Blake Baker: The Far Left, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1981, £3.95. John Tomlinson: Left, Right: The March of Political Extremism in Britain, John Calder, 1981, £4.95.
There is a guilty adolescent narcissism about rifling through the index in books of this kind to see if 'we' are mentioned; and the portrait drawn is not totally unattractive: our numbers and influence are exaggerated and we are portrayed as so many romantic Lucifers: dangerous and deadly. But the cheap thrill soon subsides to be replaced by the distaste and boredom.
Two main methodologies are involved in this sort of book. The first involves scissors and paste after a breathless sprint through a library of press cuttings. The second is the classic historiography pioneered in the Bible: the RCP begat the Club that begat the SLL that begat...
The one book that partially escaped these numbing limitations was Thayer's The British Political Fringe, now long out of print. Thayer had actually interviewed some of his victims and had a good eye for domestic squalor. His itemisation of the half-empty food tins in a London Maoist flat was a classic of the genre, reminiscent of the observation by a character in one of Mary McCarthy's novels that left-wingers might be identified by their invariable habit of not cleaning properly the rims of their toilets...
Blake Baker is less fanciful. A senior journalist on the Daily Telegraph, and a former industrial correspondent, Baker is an old newshound whose only interest is the facts. And some of these 'facts' are truly amazing. Did you know, for example, that in 'about 1971' (to pinpoint the time more accurately would presumably pose a security problem) the British Port Employers found that dock strikes were being financed by American Trotskyists and made representations via the Washington Embassy to try and staunch the flow of funds?
John Tomlinson was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Harold Wilson and was Junior Minister at the Treasury from 1976 to 1979. That grand old moderate Jo Grimond provides a preface which demonstrates how unflabby contemporary liberalism can be: 'entrism', he argues, is more dangerous than terrorism and 'some changes in the law are necessary to limit the opportunities for our enemies to make trouble'. After several pages of organised rambling on the theme 'can liberals defend liberalism by illiberal means?' and the necessary properly tortured argument, Tomlinson is forced to opt for the end of toleration for the intolerant. The Labour Party must reinstate the proscribed list and its candidates and officials must 'satisfy certain criteria binding on all parties on such critical and basic issues as human rights, civil liberties, national interests, etc'.
It cannot be proved, he writes, that the left is involved in terrorism 'but there is no assurance that they will, may or do not lend local or logistical support to international guerilla groups'. Or fly on broomsticks under a full moon, he might add; Mathew Hopkins could learn from the moderate Mr Tomlinson when it comes to framing unanswerable charges.
Tomlinson has palpable proof of the subversive treachery of the left. Unfortunately most of this evil-doing is difficult to trace as 'covert and undetected machinations' are 'by definition undetectable'. But 'sources have revealed a quite remarkable and far-reaching development in the case of the Militant. Towards the end of January 1980, as the controversy over Militant's presence within the Labour Party gathered momentum, the Soviet KGB dispatched from Paris to this country one of its top specialist agents briefed to infiltrate the tendency itself with the object so far as possible of shielding it from complete or damaging exposure'. Blake Baker quotes Tomlinson as his 'source' to reprint the exact same ludicrous accusation. Presumably the next book can now quote two authorities for this 'fact'!
Combining the meticulous research of Grimm's Fairy Tales with the literary style of a compendium of world railway timetables, both books are highly recommended bedtime reading: as soporific as Horlicks but containing none of the calories.
David Kogan and Maurice Kogan: The Battle for the Labour Party, Fontana, paperback, £1.75.
As a potted history of the new Labour left and the recent battles to democratise the Labour Party, this readable and interesting book is just the sort of thing to help activists step back for a moment to ponder the results and prospects of their campaigning. However, as a work of political analysis to provide some food for thought, forget it.
The full power of David Kogan's Fleet Street journalism and Maurice Kogan's academic dissection are brought to bear in the opening lines: 'The Labour Party has undergone cataclysmic change... The power of the traditional leadership has been broken.' If either of the Kogans have been into the House of Commons recently they can't have looked very closely at the Opposition front bench. The truth is that the structural changes in the Labour Party have not, as yet, produced either a Parliamentary Labour Party or a Shadow Cabinet that would be substantially different from the last Labour government.
Kogan and Kogan then try to explain this cataclysm: 'A new element has entered British politics,' they maintain, 'and has acted with devastating force.' This 'new and extraordinary phenomenon' is 'the groups of the Outside Left.' The book then concentrates on how the left wing organised the campaigns for democracy and accountability in the party. The authors give great emphasis to the tactics employed by the left, like model resolutions and circulars, as if they were something entirely new and alien to the labour movement. The argument is obvious — the left has made gains because it has been more ruthless and better organised than the right-wing. The failures of the Labour government, the radicalisation of sections of the unions, the strength of the left's policies for party democracy and for challenging the capitalist crisis — none of these get a look-in.
As they explain at the end: 'This book has described the story of quite remarkable changes in a major public institution and how they were achieved by small groups of people...' This 'conspiracy theory' (for despite all the dressing, that is what it is) is not something new. The cry of 'small groups of politically motivated men (sic)' has been echoing around the labour movement for generations. 'The new groups', write Kogan and Kogan, 'call themselves the "outside left".' That is a lie. I've never come across anyone in the labour movement, or anywhere else outside a football pitch, who would adopt such an idiotic label. The truth is that Kogan and Kogan's 'Outside Left', as opposed to the Tribunite 'Inside Left', is just another version of the Labour right's 'illegitimate left' and 'legitimate left'. The derogatory term 'Outside Left' says more about its inventors than about those it is supposed to describe. The right-wing would love to see the 'Outside Left' outside, outside the party, outside the unions and, in some cases, outside the country (Syd Bidwell's advice to Tariq Ali).
In the hands of the right-wing, the 'analysis' in this book will supply greater justification for a witch-hunt designed to stop the left taking 'unfair advantage' of Labour democracy. Its lists of left organisations and individuals will likewise provide useful 'do-it-yourself' kits for the fledgling Stalins of the Labour Party.
Finally, it may seem trivial, but throughout the book Kogan and Kogan insist on calling my union the Post Office Engineering Workers Union (POEW). We are the Post Office Engineering Union, the POEU, and have been since 1919. You'd think such knowledgeable people would be able to get little details like that right. Still, I don't suppose it will stop them laughing all the way to the bank, as their book is probably selling as quickly as it was rushed into print.