John Hicklenton: Be Pure! Be Vigilant! Behave!

I was sad to see that John Hicklenton (wikipedia) the creator of the likes of Judge Dredd has taken his own life after a long battle with illness.

Hicklenton was part of a team that helped create a bleak, if artistic, form of social criticism.


As a teenager I was particularly fond of the Nemisis / Torquemada episodes where an alien freedom fighter battles the religious zealotry of a human militaristic empire that sought to exterminate everything not like itself.

It played into my growing awareness of racism, religious dogma and political violence - although whether it really helped my understanding is another matter. Whatever its utilitarian value the stories were glorious.

By placing the focus on the psychology of discipline and order Hicklenton and others teased out how the desire for perfection was intrinsically linked to the desire for death.

Where change and chaos occur it is the product of life, which is naturally ambiguous, complex and difficult. By attempting to wipe out those ambiguities the forces of law and order become forces for death itself.

Makes sense to me anyway.

Torquemada in particular relied upon the artificiality of 'the other'. Those elements that seem alien are often only different because of the conditions we have placed upon them because of their alienness.

Years before I started thinking about these things possible I began to understand how creating enemies can serve a purpose quite at odds with the propaganda that supports conflict and hate. I'd like to thank John Hicklenton - he'll be missed.

Farewell Mr Foot

I've just heard that Michael Foot, ex-Labour Leader, has died. It's sad news indeed as Foot had a large impact on my politics, although not always in a way he may have intended.

Foot was probably responsible for my first ever truly political thought, which was during the Falklands War. I remember watching him on TV attacking Thatcher for not pursuing the war hard enough, for not being patriotic enough and for not putting the boot in hard enough. Even at my tender age (twelve I think) I thought "This is wrong, you're meant to be in CND and against war. This can't be right."

From that day on I described myself as a socialist - although my understanding of that word has certainly developed in the intervening twenty eight years.

The one thing that is likely to come up in the numerous obituaries over the next few days will be the fact that Michael Foot led Labour into their worst poll defeat in sixty years at the 1983 general election. The myth that has gone down in history is that this was due to Labour being 'too left-wing' and their manifesto was the 'longest suicide note in history'.

I think that needs correction as a large part of the 1983 poll defeat was a combination of the patriotic fervour of the Falklands War combined with a Labour Party split the SDP which took millions of votes.

As you can see from the figures the Tories actually lost ground at this election but because of the ridiculous system we use in this country the SDP-Liberal Alliance took a quarter of the votes but only twenty three seats, a tiny fraction of their fair share. However, those votes were largely lost from Labour and it was enough to crush them in Parliament.

Party		Standing	Elected	Gained	Unseated	Net	% of total	%	No.	Net %
	Conservative	633	397	47	10	+ 37	61.1	42.3	13,012,316	- 1.5
	Labour	633	209	4	55	- 51	32.2	27.6	8,456,934	- 9.3
	SDP-Liberal Alliance	633	23	14	0	+ 14	3.5	25.4	7,780,949	+ 11.6

If anything it was the SDP "splitters" combined with the stupid electoral system that created the extent of the defeat of 1983 not Labour's manifesto nor the style of jacket that Foot used to wear.

Anyway, despite his pro-war wobble Michael Foot was someone who helped strengthen the Labour left for many years and those who replaced him were sadly not his equal.

Howard Zinn RIP

Late last night I was shocked to hear of the death of Howard Zinn, the inspiring author of A People's History of the United States.

Many writers, bloggers and journalists have written of Zinn in a far more authoritative way than I could, so instead of writing a poor imitation I'll link to a few of them.

Dave Zirin writes a very personal account in The Nation. The Boston Globe.

Bloggers; Luna 17. Capitalism Bad; Tree Pretty. Though cowards flinch. Random Blowe. The Third Estate. Michael Greenwall. Adventures in Historical Materialism. Charlie Parker just keeps it simple.

(video spotted at LP)

RIP Callan

Edward Woodward has died. Not good, not good at all.

I'll always think of him as Callan, the working class state agent always at odds with his public school educated superiors, but he was also bloody marvelous in the Wicker Man and Common As Muck.

RIP Chris Harman

I was saddened to see that Chris Harman, long term leading light of the SWP, has died. It's been a while since I've spoken to him but it's still a shock to hear this news as he was always someone who seemed so flea fit and full of intellectual life.

Outside of his friends and family Chris will mainly remembered as an intellectual and theoretician who was able to make socialist and Marxist ideas accessible. This side to his work is best exemplified by Economics of the Madhouse, How Marxism Works and A People's History of the World.

The last of these extremely readable books is a very impressive tome covering the entire sweep of history and ever since I read it almost ten years ago I've always kept a copy around for reference and I'll continue to do so for some time I'm sure.

I've not read his latest work Zombie Capitalism yet but I've heard it's very good and one thing about Chris was that his powers never seemed to dim across the decades of his political activity. My condolences go out to his friends and family.

Other thoughts at Lenin's Tomb, Socialist Resistance, Dave's Part, Left Outside, Third Estate.

RIP Dennis Marsden

I was saddened to see that one of my old Sociology lecturers, Dennis Marsden, had died.

Dennis was one of those old lefties whose charming manner and humble demeanour belied an unwaveringly hard, if nuanced, anti-capitalism. His work on class in the education system is particularly useful but far more importantly I always found him to be a really lovely chap. He will be missed.