#quintin hogg

[dadsinsuits]

Quintin Hogg

#suitdaddy #suiteddaddy #suit and tie #men in suits #silverfox #suitfetish #three piece suit #waistcoat #suited grandpa #suitedman #buisness suit #suitedmen #british man #british men #uk conservative party #tory party #tories #member of parliament #house of lords #Quintin Hogg

[daylight-upon-magic]

An example of the Queen Mother’s tact. When Quintin Hailsham¹ stayed at Royal Lodge not long after his wife Mary’s tragic death,² he should have been given the grandest of rooms. But it has two beds in it, and the Queen Mother realised it would make him feel unhappy. So he was given a smaller room with a single bed.

- Kenneth Rose journal entry, 7 April 1980. (Who Loses, Who Wins: The Journals of Kenneth Rose)

---

Quintin Hogg, Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone (1907-2001), Conservative MP, twice Lord Chancellor, from 1970 to 1974 and from 1979 to 1987.

Mary was killed in front of her husband in a horse-riding accident in 1978.

#Queen Mother #Kenneth Rose #British Royal Family #my post

[ahz-associates]

University of Greenwich

Overview of University of Greenwich

 In 2021, the Guardian University Guide placed the University of Greenwich 95th and the Times University Guide 98th.The University of Greenwich has won the Queen's Anniversary Prizes for Higher and Further Education three times and has a Silver Teaching Excellence Framework grade. The People & Planet Green League Table has ranked the University of Greenwich as one of the most environmentally friendly in the UK.

 History of Greenwich University

 Frank Didden created the University of Greenwich in the United Kingdom in 1890. It was known as Woolwich Polytechnic at the time, and it was the second-oldest polytechnic in the United Kingdom. Woolwich Polytechnic was founded on the ideals of Quintin Hogg and initially concentrated on education as well as social and religious responsibilities. By 1894, the emphasis had turned to delivering more advanced technical education. As a result, part-time day courses were established in collaboration with the Ministry of War (Woolwich Arsenal).

Following a merging with part of Hammersmith College of Art and Building in 1970, Woolwich Polytechnic was renamed Thames Polytechnic. Dartford College (1976), Avery Hill College of Education (1985), Garnett College (1987), and sections of Goldsmiths College and City of London College (1988) were all absorbed in the years that followed. The government granted Thames Polytechnic its first university status in 1992, following which it was renamed University of Greenwich. The Thames College of Health Care Studies and the University of Greenwich united as a full faculty in 1993.Natural Resources Institute (NRI), formerly a UK government research body, joined hands with the university in 1996 and officially merged with it. The Institution of Greenwich is currently a well-known modern public university with locations in London and Kent.

 Breakdown of fee structure

International students can expect to pay £13,000-14,500 depending on course and degree.

Scholarships at University of Greenwich

The 

University of Greenwich

Offers a number of scholarships and bursaries for its students, including sports, high achievement, and bursaries for students in financial need.

Student Support at University of Greenwich

The University of Greenwich's student support services are proactive, offering students information and assistance even before they enrol. Every campus has a Student Centre that serves as the initial point of contact for all students seeking assistance and counselling.

The university provides the following student support services:

Academic support

Accessibility (for physical and mental disabilities)

Counselling and wellbeing services

Togetherall mental health support system

Health and Welfare

Finance and funding

Careers Services

Student life

Greenwich's student life is focused on the concept of community building. Greenwich celebrates friendship, inclusivity, and peace with a broad array of individuals from over 130 nations throughout the world. This explains why the University of Greenwich is recommended by almost 96 percent of current and former students. Greenwich students can have the best of both worlds in one spot thanks to its position. Everything is offered on campus or close by, from academic brilliance to extracurricular facilities such as social, sports, and housing areas. The University of Greenwich's home campus is known for its architectural beauty and good location. The region is well-known for attracting millions of tourists each year due to its proximity to the famed Thames Riverbank and the Royal Park. The campus has appeared in films such as Skyfall and Pirates of the Caribbean, as well as television shows such as The Crown.

 Living Accommodations at Greenwich University

Around 2,400 spaces are available in halls on or near the University of Greenwich's three campuses: Avery Hill, Greenwich, and Medway. Greenwich University guarantees housing to all first-year students. While the accommodations at Avery Hill and Medway are close to their individual campuses, Greenwich is a 5- to 10-minute walk away. If necessary, Greenwich students are also offered privately rented housing. All incoming students at the University of Greenwich are guaranteed a place to live, whether in a hall of residence or in a Greenwich-approved housing facility. When it comes to halls of residence, the institution is proud to give preference to students with impairments. Along with housing, the University of Greenwich offers a free on-campus gym membership and access to Active GRE programmes. Students can also take advantage of a free intercampus shuttle service that runs between Avery Hill and Greenwich throughout the day (Monday through Friday).

 Transport

Get to Avery Hill Campus 

Buses stop just outside the campus, National Rail is within an easy walk, and we have pay and display parking.

Get to Greenwich Campus 

The campus is located in the centre of Greenwich a short walk from Cutty Sark DLR station and with excellent bus links.

Get to Medway Campus

In Chatham Maritime, Kent, with bus links to the rail network and parking for permit holders.

Get to Bathway

Located in the centre of Woolwich with excellent public transport connections.

Get to Hamilton House

Located in Park Vista a short walk from the main Greenwich Campus.

Get to Stockwell Street

Located in the centre of Greenwich a short walk from the main campus.

#studyinuk educationalconsultant

[divinemercymeditation]

Shocking Protestants: Warren Lewis and Quintin Hogg as accidental ecumenists

Shocking Protestants: Warren Lewis and Quintin Hogg as accidental ecumenists

Pope St Paul VI receives the Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, in the Sistine Chapel on 24 March 1966.(Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)   To claim that a low opinion of Catholics and Catholicism could be found in various quarters of the British establishment through to modern times would hardly constitute a revelation. To add that such sentiments were still abroad in…

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#accidental #christianity news #ecumenists #Hogg #Lewis #Protestants #Quintin #Shocking #Warren

[chubcheckers]

Quintin Mc Garel Hogg

[grandpadinosaur]

Slip Of The Tongue

Slip Of The Tongue

1945: Sir Alan “Tommy” Lascelles, George VI’s private secretary, lunched on 18 April with Quintin Hogg, the newly appointed undersecretary of air. “Hogg said that [Baron] Faringdon, a notorious pansy, had recently thrown the House of Lords into consternation by addressing their Lordships as ‘My Dears’.”

Source: Sir Alan Lascelles, King’s Counsellor: Abdication and War: The Diaries of Sir Alan…

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#1945 #Baron Faringdon #George VI #Great Britain #Homosexuality #House of Lords #Quintin Hogg #Sir Alan Lascelles #Tommy Lascelles

[andnogimmicks]

The UK General Election of 1964

Warning: This post contains a racial slur, quotes from racist letters to a local newspaper, and a description of racist rhetoric.

NB: This post draws heavily on the consummate scholarship of D E Butler and Anthony King's The General Election of 1964. If my dependence on their work feels like a limitation, then I have no defence. Their account of this event is masterful, and I highly recommend the book.

Update: This post was edited on 2017-10-18 to add more documentary evidence for my claims, and a brief assessment of the Conservative campaign, and on 2017-10-21, to embellish the section on Smethwick.

Front page of the Daily Mirror, Thursday 15 October, 1964. Above is a fascimile of a black-and-white tabloid frontpage. The headline is ‘LET’S ALL VOTE TODAY’ in huge letters. A subheading reads, ‘AND VOTE FOR OUR FUTURE!’ On the left, there is a close-up photograph of Harold Wilson looking serious and confident. On the right, there is a cartoon of Conservative MP Quintin Hogg grimacing inanely with a halo above his head. Beneath him, the text reads, ‘Let us show ‘HALO’ HOGG just how many of us are ‘Stark, staring bonkers!’ This comment refers to some choice words of Hogg’s about Labour voters during the campaign.

A bit of background for the uninitiated: the United Kingdom (UK) is a state, and arguably a nation, comprised of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. UK general elections select candidates for membership of the House of Commons in the UK Parliament from local geographic divisions called constituencies. Each constituency returns only one member: the one who receives the most votes. Candidates generally belong to a political party, and a party with a majority of 'seats' (that is, more than half of the members) in the Commons forms the Government. In this post, I will give a summary of the results of the 1964 UK General Election, discuss the main events of the campaign, and focus on the election in the constituency of Smethwick, where extensive use of racist rhetoric around immigration produced a notable result.

The election took place on Thursday, October 15th. That evening, Harold Wilson's political secretary, Marcia Williams, bet that the incumbent Conservative Government would survive with a small majority.1 In the event, the competition was close, and the final outcome only became clear very late, on the afternoon of Friday the 16th. For much of the night, the results suggested a considerable swing to Labour, but this diminished over time, and the party suffered significant disappointments on the second day. The party only received confirmation of its majority with the result from Brecon and Radnor, a huge rural constituency in central Wales, at 2.47pm on Friday.2 It was not until 3.50pm that Wilson was politely invited to Buckingham Palace. At 4pm, he went to see the Queen and gain permission to form a Government.3

Image by Mirrorme22. Retrieved from Wikipedia on 2017-09-18. Above is a cartographic representation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, divided up into House of Commons electoral consituencies as used in the General Election of 1964. Each constituency is coloured with the official colour of the party which won there. Labour is red, the Conservatives are blue, and the Liberals are yellow. The map is mostly blue, as the Conservatives tended to win in the larger, rural constituencies, but the winner is Labour, which has won the urban areas of London, central Scotland, Tyneside, most of Wales, and a vast crescent of constituencies stretching from Birmingham, through Coventry, Derby, and Leicester, to the Northern industrial conurbations. Northern Ireland is entirely Conservative. The Liberals have won only nine seats, mostly in the far reaches of Scotland.

Parliament returned 630 MPs. By convention, the Speaker does not vote, meaning that only 629 seats were politicised. At the final count, Labour had 317 seats. This gave them an working majority of only five MPs, although the prospects of Liberal-Conservative cooperation were low, making defeat a less immediate threat. Labour had had traumatic previous experience of a small majority in the 1950-51 Parliament, when that administration had been tired and divided. Now the party had momentum, but it was clear to the leadership that another election would be required soon to cement the new Government's position.4

For Labour, the picture was mixed. Their 317 seats were garnered from only 12,205,814 votes, their lowest count since 1945. Turnout had decreased slightly to 77.1%, from 78.7% in 1959, but this was actually up from 1945's 73.3%, and the total number of votes cast was not much lower than at previous elections. Labour only managed 44.1% of the vote, which was up from 43.8% in 1959, but significantly less than its victory in 1945, and its losing results in 1951 (when it reached an all-time high of 48.8%) and 1955.5 Wilson had won, but only by a slim margin against a discredited regime with elderly and aristocratic leadership. Notably, Labour’s new MP for Buckingham was a Czechoslovakian-born businessman named Robert Maxwell.

The Conservatives also had their worst outcome since 1945. They won 12,000,396 votes, 43.4% of those cast. Thus the most startling result nationally was the diminution of the party duopoly which had been unassailable since the War. This was most visible in the performance of the Liberal Party, whose vote swole to 3,092,878, some 11.2%.6 This was their best result by vote share since 1929, although they had had more seats until 1950. They came second in 54 seats, which was up from 27 in 1959.7

The General Election gains and losses are updated on the scoreboard at the Labour Party HQ in Transport House, Westminster, back in 1964. Unsourced. Retrieved from BT Pictures on 2017-10-16. Above is a black-and-white landscape photograph of a large, old-fashioned election scoreboard, on which results are displayed manually, by moving paper cards around. A young woman on the right, in a smart chequed suit jacket, smiles as she adjusts Labour's net gain total. The photograph was taken very late on election night. So far, 124 results have been declared. Labour has 74 seats, the Conservatives have 49, and the Liberals have only one. So far, Labour has made twelve net gains. This trend was to continue into the morning.

As a consequence of uncertainty about the timing of the election, the campaign had been long. The popularity of the Conservative Government began eroding in 1961, when the Chancellor, Selwyn Lloyd, had introduced controversial measures designed to counter high inflation and a balance of payments deficit, including a 'pay pause' for wages.8 With inflation above 3%, the pause was in real terms a cut. The unions refused to cooperate, and drew public favour. After thirteen years of Tory rule, voters now rushed to support a more progressive vision of politics, from a party which had long been out of vogue. But their movement was not, at least initially, to Labour. Instead, it was the Liberal Party who performed handsomely at several by-elections, and rose from 8% to 20% in the polls.9 In March 1962, the Liberals stole the safe seat of Orpington from the Conservatives, and gained a 7,000 vote majority.10 Support for the Conservatives collapsed from 46.5% in early 1961, to below 35% halfway through 1962. It was in this context that Prime Minister Harold Macmillan had sacked seven Cabinet ministers in one day in July, in the so-called 'Night of the Long Knives'. His new Chancellor, Reginald Maudling, drastically reversed Lloyd's policy by offering an expansionary budget in 1963 in order to stimulate growth. Production increased and unemployment fell, but it was a temporary fix; the budget required that £58 million be drawn from official reserves, and an unsustainable gap in the balance of payments now began to grow.11 12

In January 1963, French President Charles de Gaulle indicated that he would veto Macmillan's application for Britain to join the EEC, and Labour's leader, Hugh Gaitskell, died suddenly. In February, unemployment, which had been consistently low since 1947, reached 3.9%. Labour, now led by Wilson, was beating the Conservatives by some 15% in Gallup polling. It had averaged 43% support in 1962, but achieved 49.5% over the following year, as the Vassall, Profumo, and Philby revelations followed.13 His reputation in tatters, Macmillan resigned soon after, though officially on grounds of ill health, and was replaced by Alec Douglas-Home in the traditional Conservative way, under advisement from his predecessor, and without democratic input.14

Alec Douglas-Home on a day of shooting in 1964. Photograph unsourced. Retrieved from the Daily Mail on 2017-10-16. Above is a black-and-white portrait photograph of a slender, white, middle-aged man on a country estate, in plus-fours and shooting jacket, with a huge shotgun slung over his arm. It is Conservative Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home.

Labour's campaign was focussed around the personality of Wilson. Soon after his election as leader, he flew off to see world leaders, and appeased his party's flanks by criticising the Polaris programme as wasteful without committing to unilateral nuclear disarmament.15 During the campaign proper, he gave daily press conferences with himself as the star. He was noted for his wit in the House of Commons and in media appearances. He attempted to draw parallels between himself and the charisma and rising cultural liberalism of US President Kennedy, who he had met in spring, 1963,16 but according to Butler & King, his campaigning style was much closer to Theodore White's famous analysis of Richard Nixon's methods: solitary, demagogic, and consciously phased according to an intuitive rhythm only the leader understood.17 As in the 1959 election, when Labour had been dominated by Gaitskellite (i.e., Labour right-wing) revisionists, they made little mention of socialism, except insofar as it was being re-fashioned into technocracy, and no explicit attack on capital.18 Instead, Wilson stuck to his themes of efficiency and modernisation, and ridiculed the Tories for being out of date. Home, who had given up his title as the 14th Earl of Home to become an MP, was lambasted as 'an elegant anachronism', and 'the 14th Earl'. After photographs were published of Home grouse-hunting in woollen plus fours, Wilson relentlessly mocked his 'grouse moor conception' of statecraft. The Prime Minister didn't take this meekly. For him, Wilson was 'the 14th Mr Wilson' and a 'slick salesman of synthetic science'.19 Labour's manifesto, with its promises of greater social security spending, became 'a menu without prices'.20

British Labour politician Harold Wilson with his wife Mary, campaigning in South London, during the General Election, September 19, 1964. © Getty Images. Retrieved from Huffington Post on 2017-10-18. Above is a colour portrait photograph of a gathering outdoors. The camera points towards the sky. In the bottom of the frame, many people, including Mary Wilson, look towards Harold Wilson, speaking atop a plinth in the centre of the frame. He has a red rose in his buttonhole. He speaks into a microphone. The plinth is covered with a Labour poster of Wilson’s face.

The Conservative riposte, titled, in almost Wilsonian language, Prosperity with a Purpose, was launched on September 18th, 1964, but it announced few new ideas, and received lukewarm media attention. The Government hoped to be judged on the strength of its record in office.

Home's natural strength was foreign policy, and he made his main theme the nuclear deterrent, on which a Gallup poll found that public opinion sided with the Conservatives by 37% to Labour's 21%. But in the same poll, only 7% of those surveyed felt that defence was the most important issue of the election.21 Labour largely avoided the issue, although Clement Attlee was wheeled out for a television broadcast in which he claimed that his Foreign Secretary, Bevin, had never felt he needed the nuclear deterrent as backing in foreign negotiations, continuing, 'then of course Ernest Bevin was a great personality'. The clear implication was that Home was not.22

The Prime Minister's biggest problem was Wilson, who was coming to dominate the media. For this reason, he resisted invitations from Wilson and the BBC for a televised debate.23 His second biggest problem, the Secretary of State or Education and Science, Quintin Hogg (formerly a member of the House of Lords known as Hailsham), was less shy of media attention. At a meeting in Birmingham days after the Conservative manifesto launch, Hogg rather overstepped by comparing Wilson's economic planning strategy to a 'military operation', and insisted, 'demand for a military operation is the theme song of the dictator from time immemorial'.24 Just before the election, Hogg was to make another mistake, again at a public gathering. Answering a heckler who shouted, 'what about Profumo?', Hogg fumed, 'If you can tell me there are no adulterers on the front bench of the Labour Party you can talk to me about Profumo.' In Labour circles, this was taken, very hotly and with some embarrassment, as innuendo in reference to rumours of an affair between Marcia Williams and Harold Wilson. The rumours existed largely in elite press and political circles, and had never been published, except in oblique reference to a comment by Barbara Cartland in the Sunday Telegraph. Senior Labour figures believed that public accusations could blow up the whole campaign. Wilson defused the situation deftly, by implying to the press the next day that he had no need to respond, saying only, ‘one can naturally assume that the leader of Mr Hogg’s party will of course be making a statement.’25 The final word on Hogg went to Attlee: ‘it is time he grew up. He should know that when he has met with a rude interjection he does not lose his temper. […] Mr Hogg acted like a schoolboy. […] This man is a cabinet minister.’26

Cartoon by Cummings for the Daily Express on 1964-09-18. Retrieved from the British Cartoon Archive on 2017-10-02. Above is a black ink cartoon of senior Conservatives running to stop a colossal rocket-powered bomb from launching. The bomb has come loose from its moorings, and is ready to fire. It has been made to look like Conservative MP Quintin Hogg, and has Hog Bomb, with a large H, emblazoned on the front. Great puffs of hot air spurt from Hogg's mouth. Alec Douglas-Home and Rab Butler are grimacing and pointing to the rocket. Beside them, Reginald Maudling is throwing a lassoed lifesaver in vain. Together they shout, 'Good Heavens! Our Doomsday Weapon has broken loose!' Hogg was an effective anti-Labour mobiliser, but made himself a spectacle during the campaign, on account of his temper and unpredictability.

Even the reprisals of a well-loved elder statesman were not enough to stop Hogg. The following video was filmed at a press conference on the final Monday before the election, just after Hogg had dismissed the Liberals as an insignificance. In it, you can hear him celebrating the much-reviled recommendations of cuts to the railways made by Dr Beeching, pronouncing 'loss' apparently with an r in it, as only a reactionary, anachronistic aristocrat can, and calling Labour voters 'stark, staring bonkers':

Labour's front bench could err too. It emerged in the Sunday Express that the the Deputy Leader, George Brown, may have suggested that interest rates on mortgages be dropped flatly to 3% under a Labour Goverment. The Tories seized the opportunity, asking how much this new policy would cost. Labour was forced to issue climbdown statements, simply saying that they wanted to lower the cost of housing. The incident ended up being understated, but it followed feverish expectation of damaging outbursts from Brown in the press and the Conservative Party.27

Cartoon by Illingworth for the Daily Mail on 1964-09-21. Retrieved from the British Cartoon Archive on 2017-10-02. Above is a black ink cartoon of Alec Douglas-Home and Reginald Maudling smugly grinning from inside a building. They watch from the window as a blank and unknowing George Brown walks by with his coat and briefcase. Home is holding a newspaper. The headline is 'QUINTIN HOGG IS LABOUR'S SECRET WEAPON'. He looks over his reading glasses and says, 'AND IF I'M NOT MISTAKEN, THERE GOES OURS'. If Hogg was embarrassing the Conservatives as a fulsome reactionary, Brown, a known alcoholic prone to emotional displays, was also a liability for Labour.

Wilson himself made only one significant gaffe in the whole campaign. With a fortnight left before the election, the motor component manufacturer Hardy Spicer was hit by industrial action. Uncalled stoppages at the plant endangered the production chain elsewhere in the automotive industry, suggesting that the Leader could not competently manage the unions. Labour was down slightly in the polls. Wilson suggested that the action may have been politically motivated, prompting mockery from the Government. Maudling memorably joked, 'I must say that's a rum one: Tory shop stewards sabotaging Mr Wilson's election! Really!'28 More broadly, criticisms were made of Wilson’s presidential style, and tendency to eclipse his senior colleagues on the Opposition front bench. He was characterised as a ‘one man band’ by his enemies in the press, but his supporters had grievances, too. Anthony Wedgwood Benn, at this time secret speechwriter and confidant to Wilson, grumbled in his diary just ten days before the election that 'he is certain that he is the one that is winning the campaign for us single-handed and I don't think he quite believes that he can be doing anything wrong.'29

Cartoon by Illingworth for the Daily Mail on 1964-09-29. Retrieved from the British Cartoon Archive on 2017-10-01. Above is a black ink cartoon of Harold Wilson clandestinely handing news of the Hardy Spicer strike to a dissheveled, quizzical George Brown. Wilson whispers, 'They're all in this Tory plot George - Hardy Spicers, Goldwater, Mao Tse-tung AND the Meteorological Office.' Wilson's suggestion that the Hardy Spicer action was conspiratorial drew much derision in the election campaign. Trade union officials are not known for their loyalty to the Conservative Party. Mao Tse-tung, the Communist Chinese premier, was frequently linked to conspiracy theories at the time. Barry Goldwater was the right-libertarian 1964 Republican candidate for the US Presidency, known for his virulent anti-union stance.

The Tories were in for more missteps. In an extended interview broadcast on the BBC, while discussing his proposal for a supplementary payment to older pensioners, Home called the payment a ‘donation’. Critics of the Government saw this slip as symptomatic of a wealthy, condescending elite which resented the less privileged.30 But perhaps the most decisive reason for the Conservatives’ loss was the most critical issue of the election: competence in the management of the economy. On the 30th of September, figures were released showing that the balance of payments deficit had ballooned to £73 million. The painful repercussions of Maudling’s gamble were now plain to see. Attempting to needle Labour on economic management, their traditional perceived weakness, Maudling’s predecessor Selwyn Lloyd insisted they promise not to devalue sterling to balance the deficit, as they had done in 1949. Lloyd claimed that in that year, Labour had been ‘faced by a similar crisis’.31 So a senior Tory, and a former Chancellor, conceded implicitly that Britain’s economy was now in crisis. It was a coup for Labour.

Despite the mistakes and the national narrative of loss, there were victories for the Tories in the election. In several constituencies, they diminished Labour’s majority, or defeated them completely. In Eton and Slough a 0.1% majority for Labour became a 0.1% majority for the Conservatives. In Birmingham Perry Bar, Labour lost their 0.5% majority to a 0.8% Tory one. The Labour vote also diminished from a 5.4% to a 4.7% majority in Southall. But the most spectacular coup of all was the Tories’ unseating of a member of the Opposition front bench in Smethwick. Shadow Foreign Secretary Patrick Gordon Walker lost his majority of 9.4%, and the Tories won by 5.0%, or 1,774 votes. The reason for these apparently unexpected outcomes is simple to relate. Slough and Southall are on the suburban outskirts of West London, and Perry Bar and Smethwick are part of Birmingham. Greater London and the urbanised West Midlands were very densely populated areas, and they had the largest immigrant populations in Britain in 1964. In these constituencies, in the context of rising house prices and growing housing shortages, local Conservative candidates ran coded campaigns, often insinuating offensive slurs or alluding to stereotypes, and designed to appeal to racist white voters anxious about housing and poverty. It worked.32

Smethwick, which at the time was technically in Staffordshire, was a suburban town which employed workers in the metal-working and car part industries. By 1964 it had a major housing shortage, and many local residents had faced redundancies, contract terminations, or real-terms pay cuts, due to foundry closures.33; 34; 35 Smethwick had been represented in Parliament by Labour MP Oswald Mosley from 1926 to 1931, before his conversion to fascism. Smethwick contained an estimated 4,000 to 7,000 immigrants, who were mostly from India or the West Indies, and moved to Smethwick to work in the foundries.36 (In 2017, Birmingham is still home to a large Indian-descended Sikh population.) In the 1960s, growing racism had led to the institution of ‘colour bars’ (bans segregating the use of services by race) in pubs, societies, and shops in some areas. In Smethwick, the tendency was particularly strong, and local authorities had taken to charging double the normal deposit for renters of colour. Even a local Labour Club was operating a colour bar.37 In July 1961, 610 council tenants on Prince Street, Smethwick, had refused to pay their rents in protest at the routine housing of a Pakistani family in a new maisonette, after their previous house was demolished in slum clearances.38 39

The Conservative candidate for Smethwick was Peter Griffiths, a headmaster at a local primary school since 1962, who had been heavily involved in local politics before the election. He had become a councillor in 1956, and had run for the seat unsuccessfully in the 1959 General Election.40 His signature demands were a total ban on the immigration of unskilled workers, repatriation of people of colour who had been unemployed for six months, and segregation of schooling for immigrant children until they had reached an arbitrarily designed, ‘reasonable command of English’. Local feeling was deeply divided. According to the Times, the Smethwick Telephone, a local newspaper, gave over 1,650 column inches to the topic of immigration in 1963. The same report in the Times quoted two typical letters printed in the Telephone in that year:

With the advent of the pseudo-socialists' 'coloured friends' the incidence of T.B. in the area has risen to become one of the highest in the country. Can it be denied that the foul practice of spitting in public is a contributory factor?

And:

Why waste the ratepayers' money printing notices in five different languages ? People who behave worse than animals will not in the least be deterred by them.41

To those who had been paying attention, Griffiths' victory in the seat was no surprise: his campaigning, fed by this rhetoric, had recently brought the local council under the control of the Conservatives.42

Peter Griffths campaigning in Smethwick, 1964. © Express & Star, retrieved from The Telegraph on 2017-10-16. Above is a black-and-white landscape photograph of four white people laughing in front of a terrace of brick houses. On the left is a young, boyish man in a suit, wearing a suit and a rosette. The other three are much older women. The man is Peter Griffiths, Conservative candidate for Smethwick in 1964, a headmaster with a sideline in barely-masked racial hatred.

Griffiths’ style at political gatherings was notable. After claiming that he had actually intended to speak at the event on other issues, but was being forced to clarify his position by those attempting to discredit him, Griffiths would speak at length about 'immigration', a dogwhistle codeword used to disguise the speaker's racism, and advocate repatriation.43 He would earnestly protest that he was opposed only to squalor and violence against (white) women, leaving his audience to make the unspoken link between these iniquities and the presence of people of colour in the neighbourhood. Racist politics, in 1964 as now, are a matter of the greatest cowardice and cynicism. They are often communicated implicitly, or by allowing others to speak for you. Griffiths refused to condemn the slogan which became associated with his campaign: 'if you want a nigger for a neighbour - vote Labour.'44 In an interview with the Times in March 1964, he defended its use, saying, ‘I should think that is a manifestation of the popular feeling. I would not condemn anyone who said that. I would say that is how people see the situation in Smethwick. I fully understand the feelings of the people who say it. I would say it is exasperation, not fascism.’45

Patrick Gordon Walker, the Labour incumbent in the constituency, was an academic, and an advocate of closer relationships with other Commonwealth member states. He lived in the leafy and spacious Hampstead Garden Suburb, and had neglected his constituency in recent years. His image was very much that of the liberal elitist, and the local Labour party was complacent and disorganised. Rumours circulated in the constituency that he had married a black woman, or that he had married off his daughters to black men. His seat was ripe for the taking.46

In the end, Labour’s victory was slight, but it was still a victory. After being named Prime Minister, Wilson wasted no time. The first of his Cabinet appointments were announced that evening:

George Brown would be Minister for Economic Affairs, and First Secretary of State, to demonstrate his position as deputy to the Prime Minister;

James Callaghan was Chancellor of the Exchequer;

Patrick Gordon Walker became Foreign Secretary, even though he had lost his seat and was no longer an MP;

Denis Healey was now Defence Secretary;

and Herbert Bowden would be Leader of the House of Commons.47

Wilson had surrounded himself with rivals from the party's right wing. In this he had had little choice; the senior Cabinet positions were elected by the party. Privately, though, he was thinking of the future. In July, he had promised Wedgwood Benn a position as Postmaster General. But this was not a Cabinet role. He stressed that 'this was only for eighteen months.'48 This new Prime Minister, who had swept into Number 10 after not even two years as Leader of the Opposition, and defeated the most electorally successful Government in a century, was already planning his next date with the polls.

Harold Wilson toasts members of a working men's club in his constituency, in 1964. © Getty Images. Retrieved from BBC News on 2017-10-01. Above is a black-and-white landscape photograph. A group of people is applauding and cheering in a working mens' club. In the foreground, turned away from us, Harold Wilson raises a pint of bitter in celebration.

Defeat didn’t spell the end for Home. He would go on to serve again as Foreign Secretary throughout the four-year Heath administration. For the most part, he had found it impossible to compete with Wilson’s rambunctious campaigning, and he had been vulnerable to Labour’s caricature of the Tories as outdated gentleman amateurs. But there are those who defend his legacy. Douglas Hurd offers a flattering perspective in his short biography of Home. As he sees it, during the brief year of Home’s leadership, the Conservatives had climbed from oblivion in the polls, to fighting a very close race. They had moved on from several very damaging scandals. With his calm manner, Home, the honourable man, had gained ground on the scheming and cynical Wilson.49

Ben Pimlott, Harold Wilson (London: William Collins, 2016), p. 317. ↩︎

D E Butler and Anthony King, The British General Election of 1964 (London: Macmillian, 1965), p. 289. ↩︎

Pimlott, p. 318. ↩︎

ibid, p. 319. ↩︎

Butler and King, p. 303. ↩︎

ibid. ↩︎

ibid, pp. 293-4. ↩︎

Kenneth O'Morgan, Callaghan: A Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 192. ↩︎

Clive Ponting, Breach of Promise: Labour in Power 1964-1970 (London: Penguin, 1990), p. 13. ↩︎

Butler and King, pp. 13-6. ↩︎

O'Morgan, pp. 172-3. ↩︎

J. Foreman-Peck, 'Trade and the Balance of Payments, in The British Economy Since 1945, ed. N. F. R. Crafts and Nicholas Woodward (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 168. ↩︎

Butler and King, pp. 14-20. ↩︎

Ponting, p. 14. ↩︎

ibid, p. 11. ↩︎

Pimlott, pp. 282-5. ↩︎

Butler and King, p. 75. ↩︎

David Coates, The Labour Party and the Struggle for Socialism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), p. 97. ↩︎

Butler and King, p. 23. ↩︎

ibid, p. 110. ↩︎

ibid, p. 129. ↩︎

ibid, p. 131. ↩︎

ibid, p. 95. ↩︎

ibid, p. 111. ↩︎

Pimlott, pp. 314-6. ↩︎

Butler and King, p. 120. ↩︎

ibid, pp. 113-4. ↩︎

ibid, p. 115. ↩︎

Tony Benn, Out of the Wilderness: Diaries 1963-67 (London: Arrow Books, 1987), p. 150. ↩︎

Butler and King, pp. 112-3. ↩︎

ibid, pp. 116-7. ↩︎

A. W. Singham, ‘Appendix III: Immigration and the Election’, in Butler and King, pp. 360-1. ↩︎

The Times, Friday March 23 1962, p. 10, News in Brief: Workers Return (London: Times Newspapers, 1962) https://www.thetimes.co.uk/archive/article/1962-03-23/10/13.html [accessed 2017-10-21]. ↩︎

The Times, Friday March 24 1962, p. 5, Cyle Works Closing (London: Times Newspapers, 1962) https://www.thetimes.co.uk/archive/article/1962-03-24/5/4.html [accessed 2017-10-21]. ↩︎

The Times, Friday July 13 1962, p. 21, Improved Current Trends (London: Times Newspapers, 1962) https://www.thetimes.co.uk/archive/article/1962-03-24/5/4.html [accessed 2017-10-21]. ↩︎

Singham, p. 364. ↩︎

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Griffiths, Peter Harry Steve (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004-16) http://oxforddnb.com/view/article/108299 [accessed 2017-10-21]. ↩︎

The Times, Thursday July 27 1961, p. 6, Smethwick Rent Strike Fails (London: Times Newspapers, 1961) https://www.thetimes.co.uk/archive/article/1961-07-27/6/11.html [accessed 2017-10-21]. This content is, unfortunately, behind a paywall, and can only be accessed by Times subscribers. ↩︎

The Telegraph, Peter Griffiths - obituary (London: Telegraph Media Group, 2013), http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10479104/Peter-Griffiths-obituary.html [accessed 2017-10-19]. ↩︎

The Times, Monday March 9 1964, p. 6, Issue at Smethwick: Labour Accusation of Exploitation (London: Times Newspapers, 1964) https://www.thetimes.co.uk/archive/page/1964-03-09/6.html [accessed 2017-10-21]. This content is, unfortunately, behind a paywall, and can only be accessed by Times subscribers. ↩︎

The Times, Monday July 24 1961, p. 10, Council “Will Stick to Guns” (London: Times Newspapers, 1961) https://www.thetimes.co.uk/archive/page/1964-03-09/6.html [accessed 2017-10-21]. This content is, unfortunately, behind a paywall, and can only be accessed by Times subscribers. ↩︎

Singham, pp. 364-5. ↩︎

David Olusoga, Black and British (London: Macmillan, 2016), p. 512. ↩︎

BBC News, Powell's 'rivers of blood' legacy (BBC: London, 2008) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/7343256.stm [accessed 2017-10-19]. ↩︎

The Times, Monday March 9 1964, p. 6. ↩︎

Butler and King, pp. 364-5. ↩︎

Ponting, pp. 15-6. ↩︎

Benn, p. 131. ↩︎

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Home, Alexander Frederick [Alec] Douglas- (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004-16) http://oxforddnb.com/view/article/60455?docPos=1 [accessed 2017-10-21]. ↩︎

#harold wilson #uk general election 1964 #alec douglas-home #quintin hogg #smethwick #1964 #labour #conservatives #liberals #george brown #marcia williams

[gershonposts]

Prime News: BOE Deputy Governor Should Not Have Resigned for Honest Mistake – Carney

Prime News: BOE Deputy Governor Should Not Have Resigned for Honest Mistake – Carney

BOE Governor Mark Carney stood pat on how he handled the scandal surrounding deputy leader Charlotte Hogg, saying she should not have quit her post because of failing to divulge her brother’s work at Barclays. Carney said their response had been more rigid than would have been awaited from banks under their umbrella. The BOE head had delivered his address before chiefs of major financial…

View On WordPress

#BOE #Charlotte Hogg #Quintin Hogg

[rideinternal]

https://www.shutterstock.com/editorial/image-editorial/lord-hailsham-dead-october-2001-nee-quintin-hogg-cycling-from-whitehall-after-a-meeting-1943896a

#sturmey archer #bicycle #bike #hub #3 speed #vintage #moulton #cyclist

[dadsinsuits]

Quintin Hogg

#suitdaddy #suiteddaddy #suit and tie #suited daddy #men in suits #silverfox #suited man #suitedman #suited grandpa #buisness suit #suit daddy #suited men #british man #british men #member of parliament #house of lords #house of commons #uk conservative party #conservative party #Quintin Hogg

[dailynewswebsite]

Five tips to help you keep exercising this new year

Strive selecting train you take pleasure in. Andrey_Popov/ Shutterstock

Exercising extra is among the commonest new yr resolutions folks make. However greater than 1 / 4 of individuals fail to maintain their resolutions, and solely half preserve a few of them.

But when that also sounds daunting, listed below are 5 ideas which will show you how to higher preserve exercising if that’s your aim this yr.

1. Have a plan and an finish aim

Resolutions will be nice – don’t let me discourage you. However if you begin out, set each your lofty aim, and a agency roadmap of the steps you have to observe to get there. It will show you how to maximise your odds of success in reaching that aim.

Need to run 2,021km in 2021? Breaking this bigger aim down would imply it is best to plan on operating 5.5km a day (day by day) or about 8km day by day earlier than work should you work Monday-Friday. But in addition take into account what occurs should you get an harm – do you’ve gotten redundancy constructed into your plan? You must also plan breaks to stop overtraining.

Analysis exhibits that by combining bold targets with a number of achievable sub-goals, you’re extra seemingly to achieve success. With the ability to tick off the targets as you go may offer you a constructive motivational increase to maintain going.

2. Don’t take up operating (except you take pleasure in it)

Working is nice. Virtually anybody can do it, it’s nice for the entire physique, requires minimal gear and you are able to do it nearly anyplace. Working additionally improves cardiovascular well being and bone density. That stated, I hate operating – so I don’t do it.

Individuals typically ask what sort of train they need to do, and I sometimes inform them that the reply depends upon what they take pleasure in doing. It is because you’re more likely to maintain doing train you take pleasure in over actions you end up dreading.

And considerably surprisingly, analysis exhibits that it doesn’t appear to matter what sort of train you do with regards to well being and longevity – so long as you’re exercising you’ll see advantages. Resistance coaching, aerobics, high-intensity interval coaching (HIIT) and presumably even yoga might all stimulate your physique in several methods, however have constructive outcomes when it comes to well being and longevity – particularly when mixed collectively.

However should you do wish to take up jogging, it’s also possible to preserve your self motivated by becoming a member of group occasions – equivalent to parkrun.

3. Get an train buddy

When England first went into lockdown in March, I began a brand new train programme with my accomplice. 9 months later, we’re nonetheless each caught at house and nonetheless exercising collectively six days per week. That peer encouragement, motivation and occasional guilt journey from my higher half has actually helped.

And loads of analysis exhibits that beginning a brand new train programme with another person will show you how to each to keep up your regime in the long run. This may very well be as a result of the exterior peer strain is useful, or presumably as a result of the constructive social interactions from exercising with others makes it extra enjoyable.

Your canine may make a very good train buddy. Svitlana Ozirna/ Shutterstock

Day by day lunchtime walks with somebody in your bubble, the entire flat doing morning yoga earlier than the workday begins, or weekday soccer with you mates are all nice methods that can assist you begin exercising within the new yr – and stick with that aim. And since train is “infectious”, beginning a brand new sort of standard exercise might inspire these near you to affix in too. So, even should you can’t persuade your flatmate to begin with you, you may find yourself getting them to affix in and also you’ll each profit.

4. Take away as many limitations as attainable

What are the issues that cease you from going for a stroll, or to the health club? Is it since you’re too busy? Schedule time. Is it too costly? Search for cheaper alternate options equivalent to park workouts or YouTube exercises.

Figuring out the limitations conserving you from reaching your aim will let you work out what you are able to do to stop them from stalling your progress.

5. Get a canine

This final one isn’t for everybody – I get that. However a number of peer-reviewed papers recommend that canine house owners dwell longer. We do know that canine house owners stroll about 3,000 steps extra per day, so it may very well be a easy as being extra bodily energetic than non-dog house owners.

Should you don’t have a canine, strive pondering of causes to stroll extra anyway. Small quantities of bodily exercise executed all through the day actually do add up. Issues like avoiding the raise and taking the steps just a few occasions per day or standing up each advert break actually does result in constructive modifications over time.

Train is nice for, and can show you how to dwell an extended and more healthy life. Even should you suppose you don’t like train, maybe you simply haven’t discovered the appropriate sort but. And if that’s not the case, breaking your targets down, eradicating any limitations and discovering a buddy (with two legs or 4) to train with will show you how to preserve your new train routine all through the brand new yr.

Bradley Elliott receives funding from the Endocrine Society, the Quintin Hogg Belief, and personal philanthropy to assist his educational analysis. He’s affiliated with The Physiological Society as a society consultant.

from Growth News https://growthnews.in/five-tips-to-help-you-keep-exercising-this-new-year/ via https://growthnews.in

#Growth News

[auskultu]

Pop group loses record takings after libel on Harold Wilson

uncredited writer, The Guardian, 12 October 1967

The pop group, The Move, yesterday apologised to the Prime Minister through counsel in the High Court and agreed that all profits on its record Flowers in the Rain – now fourth in the Hit Parade – shall go to charity.

They and two other defendants, who will pay agreed damages, will also pay the costs of Mr Wilson’s action against them. Mr Quintin Hogg, QC, for the Prime Minister, told the court that Mr Wilson had brought the action “to make plain his determination to establish the complete falsity” of rumours of which he had been aware for some years.

These false and malicious rumours, Mr Hogg said, had been spread concerning the Prime Minister’s personal character and integrity. He said a postcard sent through the open post to disc jockeys, journalists, and television producers to promote a record made by The Move had made use of the rumours, which Mr Wilson had “always considered it right to treat with the contempt they deserve.”

He said: “But in the present instance the scurrility of the card coupled with the extent of the circulation and threatened circulation left him with no alternative but to assert his legal rights and thereby to make plain his determination to establish the complete falsity of these rumours. The defendants have now realised the unacceptable nature of their conduct and it is fair to say have never at any time suggested that there was a word of truth in any of the suggestions contained in the libel.”

Mr Hogg said Mr Wilson had agreed to terms of settlement which might be thought “extremely generous.” Later, after detailing the terms, he said:

“In view, however, of the wide dissemination of the postcard he wishes me to make it quite clear that he would not necessarily take the same lenient view of any subsequent occasion. Indeed, in the opinion of his advisers, the character of the libel was such as to warrant criminal proceedings.”

500 copies ordered The Prime Minister’s action, started when he issued a writ and was granted an injunction on September 1, was against The Move’s manager, Anthony Secunda; the group members, Bev Bevan, Trevor Ireson, Christopher Kefford, Carl Wayne, and Roy Wood; the designer of the drawing on the postcard, Neil Smith; C.C.S. Advertising Associates. Ltd., of Wardour Street, Soho, who subcontracted an order for 500 copies of the card; and Richard Moore and Leslie Ltd., of Great Chapel Street, Soho, who printed those copies.

In addition to the agreed payments, the defendants were required to submit to a perpetual injunction. The royalties on the record and sheet music of Flowers in the Rain and the coupled song Lemon Tree, and the damages to be paid by the last two defendants, will go into trust and the money be shared equally between the two charities named by Mr Wilson: the Spastics Society and the amenity funds of Stoke Mandeville Hospital, to aid paraplegic patients.

Mr James Loring, director of the Spastics Society, said: “We are tremendously grateful for the Prime Minister’s generous and thoughtful gesture. The society is at present facing a grave financial crisis.” As reported in the Guardian yesterday, the society stands to lose up to a quarter of a million pounds annually as a result of a court decision on the tax liability of its football pool, a major source of income.

How much the two charities will receive from The Move, however, is hard to assess. The record from which most of the money will come has been issued in this country, the US, Australia, Germany and Scandinavia, and the royalties will take some time to come through. People connected with The Move yesterday estimated the likely revenue at anything from £2,000 to £8,000.

#harold wilson #the move #roy wood #law and order #lawsuit #united kingdom #psychedelic rock #1967 #1960s #sixties #60s

[ateliernouha]

I am happy to share that my team won the International Fabrication Festival 2017 DS Smith First Prize for our pavilion for 'best use of material'!

Team: Sneha Baptista, Amad Hussain, Nouha Hansen Mentored by Colman Architects Our project: In response to this year's FabFest theme Pop-up City, we would like to bring some attention to a very important part of the city; the green spaces! Cities around the world are growing at a rapid speed, and London is no exception. Big cities are popular as they bring together diverse people, ideas and processes making them exciting places to live and work. How can we make sure to maintain a healthy environment? In London, air pollution poses a major health risk causing the early death of up to 9000 people a year due to long-term exposure to NOx gasses and particulate matters. We are curious to reduce the impact of several decades or industry and transport emissions of pollutants into the air, and have been inspired by the WENDY pavilion made of a special nano-material as an adaptable skin and filters the air. The material creates a clean air flow and depicts biomimicry form. This nano material has great potential as the adaptable skin can be fitted commonly throughout the city for example to bus stops to act as cleaning hubs in busy transport spots. We envision that our pavilion can be made of the same material. Our pavilion with its material and with its nature inspired geometry represents how human activity can support nature in providing the best possible environment. FABFEST is an International Fabrication Festival celebrating design and making featuring pavilions designed by students from the UK and around the world. The Festival is hosted by the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment at University of Westminster and sponsored by the Quintin Hogg Trust, DS Smith and Hawthorn: www.fabfest.london

#architecture #design #fabrication #FabFest2017 #University of Westminster #making #art #installation

[teachanarchy]

A brief introduction to what we at libcom.org mean when we refer to the state and how we think we should relate to it as workers.

This article in: Español | Français | Türkçe | Nederlands

States come in many shapes and sizes. Democracies and dictatorships, those that provide lots of social welfare, those that provide none at all, some that allow for a lot of individual freedom and others that don't.

But these categories are not set in stone. Democracies and dictatorships rise and fall, welfare systems are set up and taken apart while civil liberties can be expanded or eroded.

However, all states share key features, which essentially define them.

What is the state?

All states have the same basic functions in that they are an organisation of all the lawmaking and law enforcing institutions within a specific territory. And, most importantly, it is an organisation controlled and run by a small minority of people.

So sometimes, a state will consist of a parliament with elected politicians, a separate court system and a police force and military to enforce their decisions. At other times, all these functions are rolled into each other, like in military dictatorships for example.

But the ability within a given area to make political and legal decisions – and to enforce them, with violence if necessary – is the basic characteristic of all states. Crucially, the state claims a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, within its territory and without. As such, the state is above the people it governs and all those within its territory are subject to it.

The state and capitalism

In a capitalist society, the success or failure of a state depends unsurprisingly on the success of capitalism within it.

Essentially, this means that within its territory profits are made so the economy can expand. The government can then take its share in taxation to fund its activities.

If businesses in a country are making healthy profits, investment will flow into profitable industries, companies will hire workers to turn their investment into more money. They and their workers will pay taxes on this money which keep the state running.

But if profits dip, investment will flow elsewhere to regions where profits will be higher. Companies will shut down, workers will be laid off, tax revenues will fall and local economies collapse.

So promoting profit and the growth of the economy is the key task of any state in capitalist society - including state capitalist economies which claim to be "socialist", like China or Cuba.  Read our introduction to capitalism here.

The economy

As promoting the economy is a key task of the state, let's look at the fundamental building blocks of a healthy capitalist economy.

Workers

The primary need of a sound capitalist economy is the existence of a group of people able to work, to turn capitalists' money into more money: a working class. This requires the majority of the population to have been dispossessed from the land and means of survival, so that the only way they can survive is by selling their ability to work to those who can buy it.

This dispossession has taken place over the past few hundred years across the world. In the early days of capitalism, factory owners had a major problem in getting peasants, who could produce enough to live from the land, to go and work in the factories. To solve this, the state violently forced the peasants off common land, passed laws forbidding vagrancy and forced them to work in factories under threat of execution.

Today, this has already happened to the vast majority of people around the world. However, in some places in the so-called "developing" world, the state still plays this role of displacing people to open new markets for investors.  Read our introduction to class here.

Property

A second fundamental requirement is the concept of private property. While many had to be dispossessed to create a working class, the ownership of land, buildings and factories by a small minority of the population could only be maintained by a body of organised violence - a state. This is rarely mentioned by capitalism's advocates today, however in its early days it was openly acknowledged. As the liberal political economist Adam Smith wrote:

Laws and government may be considered in this and indeed in every case as a combination of the rich to oppress the poor, and preserve to themselves the inequality of the goods which would otherwise be soon destroyed by the attacks of the poor, who if not hindered by the government would soon reduce the others to an equality with themselves by open violence.

This continues today, as laws deal primarily with protecting property rather than people. For example, it is not illegal for speculators to sit on food supplies, creating scarcity so prices go up while people starve to death, but it is illegal for starving people to steal food.

What does the state do?

Different states perform many different tasks, from providing free school meals to upholding religious orthodoxy. But as we mentioned above, the primary function of all states in a capitalist society is to protect and promote the economy and the making of profit.

However, as businesses are in constant competition with each other, they can only look after their own immediate financial interests – sometimes damaging the wider economy. As such, the state must sometimes step in to look after the long-term interests of the economy as a whole.

So states educate and train the future workforce of their country and build infrastructure (railways, public transport systems etc) to get us to work and transport goods easily. States sometimes protect national businesses from international competition by taxing their goods when they come into the country or expand their markets internationally through wars and diplomacy with other states. Other times they give tax breaks and subsidies to industries, or sometimes bail them out entirely if they are too important to fail.

These measures sometimes clash with the interests of individual businesses or industries. However, this doesn't change the fact that the state is acting in the interests of the economy as a whole. Indeed, it can be seen basically as a way to settle disputes among different capitalists about how to do it.

State welfare

Some states also provide many services which protect people from the worst effects of the economy. However, this has rarely, if ever, been the result of generosity from politicians but of pressure from below.

So for instance, after World War II, the UK saw the construction of the welfare state, providing healthcare, housing etc to those that needed it. However, this was because of fear amongst politicians that the end of the war would see the same revolutionary upheaval as after World War I with events like the Russian and German revolutions, the Biennio Rosso in Italy, the British army mutinies etc.

This fear was justified. Towards the end of the war, unrest amongst the working classes of the warring nations grew. Homeless returning soldiers took over empty houses while strikes and riots spread. Tory MP Quintin Hogg summed up the mood amongst politicians in 1943, saying “if we don't give them reforms, they will give us revolution.”

This does not mean reforms are 'counter-revolutionary'. It just means that the state is not the engine for reform; we, the working class – and more specifically, our struggles – are.

When our struggles get to a point where they cannot be ignored or repressed anymore, the state steps in to grant reforms. We then end up spending the next 100 years hearing people go on about what a 'great reformer' so-and-so was, even though it was our struggles which forced those reforms onto them.

When as a class we are organised and militant, social reforms are passed. But as militancy is repressed or fades away, our gains are chipped away at. Public services are cut and sold off bit-by-bit, welfare benefits are reduced, fees for services are introduced or increased and wages are cut.

As such, the amount of welfare and public service provision to the working class in a society basically marks the balance of power between bosses and workers. For example, the French working class has a higher level of organisation and militancy than the American working class. As a result, French workers also generally have better conditions at work, a shorter working week, earlier retirement and better social services (i.e. healthcare, education etc) -regardless of whether there is a right or left wing government in power.

A workers' state?

For decades, in addition to the struggle in workplaces and the streets, many workers have tried to improve their conditions through the state.

The precise methods have differed depending on location and historical context but primarily have taken two main forms: setting up or supporting political parties which run for election and are supposed to act in workers' interests, or more radically having the party seize political power and set up a workers' government through revolution. We will briefly examine two representative examples which demonstrate the futility of these tactics.

The Labour Party

The Labour Party in the UK was created by the trade unions in 1906. It soon adopted the stated aim of creating a socialist society.

However, faced with the realities of being in Parliament, and therefore the dependence on a healthy capitalist economy they quickly abandoned their principles and consistently supported anti-working class policies both in opposition and later in government .

From supporting the imperialist slaughter of World War I, to murdering workers abroad to maintain the British Empire, to slashing workers' wages to sending troops against striking dockers.

When the working class was on the offensive, Labour granted some reforms, as did the other parties. But, just like the other parties, when the working class retreated they eroded the reforms and attacked living standards. For example just a few years after the introduction of the free National Health Service Labour introduced prescription charges, then charges for glasses and false teeth.

As outlined, this was not because Labour Party members or officials were necessarily bad people but because at the end of the day they were politicians whose principle task was to keep the UK economy competitive in the global market.

The Bolsheviks

In Russia in 1917, when workers and peasants rose up and took over the factories and the land, the Bolsheviks argued for the setting up of a "revolutionary" workers' state. However, this state could not shake off its primary functions: as a violent defence of an elite, and attempting to develop and expand the economy to maintain itself.

The so-called "workers' state" turned against the working class: one-man management of factories was reinstated, strikes were outlawed and work became enforced at gunpoint. The state even liquidated those in its own quarters who disagreed with its new turn. Not long after the revolution, many of the original Bolsheviks had been executed by the government institutions they helped set up.

Against the state

This doesn't mean that our problems would be solved if the state disappeared tomorrow. It does mean, though, that the state is not detached from the basic conflict at the heart of capitalist society: that between employers and employees. Indeed, it is part of it and firmly on the side of employers.

Whenever workers have fought for improvements in our conditions, we have come into conflict not just with our bosses but also the state, who have used the police, the courts, the prisons and sometimes even the military to keep things as they were.

And where workers have attempted to use the state, or even take it over to further our interests, they have failed - because the very nature of the state is inherently opposed to the working class. They only succeeded in legitimising and strengthening the state which later turned against them.

It is our collective power and willingness to disrupt the economy that gives us the possibility of changing society. When we force the state to grant reforms we don't just win better conditions. Our actions point to a new society, based on a different set of principles. A society where our lives are more important than their 'economic growth'. A new type of society where there isn't a minority with wealth that need to be protected from those without; that is, a society where the state is unnecessary.

The state needs the economy to survive and so will always back those who control it. But the economy and the state are based on the work we do every day, and that gives us the power to disrupt them and eventually do away with them both.

More information

Private property, exclusion and the state -Junge Linke - Brief article examining the role the state plays in capitalist society.

The state: Its historical role - Peter Kropotkin - A classic anarchist text examining the state's role in society.

The state in capitalist society - Ralph Miliband - Excellent book analysing the nature of the state and how it cannot be used in workers' interests (not online unfortunately).

Capital and the state - Gilles Dauvé - More detailed libertarian communist analysis of the state.

Marxism, freedom and the state - Mikhail Bakunin - A collection of writings of the Russian anarchist with comments on the state which were sadly proved accurate with the experiences of state socialist revolutions.

The Bolsheviks and workers' control -Solidarity - A detailed examination of the anti-working class policies of the Bolsheviks in the earliest days of the Russian revolution.

Labouring in vain -Subversion - A critical history of the Labour Party from a working-class perspective.

#state #government #politics #economics #work #capitalism

[mazenalwardi-blog]

A summary of the important news in North Africa) Egypt, Libya, Morocco) and my community Izki.

Mazen alwardi

March 22, 2017

‘’A summary of the important news in North Africa) ُEgypt, Libya, Morocco (

               Egypt: Cairo’s population is set to grow by 500,000 this year, more than any other city in the world, adding to the pressure on an Egyptian economy struggling to recover from six years of political turmoil.

Resources: Reuters

               Libya: Libya’s eastern parliament said it supported ending a deal to unify the country’s National Oil Corporation (NOC), a day after eastern forces recaptured major oil ports from a rival faction.

The fighting for control of the ports in Libya’s Oil Crescent, a strip of coast southwest of Benghazi, has raised fears of an escalation of violence and a reversal for the OPEC member state’s efforts to revive its oil output.

Resources: Reuters

               Morocco: Morocco’s king has named Saad Eddine El Othmani from Islamist PJD Party as the country’s new prime minister and asked him to form a government, according to a royal statement published by the MAP state news agency. Othmani served as foreign minister between 2011-2013 and had since served as the head of the PJD’s parliamentary group.

Resources: Aljazeera

        ‘’A summary of the important news in community’’ (Izki):        

-              Izki: Azki Sports team announced the opening of registration for the 2017 old players League.

Resources:  “Voice of Izki” in the twitter account  

News of business: exercise in class: Bank of England deputy Charlotte Hogg resigns her post

Ms Hogg broke the Bank’s code of conduct by failing to reveal the potential conflict of interest.She had been the Bank’s chief operating officer since 2013.

 But news of her brother’s job only emerged earlier this month, when she faced MPs on the Treasury Committee about her promotion to deputy governor.

.

Resources: BBC

  $.

[democraticdeliberation]