Socialists From England

"Personally I think that [Margaret Thatcher] has the qualities of a very great politician. I believe she has tremendous conviction, she has drive, she has commitment, she is totally genuine. On the other side I think she has a certain tunnel vision, she is uncompromising, she goes over the top too much – she did over the miners, she tried to make out that Arthur Scargill was Galtieri and that the miners were the Argies. I think that view does not go down well in the country. And I think she's deeply lacking in compassion and sensitivity."

"In Britain, Thatcher was comfortably re-elected in 1983 and 1987, and the radical left-wing challenge of a coal miners’ strike designed in effect to bring down the government was defeated in 1984–5. This strike had its own dynamic very much located in British industrial and labour politics, but can also be placed within the Cold War. The leadership of the British NUM (National Union of Mineworkers), was very left-wing and was ready to take money from both the Soviet Union and Libya. Faced by a national dock strike in support of the miners, the government, in July 1984, drew up plans for troops to move coal and food around the country. Thatcher’s closest aides saw the struggle as one to maintain effective government. In the end, the dock strike petered out in 1984. As another link with Cold War tensions, Thatcher survived an IRA bomb attack in 1984. The provision of arms to the IRA in part came from American sympathisers of Irish origin, but Eastern Bloc supplies were also significant, notably from Libya and Czechoslovakia. The IRA endorsed radical Marxist positions."

"That man told the truth, and truth still has value in the politics of our society when all the lies, half truths and half promises about independent reviews are dismissed. ... Arthur Scargill has been rehabilitated more quickly than any man I have known. Within 24 hours, everyone knew that he was right. The miners certainly did."

"A quarter of a century on, the Grunwick dispute remains one of the most significant in modern industrial history. In a sense, the strike was typical of a pattern of similar disputes before and since: a factory with a few hundred workers, a slowly building sense of injustice and a long standoff between employer and worker. But even then, Grunwick seemed a different kind of battle. This was a historic meeting between a traditional trade unionism, still relatively sure of its power, and a growing band of black and Asian workers who were beginning to find an industrial and political voice. Arthur Scargill bought down his Yorkshire miners in a bus - there was even fighting talk of shutting the pits. Grunwick workers travelled to more than 2,000 workplaces over 40 weeks to enlist support. The strike seemed to draw in every progressive movement of the day. "Black and white unite and fight" demanded the banners in Chapter road. Socialist feminists did their picket duty and wrote sternly of the military tactics of their trade union brothers. Jayaben Desai, in her sari and white cardigan, handbag crooked over her arm, was a feminist heroine of the age. Yet perhaps the most lasting consequence of Grunwick and other mass disputes during the 1970s were some of the anti-union laws of the 1980s, particularly those outlawing mass pickets. Today, it is possible to see more clearly the fraud that lay at the heart of the argument advanced by what was then called the "new right", particularly over Grunwick. A few hundred Asian men and women asking for the right to join a union and negotiate from within it was hardly the best example of an overweening and arrogant union movement it claimed was running the country. By any reckoning, Grunwick was a just cause, whose supporters included moderates such as Shirley Williams. In 1977, an independent court of inquiry chaired by Lord Scarman criticised mass picketing but upheld the workers' claim to union recognition. But it was a lost cause: George Ward, the Grunwick owner, refused to give in. This, despite a last-ditch hunger strike by Mrs Desai and four colleagues on the steps of the TUC. The strike fizzled out in early 1978. No walkout since, bar the miners' strike of 1984-5, has quite achieved Grunwick's fame or progressive significance. In the early 1980s, I went to a small factory near Birmingham to cover a similar dispute, led by a group of Asian workers protesting about pay and conditions and the right to union recognition. This time, the streets were empty. As union power declined, so did media coverage - if there's no punch-up, so what?"

"[A]s Marx, Engels, Lenin and Mao perceived, the basic concept of war as a continuation of politics by other means can be applied to any form of rivalry between human groups, be they class, racial or ideological. In these contexts "war", or the use of force to compel an opponent to fulfil one's will, has far broader meanings than a traditional punch-up between nation states or alliances, or the kind of "absolute" or "total" war which Clausewitz saw as conceptually the purest form and which we have witnessed twice this century. Thus we saw anti-nuclear protesters employ force at military installations in pursuit of the political aim of persuading Western governments into unilateral nuclear disarmament. We saw Greenpeace employ force against Shell plc over the disposal of the Brent Spar platform. We saw Arthur Scargill's troops attempt by coercion to bring down an elected government, only to be defeated in, quite literally, pitched battles. We may note in these encounters and, for that matter, in the street brawls during the World Cup, another fundamental factor that is unlikely to change in the future – the dark well of aggressiveness that lies within human nature and finds release in the pleasurable adrenalin surge that comes from violence, risk and danger."

"I did not join this Party to have a yuppy-land approach, to run capitalism better than the Tories. I joined this party to change this society and create a socialist alternative."

"I am opposed to Solidarity because I believe that it is an anti-socialist organisation which desires the overthrow of a socialist state."

"A fight back against this Government's policies will inevitably take place outside rather than inside Parliament. When I talk about 'extra-parliamentary action' there is a great outcry in the press and from leading Tories about my refusal to accept the democratic will of the people. I am not prepared to accept policies elected by a minority of the British electorate. I am not prepared quietly to accept the destruction of the coal industry, nor am I willing to see our social services decimated. This totally undemocratic Government can now easily push through whatever laws it chooses. Faced with possible parliamentary destruction of all that is good and compassionate in our society, extra-parliamentary action will be the only course open to the working class and the Labour movement."

"Mr Murray would be well advised to direct his attacks towards the Tory Government, who have been devastating our industry and smashing down British industry as a whole. I would remind Mr Murray that the TUC at Congress two years ago voted for extra-Parliamentary action – and in essence political strike action – when it decided to oppose Government laws against the miners...I believe that the miners will recognise, sooner or later, that they will have to stand and defend this industry, their jobs, dignity and self-respect."

"The miners of this country will now have to seriously consider their position and recognise that at some stage they are going to have to stand and fight in defence of our industry, in defence of our jobs and above all to retain a dignity and respect."

"My attitude would be the same as the attitude of the working class in Germany when the Nazis came to power. It does not mean that because at some stage you elect a government that you tolerate its existence. You oppose it...[I will oppose a second-term Thatcher government] as vigorously as I possibly can."

"Waiting in the wings, wishing to chop us to pieces, is Yankee steel butcher MacGregor [...] This 70-year-old multi-millionaire import, who massacred half the steel workforce in less than three years, is almost certainly brought in to wield the axe on pits. [...] It's now or never for Britain's mineworkers. This is the final chance – while we still have the strength – to save our industry."

"I am convinced there will be unanimous support for the current action and for the fight against pit closures and I shall be calling upon every miner to support the actions that have been taken in the areas. This is a fight for the survival of British mining industry and I am not prepared to accept the imposition of a pensioner from the United States whose mandate is to destroy this industry as he destroyed the British steel industry. I give warning to the board and to the Government that they must now give very serious reconsideration to the policies and the proposals they are trying to implement in pit closures and the reduction in manpower levels. I am convinced that the mineworkers have now reached the point where enough is enough."

"I read Jack London and The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists. Those were the books that formed my political opinions."

"We need action not words. For the first time we are facing the prospect of seeing legislation introduced which denies the right of trade unionists to come to the assistance of other unionists and denies the right of trade unionists to seek the support of others in their disputes. There is only one response. Faced with this legislation we should say we will defy the law. It is the only action we can take and it is the only response this movement can give. If there is an attempt to use this legislation then you defy it not as an individual union but as a movement."

"Legislation is introduced by Parliament, but we should remember that all our advances, freedom and liberties are due to men and women who, when their conscience compelled them, have been prepared to defy the law. If legislation is introduced which erodes our basic freedom and democracy or threatens our right to combine, we should oppose it with the same vigour and determination of our forefathers. I believe it will be necessary to use all measures, including industrial action, to defy [[Norman Tebbit|[Norman] Tebbit]]'s law and defend our movement."

"My father still reads the dictionary every day. He says your life depends on your power to master words."

"On Vince Cable: But he's charming and northern; he's the man tasked with crushing the poor in their own accent, isn't he really?"

"People say I'm self-deprecating, but I don't think I'm very good at that."

"The Afghan War has clearly reached a stage similar to that moment at your child's party where you realise you've forgotten to give the other parents a pick up time."

"Capitalism is a great idea in theory, but in practice it just doesn't work."

"The only way you can ever accuse a Conservative of hypocrisy is if they walk past a homeless person without kicking him in the face."

"Why don't they just accept that life is sad and cheer up it's not forever."

"Most harm is done by people who are awake."

"All socialists have bad backs because we slouch — except when we’re watching the news when we sit on the edge of our seats, shout, and wave our arms. Generally we sit hunched, arms crossed in a judgemental way, the whole of our bodies pulled into a frown."

"The need to compile lists is a personality disorder, as is the need to assert the superiority of some things over other things."

"If you just took everyone in the BNP and everyone who votes for them and shot them in the back of the head, there would be a brighter future for us all."

"Have you ever looked at Kylie's teeth? Those teeth are proportional to the teeth of a camel in the mouth of a toddler."

"My daughter wanted a new pair of trainers. I told her "You're eleven, make your own!""

"I don't get this fashion for happy funerals. He said he wanted all his mates to be in a good mood and smile, and this is a very fashionable idea, that when you die, it's supposed to be a celebration and joyous and everyone laughing, but I want people's lives torn apart when I go. I want to be embalmed and brought out when we have guests."

"You can inherit male-pattern baldness from your mother's father, but not a tendency to fight in the First World War."

"… really very critical of hereditary peers, but they — I mean — they've got their faults, but some of those faults have been in the family for generations."

"It is a stupid observation, but the Labour Party are not an smart lot, are they? I mean, if all those people were born in the same town, you would blame bad parenting, wouldn't you all?"

"It was developing countries where people are more cheery, wasn't it? ... Well, because when people are materially disadvantaged, maybe they're more optimistic, because they know that their destiny's not entirely in their own hands. And so they just have to hope for the best. Whereas in the developed world, where materially we've got plenty of stuff, and lots of opportunities, we know that the only thing stopping us from being happy is ourselves, which of course is a kind of downward spiral into disillusionment and hopelessness, isn't it, really? Because you can't -- you're never gonna get rid of yourself, so if you're basically unhappy, you're always gonna be unhappy, and in the remaining time that you've got left, you're either gonna be in despair about the fact that you've wasted your life, or maybe a bit cheerful about the fact that it's nearly over."

"Northern Ireland is part of Ireland, not Britain, as can clearly be seen from aerial photographs."

"It seems a shallow observation, but… the Tory Conference are not an attractive lot, are they? I mean, if all those people were born in the same village, you'd blame pollution, wouldn't you?"

"Gordon Jackson! (throughout)"

"You can look at any painting ever done of Jesus over the centuries, and you can spot immediately that he's not English, 'cos he's very often shown wearing sandals, but never with socks. I think that would be an English Messiah's look, wouldn't it? - socks, sandals, khaki shorts skimming the knee, little Fair Isle slipover - in case it turns, 'cos it's deceptive, the desert - and I think, instead of all that camp and rather beautiful 'Oh Lord, why hast thou forsaken me?' business - instead of all that - I think he'd be up there trying to make the best of it - 'cos moping doesn't help, does it? I think he'd be up there going, 'Cor, here's a pretty pickle. No, I didn't do it either, but you don't like to say, do you?'"

"[On Ainsley Harriott] I must admit, I tend to think - with Ainsley - if you're that happy, you haven't really understood the world. You see, I think that cheeriness is all very well. Beyond a certain point it becomes quite offensive. And how many versions of what is, basically, your dinner can Ainsley do? There must be executives stalking the corridors of White City, thinking 'We need a new idea for Ainsley. He's so jolly. What can we have? We've had him doing Can't Cook, Won't Cook, Ready Steady Cook, Barbecues. We need something new, different, edgy. How about this? We like this. Ainsley's Death-Row Dinners. Yes, the jolly chef tours the condemned man with a last supper to remember. We can have the recipes in the Radio Times - Ainsley's Humanely Fried Chicken, with a lethal injection of butter! - guaranteed to make the governor say 'Pardon'."

"So that's my home town, and I come from a perfectly ordinary working-class family; and in fact, I didn't really meet middle-class people until I went to university. It was quite a shock, really. People were saying things like 'Well, I was always going to end up doing English, because I was brought up surrounded by books - brought up in a house full of books'; and I'd think 'Yes, so was I; but they were full of Green Shield stamps'. I suppose we could have swapped them for books, but we had our eye on a twin-tub. I say ordinary, but there was one thing a little bit different about my family, in that my mum and dad were quite a bit older than people normally are when they start a family. And there was a downside to that, really. Well, for a start, all my friends' parents were just slightly older than them, and really trendy and dressed in cool clothes, and dropping them off at the bus and going 'Ciao!' I used to dream of 'Ciao!', because my mum's catchphrase on the bus was 'Thank you, driver'."

"I do admire Van Gogh - I do think he was one of the greatest geniuses that ever lived. He did some very silly things. Top of the list, famously – after a row with Gaugin - absolutely ripped to the tits on absinthe – girlfriend had left him – so, he chopped his ear off and sent it to her. Do you think she came back? Do you think that did the trick? Hasn't really caught on, has it? For a start, you wouldn't try that trick today with our post, would you? Six months later, she'd be saying 'Ooh! a sun-dried tomato!' And what was he thinking? What was this girl going to do? Open up this package, fish out this lug, and go 'Ooh, Vinny! I thought you were all mad and driven and weird and a loner, and our relationship was doomed, and you go and do a lovely thing like this. Ooh, you know how to get round me. I SAID, YOU KNOW HOW TO GET ROUND ME!'"

"[A]nd between this top-quality programming are the most miserable adverts in the world – former Mancunian top cop John Stalker trying to sell you sun awnings; trying to get you to blot out every ray of light from the world for those in the grip of manic depression – 'Hello, I'm John Stalker. Are you, like me, tired of the pitiless glare of an English summer; maddened by the relentless gaze of cruel Helios; sick of lurking in your house all summer long, like a mad bloke in a siege situation - such as I would have dealt with in my high-flying career? Well, suffer no longer. Install Gloom Master sun awnings - summer bang to rights!' Terrible! Then it all gets worse with those terrible loan adverts. These awful, tragic, hollow-eyed wraiths come on, telling you these awful stories - 'I'm up to my eyes in debt, and, curiously, no reputable company would give me another loan! Then I discovered Dodgy Bastards. They've given me a million pounds, and all they want in return are my kidneys.' No, don't do it! And then - worse than that - the accident insurance adverts - 'Where there's blame, there's a claim' - when people who've had these accidents come on like medieval beggars, and wave their stumps at you for money with these outlandish stories - 'I slipped on a banana skin and successfully sued the Dominican Republic...'"

"And the Tories now with their pitiful relaunch - oh, Michael Howard, we're supposed to have forgotten him from before, because he's had this Trinny & Susannah makeover; and you imagine them with him, saying, 'We think you'll like what we've done, Michael, just have a little look in the mirror - oh no, you can't really, can you? We've stitched you a lovely little shadow on - we think you'll really like that'... Ann Widdecombe's confused us all by going blonde - I was watching Question Time for half an hour, thinking Christ - Sue Barker's slapped on a bit of weight!"

"[T]he train system is so chronic now, that any journey you undertake by train in Britain is identical to the one taken by Omar Sharif in Doctor Zhivago; that's what it's like - the same drama and misery. Ancient, knackered rolling-stock limping painfully across the land, shuddering to a halt for no apparent reason, with the lights flickering on and off; everyone running up and down - 'What's going on? What's up ahead? I don't know... Is it Rod Steiger with the White Guard?' - desperate women in headscarves running alongside the carriages, throwing their babies into the train, shouting 'I'LL NEVER SEE PURLEY OAKS, BUT MY CHILD MIGHT!'"

"Arms trade. If there was a legitimate trade, they'd sell those things - guns and bombs - in a supermarket. It would be like a cosmetics demonstration, and you'd have a little bit of shopping music in the background. And so, here's our arms trade demonstrator. 'Hello, and welcome to our new "Twilight of the World" range - our stunning new collection for nuclear winter. Now, for those persistent racial problems, why not try our new ethnic cleanser, "Pogrom"? Apply vigorously to the affected area, and then wipe off the face of the earth. For persistent outbreaks, to eliminate those last spots of resistance, why not try our new "I Can't Believe It's Not a Kalashnikov"? Go on, leaders, treat yourself. Tell yourself "I want it, I need it, I'll have it". Now, for those particularly sensitive areas, why not try our new range, "U.N."? It's entirely cosmetic; it does nothing. Apply half-heartedly with our new hand-wringing cream. Now, people often come up to me and say "Can you save my face?" Well, I can. So for those secret little deals - those secret little Iraqi liaisons - why not try "Embargo", the mark of the middleman? Now, for a touch of mystery, why not visit the "Missing Body Shop"? Collect your free nail remover and watch your problems disappear. Now, you're probably sitting there thinking "Oh, I'm such a hideous old blood-soaked dictator of a thing; nobody will deal with me". How wrong you are! We are sole suppliers to the US government of "Turn-a-Blind-Eye Liner" - use always in conjunction with "Oil of Kuwaiti", a touch of "Massacre" and blusher. Oh, you won't need that. I'm Marlene from the House of Charnel. Thank you for your time and patience. And for that finishing touch - for those romantic evenings when you really want to take the enemy out - why not try our stunning new nerve gas, "Paralyse" by Calvin Klein.'"

"Sex and politics - sex and politicians. I never understand how any politician gets a shag, really. Can you? A classic example: the David Mellor sex scandal. I bet you're the same as me. We're not shocked by these scandals involving politicians. I bet when that happened, your response was not 'Good God, that's outrageous! A man in his job, he should be running the country, not messing about like this; no wonder we're in a state; terrible!' No, that wasn't the response. You open the paper, you read about that, and you go 'Ha ha ha ha - I don't think so, Dave! I don't think so. In your dreams, perhaps.' The interesting person in that relationship is not him; it's her - Antonia. A woman of mystery; a mystery woman. Antonia de Sancha, always described as an 'unemployed actress'. Unemployed actress? How's she an unemployed actress? God! if you can feign sexual interest in David Mellor, I should think Chekhov's a piece of piss. So, she thinks 'I'm an actress. It's a role. I'll prepare'. She gets to the bedroom situation. He's in a kit-off situation, and there's Antonia giving it 'Red lorry, yellow lorry - Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper'. But the hair - that's the main unattractive thing. What barber told him that suited him? Someone winding him up there. 'Yes, David, that'll suit you, mate: a greasy, oily flap of dirty-looking patent leather, wafting about down one side of your moosh; that'll drive those unemployed actresses mental!' (Linda Live, 1993)"

"It'd be ludicrous, because the idea of the British Empire is such an outmoded idea. The British Empire now, if it were a being, would be living out its days in some sunshine home on the South Coast, wouldn't it? - boring the tits off everyone, shuffling around in oversize slippers, boring everyone with their press cuttings of when they were famous: 'Ooh look! ooh yes! I was very popular in the world once. Ooh yes! I went all over the world. Look, you see here; they loved me here - Sri Lanka. Of course, we used to call that Ceylon. Now, let me see; what have we here? Oh yes! they loved us there - Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe! Of course, we didn't call it Zimbabwe then. It was Rhodesia. Rhodesia, you see? And this; oh, this marvelous tour I had here - now what was it? India! India - what did we used to call that? Oh yes... Ours!'"

"And another thing I like about cricket is, because most of the commentators apart from Boycott and Trueman are very old-worldly, they have an innocence and naïveté about them, that makes them sometimes say, in the course of their commentary, inadvertently rude things: 'Now we're at the start of play, and we're coming in to play; and the bowler's Holding, the batman's Willey'; 'Here we are, and we're about to commence play. And there's Simpson, in his usual position, standing with his legs wide open, at first slip, waiting for a tickle.'"

"So, anyway, I think I'll go visit my nan: knock on the door; she's in the kitchen there, bottling up little gingham-top jars of racial hatred. So, I think 'Right, I'll avoid anything that's going to provoke her, because there's no point arguing with someone who, strictly speaking, isn't even alive. So I'll keep off anything controversial'. But you can forget that, because you just get this monologue. The line of logic is harder to follow than the plot of Finnegans Wake: 'Hello, Nan.' 'Hello, our Lin, it's lovely to see you. Come in. I hate blacks. Come in. Sit down. I'll make you a nice cup of tea, our Lin. I hate blacks. Come on in, our Lin. Would you like a nice piece of cake? I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I don't like black people.' You think 'Oh Christ! Shut up! What can I do? What can I do to divert her from this monomania? Right, OK': 'Garden looks lovely, Nan.' 'Oh, yes, Lin; I like a bit of gardening - unlike black people, who I don't like at all.' 'I think it's gonna rain.' 'So do I, Linda, I also think President Botha should be running this country.'"

"For the Government, it is quite hard for them to find media faces – to find people to head up campaigns – because they are all so weird-looking, aren't they? They all look like Muppets who have been left too close to a radiator. I don't like to mock the afflicted, but how did anyone know that Willie Whitelaw had had a stroke? What genius spotted that? I mean, with most people it's quite a dramatic change, isn't it? But what happened? Someone thought 'Oh, Willie's dribbled an extra pint today. What's going on? We'll run a few tests'."