Blink and you would have missed it. An unofficial walk out by prison officers at Liverpool Prison yesterday sparked secondary action across North West England today. Risley prison in Warrington, jails in Preston and Lancaster and young offenders' institutions in Lancaster (again) and Portland, Dorset all went out on unofficial action this morning and afternoon.
By the time of writing everyone has returned to work after a deal was hastily put together.
The outstanding issue at the heart of the dispute in Liverpool is, surprise, surprise, bullying management (details here). That it provoked mass action suggests this is far from an isolated incident.
Some on the left would take a rather sniffy attitude toward this. Because screws are part of what Louis Althusser would call the 'repressive state apparatus', i.e. the armed bodies of men and women that, in the last analysis, will be called upon by the state to defend itself and the social system it protects, ultra-lefts typically argue the workers' movement should have nothing to do with them. So to back prison officers in a strike or, heaven forfend, allow one of them to join your party is tantamount to class treachery.
A discussion of Marxist strategy and prison officers, the police and military can be found here.
But comrades who express indifference toward industrial relations in the prison service are being very short sighted indeed. Quite apart from the fact that disputes help erode the ideologies of service and loyalty the state relies upon, there are the wider, positive impacts wildcat actions can have on working class confidence.
Despite the economic crisis and the recession, generally speaking union strength and militancy remain at a low ebb. This is one reason why the wildcat strikes at Lindsey Oil Refinery and elsewhere earlier in the year were so important. After years of relative industrial peace - on the bosses' terms - the strikes demonstrated collective action not only works, but can be victorious too.
There's no reason why wildcat actions by the screws can't have the same effect, which is why - in addition to the justice of their grievances - another round of walkouts should receive the left's and labour movement's full support and solidarity.
Just when you thought the Labour leadership question had been put to sleep until after the general election, it seems Compass (or at least some leading figures within it) are determined to tip it out of bed. According to this report in The Graun, Compass is planning on launching a coup to topple Gordon Brown and replace him with someone more to their political tastes. David Miliband and Alan Johnson are touted as people amenable to the centre left politics Compass espouses.
Much apparently hinges on the December 9 pre-budget report. If Darling dishes out the same neoliberal warm-ups (albeit with a garnish of palest pink social democracy), the daggers will be out.
Assuming the report is true, if Compass are serious about Labour winning the next general election (or at least want to avoid a wipe out), more leadership shenanigans this late in the game only serves to discredit Labour even further among voters. Needless to say it also damages the standing of Compass within the party. Do the as yet unnamed figures behind the coup plot wish to go down in political history as those who wielded the knife as the Tories were at the gates?
You might ask why a member of the Socialist Party gives a shit. After all our party's immediate strategic objective is the founding a new workers' party/new left formation that would re-enfranchise all those New Labour's love-in with big business has left out in the cold. Does it matter what clique ends up running a straight bosses party?
I think it matters very much. The choice at the next election might seem to be one between the devil and the deep blue sea, but for socialists and anyone who cares about the fate of the labour movement there are wider strategic considerations we need to take into account. Leaving aside the policy differences between the two and Cameron's seeming willingness to drag Britain into a so-called double dip recession, the fact remains another Labour government provides more favourable circumstances for building a viable left wing opposition to it - provided the parties to Labour's left are able to overcome their long-standing antipathies and seize the opportunities that present themselves.
Secondly, even if Labour loses it is still in our movement's interests that as many Labour MPs are returned to Westminster as possible. Why? The slimmer the Tory majority, the less able they are to push through their programme of attacks and cuts. It's that simple really.
Before anyone shoots me of course the left should support candidates from Respect, Son-of-No2EU, other "credible" lefts and the occasional Green and independent (depending on their politics). But everywhere else the labour movement should work to return a Labour MP. We are where we are and as much as it pains me to say it, it is in the immediate strategic interests of our movement that the Labour vote next year is as large as possible.
Which brings me back to Compass. Despite having politics a million times better than Brown's cabal of New Labourites, they are not looking at the big picture. Another leadership contest is a foolhardy circus at a time when all guns should be directed at the Tories.
This, apparently, is going to be Labour's next party political broadcast:
Against the Odds was shown at Labour's conference in the Autumn and went down a storm with the party faithful. So much so that Ellie Gellard, well-known Labour twitterer and blogger launched an onlinecampaign to get the film adopted as Labour's next PPB. According to the New Statesman, the powers that be have adopted it.
So, many congratulations to Ellie and her comrades.
But - and there's a very big but - Against the Odds is simply dreadful. It may warm the hearts of the New Labour faithful but there's simply no way this will resonate outside of the party's already-committed base. What works for the activists doesn't necessarily chime with the public. And especially in this case. Without a hint of irony Against the Odds spends all of its two-and-a-half minutes dressing the government up in the best labour movement traditions, while conveniently ignoring how Blair and Brown have crapped on the movement that sustained them. It really is distasteful hypocritical guff.
I think this chap in the YouTube comments box about sums it up best:
Labour should hang their heads in shame when watching this video. Workers rights? Don't make me laugh. Where were you when the CWU was on strike - oh I remember , telling us to get back to work , that our working conditions were just fine, and that Royal Mail is a wonderful employer. You lost my vote when you invaded Iraq, you'll not get it back until you return to the old and proper workers values!
Thankfully, Dr Who and the Waters of Mars was not a disappointment. I mean, not even David Tennant's irritating overacting wrecked the episode.
Of course, the story's total poppycock. Set in a red tinted quarry in deepest darkest Wales, the first Mars colony (Bowie Base) taps into alien water that takes over people's bodies and turns them into zombies. Albeit zombies with a case of badly chapped lips. After a bit of chasing, a lot of water (who'd have thunk water could be sinister?) and some hairy moments, we are forced to ponder the fatalism of history. It turns out the base leader, Captain Adelaide Brooke (Lindsay Duncan), has a granddaughter who will invent light speed and open the galaxy for human colonisation. But here's the catch. In the timeline, Brooke and her crew die in a nuclear explosion that also destroys 'The Flood', and it is her death that inspires her granddaughter to pursue her career.
Aware of this the Doctor avoids intervening and is all set to leave them to die. But in a change of heart he brings back the TARDIS and whisks the survivors back to Earth just before the auto-destruct erm, destructs.
Then we're hit with the philosophy. The Doctor, with a glimmer of megalomania in his eye more or less proclaims himself God, realising that he can control the laws of time rather than being shaped by them. The "you die today" declarations he made earlier to Brooke are now blithely dismissed. He feels exhilarated that he's snatched a historical figure from her fate, after saying he'd only chosen "little people" of no consequence before. But he soon comes to his senses after Brooke returns to her house and shoots herself, ensuring only the details of the timeline and not their consequences are changed.
And that's it really. If you fancy a spot of ideology critique you could say that despite itself The Waters of Mars reconfirms the 'great man' theory of history. Brooke herself may attack the Doctor at the end for arbitrarily deciding who is important and who is of little consequence, but still her suicide ensures the timeline plays out as it should (of course, you could say the Doctor himself is the very exemplar of such a great man, outside of history and yet possessing a greater knowledge of it than those who inhabit it, but I digress).
Wanky cultural readings aside, this episode was actually good and made up for the abomination that was Dr Who and the Planet of the Dead. But whether the Christmas Special delivers the jollies remains to be seen. But whatever the case, no doubt this blog will cast an eye in its direction.
Every so often the state of the far left makes you wonder why you bother.
First we have the Glasgow North East by-election. I think everyone's seen the breakdown of the results by now. If not, there's plenty of comment at Socialist Unity. Needless to say, a contest where you have three socialist candidates scrapping for micro percentages doesn't suggest socialist politics is a serious business. It makes us look like morons intent on a farcical repeat of a Monty Python sketch. But when the supposedly best-known politician in Scotland manages less than a thousand votes and is beaten by the Tories AND the BNP in a solidly working class constituency, there's nothing to laugh about.
It is very easy to condemn Solidarity, the SSP and SLP for criminal stupidity. But exasperation and criticism is not going to make them change their ways. Leaving aside the SLP, whose sole raison d'etre is to stand spoiler candidates (and therefore deserved their miserable 47 votes), Scottish socialist politics remain poisoned by the Sheridan case, and are likely to remain so whether he goes down for perjury or not. Still, it says everything about the maturity of our movement when the actions of one of its "names" can piss years of hard work up the wall.
But whoever you agree with in this bitter dispute, at least there are real, substantive reasons why the Scottish far left cannot unite. The same cannot be said for Respect, whose conference took place yesterday. According to this report from Derek Wall, apparently "... George Galloway, Salma Yaqoob, Ger Francis and a number of other members made a very big deal of supporting the Green Party in various different ways ...". So Respect are all sweetness and light when it comes to the Greens. But what about the rest of the far left, and in particular the (painfully) slow development of the so-called son of No2EU? The report continues
What i found really interesting was an emergency motion put forward by various members (in particular a former member of the SWP who shall remain nameless) to support the son of No2EU. Galloway absolutely hammered No2EU and in particular for standing against Peter Cranie in the North West (indeed he even began shaking with anger) and refused to entertain any talk of coalition with the son of No2EU. The emergency motion was defeated by 79-34 votes to be discussed at conference, however a very similar motion was debated. Ger Francis was very scathing of those who supported No2EU and there were a fair few cat calls between the two sides of the debate. [My emphasis]
And the reasoning? Well, there isn't any. Kremlinologists can speculate - perhaps they still blame No2EU for letting the BNP in (which is obviously untrue). Maybe Galloway and co are labouring under the delusion they have name recognition outside of parts of London and Birmingham? Perhaps the Gorgeous One is quite accustomed to being a big fish in a very small pond and doesn't want to share it with other names. Who knows? Whatever the reason, it looks like Respect is heading down a narrow sectarian path. An inspiring example for us all.
Last but not least the SWP expelled one of its longstanding activists on Tyneside yesterday. Alex Snowden was expelled for "factionalising" against the retreat into "party building". Alex was a supporter of John Rees who, for all his faults, favoured turning the SWP outwards. Coincidentally he was suspended just as Rees's 'Left Platform' was launched (the only time the SWP permits factions is in a three month period prior to conference). You can read Alex's critique of his treatment and the course the leadership has embarked upon here. Considering how wrenching the experience must be he is remarkably free of rancour.
What does this say about the SWP? Well, not much. With its reputation already in tatters thanks to the shenanigans of the last two years, Alex's expulsion and its suspension of other dissenters will only act as a massive 'keep away' sign. Another stupid own goal.
With the retrenchment of sectarianism, it seems the majority of the far left are content with trudging along the road to irrelevance. What a shambles.
Speaking of strange people ... fellow blogger, troll-eater and all-round good egg Daniel Hoffman-Gill has a new comedy show called Poles Apart coming out shortly. Daniel writes:
Poles Apart is about when me and my mate Mark went to Poland last year to get a job, in an effort to single-handedly reverse the immigration trend.
We spent two weeks as immigrants and ate a lot of lard, we came home and made a show about our adventures that includes traditional Polish dance, moustaches, jokes about Russians and Poland's leading avant-garde theatre co-operative re-enacting the Gdansk iron ore factory strike of 1963. It may also feature "BNP the sit-com..."
It's on at the Lowry, Manchester on the 26th November at 7:45pm and the RichMix on Bethnal Green Road, London as part of their immigration season on the 27th and 28th November at 7:30pm sharp and I think they are providing quality Polish vodka for the audience and some sausage.
More info on Poles Apart is here: www.hardgraft.co.uk/polesapart.htm
More info on the Richmix is here: www.richmix.org.uk/aandc_polesapart.htm
He adds
Hope to see you there and please spread the word in any way you can, perhaps giving us a plug on your blog as this is a good piece of theatre that tackles the lies spread about immigration head on.
One of the hazards of being a moderately successful socialist blogger is the tendency to attract strange people. This blog has seen trolls of the fascist moonbat variety. There's been racists with bizarre grievances against other bloggers. And occasionally close comrades have been lucky enough to receive peculiar letters.
On Monday this fine tradition continued when an unsolicited email dropped into my inbox. Take a look for yourself:
Dear Phil
I am writing to send you the song 'Gordon Brown be my Angel', which fetched me a thank-you letter from the Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Please listen to my song "Gordon Brown be my Angel" here.
Brahms Lullaby Gordon Brown! Gordon Brown! Will you be my angel? Guardian angel is what I meant Will you rescue my soul? For you are in charge Of these people I wrote to Stephen Timms, Jack Straw Let me place my trust in you Gordon Brown! MP’s! Let me sing out loud For what you do, for my country For my reproductive system You right wrongs! My right’s been wronged I am desperate for you Not just you! There’s Jon Herring I’m a violated woman Gordon Brown, help me sleep! Help me sleep like a baby Will my babies ever come out? Maternal desires! I lost my womanhood In a sinister curse Gordon Brown! Bring it back! You are perfect for that! Gordon Brown, Gordon Brown Chase the devil for me!!
Edelweiss Gordon Brown, Gordon Brown We’re all thinking about you All the time, day and night You are here to help me! Uphold justice, apply the law Fill the gaps in the system There’re loopholes, they ain’t good I continue to suffer Please act fast cos people forget things My whole load of witnesses! Go find out from your 8 MP’s Human life can be tragic!! Gordon Brown, lift my hope Bless my country for now please! Legal history will be made
Pseudonym ‘Eva Jo Frogster’
The song is about the sexual offence of procuring women by false pretenses, which was outlawed 124 years ago and is illegal under Sections 74 and 76 of the Sexual Offences Act (2003). In the 2006 Harvinder S Jheeta case, it was treated as rape by fraud when the criminal conviction was laid down.
As comrades are aware, I wasn't able to make it to the Socialist Party's annual weekend school and rally, Socialism. But I know some folk who did. Going off reports I've heard the weekend was visited by over 1,000 people, over £25 grand was raised and all the speakers at the rally were well received (I'm told even Peter Taaffe was kept to 20 minutes!)
Later on in the week I should be receiving a blog post or two from comrades who were there. In the mean time I'll content myself with bringing you a round-up of Socialism's internet coverage.
Dave from Though Cowards Flinch gives his overview of Saturday's events.
Iain of Leftwing Criminologist and And Now For Something Completely Sectarian has posted his experience of the weekend, including the delightful time he had in the hostel. Sounds pretty much like my experience last year - but at least he didn't fall asleep in any of the sessions!
The other Dave (this time from Devon SP) has his impressions here.
The party itself has some photos from the rally on Saturday, but somehow they were posted on May 26th. Strange.
There will be more updates as I come across them. Meanwhile, why not follow the Socialist Party on Twitter here?
Following last week's foray into political science, I thought I'd post up a slightly rejigged presentation I gave five years back on cadre parties and mass parties. In the absence of blogging inspiration I hope at least some readers will find it of interest.
The formal structure of the majority of parties in West European liberal democracies is based on an extensive permanent organisation supported by a mass membership. However these party structures are a comparatively recent development, emerging relatively late as Europe was industrialising and coincident with the development of mass suffrage. In this presentation we will be tracing the roots of the mass party to social and political developments in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, looking at cadre parties, the relationship between the two, their respective structures and possible futures.
Max Weber in his famous lecture Politics as a Vocation, looked at party origins in elite politics and the subsequent “massification” of politics. Beginning his account with medieval Italian city-states, proto-party formations were essentially a personal followings of notables. As a loose association tied to their patron’s ambitions they did not espouse any kind of coherent politics independently of their master’s beliefs. For Weber this situation was also a common characteristic of Britain’s polity from the late medieval period up until the 1832 English Reform Act. For example, if an aristocrat or a ‘notable’ switched their allegiances, their party/retinue would automatically follow suit.
Following the Reform Act, the familial, ideological, and economic interests around which these groupings were organised gradually adopted a more permanent character. Under the impact of the struggles of the petit-bourgeoisie and emerging working class, a cohesive centre of gravity started developing around parliamentary representatives and their relationship with the notables that nominated/elected them. This relationship was mutually beneficial for a number of reasons. The representatives acted to secure their notable allies' interests through their privileged access to the state. In turn the notables would assist in their election (the absence of organisation outside the main cities meant the representative had to rely on friendly notables for political action in many locations). Eventually these arrangements assumed a more permanent character.
Despite this symbiotic relationship, for Weber the structural location of representatives predisposed them toward the professionalisation of politics. He argued, “members or parliament are interested in the possibility of inter-local electoral compromises, in vigorous and unified programmes endorsed by broad circles, and in a unified agitation throughout the country. In general, these interests form the driving force of a party organisation which becomes more and more strict” (The Advent of Plebiscitarian Democracy, in Mair, P. (ed.) 1990 The West European Party System, pp.33-4).
Initially this form assumed continuity with the past, and Weber uses the French Third Republic to illustrate his point. Here party structures relied on linkages between representatives and notables. Programmes were drafted by either candidates, patrons, or from cribbing together parliamentary resolutions – or sometimes all three.
If one was to take a strict institutional approach to these parties, it could be argued their party structure is best suited to a party system in which the masses are excluded from the political process, and where competitive politics is the preserve of elites.
Therefore a number of conclusions about early parties can be made from Weber’s arguments:
1) Parliamentary politics was primarily an elite affair. Parties were essentially just linkages between representatives and local elites (notables) that served their mutual interests.
2) Parties were more or less informal networks shaped by economic, ideological, and familial interests and affinities. Crucially they had no independent life outside the representative-notable nexus.
3) Despite the mutually beneficial relationships between the elites, parliamentary representatives had a clear interest in the institutionalisation of parties.
Maurice Duverger in his 1951 seminal work, The Political Parties explored the structure of this system in greater depth, teasing out the proto-party organisation that existed during the period of representative-notable domination. For Duverger parties here were federations of caucuses. In keeping with the relationships described by Weber, Duverger argued the caucus is a de facto autonomous group of notables: it has no formal membership, no desire to expand its numbers, and new “members” can only be co-opted or nominated. The power and influence of the caucus rests on the quality of its members, the composition of which depended on its political orientation. For example, conservative caucuses were made up of notables drawn from aristocratic, industrialist, banking, and ecclesiastical backgrounds. Liberal/radical caucuses on the other hand consisted of small business notables, journalists, lawyers, and so on. In organisational terms these caucuses provided the base for the representative’s electoral committees. When these committees began to sustain a permanent existence between elections, the caucuses also underwent transformation, becoming party caucuses. This point marked the birth of the cadre party.
Neumann (1956) classified these as parties of individual representation. But toward the end of the 19th century parties with a fundamentally different orientation were developing. These were, for the most part, organised outside of the parliamentary system and were concerned with representing groups (usually the working class or large religious minorities) locked out of the political process. This was the party of social integration, an organisation of permanent fees-paying members committed to achieving collective political objectives and, as a by-product, simultaneously socialised its adherents into set of political values and norms. As opposed to the cadre parties who had few members but made up for it from their "quality", the strength of the mass party rested on its numbers.
For Duverger the basic unit of the mass party lay in its branch structure. Unlike the caucus the branch has an extensive character. Its primary purpose is to recruit new members to the party, adding them to the overall resource pool available to the party. Further differences include its dependence on the wider (national) party, its geographical specificity (allowing it to keep in close contact with members and supporters in a given location), and its permanence. In contrast to a caucus that may only exist at election time, the branch is an institution carrying out a number of political activities at any one time.
In addition a number of mass parties – especially but not exclusively those Duverger labelled ‘devotee’ parties - complimented their branch structures with other basic units: cells and militias.
The ‘cell’ had a structure very similar to the caucus of the cadre party: its primary consideration was employing the quality of its adherents to achieve a set of political objectives in a given field of operation. Though only a mass party in terms of formal structure, the Communist Party in the 1930s built a number of cells in the Burnley cotton mills with the express purpose of increasing the general effectiveness of workplace organisation, issuing party propaganda, and recruiting workers to the local party branch (but not the cell). Cell membership was on the basis of formal co-option and comprised experienced activists and militants.
The ‘militia’ is the paramilitary wing of a party and tend only to emerge at times of generalised crisis and/or military struggle. For example, all the parties of inter-war Germany had militias attached to them.
In sum the basic distinction between cadre and mass parties lies in their structure. As Duverger puts it “what the mass party secures by numbers, the cadre party achieves by selection”. (cit Mair 1990, p.42). This is not to say the two types stand in absolute isolation from one another. For example the cadre party did not completely die out with the achievement of mass suffrage. In some countries the masses began working through the existing party system, giving the caucuses an opportunity to influence them. For Duverger such attempts inevitably led them to adopt mass-modes of organising, meaning the caucus was superseded by modern party organisation. Similarly other cadre parties opened their doors to mass membership but still primarily relied on its pre-existing caucus structure for finance and policy determination. Nevertheless the adoption of a branch system, a “contagion” mass socialist parties were responsible for in Duverger’s opinion, was necessary if a party was to survive in the long term.
The suggestion that the adoption of the mass party structure is primarily the result of working class political mobilisation has been the subject of some debate. Whereas Duverger labelled it “the contagion from the left”, others have seen the developments of party organisation in terms of electoral competition. For example Leon Epstein in his 1967 book, Political Parties in Western Democracies viewed the American party system as the most perfect expression of electoral politics. The caucus-like structures of the Republicans and Democrats meant they were flexible enough to adapt to new modes of political communication the mass media offered. Their proven ability to attract funding from elites for the more expensive media-based campaigns has circumvented the need for a large party machine with its mass membership, This has resulted in a ‘contagion from the right’. Colin Crouch in his 2004 booklet, Post-Democracy agrees, pointing to the manifestation of a number of analogous features in British politics from the late 80s.
If these arguments are taken to their logical conclusion, mass parties could well turn out to be a passing phenomenon. Current trends seem to be favouring a hybrid form of party, similar the old cadre parties albeit with a (smaller) mass membership. Here the members are locked out of meaningful policy making decisions. If this is the case, will the experience of founding mass parties against those already part of the system have to be repeated?
