  Growing up in suburban England it did seem very much to be 'someone else's' problem and adults around us blamed others.  Schools were rather torn, not wanting to be seen to promote teenagers having sex and because of things such as Clause 28 of the Local Government Act (1986-2002/3) which banned the positive portrayal of homosexual relations in lessons talk around any sexual issues now seemed prescribed.  We were warned about the risks of drug addiction though, and I remember pretty graphic stories clearly aimed at pupils from the sort of context I lived in, about 'nice girls' getting hooked on drugs and ending up as prostitutes and HIV-infected.  The bulk of us not being drug users of any kind (and even under-age binge drinking had yet to be invented) it made AIDS seem still like something that Americans would suffer or homeless people in London.  In addition, the popular cultural coverage, movies like 'Long Term Companion' (1989) and later 'Philadelphia' (1993) seemed to suggest it was something that rich Americans suffered from.  AIDS was not featured in the grim British soap opera, 'Eastenders' until 1992 and in the similar children's series 'Grange Hill' until 1995.

Reaching university welfare officers of the Student's Union seemed to be fired up by the fact that they could not give demonstrations about the use of condoms.  I think it was a good step that condoms were now much more readily available.  However, the UK still has a long way to go before a teenager can by them from a dispensing machine on the street as I saw in West Germany in 1989 (ironically sold from a cigarette machine) or was to see in Belgium subsequently. 

I suppose there were students in the UK who were going in for promiscuous, dangerous sex, it was just that I never seemed to encounter any and AIDS remained simply a subject for people to cover in 'alternative' fiction anthologies that were popular in universities of the time, though the stories I remember were as lurid as those in the tabloid press the authors supposedly loathed.  I found out subsequently that 40% of students leave university without having sex and you have to bear in mind that many arrive already having had it (and when I was at university there was an increasing number of mature students in the mix who had children and even grandchildren).  I was lumped in with a very puritan crowd which might reflect where I went to university or just fate.  One man I knew, even once in bed with a woman turned to her and said he could not go threw with it because he did not believe in pre-marital sex.  Apparently she took it very calmly.  A woman living on my corridor would sleep on the floor of her room from Wednesday when the sheets were changed so that when her boyfriend arrived on Saturday he could sleep alone on clean sheets.  To me there seemed to be something going wrong with feminism let alone sex.  In such a context it appeared that even those in relationships were not having sex.  No wonder AIDS seemed to be very far away.

For me, I was very conscious that I had come to university as not only a virgin but a man who had not had a girlfriend since he was 10.  My parents had done a wonderful jump in utterly crushing my self-confidence by repeatedly portraying me as looking as if I was mentally disabled and I was self-conscious about getting naked from the bodged operation which had left me with a 12cm scar.  I did ask women out, nine in three years, but was always rebuffed, and in some cases, as when taking my 'A' levels I seemed to be always pursuing a disinterested woman when one who had some interest in me was growing impatient at my lack of response.  My understanding nature soon made me one of those men that women pour their hearts out to about how badly their boyfriend is treating them, when in fact, I wanted to be their boyfriend.  My parents, despite having stripped me of the confidence necessary to strike up an intimate relationship, now seemed bemused, at times even angry, that I was not having sexual encounters.  Having been young in the 1960s and in industries which saw quite a lot of promiscuity, but not actually having been to university, they did not understand the puritan environment I was living in and that no woman was in fact particularly interested in me as a sexual partner.  It was not to be until the following century, more than fifteen years later, that I actually had sex. Thus, seeing myself as a liberal Democratic Socialist, I supported safe sex campaigns and events to educate people about sexual health.  However, in terms of myself and how I lived my life it had as much impact as lesbian rights did.  As with the nuclear war issue, I did worry I would be one of the survivors of the post-apocalyptic environment when so many people had died of AIDS that society would break down.  Thus, while not worrying about how it would impact on my health, AIDS was another terrible aspect of the 1980s that added to my overall level of terror for the future.

Unlike Alan Davies, I had never been a great 'joiner' of clubs and societies.  I had been in a judo club for some months as a child and that was it.  Partly that was because of my condition, I see now.  I much preferred to stay in my room and design 'dungeons' for the game 'Dungeons & Dragons' or write fiction, the classic geek.  For me the inner world was the greatest escape.  I had friends, but would have to face up to lectures from their mothers and fathers about how deluded my politics were.  Perhaps if my parents had remained living in London, I would have met more people who thought like me.  I used to fantasise about meeting a radical girlfriend, but it never happened.  Partly because I was useless in social circles and because the only radicals in my district were those who felt that Margaret Thatcher was not going far enough in her policies and were not afraid to say it.  For some reason these were usually girls rather than boys who tended to stick to their post-armageddon fantasies.  Of course, when you are a teenager girls want older men anyway and given that I was patronised, looked as ugly as I do now, except with added acne and adhered to geeky hobbies, I was hardly an attractive proposition.

I did join the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), but almost immediately regretted it.  For some reason I had gone to a CND meeting, probably in 1984, in a neighbouring town and for the first time after numerous invitations the local (Conservative) MP decided to turn up and debate, in a pretty civilised way, with the local group.  Heady from that achievement and seeing some attractive girls from my school in the audience I agreed to join the local party and as a consequence received a newsletter on a green piece of A4 pushed through my letterbox every month or so.  Being fearful, however, I instantly anticipated that I had now wrecked my chances of ever getting a job.  I think this stemmed a great deal from my parents.  My mother had marched with the original CND in the 1960s and whilst pleased the movement had been reinvigorated in the 1980s instilled a real fear in me of the consequences of being involved in radical movements.  My father had been an active trade unionist in the 1970s and growing up I was used to hearing the tapping of our telephone, a fear my mother continued even into the 1990s when I imagine MI5 had long lost interest in my father and the equipment was far more sophisticated.  My mother, when not reminding me how much I looked like someone who was suffering from Down's Syndrome, told me the danger of being lured to join the Communist Party.  As a result, every time the CND letter arrived I was worried that the police would be close behind it.

It took me two attempts to get to university which I managed to do in 1987 after having retaken my 'A' levels and inexplicably the grades jumping far higher despite me writing much the same as I had the year before.  By that stage the Thatcher regime was so ensconced, that, being interested in history, I feared that to get into my chosen career (working for the civil service), I would have not only to disengage from any radical groups but also actually become a member of the Conservative Party.  I believed that democracy would soon be at an end and that as under the Nazi and Soviet regimes only party members would be permitted to have a career in public service.  I had never paid any fees to the CND group since that first evening and yet they had not stopped sending me the newsletter.  I was sure that meant I was on their list and so would be on MI5's.  I saw the only way was to break very clearly from the group and I wrote to then pretending that I had been foolish, having mistakenly believed they supported multilateral disarmament (which was supposedly the Thatcher government's line that they would get rid of nuclear weapons if everyone else did; I doubt their sincerity, I do not believe they ever intend(ed) to get rid of them) but to my horror had found out that they were unilateralists (the Labour Party's approach in the early 1980s, that the UK should get rid of nuclear weapons no matter what anyone else did) and felt I had been deluded by them and that they should not only stop sending me their newsletter but remove me from any list or I would take legal action against them.  I met the member who had signed me up originally at a party and he scowled at me, but that was it, fortunately, and I never saw him again.

By the time I reached university when I did begin to encounter people with similar views to me (in very small numbers and certainly very rare in my student hall which seemed to be full of Oxbridge failures who wanted to live 'Brideshead Revisited' at a modern university), I was afraid we would be doomed to a life of unemployment if we expressed political views not in accordance with the government.  I had intended to join the Conservative Party as I felt it would be the only way to secure a job, but ulitmately could not bring myself to do that.  Unlike Alan Davies, and many people I met myself, by 1987, I had no belief that any action by ordinary people could effect the course of the government's policies.  Having seen the miners broken in 1985, I felt we were on course for a full-blown dictatorship by the 1990s.  I did become a bit radical towards the end of my time at university, ironically, when Thatcher was running out of steam.  I joined the Anti-Apartheid Movement and helped arrange some events; I even occupied a university library.  I think my late found radicalism only came about after I found I had developed diabetes and, in a self-destructive spiral, was drinking far too much alcohol and eating tons of chocolate, assuming I would be dead by 1991 and so would not suffer the consequences of any youthful rebellion.  However, I missed out on the excitement of being radical, the heady rush of for some moments believing you could actually change things.  Maybe I am a natural cynic, but I had the worst of both worlds hating the system but having no faith that I could do anything about it.  Looking back, of course, the protest movements achieved nothing (maybe that is harsh: fortunately no nuclear war yet but still nuclear weapons in the UK; but no more apartheid; better rights for gay people, marginally better for women and disabled people; still policies damaging the environment; still Thatcherism), but I wish at least I had had sufficient hope to have tried, to have been among that number.  Instead, I have seen my expectations mainly realised and yet am burdened by the guilt of not helping those who fought for what I believe I believe in.

Looking back at the programmes of the 1980s, I still get a feeling of awe when I see Tony Benn, Michael Foot and Billy Bragg speaking/singing back then, but I feel I betrayed them.  I was untrue to my beliefs and in the fear or what damage it would do to me personally bottled out of demonstrating or becoming truly involved.  Part of the problem, I think was that my parents had been radical in the 1960s and seeing how little they had achieved and the cost it had imposed on their lives, I was very cynical that anything could be changed with a far harsher government, eager to use the police to suppress protest than had been the case in the 1960s.  My parents did not fill me with radical fervour just additional fear about how my life turned out.  Looking back I realise I feared the wrong things.  I should have been more active which would have relieved me of my current burden of guilt, but ironically should have studied to be a lawyer or an accountant, so would not be now facing losing my house because I am unemployable now that Thatcherism is back.

That was my 1980s: fear.  Fear of nuclear armageddon, fear of never working, fear of being arrested for my views.  Of course, though, in fact I was in a privileged position (in those days only 6% of 18-year olds went to university it is now 42%), those fears and realities affected millions of people.  Unemployment was around 3.4 million in 1986 and was, in reality, far higher.  Thousands of people lost their houses, thousands did not work for years.  Nuclear war was a constant shadow over everything.  No-one I knew, and probably only one person I ever me, ever lived the 1980s 'dream' of champagne, fast cars and jobs in The City and even he may not have got there.  The 1980s had some decent television dramas; it had the Goth movement the greatest gift to culture of the decade; it had the music of Billy Bragg and The Jam which remain timeless, it also had terrible television programmes and trashy pop music. 

More importantly, very deliberately in the 1980s, the last sense of community was destroyed by Margaret Thatcher's declarations that there was no such thing as society and that we were always under threat from those supposedly trying to undermine our way of life, whereas, in fact, it was her who was wrecking it from the foundations up.  Selfishness and greed became engrained into British society and we are still paying the price for that with massive imbalance in incomes, in insecure jobs and even reckless driving.  Thatcher made these things not only seem acceptable, in contrast to the striving for a more equitable society in previous decades, but almost something we should all be striving for if we did not wish to be tarred with the brush of being Socialists.  That is the reality of the 1980s.  I lived in well-off southern England, it bit far harder elsewhere in the UK wrecking millions of lives with poverty, crime and addiction.

I am glad some people are reminding they youth and older people how bad the 1980s were and how bad the 2010s are going to be.  Constant fears and being told you did not even deserve what you had worked for, were the reality of the 1980s and this is why I can only loathe that decade.  If you were too young to experience the 1980s, know it is coming to your street this very day.  Be afraid, be very afraid.

Undemocratic Appointments to the EU: No Surprise Given the Approach the UK Favoured

It is bitterly ironic that now that the president of the EU and other 'ministers' or high representatives have been appointed for the EU that Britons are whining about the process.  The British have in fact always favoured a less democratic approach to the EU as Tony Benn has long noted, there has been a 'democratic deficit'.  This goes back to the period 1978-9 when the European Parliament was being created.  It is not like most parliaments in that it is not the place for legislative initiative, this insteads come from the European Commission, effectively the civil service of the EU, and like most civil services members are appointed rather than elected.  Britain was more than happy for the European Parliament to be toothless and by the early 1980s it was clear that the Council of Ministers, made up of the prime ministers of the member states was to be the real driving force of the community.  This is why you tend to see legislation for the EU coming out of those meetings hosted by the prime minister of whichever country was currently holding the presidency of the EU.  The British liked this approach because it made them feel they were yielding no sovereignty to the EU and in fact that they were pulling back some degree of sovereignty lost in simply joining what was then the EEC.  It could be argued that the Council of Ministers is democratic as the members of it were elected in their individual countries, but in fact it meant the electorate did not have a say on how the EU is being run.  In addition, this simple assumption that the prime minister was the natural person to sit on the Council created the kind of atmosphere in which last week's deal to appoint a president seemed quite natural.

Of course,  new president, Herman van Rampuy was elected prime minister by the Belgian people and you could argue that he has gone through a partial democratic process.  I think he should have his position ratified by the European Parliament.  A better process would have been for the parliament to elect the president and the other ministers.  Many countries have an indirect election of presidents, notably the USA where the decision comes through a college system rather than directly electing the president as happens in France.  However, because of the sustained weakness of the European Parliament, encouraged by the British for the past thirty years, such an approach was ruled out for selecting a president.

The British are not a politically sophisticated nation.  Most people have little understanding of the UK political system and a large majority of the potential electorate never votes.  They argue that they 'don't do politics' but then turn round demanding very political changes such as the expelling of immigrants and the return of the death penalty.  To the British the kind of balances which are sort when a coalition government comes to power are an alien concept.  The UK has not had a coalition in 64 years so unlike in neighbouring states we have not come used to how these systems work, so they seem even more improper to us than countries which do truly engage with their political systems.  Of course, the UK is currently the least democratic of all the member states of the EU in having half of its parliament appointed predominantly for life rather than elected.  This is one of the comic things about Lady Ashton becoming high representative for foreign issues.   She was appointed head of a local health authority an unelected position and then was made a life peer and appointed commissioner for trade before being appointed to her new role.  Only in the UK where members of parliament, i.e. members of the House of Lords, can be appointed could such a career path happen.  This is why it is ironic when right-wing commentators like Daniel Hannan whine on about the lack of democracy in the EU process.  The problem begins here in the UK and its undemocratic system, something the Conservatives have always backed.  Our undemocratic tendencies have led us to support rather than challenge when these things are built into the EU structure.

Of course, it is handy for the right-wingers to portray the EU as undemocratic.  By being unwilling to engage with the European Parliament which has representatives directly elected by the British public, they have hampered the one element which could promote democracy.  This is partly because they have a patronising attitude to the British public and as a result the electorate is going towards the demagogues of the UKIP and the BNP who offer politics on the level of the average person with lots of shouting and jumping up and down that Britons love.  We want policy stemming from indignation rather than rational thought.  All of these difficulties are great for those who want the UK to leave the EU.  Some have a fantasy of entering NAFTA others want us to simply float on the edge of Europe trying to get our goods in passed the EU tariff barriers or expect to re-invent trade with former colonies the bulk of whom need development aid and are not in a strong position to buy from the UK certainly not when compared to the millions of well-off EU consumers.  Even independent states Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein are in the EEA and Switzerland has numerous bilateral deals with EU, not its member states.

As always the British want to have their cake and eat it.  They insist on democracy in the EU but have always favoured a structure which actually weakens the most democratic part of the union.  They want democracy elsewhere in Europe but also want to retain half their parliament unelected and do not even get me on to having an unelected head of state and the fact that so much legislation is implemented and extended through royal prerogative (I know it is delegated to the prime minister who is elected, but it allows him/her to introduce numerous laws without parliamentary scrutiny which in itself is undemocratic).  The bulk of British people have always been told the EU does them harm, but where would the majority of items in Lidl and Aldi be if we were outside the EU?  If we want to have more of a say in what happens in the EU we need to engage thoroughly with it (the UK always has only half of its quota of European Commission staff because so few people apply and the number has to be made up by English speakers from other European states, even from ones outside the EU); heckling from the sidelines achieves nothing.  Support the European Parliament and ensure it gains the powers it needs to democratically monitor and police the EU otherwise the back-room deals the UK has always favoured before will continue to dominate.

Are Britons Only Socialist in Times of Crisis?

Many people argue that the British population is inherently conservative and for most of the time, Conservative, i.e. supporting the policies of the Conservative Party.  I suppose that most people who are generally comfortably off, no matter where they live have a tendency not to want that disrupted and to keep out others from enjoying what they and their families have.  It is a trend even in states such as China, which is Communist and founded on revolution and in which a lot of things still need to change, let alone countries, that whilst suffering from a recession currently, are far better off than those countries where the bulk of the world's population lives.  Recently I have noted people who whilst they want to reduce pressure or upset for themselves actually want other people to suffer more 'for their own good'.  Of course, the standard thing about pressurising unemployed people to take low-paid work and uproot and move right across the country or face punishment have been wheeled out again as the level of unemployment has risen.  However, I have encountered people saying Sweden is now lagging because its policies of equality means there is no 'edge' to drive people to work harder.  These people love having the whip cracked as long as it is on other people not themselves.

You might ask, well, 'what has this to do with Socialism?'  You may ask 'what is Socialism, anyway?'  It is a term that even the Labour Party dropped more than a decade ago.  The wealthy actor, Alan Cummings, when interviewed recently listed it as the extinct thing he would like see revived.  A lot of people equate it with Communism and they think that died the day the Berlin Wall was knocked down in 1989.  Of course, saying all Socialists are Communists is like saying all Conservatives are Fascists: inaccurate and ignorant of how the political spectrum works.  Of course, that was how many people have liked it.  In particular, Margaret Thatcher (British prime minister 1979-90), who, on more than one occasion said she wanted the elimination of a spectrum of political parties and preferred to have simply two very close to each other as is the case in the USA, often equated not only Socialism but the Labour Party (which often had more Liberal than Socialist policies) with the Communist.  In that way she could portray them as a the 'fifth column' or 'the enemy within', in league with the USSR to undermine democracy in the UK during the Cold War.  Of course, Socialists are passionate defenders of democracy as are most Conservatives.

What is Socialism? Well, the key word is 'social', it is a political philosophy which sees the benefit of the whole of society as the key driving force.  Of course, Margaret Thatcher argued that there was 'no such thing as society' and emphasised that it was individuals' desires and units no greater than families who should drive what happened politically and economically.  Socialism argues that people are different, they have different needs and abilities but they should be looked after when they cannot look after themselves (such as when ill, pregnant, unemployed or elderly) but also that they have responsibilities to the rest of the community and that whilst they are free to make their own way in the world and make profits (this is crucially where Socialism differs from Communism) they should not do so by exploiting people whether in their own country or in other countries.  This means employers should pay decent wages, have reasonable working hours and conditions and listen to the people that they are employing.  A key objective of Socialism is that everyone has equal opportunity, whether it is in terms of access to health care or education or to get on in their lives.  Vitally Socialism is against people being barred from certain jobs or other opportunities simply because of what social class they come, what gender, age or ethnicity they are.  In the 1960s this approach, seen with the creation of numerous new universities to allow people greater opportunity to go into higher education, was condemned as 'meritocracy', i.e. that people with ability could succeed.  Of course, this has been turned around from a negative term to a positive one.  As I have noted regularly on this blog since the 1980s we have moved too far away from a meritocracy to too many people simply getting good positions because of what family they were born into or which elite school they attended.  Opportunity is now less than it was thirty years ago.

A lot of Socialist principles overlap with Liberal ones and probably the most Socialist governments in British history, those under Clement Attlee 1945-51 actually pursued a Liberal policy.  Rather than having a controlled economy in line with what Socialism advocates, after 1948 they used Liberal Keynesian approaches, manipulating rather than directing the economy, notably through shifting interest rates.  In terms of health and social welfare, though they created the National Health Service, they permitted private, fee-taking doctors to continue practising and rather than funding a lot of health and social welfare from direct taxation as you would expect a Socialist government to do, they widened welfare insurance, which had been introduced in the 1910s and created National Insurance in line with what the Liberal, William Beveridge had advised during the war.  The idea is that you pay into national insurance as you would any insurance so that you build up a fund that you can draw upon when you need it, for example, when ill or elderly or out of work.  Of course, as with all insurance, some people never make a claim whereas others claim often, but that reflects the diverse needs of our society and that is not something we should try to restrain.

The most Socialist element was nationalisation of key sectors of British industry.  The focus was on the 'commanding heights', i.e. those sectors of the economy that fed through into many others.  Thus, coal mining and the railways were nationalised.  The fact that these industries had been run poorly or inefficiently before was a good reason for the state to take over.  Gas extraction and provision; electricity generation; water supply; coach transport; airlines; freighting and later steel manufacture were all nationalised; though some steps, such as with airlines had been taken before the war.  Other countries, notably France did the same kind of thing.  The British, however, even with nationalisation, tempered Socialism with Liberalism and had a very 'arms length' control by the state of these industries and did not direct them in the ways they should stimulate the economy the way that even right-wing governments in France did especially with the largest state-owned company in France, Electricite de France (now EDF Energy).  Often, as with the example of gas and water supply what we saw in the UK was really just grand 'muncipalisation'.  Many suppliers had been established by city councils in the 19th century and the regionalised approach to gas and water supply (and some water regions, such as City of York, were very small) was continuing this 19th century approach rather than moving to a really Socialist method. 

In later years nationalisation in the UK was not used as a way to try to stimulate the economy but rather to bail out failing companies such as Rolls Royce in 1971 (nationalised by Edward Heath's Conservative Government), British Leyland car manufacturers in 1976 and British Aerospace made up of a number of aeronautical manufacturing companies and British Shipbuilders, the same for that industry, in 1977.  It is unsurprising that nationalised industries that had failed continued to suffer but it meant that nationalisation was now seen as a failed economic policy and this was at the time when New Right ideas were rising both in the USA and the UK emphasising the reduction of all state control or even regulations and clearly nationalised industries were an anathema to such thinking (notably the economic viewpoint held by Margaret Thatcher).  Ironically Thatcher's government nationalised collapsed chemical company, Johnson Matthey in 1984. 

Despite the emphasis on nationalised industries the state sector was never larger than 20% of the economy compared to 90%+ in Communist countries.  In the 1980s and 1990s the nationalised industries were sold off by the government which brought revenue to the state.  The idea was ownership would be held by numerous small shareholders but generally they were bought out by large companies and increasingly ones from abroad.  Whilst there have been regulators of these former nationalised industries control over prices and profits and trying to keep up quality has not really worked; many have a near monopoly and as has been seen in the past couple of years attempts by government to stop them charging high prices and providing poor service have failed.

Conservative propaganda about Socialism has always been pretty successful.  In 1992, Labour did not win the election after a successful campaign arguing that its policies would lead to higher taxation, a view that even Labour supporters seem to come to believe.  In the 1950s the Conservatives argued that Labour's nationalisation was akin to a command economy and though Winston Churchill shot himself in the foot in 1945 likening the Labour approach to the Gestapo by the 1950s the Conservatives were successful in portraying themselves as the party of freedom against Labour's restraint and austerity.  In the late 1940s, of course, the public had been used to both restraint and authority so that argument had little impact.  In addition, Labour does seem to offer solutions to ingrained problems and in 1945 the public had been really voting on the problems of 1931 rather than the post-war era.

The reason why Tony Blair was so focused on manipulating the media was because he knew from history how long it had been manipulated against anything Labour had done.  However, he went so far in making the Labour Party seem acceptable to the media that he sheared it of the bulk of its Socialist principles.  Clause 4, the part of the Labour Party constitution which advocated nationalisation, was scrapped in 1994.  On coming to power in 1997, Labour in fact went further than the Conservative governments by denationalising the Bank of England and so giving up even Keynesian control over interest rates.  I believe that Tony Blair was neither a Socialist or really a Conservative, he was a Blairite and created a personal party out of the shell of the Labour Party; using Christian Democrat principles as the covered, but really based on his own ambitions and simply what he felt was 'right'.  This is why people feel Socialism is dead in Britain, but in effect we probably have not even seen a mildly Socialist government in Britain at least since 1976 if not since 1970 and that is the way company bosses like it.

The key problem for Labour, aside from the fact that the financial sector always tries to make a run on the pound and destabilise the economy, in fear of what constraints they will be put under, is that trade unions see an opportunity to get the deals that they have battled to achieve under a Conservative government.  Now, as in 1978/9, they are busily undermining the Labour government with demands and strikes that make it appear to voters, ironically most of whom will be workers, that the government has no control.  Of course, part of the problem is that no British government has been able to tackle the greed and huge profits of those who run business, so it is unsurprising that workers want more.  If the utility companies had been compelled to pay a windfall tax and bankers to limit their vast bonuses, ironically I think we would be seeing less industrial action.

Anyway, having cantered through Socialism, you might be thinking why is that relevant now?  Well, it is my suggestion that the British population while Conservative most of the time, turns to Socialism when things are going wrong.  In 1945 Socialism was seen as the way to avoid a return to the Depression of the 1930s and the economic slump that had followed the First World War.  In 1964 Socialism was seen as the way to stop Britain's industrial stagnation, unwillingness to modernise and thus its slipping competitiveness from worsening.  In 1974 Socialism was seen as a way to heal the sharp rifts in society and especially in industrial relations.  Of course, there has always been ambivalence as the elections of 1951, 1964 and 1974 showed and the wealthy always pull out the stops to prevent the advent of a truly Socialist government.  This is one reason why Gordon Brown who, unlike Blair, is a Labour leader, has come under sustained media attack throughout his term in office.  However, it is clear that the British public is drifting back in a Socialist direction once more.

Of course, it is not pure, unadulterated Socialism, there are other trends such as blaming problems of immigrants, which are an anathema to Socialism but almost seem to have become a norm in much discussion.  However, adherence to the National Health Service and a national innoculation programme to combat swine flu is one characteristic of a more Socialist outlook. People do not seem to realise that in the USA they would have to have health insurance for things they currently get for free and once they were elderly they would find it difficult to get cover.  Most likely they would be paying for innoculations.   I know prescription charges have risen but no-one pays for innoculation and the elderly and people like me with a lifelong condition, diabetes, who need constant medicines, do no pay.

There are, in fact, demands that the NHS expands it role and does more to provide treatment for the elderly, and for example, one-to-one care for premature babies.  Such things are costly and perhaps people are unwilling to tolerate the tax to pay for these.  The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, whilst re-inforcing pride in the military among the British population, are seen increasingly as hopeless and people are calling for an exit.  The Conservatives argue that Labour has not provided the military with the equipment it needs, something I agree has been a problem, but how does anyone expect David Cameron with all his emphasis on cutting public spending to be able to afford to send even one more helicopter to Helmand province? 

The key area where we are seeing a return of Socialism is, ironically, in terms of the previously most controversial aspect of the ethos, nationalisation.  We now have a larger nationalised sector in the UK than at any time since about 1986.  The British government took over the Docklands Light Railway in 1997 and effectively the railway track of Britain is run by Network Rail a company without shareholders but underwritten by the government.  In 2008 Northern Rock building society and the mortgage lending part of Bradford & Bingley building society were nationalised. The government took over 60% of the Royal Bank of Scotland and 40% of the HBOS-Lloyds-TSB banking conglomerate giving it a large slice of the British banking sector, especially in mortgage-lending which has always been a key element in shaping the British economy.

It is unlikely that even Clement Attlee would have been able to control such a large aspect of the financial sector.  The closest we came was when Roy Hattersley, deputy leader of the Labour Party said around the time of the 1992 election that the investment group 3i would be nationalised under a Labout Government to form the basis of state investment in private industry.  The uproar was such that the idea seems to have been entirely forgotten almost immediately.  Interestingly, this year, finally, the government is compelling credit card companies to raise the minimum repayment level on the amount people owe.  This should have come in at least 10 or 15 years ago and could have restrained some of the overheated consumption and massive debt that amounted during the late 1990s and early 2000s that has distorted the economy in an unhealthy way.

All of these steps have been taken with no dismay from the general public.  When there is a crisis they expect the government to step in and sort it all out for them.  The rest of the time they whine about over-regulation, the 'nanny state', that taxes are intolerable and so on, not realising that lack of regulation has led to much of the crisis we are now in and that expensive bail-outs can only be funded by taxes.  Again nationalisation, which seems such a dirty word in most years, is seen as the solution.  Again, however, as in the 1970s, it is being used to catch falling businesses.  This is the wrong way to approach the economy.  Northern Rock should have been nationalised before it started its mad approach to mortgage lending.  I would have taken it over in 2005 at the latest and then, rather than it being a drag on the British economy it could have been used to stabilise house prices and provide stimulus to new business. 

With the first £1002 train ticket for the journey from Newquay in Cornwall to Kyle of Lochalsh in western Scotland, a distance of 2,720 Km (a round the world air ticket can be bought for £800 and you can travel from London to Zurich on the luxury Orient Express for £1000 or from Moscow to Beijing on the Trans-Siberian Railway - 5,806 Km for only £995) and most inter-city rail fare prices having trebled in the past 15 years, a period in which inflation has been below 3%, it seems apparent that if we want a mobile population using the greenest form of transport around, i.e. electric trains, then we need the whole rail system back in state control.  You find that the only people who praise the privatisation of the railways are people who never travel on trains.

So, are we seeing a Socialist conscience developing among the British population, wanting a tax on bankers' bonuses, limits on the pay of the wealthy, better value public transport and a health service expanding its scope combined with a tolerance, possibly even an enthusiasm for privatising what are now the controlling sectors of the British economy?  People would argue, as historian Corelli Barnett did in the 1980s that the British have become too used to the 'teat' of state intervention and would be traumatised to have it taken away from them and left to fend for themselves.  However, of course, with Thatcherite policies a great deal has been taken away and yet there are still billions of pounds of benefits that people who are entitled to them do not claim.  Britons are an independent people that still like to make their own way as best they can, despite all the propaganda about benefit swindlers and dole scroungers.  Ironically no-one goes after the tax defrauders who owe millions in total to the British economy but they have taken out to tax havens.  We need to go after these people and make them contribute the way I and the large bulk of ordinary British people do.  We have no choice about paying or not paying tax, so why should the wealthy get to make that choice?  Hopefully people are beginning to realise that only a tiny fraction of the population are ever going to win the lottery or set up a business we can sell for millions or become a pop star or some other kind of celebrity, so instead of thinking it is alright for the rich to get away without pulling their weight because one day we might be one of them, more of us need to make sure there are opportunities for a decent life for all.

The veteran Socialist politician Tony Benn often recounts when he was on a train that broke down and how it suddenly seemed as if people were becoming Socialist, sharing out the food and other supplies they had, working together to make the best of a bad situation.  When the train was running smoothly of course they did none of this.  People often refer back to the 'wartime spirit' when people supposedly collaborated in the way that Benn saw them do on that train.  Historian Nick Tiratsoo has shown that a lot of that was exaggerated and we know that 'outsiders', often Jews, were kept out of air raid shelters and whilst the bulk of the population was struggling to feed their families on rations, those who could afford to, could eat unrationed food in restaurants.  However, though it might have been exaggerated it does seem that, possibly counter to what you might expect, in crises Britons become less rather than more selfish.  It is a shame that they cannot maintain that attitude in the better times.  I know David Cameron thinks he will walk into being the latest Conservative prime minister but the recession has reawakened the dormant Socialist tendencies in the British population and if Labour appeals to those rather than trying to be a pale version of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative party, it may win at the next election.

Romantic Folk

Following my recent comments on the former politician, Tony Benn's tours and CDs, I read an interview with him today and realised I had missed half of it. It turns out he has been appearing at the Glastonbury Festival, the UK's largest and longest established music event since 2002 and he is back there this weekend talking about weapons of mass destruction and the environment, alongside leading performers from the charts. In addition, I did not realise that my comment about him resembling a performer you might see in a pub was so close to the truth as apparently he won 'Best Live Act' in the BBC Radio 2 Folk awards for a set he does with Roy Bailey called 'The Writing on the Wall' in which he reads radical statements from history. There has always been an overlap in the UK between folk music and radical politics, partly as the genre had a revival in the heated politics of the 1970s and because some of its songs were protest songs of centuries past. So, I acknowledge my error, Benn is not a rock performer, he is a folk performer and no higher authority than the BBC confirms this.

The other tiny thing in the interview that I found incredibly touching was about his late wife. He was married to her for 51 years. The park bench on which he proposed to her in 1948, he bought and it now sits in front of her grave. That is not a showy declaration of love, but it really touched me with its sincerity. That is the kind of attachment to another that few of us will ever achieve and showed me another side to this man.

Politicians as Pop Stars - Two Examples

With the leadership of the Labour Party and by default, the premiership of the UK decided, the competition now is who is to be deputy-leader and it is assumed Deputy-Prime Minister (assuming Gordon Brown sticks with Blair's system, he is under no obligation to do so). One of the candidates Hilary Benn (a man, Hilary used to be a man's name, but like Lesley and Robin even, has increasingly become a woman's name in the past 40-50 years) has said he wants to be deputy leader of the party but not the other roles likely to go with it. Other candidates such as Peter Hain and Harriet Harman have not declared a position on that.

What strikes me about these candidates, (and all of them are likely to end up with senior posts in the Brown Cabinet and I would put Benn at the Foreign Office and Harman as Home Secretary, Hain could probably do either, and we seem to be lacking a candidate for Chancellor of the Exchequer) is that aside possibly from Hain, they all look very ordinary. Brown himself can hardly be described as attractive; Benn looks like a grammar school teacher from the 1950s, Harman a comprehensive school teacher from the 1970s. They look like people you could meet in the street and they may, as John Major did, capture votes because of that. As Major successfully followed the big personality of Thatcher, maybe it is Brown's more down-to-Earth approach that appeals after the bustle of Blair. I welcome this development as I feel it counteracts the tendency for senior politicians to appear like celebrities. Blair was particularly prone to this. His youth, his style, his history of playing in a band was added to by inviting the leading lights of Brit culture to Downing Street and even this year appearing on television with popular comedian Catherine Tate, with Blair doing one of her characters, for the benefit of charity. To some extent he was a man of his time, with the sound-bite culture becoming dominant in politics across the World. Funnily enough too, he looks like George Bush's cool friend and if it was possible added the US President some credibility.

So what are the problems with premier as pop star? Well, pop stars love themselves. They have to in order to be able to perform in the front of thousands. They surround themselves with sycophants and people who do their bidding. In these days of the 'celebocracy' when most people can name the current occupants of the 'Big Brother' house more easily than members of the Cabinet, it is not surprising that politicians behave the same. For many pop stars, though, their lifestyles and their day-to-day behaviour are more important than the occasions on which they perform. More column space online and in magazines, is spent on who they marry, go out with, etc. rather than their actual music. This is the danger for the politicians themselves who behave this way. One can look back over Blair's career and probably remember more about his various suits and whose island he holidayed on than you can about his policies. This is why the Blair years seem light on policy. There have, as I have noted before, been some good ones, but not nearly enough for 10 years in office with huge majorities. I accept that Blair has been a bit of a prisoner of his times and how politics are handled, but I feel it is an approach he loves and has added to greatly.

Now I turn to my other example: Tony Benn; Hilary Benn's father. He was a Labour MP from 1950-2001 and served as Postmaster General, Minister of Technology, Secretary of State for Industry and Secretary of State for Energy under the Labour governments of 1964-70 and 1974-9. Though Benn is represented as shifting towards the left in the late 1970s, many of his policies such as economic planning, the involvement of all sides of industry in decision making and increased democracy were actually all Labour policies from the 1940s that became marginalised as Labour dropped Keynesian economics from 1976 onwards. However, it was convenient for the media to present him as some kind of crypto-Communist, a method of attack they used on Labour right through the 1980s. Benn still follows the same lines of policy. On Europe he has come to accept the European Union, though he presses for it to be made more democratic; its parliament, the only directly elected part has few powers and most policies are made by the Council of Ministers, a club of prime ministers from each of the member states, who tend to let the blame fall on other parts of the EU.

Why do I put Benn alongside Blair in this particular post? Benn has been an ardent campaigner against the war in Iraq and the UK's close links with the USA, in total contrast to Blair. The reason is because of his media life. He has produced seven volumes of diaries. Interestingly in 2003 working with Charles Bailey he had some of his speeches set to dance music and you can buy CDs of audiobooks. He also went on tour around the UK, probably the most unusual, low-key show you will have seen, him sitting on stage drinking tea (he has one cup every hour) talking about his views on current politics to packed audiences, answering their questions and signing books and CDs. What was heartening about this is that it harked back to an earlier age when people engaged much more closely with their politicians and could challenge them without merely being dismissed as irrelevant or inappropriate. I have seen Blair do televised audience shows but you always feel they are very managed.

Blair, then, is the stadium rocker, for whom image is everything and all publicity is carefully controlled and only authorised merchandise is permitted. For him the music is less important than the image. Benn is the solo guitarist you see in the pub, selling some of his CDs after the performance. He does not care what you think of his appearance, he may look like your grandad, though he dresses smartly it is not showy garb. I would argue that his songs are worthwhile listening to if you want your brain stimulated rather than simply to be awed by the glamour. I just hope we find more pub performers in the next government and fewer stadium acts; the UK will be better for it.