scottishleftreview Issue 59 July/August 2010 £2.00 scottishleftreviewIssue 59 July/August 2010 Contents Comment ........................................................2 Out of the comfort zone ................................12 Still waiting .....................................................6 Peter McColl Nowhere to go? .............................................14 John McAllion and Gordon Morgan Gordon McKay Redemption Song ..............................................8 Splits that weaken ........................................16 Vince Mills Isobel Lindsay It’s how you play the cards ............................10 Are bills of rights wrong? .............................19 Kevin Williamson Carole Ewart Comment any of you will find this a dispiriting issue. Many of you will sheepishly behind their backs. The Lib Dems just lied to us Mbe unsurprised by this because you will be finding this a all and the SNP didn’t seem to have anything to say. And as dispiriting time to be a socialist, social democrat, progressive or the London Metropolitan ‘social democrat’ set speculated for however you choose to style yourself. And that’s because there those three or four days about how some sort of Nirvana could is every reason to be dispirited. be manufactured out of this poisonous sludge, the rest of us waited for the inevitable resumption of the ‘destroy at all costs’ Let us begin by explaining what was the idea behind this issue. strategy. Whatever way you look at it, 2010 has been a bad year for the left. Firstly there was more than enough evidence by the And then there has been the post-election period. It has become end of last year that not only had the bad guys gotten away clear that the neoliberal doctrine that destroyed the country had with ruining the global economy, they had quickly converted a Plan B. If it couldn’t simply buy the world up in its version of their own crimes into an indictment against those who are Fantasy Monopoly (Never Pass Go, Never Pay Your Debts) then it blameless. So just as the out-and-out corruption of the Blair/ would rip up the game for the rest of us. The Project wanted three Brown years finally resulted in collapse – banks are only a part things. First it wanted all the rules designed to stop it behaving of it, the capturing of government and its functions by profiteers like a savage beast removed (the ‘burden of regulation’). who stripped the nation of any asset or value they could get Secondly it wanted to convert the public realm from a way of their hands on was virtually complete – at this precise point the providing for the people (the welfare state model) into a way of collapse was rebranded as proof of failure of the public sector. providing for the private sector (PFI, consultancy, uncontrolled The final and petrifying evidence of this is the shift in attitude capital overspend, a bonus culture for policy-makers to corrupt to pensions. It is not public sector pensions which are pulling them into the ways of the businessman). Thirdly, it wanted to us under but economic corruption. It is not that cash has been prevent the possibility of the public realm ever influencing life shifted from the private sector to the public sector. It is not that in our country again. Down with the BBC, let Fox News provide. the public sector undermined the pensions in the private sector. End state education, let shadowy ‘consortia’ teach our children. It is much more simple – as the ideology of ‘there is no such Strip back all means of redistributing wealth, only flat taxes can thing as too much profit’ became a globally-acceptable motto, be considered. What is so disturbing is the ease with which it has so the private sector simply abandoned any pretence to any achieved all three – each against all available logic, evidence or form of responsibility to its employees. But as the corporate experience. We let them act like savage beasts and they did. We giants threw their employees out of the luxury yachts and left let them rob and corrupt the public realm and they did. This all them to sink slowly to allow a bit more space on board for more caused the economy to collapse and the fabric of our society to hoarded wealth, the right-wing media started pointing at the fray. So they used this as a reason to end the ability of the public public sector workers in their little row boats, shouting ‘why realm to interfere. A child behaving in this way would be rapidly aren’t they left to drown too?’. moved into the care sector. And adult behaving like this would be in an institution for the criminally insane. Then there was the ‘election’. We got to vote for which Chancellor was going to raise VAT (that most regressive of OK, so far so predictably depressing. But this is where the taxes) and which Prime Minister was going to devastate the usual disappointment of being interested in social justice tips rest of the public realm. There wasn’t an option on the table over into something more fundamentally awful. Commentators that didn’t involve slash and burn, only the option of who was have invented a new history for Britain. In fact, everything that going to do it. It is galling now to hear Labour people to pose as just happened didn’t happen. Labour didn’t do 95 per cent of ‘horrified bystanders’, the knife they were set to wield hidden the damage. Secretly, they knew the public sector was out of 2 Editorial Committee Moira Craig Peter McColl Kirsty Rimmer Gregor Gall Henry McCubbin (Deputy Editor) Isobel Lindsay David Miller Jimmy Reid John McAllion Gordon Morgan Tommy Sheppard Continental drifting .......................................22 Robin McAlpine Tom Nairn Bob Thomson Henry McCubbin (Editor) Leanne Wood Reviews .........................................................24 Web Review ...................................................26 Articles for publication: [email protected] Kick Up The Tabloids.....................................27 Letters and comments: [email protected] Website: www.scottishleftreview.org Tel 0141 424 0042 Scottish Left Review, 741 Shields Road, Pollokshields, Glasgow G41 4PL All illustrations: Nadia Lucchesi Printed by: PrintIt Xpress Ltd, 34 High St., Linlithgow, EH49 7AE [email protected] control. Well, banks are just banks after all and it turns out to wake up to the reality of this. We have a Labour ‘movement’ that the collapse wasn’t as bad as people were pretending it in Scotland which deserve a rapid death. There can never have was. Now we have to wake up and over our breakfast we must been a point in time when the Labour Party in Scotland was quite be lectured by ‘commentators’ on why our social provision is as dreadfully, pathetically pitiful. It has a leader that everyone a luxury we have no right to expect since it is self evident that knows is there on the basis of the ability to take instructions. Its there is a more needy cause – the International Monetary Fund, loudest voice appears to have been given to a young careerist by the ‘markets’, the banks. It has spread so awfully that even the name of Richard Baker who has decided that self-righteous many of the few remaining sources drivel about ‘knife crime’ and ‘soft of sanity have lost their mind. Are We have a Labour on crime’ is how it is going to win you kidding us? We should have in Scotland. It has a ‘health’ policy voted Labour after all? We should ‘movement’ in Scotland which would oppose Aspirin if the see the last ten years as a golden which deserve a rapid SNP supported it. This party has age for the public? A pension of become a juvenile, reactionary, £10,000 a year for a life’s work is death. There can never third-rate, witless and talentless virtually a crime against the wider have been a point in time sack of nonentities with no vision, public? There is no mainstream left; no principles and nothing to say the country is largely delusional or when the Labour Party worth listening to. There are those extremist. in Scotland was quite as who think that a decent leader would be all they need to ensure Now there are those of you who will dreadfully, pathetically a win in the 2011 election. The fact respond to this by pointing out that pitiful. that there is not a single candidate there really hasn’t been much of in the entire Parliamentary Party is a mainstream for a rather long time now. This is a fair point, telling. That the main choice of the ‘commentators’ was until although there were places where the truth about the banking recently Jim Murphy MP shows just how dislocated from reality crisis was at least being aired openly. But what else is there? the whole scene has become – when he was put head-to-head The trade union movement is simply nowhere. At its politicised with someone other than the Daily Record and actual people edge it is considering a campaign to ‘fight the cuts’. Perhaps it (not the Daily Record version of ‘actual people’) were asked is an injustice and an underestimation, but this doesn’t really to rate him, only five per cent thought he was any good. And sound like a strategy for change. A million Catalan’s just took that’s their best hope? There are still good people in Labour, but to the street, the French, the Greeks and others have done the they’ve largely given up. same. We seem to hope that five column inches on page 12 about a couple of thousand activists is an adequate response. It Then there is the irony of the Liberal Democrats. In Scotland will be ignored.