Politics

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Politics offers yesterday's answers to today's problems. Marshall McLuhan

Selected Titles:

The State We're In Will Hutton Jonathan Cape 1st 1995 One of the world's great success stories - the British state and the British economy which it supported - is in serious trouble as it nears the twenty-first century. The State We're In is a passionate denunciation of the institutions that have brought us down, and a demonstration of the underlying systematic nature of our problems. Hutton argues that the conditions of British success contained the seeds of decline. We were saddled with a financial system that valued immediate profit over long-term commitment, and a cult of the 'gentlemanly capital ist' - the archetypal City gent - that permeated boardrooms, parliament and schools. Thatcher's revolution failed to dislodge him. This book explores every aspect of the British malaise: the rise of the financial system and its contempt for industrial innovation; the transfer of the king's sovereignty to a sovereign parliament, so that Britain was denied the protection of modern forms of rights and a written constitution; and the social roots of the Conservative Party's domination of national life. The author goes on to show how the imposition of market values in every area of society after 1979 simply exacerbated the worst features of the system. British companies' cult of the shareholder's shortterm interests is shown to be a disastrous mistake. Hutton demonstrates the fallacies of the economic thinking that guides government policy, and in a forceful international survey of successful capital isms shows that the market works best when competition is allowed to flourish alongside co-operation. Nothing less than a reform programme that links economic, social and political renewal has any chance of lifting Britain once again into the big league. New values of commitment and solidarity can be supported by democratically reformed institutions, which in turn will foster economic success. Fine in a VG++ wrapper. 734 gms £8.00

Debt of Honour  Michael Foot Harper & Row 1st US edn 1981 "Michael Foot is an accomplished politician, a trenchant orator and a devoted scholar-all good things to be. But the Michael I like best is the enthusiastic essayist, using his command of words to praise his radical heroes past and present. ... The book is packed with delights from the first page to the last." So wrote A. J P Taylor in London's The New Standard in response to the British edition of Debts of Honour (published in the fall of 1980). To the American reader, Michael Foot may be less familiar; for those who already know him, he may be an enigma. A long-time Socialist and Labour Party member, Foot is now the Leader of the Opposition and perhaps the most respected orator in England. He is also a writer and a literary scholar, and this collection of essays bears testimony to the breadth and depth of his knowledge of literature, journalism and politics. In Debts of Honour, Michael Foot seeks to pay some of his debts to a varied collection of creditors, ranging from his father, Isaac Foot, a Liberal teetotaler and bibliophile, to Lord Beaverbrook of the Evening Standard. Here is a selection of those who the author claims helped turn an old liberal, with a small 'l' into a democratic Socialist, with a large 'S'. William Hazlitt, hero number one; H. N. Brailsford, the great Socialist journalist; Bertrand Russell, the philosopher-Englishman; Ignazio Silone, a new Machiavelli and a new Garibaldi rolled into one. Other near-bosom companions make their appearance: Bonar Thompson, the Hyde Park orator; Vicky, the cartoonist; Randolph Churchill. Also figures from the past: Benjamin Disraeli, Daniel defoe and would-be feminist, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough. Minor wear to the boards, minor wear + creasing to the dustwrapper, otherwise VG+ in a VG+ wrapper. 404 gms £6.50

The Enemy Within - MI5, Maxwell and the Scargill Affair Seumas Milne Verso 1st 1994 Margaret Thatcher branded the leaders of the 1984-5 miners' strike as 'the enemy within' - a furtive political clique out to undermine democracy and liberty. Only now, with the publicatlon of this remarkable book, does the full irony of Thatcher's accusation become apparent. For an 'enemy within' was at work inside the NationaI Union of Mineworkers. But It was not a force hell bent on the subversion of the British state. Quite the opposite - It was the secret service of the British state itself… •••••••• Seumas Milne has followed the war waged by successive Tory governments against Britain's miners with unrivalled doggedness aend acuity In the Guardian newspaper. In these pages, he draws together the threads of a story which traveIs at an exhilarating pace from Sheffield and London, to Moscow, Tripoli and Dublin, recounting the astonishing lengths to which the intelligence services were prepared to go in their most ambitious counter-subversion operation ever mounted. DrawIng on unique access to sources and Informants from all sides, Milne exposes spying and dirty tricks against the NUM on an epic scale. Naming names and providing a wealth of never-before-published detail, he shows how MI5 was involved in a series of elaborate smears against Arthur Scarglll and his closest associates, which drew in Labour politicians, Conservative ministers and the media empire of Robert Maxwell. Running operations against the NUM was the woman who now presents the 'new face' of MI5: Stella Rimington. Here is a nail-biting account of the secret campaign against the miners' leadership: phoney bank deposits, surveillance, staged cash drops, telephone-tapplng, forged documents and agents provocateurs. But what makes this tale more frightening than the tautest spook fiction is that is no novelist's invention - this is the true story of extraordinary events that have shaped the political landscape of Britain today. 8vo. Minor bump to the boards; very, very minor creasing to the dustwrapper, otherwise VG++ in a VG++ wrapper. 740 gms £25.00

Access to Politics: The Government and the Economy Adrian Lyons Hodder & Stoughton 1st 1999 Access to Politics is a new series of concise and readable topic books for politics students. Each book provides advice on note taking, tackling exam questions, developing skills of analysis, evaluation and presentation, and reading around the subject. The Government and the Economy equips the politics student with a basic knowledge of economic principles, and the political background to economic policy making. It includes: •• Management of the economy since the Second World War •• Unemployment and inflation •• Nationalisation and privatisation •• Exchange rates and the single currency. Adrian Lyons is a former senior lecturer in business education at Brighton University. 8vo paperback 120 pages in Fine condition. 190 gms £4.50

The Great Dock Strike 1889 - the story of the Labour movement's first great victory   Terry McCarthy Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1st 1988 The Great Dock Strike of 1889 is one of the labour movement's most famous victories. Inspired by the success of the match-girls' strike, the dockers of London's East End, in an unprecedented display of solidarity for a group of workers thought to be unorganizable, walked out en masse and paralysed the docks. The conditions in which the dockers lived and worked were pitiable and their demands modest. The Strike was led with great skill by Ben Tillett, John Burns, Will Thorne and Tom Mann. Relief funds were distributed to the strikers and their families with impressive efficiency, and the peaceful protest marches to the Oty generated a great deal of public sympathy for the dockers. The dock owners, however, would not compromise and the dispute became bitter and protracted. On the point of defeat by starvation, the strikers were saved by a spontaneous outpouring of generosity from their fellow workers in Australia. In London, Cardinal Manning, speaking for the strikers, many of them Irish and Catholic, touched the middle-class conscience and assisted the Strike leaders in negotiating the terms of the settlement. The victory the dock workers secured helped many other groups of workers and sowed the seeds of the modem trade union movement. Terry McCarthy’s vivid portrait of this momentous episode in labour history draws on newspaper reports of the time and the memoirs of many of the Strike leaders, and is accompanied by contemporary photographs and illustrations from the archives of The National Museum of Labour History. The book is published to coincide with the centenary celebrations of the Transport and General Workers' Union, which traces its origins to the foundation of the Dockers' Union during the 1889 Strike. It will be of great interest to all trade unionists and will make absorbing reading for those interested in social and labour history. With 100 black-and-white, and 8 pages of colour illustrations . 4to. Black boards with gold titling to the spine, 1 short tear to the bottom rear of the dustwrapper. Dustwrapper in protective sleeve Fine in a VG++ wrapper. 1065 gms £6.00

State of Siege - Miners' Strike 1984 - Politics and Policing in the Coal Fields Jim Coulter, Susan Miller & Martin Walker Canary Press 1st thus 1984 STATE OF SIEGE contains three chronological reports about the role of the police in the 1984 miners' strike. It covers a period from the beginning of the strike until the end of September. The book is based on first hand interviews and research in the mining communities, and it represents the first serious look at what are dangerous political' developments. It is a powerful intervention against the orchestrated barrage of force and propaganda directed by the state against the miners. "This report ensures that the strikers' view of policing in the coal fields is placed on permanent record." Tribune "This document should form the basis of a full labour movement inquiry into the policing of the strike." London Labour Briefing "Another instalment of left-wing bile against the police." Yorkshire Post "Thank you very much for your report 'State of Siege'. Could I say that I think both parts are excellent and provide a major contribution in countering the invidious way in which the state and its instrument, the police, are becoming more and more involved in what we have come to regard as the democratic processes in our society. To that extent your report will help people to think about what is happening and hopefully join us in the fight back." Arthur Scargill President, NUM 8vo paperback 241 pages. Creasing + wear to covers, otherwise VG+ 325 gms £5.00

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