Sad Reflections on life and politics: Iain Banks' Interview with the Scottish Socialist Voice from November 2002.

The desperate news that ground-breaking Scottish writer and all round excellent guy Iain Banks has only a few months to live inevitably leads to some reflection on mortality and time.  I reflected that I had been a fan of Iain Banks since I was a 15 year old at high school (and banned from writing a book review of the Wasp Factory!) when he was a very new writer.  In a sense I grew up with his writing (sci-fi and mainstream) an integrated thread of my own developments up and down in my life.  Banks is an incredibly prolific writer so since the 80s has more or less produced a book a year or 18 months or so.

Another quiet memory was an interview I did with him for the Scottish Socialist Voice which I managed to dig up from computer -  I can't find it online although I do have a hard copy.  It was in 2002 only a decade ago but politically for the Scottish Left it is a geological age.  The optimism of the (relatively) new SSP and the Scottish Parliament is here as is the growing movement against war criminal Blair which would result in the massive anti-war demonstrations a couple of months later.  Banks' latest book at the time was Dead Air - a direct response to the 11th September bombings.

Reflections on life led to me thinking about how sad the political position we are in now in when you read this.  In many ways the period of this interview was the time when the SSP was at its strongest attracting the support of all sections of Scottish society including the cultural wing, involved in the anti-war movement and industrial action (the firefighters were beginning a serious campaign of industrial action, left unity however precarious (the SWP were involved after all) seemed a reality not blind wishful thinking.  Again a few months later the SSP gained 128,000 votes and 6 MSPs.

Now that seems as remote as one of the colourful planets that Iain (M) Banks writes about.  The Scottish Left is generally a wasteground, the SSP disintegrated in the aftermath of 2 court cases  and things have been thrown back many years to way before 2002.  Personally I gave up my membership in 2011 after the Parly elections as the SSP struggled to cope with the post-court case (2010 model) terrain.  

As Banks says here: " the point is not - and never - to give up hope". There are some good signs : the Radical Independence Convention, the anti-bedroom tax demos.  But things are so much more complicated and patchy because there is no coherent left force in Scotland.  For a time there was though and Iain Banks was part of it.  Hopefully as he faces his next few months that will be a positive thought for him.  

He also turned me on to an Orchestra Baobab album which is still one of my favourites!

Iain Banks is one of Scotland’s most successful fiction writers.  Dead Air, published a few months ago is his twelfth novel.  He has also internationally popular with his science fiction work where he has written  nine novels and created his own utopian society: the Culture. He is also, perhaps, the most famous subscriber to the Scottish Socialist Voice!  He gave his views on books, music, the world and politics to Nick McKerrell.

Dead Air seems to have caused a bit of a controversy touching as it does on  the events around September 11.  Did this surprise you?

Not really. Actually I was hoping it would stir things up a bit. A bit more, even (instead of dealing with the issues the book tried to raise, people seemed generally fixated on the fact the first draft was "written" in six weeks - it's true it was typed out in six weeks, however I'd mostly written the book in my head over the three or so months previously).

A lot of your recent mainstream novels seem to deal with a lot of topical issues is this your preferred setting?

I like the freedom of being able to write from a Science Fictional point of view, where you can deal with issues on any scale at all, but I do enjoy writing about the here and now too, because, well, that's where we all live, while still keeping the option of veering off into fantasy or magical realism or whatever, should the notion take me.

The main protagonist in Dead Air is a shock left-wing DJ  who lets rip at various points with his comments on America, the world and everything.   Did you use this to vent your spleen on the  way the world is going?

Definitely. Usually I allow myself just one obvious rant per book, but with this one I decided to make the rants more centre stage. I think since Dubya's non-election and the rightwards slide of New Labour (tm) there seems to be more to rant about.

On that theme  how do you think the world is going?

Badly, just now. The Right has been in the ascendancy since the early Eighties and has done its damnedest to persuade everybody that its way is the only way, but some of the chickens are starting to come home to roost now (the word "Enron" springs to mind, for some reason) and the point is not - and never - to give up hope. Capitalism has had it all its own way since about 1990 and the world is a demonstrably less fair, just and equitable place; alternative ways of running society need to be explored and I think more and more people are open to that idea.

How do you feel about the current warmongering of Bush and Blair?

I've never voted for New Labour and I don't consider myself a subject of the Crown, but I can't help feeling ashamed of what Blair is doing in my - our - name. What is being touted here is a war of naked imperialist aggression, an act of civilisational thuggery.

How do you think the Scottish Parliament has done in the last few years?

Not bad, so far. Not brilliant, certainly, but there have been some progressive measures (student fees, nursing care funding). The biggest scandal is the cost of the new Parliament building; were the planners/accountants from a military background? I thought only weapons systems cost eight times more than originally budgeted for.

What about the SSP?

Well, you get my vote, and I buy the paper... But stop fishing for compliments.

Would you call yourself a socialist?

I do if I bump into right-wing Americans (I don't know, there's just something about the sight of a wildly pulsing vein on the suddenly scarlet brow of a Republican-voting big-name SF author). But I'm rich*, so I'm not sure I'm really allowed to... (*This is rich in the compared-to-most-people sense, not in the Bill Gates or even Sir Paul McCartney sense.)

The Culture –Banks’s utopian universe– could be seen as a vision of a socialist society?

Yes, the Culture, which appears in most of the SF books, is socialist/communist/whateverist. There's no money, private property is synonymous with sentimental value, nothing and nobody is exploited and the opportunities for fun are pretty much unrestricted, so I like to think of it as a society that anybody could be happy in. Well, maybe not people of a determinedly miserablist nature, but they get to use really good, profoundly saturative VR, so even they're happy (relative term) too. Gee, all we need is too-cheap-to-ticket space travel and unlimited clean energy! What's stopping us?

Does it bother you that many people only read your fiction and don’t look at the sci-fi?

 Deeply. But, heck, it isn't compulsory.

Will your next book be science fiction?

 Yup. Though that's about all that even I know. It'll probably end up being a Culture story again because I just love writing about it and there's still a lot of stuff about the Culture I'd like to write about, however if I can think of a really spiffing non-Culture idea between now and this time next year when I have to start writing the blighter, I'll go with that instead (hint: I most likely won't).

How do you rate other Scottish writers?

Far too good. We're just a wee daft country; how DARE there be so many writers what are better than me. It's a disgrace. I may sue.

I know you’re a bit of a music fan.  What are you listening to at the moment?

 Red Hot Chilli Peppers: "By The Way". Or maybe Craig Armstrong: "As If To Nothing". 

And the results from the Helsinki jury...

So it's a week since the results from the Euros are in. My delay in this response is not because we had a landslide and I had to pack my bag for Strasbourg but rather I had to get back to my day job and finish the marking of the exams.



We, the SSP, got a fairly disappointing if not surprising 0.9% - marginally up on our 2007 Parliamentary vote 0.6% but obviously way down on the last Euros in 2004 when we got 5.2% but that was another world away pre-split.



Other left groups the Socialist Labour Party (Scargill's project) gained the highest with 2% - but probably mainly due to error. They were right above the Labour Party in the ballot - first time that has ever happened. I saw quite a few spoiled papers at the count I was at (South Lanarkshire, if you're wondering) and a lot of them were of that nature eg scrubbed out votes at SLP replaced with Labour etc.



The no2eu group - set up by Bob Crow and basically an alliance of Solidarity (Sheridan's group) the SWs and the CWI got 800 votes less than us in Scotland and were a bit of a damp squib across Britain getting 1%. I think that shows the error of having such a narrow anti-EU focus - not really in touch with the left forces in Britain. Although they did have a point with some of their arguments about the neo-liberal nature of the EU in particular the Lisbon Treaty - though they did exaggerate them- historically there is not the base for left opposition to EU in Britain as there is in say France, Holland or Norway.



As a side issue it shows the continuing decline of Tommy Sheridan as an electoral brand. His name was on the ballot paper as one of their list candidates, yet this could not lift them amongst the marginal left votes. In fact the SSP got a bit more in Glasgow overall compared to 2007 where his party gained 4x more than SSP in the city.



But it's all pretty depressing given that the left were beaten by the Nazis (2.5% - more on them below) and even the fundamentalist Christian group (1.5%).

I suppose on the positives the Tories and the UKIP votes marginally fell (they more or less stayed static on a UK level). The Greens increased their vote to 7.3% and the Nats topped the poll with 29%. Though this was a big improvement on 2004 where they had a bad result in fact ending up with Swinney's resignation as leader it wasn't as high as their vote in the Scottish Parliament elections.



The universal story across Britain was the collapse of New Labour - they got 20.8% in Scotland - their lowest vote since 1918 and 15.7% in the UK as a whole - behind UKIP. It shows the game's basically up for Brown but there is no clear picture as to what the alternative would be - the Tories increased in Britain but not by very much, the Liberals more or less stayed the same. The Greens also did well and kept their 2 seats.



But back to the SSP there were a number of positives from the campaign - we raised all the funds from members and supporters for a fairly shoestring campaign - this didn't allow for a national mailing but did allow us a ppb - so we didn't get into more debt as party. The broadcast was strong and a good length for posting around the internet. I think our online campaign was a positive the first time we have used it so extensively with good website and u-tube/social networking presence. Another positive was an accident in the sense that we could exploit the publicity about the MPs' noses in their trough because of the expenses scandal - fitted in well with make greed history idea. We also gained a bit of coverage in media - though pretty limited and access to some hustings - although there were not a lot of them anyway.



The frustrating thing from all these positives is that they didnt matter to our vote. Objectively with the economic collapse and utter discrediting of the capitalist political elite a unified socialist party should be mopping up. One of the reasons proffered for standing was that the election would be a referendum on the economic collapse of capitalism generally and the British economy in particular - the first time people would have a national chance to have their say on Brown. In a sense this was true - witness the collapsed vote but certainly no anti capitalist force gained from this. With the partial exception of the Greens who I think are perceived like this even though their policies stay within the capitalist framework.



Colin (Fox) I think said at the hustings where we selected our candidates that there would be a much higher turn out at this election in Scotland than before as people would want to have their say against Brown and NuLabour. This wasn't true. In fact Scotland had one of its lowest ever showings at 26.1% I think 1999 was a bit lower. This was well below the UK average of 34% this time and lower than the Scottish vote of 30% in the 2004 election. People were actually less inspired to vote.



In such a context it was difficult for us to make an impact particularly even in the cities as we only had a fairly small number of activists involved - I would guess even less than were involved in the Glasgow East by-election last summer. Though we had a couple of good rallies - I thought the one in Glasgow was very positive.

It is difficult to see how we break out of our electoral irrelevance. Personally I think we should be engaging our branches with campaigns at community level like the anti-schools closure activists and the work being done in Maryhill with the burgh angel. Also working alongside other left groups on the Charter- whose launch I attended earlier this year (See blog post below) and the Social Fora. None of these is a silver bullet to coin a phrase which will relaunch the left electorally but at the moment it's probably the best we can do.

The other British story was the Nazi BNP gaining two seats in the North West of England and Yorkshire. In fact their national vote went up by 1.3% much less than the Greens who went up by 2.4%. Griffin and the other guy actually got less votes than in 2004 but because of Nulab's collapse and the low turnout they sneaked in.

The Nazi vote in Scotland was up by 0.8 - a bit less than England (although in Wales it went up 2.5%!) . Which is worrying particularly given the left's vote but they are still on the margins - given the blanket media coverage they got they probably wanted more.
I hate to think what they'll do with the resources from the Euro parliament though. Good to see Griffin get the reception he deserved at Parliament.



A bit of a messy result then.

PCS Hustings - Thursday May 28th

Back to a more traditional hustings on the Thursday organised by the PCS trade union in Edinburgh. Colin was doing the tv debate so I came through for it. There were 10 candidates ! So each of us got 2 mins to speak and the questions came from the floor. Because of responses we only managed to get 4 or 5 questions in the time we had. So a lot less inclusive than the Wednesday one.

And pretty shockingly every candidate was male. The Labour and Green guys were the same ones as the night before. Surprisingly, I thought, UKIP were invited. Their candidate was outrageously right wing but he mumbled quite a lot so I dont think people picked up on what he was saying. He started his speech claiming to be a climate change denier, thought the BNP should have a platform and that Griffin's Nazis were "too left wing"! because they stood for troops out of Iraq, scrapping Council Tax etc. I was sitting quite near him so I heard it all dont think the audience did!

Tommy Sheridan was there for no2eu - he's the second on their list. I thought his opening speech seemed pretty stilted as he was referring to a lot of detailed legislation -European directives from 1989 for example! He got into a bit of flow later on during the questions but only when he moved away from focusing on the EU and went into general propaganda. It shows the limits of the narrowness of the no2eu agenda though. He had quite a few supporters in the audience maybe about a dozen who were looking for some rousing stuff but they didnt really get it. He was referring quite heavily to a CWI journal Socialism Today in front of him for the detail.

Jim McDaid from Scargill's Socialist Labour Party was there he did the withdrawal from EU from a left wing perspective bit much more fluently. Mind you they have been arguing that since they were formed in 1995 and Scargill has been arguing that since 1975!
Again showed the tragedy of having such a splintered left in this election.
Questions focused on privatisation, pensions, public sector pay and the BNP (which doesnt begin with P!). I managed to bring my own experience in working in a new uni and of course the battle against INTO.

New Labour guy got a bit of a hard time though he answered the question on no platform for the BNP quite well. He left at the same time as me and said he couldnt believe the hostility of the left to New Labour! Where had he been for the last 12 years I wondered. Well the answer is not here - he works in Brussels for the EU and lives in Sweden a lot. You can tell he was a bit of an outsider to the battles of Scottish politics. He thought the Tories would win the next election and then people would regret attacking Labour.

Friday morning and did a photo shoot for the STUC against the BNP - most of the parties were there :us, Greens, Liberal, NuLabour, Tories and the SNP. It was the big names that were there for most of the parties apart from the Tories and of course the SSP :-). Rikki R came along and took some photies one of which is on here.
Last week of campaign beckons...

World Development Movement Hustings - Wed 27th

Wednesday night saw me attend the hustings organised by the Glasgow World Development Movement Hustings in the West End. It was around their trade justice campaign , they want all the MEPs and potential candidate to sign a pledge to stop European institutions tying poorer countries into unfair trade deals.

It was a different format - each candidate spoke for 3 minutes then each one sat at a separate table with tea and cake! and people could move from table to table and quiz the candidates. It allowed people more time for one on one discussions I guess and didnt allow the candidates to confront each other in a top table structure.

The other parties that were there were the 4 establishment ones - Nulabour, Tories, SNP and the Libs. The others represented were us, the Greens and No2EU - the formation called by Bob Crow of the RMT and backed by Solidarity and the Morning Star Communists up in Scotland.

Only ourselves, the Greens, Labour and the Tories sent actual Euro candidates. Most of the introductory speeches were fairly inoccuous. The Labour Candidate was a Euro apparatchik Paul McAleavey who actually works for the European Commission bureaucracy. The Tory was 2nd on their list Belinda Don who was a very "Dave" Cameron candidate: very approachable and posh and believe it or not the first candidate to mention the crisis facing the environment and the only one of the establishment candidates (I hadnt spoken and the Greens hadnt mentioned it at all!) I mention those 2 because they were the only ones that didnt sign the Trade Justice Pledge at the end.

The Liberal was Elspeth Atwooll who is standing down as MEP this year - She taught me at Glasgow Uni and she is very nice sort of Old School Liberal I get on quite well with her. The Nat was Patrick who works for Jamie Hepburn in the Scottish Parliament, the green was Alastair Whitelaw who is on their list been around for ages and was wearing a nice pair of green slacks! The no 2EU rep was Ian McInnes who I know quite well he is a Govanhill community activist and had been dropped into doing the hustings at last minute. They are all pretty good guys so couldnt get much snarling done there :-)

I spoke last was the only one that mentioned expenses in the opening speeches surprisingly said I was disappointed that they had supplied coffee and cake because I wouldnt be able to stick in a claim for high tea at the Grosvenor Hilton!

Then I took my table -see photo at top!

The idea was that people could go from table to table to question the candidates and the WDM guys sort of facilitated it and raised their issues of trade justice between the EU and other countries, lack of democracy in the negotiations and the ignoring of factors like sustainability for poorer countries.

It was good in the sense that people got a fair say and it was more interactive- everyone got to speak that wanted to. I learned a bit at it as well. People raised issues on Africa, economic growth, the lack of democracy within the EU.
One older guy said he was a socialist and enjoyed my speech but what society needed was a "meltdown" before it could happen. Another woman was an ex-journalist who is carrying out a campaign against the building of a new Coalfired power station at Hunterston by Danish company DONG which would put all CO2 targets out the window - I hadnt heard about that. I would say the bigger parties probably had more people going to speak to them - maybe that wanted to have a go at them or maybe because they have a better chance of being elected.

Anyway Steve Rolfe from WDM concluded it and me, the Liberals, SNP, Greens and no 2 eu signed the pledge. Unbelievably or rather believably the two Big business parties didnt sign it. Shows how much New Labour have changed and how little (apart from posh appearances)the Cameron Tories have.

WDM seem quite a campaigning body - will look out for stuff they do.

SSP Euro Election Rally

The SSP European Election Rally in Glasgow went well last nite. Around 60 attended. There were speakers from Save Our Schools - the Glasgow campaign - Donna and Jacqui from Wyndford and Billy from Bellahouston. They brought a taste of real community campaigning - outlining the numerous activities they have all taken part in since the January announcement of the school closures by New Labour. Also the unrelenting anger that has been unleashed. They plan to stand at every polling station they can on the day of the Euro elections telling people not to vote Labour!
We also had music interspersed through the evening with acoustic sets(!) from Kevin and Pauline. Good to hear a Beautiful South track from Kevin and Pauline sang a song I'd never heard about the Liverpool Dockers' struggle in 1995 which was excellent.
I addressed the masses with some stuff - think it may be appearing online video somewhere so god help us all - incorporating phrase to condemn neo-liberal capitalism and greedy politicians :"We can do what we want". Also updated on police/BBC/BNP action.
We were lucky to have comrade Joachim over from France and the new Anti-Capitalist Party which is a sort of united left party like the SSP seeks to be. Although it was difficult for him with an interpreter (Johanna another candidate who did brill job) he got some important points across. He's from Mulhouse in Eastern France and part of the movement of workers who have literally locked up their bosses to explain their hardship!This is taking place in the midst of massive strikes and protests against Sarkozy. The party should do well with this background but they are just new and trying to build for the future.

Onto a hustings tonite (note the sacrifice as this is corresponding with the European Cup Final, Go Barca!)Speech now on line in 3 parts! First bit here, and Parts 2 and 3 linked

Classy PPB - Make Greed History!

Good stuff from Tam Dean Burn on why you should vote for the SSP on June 4th and fight for a better world!

Vote SSP in Euro election - Make Greed History!

My minor play to start a cult of personality! Topical though I mention climate change and the climate changes during my talk!

Resistance or representaion?

On Saturday afternoon I was back at the Caley for the launch of Scottish LRC and people's charter. Report:

The launch of the Scottish Labour Representation Committee saw an audience of around 30 being addressed by John McDonnell MP, Rozanne Foyer full time official with UNITE and Vince Mills - the secretary of the Campaign for Socialism (a left group in Scottish Labour). It was chaired by Kevin Lindsay of ASLEF. There were also a couple of MSPs in the audience - Bill Butler and Elaine Smith.

As well as consolidating the launch of the LRC which has operated at a British level for the last couple of years it was to launch the People's Charter in Scotland. A document that had been drawn up by two lawyers! including Imran Khan following meetings of left groups down south. The idea is to get a million signatures which I guess would be a hundred thousand in Scotland. I say I guess because the meeting fell down a little bit on concrete proposals which Ill come back to.

There was no clear message from the top table - which is the format in which the meeting went. Indeed some of the tensions of the LRC were inherent. Rozanne spoke explicitly of it being a vehicle to reclaim the Labour Party although she did also say that the broader "Labour movement" she was also very positive about the new broad left formation in UNITE which had its founding conference last weekend. Vince however spoke on the Charter and spoke of it being part of a radical coalition for change which would involve other parties and individuals. Indeed he stated the Labour left in Scotland is not strong enough to put the charter into practice. He also stated that the left in Scotland was currently very weak and divided and this could be used to coalesce a movement to reignite that in Scotland. This sort of confirmed Vince's approach that he thinks the Scottish LRC should be not only open to Labour members and parties that dont stand against Labour.

John McDonnell who spoke in quite an open way allowing interruptions and discussions did state the question was not one of representation but resistance. This is a movement I think from when I last saw him speak when he was more open to the idea of left regroupment in a political sense. But at base I would probably agree with him in Scotland (and probably England& Wales) because the left is weaker I dont think any group can claim the hegemony of being the main organisation and thus impose its own programme. If the SSP was at its strength of 2003 then we would clearly be the beacon for this with our programme of building a broad pluralist Scottish socialist party outside the Labour Party, if the left in the SNP were strong they would be the focal point, ditto Left in Labour. But none of this is true so joint activity around these sort of demands I think is positive and may lead in the direction of a new left formation in Scotland - but to be honest that seems a long way away at the moment.

The floor discussion was also reflective of this contradictory position. It was frustrating that 4 of the speakers from the floor were from the SWP but not one of them identified themselves as such Dave Sherry was a trade unionist, Keir McKechnie from Stop the War, Margaret Woods from Campaign to Welcome Refugees and Unite against Racism. Ridiculous really they must have about 80 years of SWP activity between them. Perhaps they think they can get multiple representation on any campaign if they have many different hats. They deflected any serious discussion on strategy and tactics because they just came up with usual bland pronouncements specifically on the British jobs for british workers thing. And they adopted usual patronisng approach - the campaign should call a demo on about a million different things.

Socialist Appeal had a group of 4 there - mostly thru from Edinburgh - they adopted a sectarian approach - it wasn't a transitional programme, didnt mention the need for workers' control or the taking over of the commanding heights of the eceonomy. Very CWI-ish I thought - unsurprising given the political tradition which at one time also included me!

Simon Steel spoke from the CPB and they were positive -seeing it as a plan for action in housing schemes. As did Gregor who echoed these problems.

John Milligan for the RMT spoke quite negatively about the left in Scotland - although he didnt explicitly have a go at the SSP that was implied point I thought and John McD for believing the Labour party could be reclaimed. To be fair though that wasnt really John McD's position at least at this rally. He also spoke about some Socialist Forums that have been taking place in Lanarkshire.

Liam spoke very well about the context of the crisis of capitalism and the environment and how we are running out of time for a socialist solution. This was more frustrating given the weakness of the left across Scotland including the SSP and that campaigns like this were needed to bring these together. A lot of people came up to speak to him at end to say they agreed with it - including Bill Butler!
Solidarity werent there -though Gordon Morgan came to social event after.

So meeting came to quite abrupt end with no clear direction as to what to do next. The format and the dominance of lengthy SW contributions from floor did not allow itself for that. I think a good initiative would be to have a more interactive set up like a Socialist Forum to decide how we campaign on the Charter. Another criticism would be the lack of any real Scottish dimension - the SNP government werent mentioned once for example let alone independence or inviting lefts in the SNP to other. I dont think that should be in charter because it would essentially kill it dead as a broad campaigning tool.

So a mixed bag but on the whole a positive move - it may not progress much under the weight of its own contradictions but I think the SSP should participate in this as much as we can.