Putting Marx In His Place

In the next few days and after there is going to be a lot said about the two hundred year anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx in Trier in The Rhineland, then under Prussian rule, but various before with the coming and going of princes and armies over the centuries. It has an ancient cathedral with some prize relics of the saints.

We too have our prize relics of the nearer past, one of which is John Prescott, not long ago Deputy of the Labour Party, called Two Jags because of his personal support for the motor industry who gave much delight to us all via the cartoonists and comedians.

Seeing this picture of him, and seeing one of Karl Marx makes me wonder, who is who, I do not recall John having much hair and whiskers but you never know. John and his ilk are now men of the past in the Labour Party and with their going we are now back to Marx with chips as the Lefties have grabbed power.

There is a great deal of academic literature on the subject of Marx and the intellectual influences bearing on his work. He calls himself a professor and author and was one of those who could just write and write and keep going long after the reader had begun to flag. It is not easy nor was it meant to be. He was trying to explain what he thought the world was and how it worked.

Which raises the question of who did he talk to in the ordinary course of his life? Not the eminent writers or academics of his time but the other forgotten people. The ones he saw, met and was with on a day to day basis and could not avoid. In short the neighbours, who were they? What were they? What may we read between the lines of all that print he turned out?

This blog has already dealt with Morgan Kavanagh and the time Marx was in Dean Street, Soho to suggest that ancient myth and language may have been involved. There were other possible influences there at the time. I refer, of course, to the long standing Huguenot community and their Protestant and commercial interests.

In 1861 he had moved house, as people did then, at least it is unlikely he would be faced with a sign saying "No Prussians". The Germans were seen as our cousins and friends. Quite unlike the French. He has a Maclachlan, an auctioneer, was today's "Private Eye" cartoonist one of these? Did Marx ever return from a book sale with a set of complete works of the great sermon writers, wondering how that had happened?

Then there is Bailey, a sculptor, who did not do one of Marx, probably because he would never see the money for it. And there was Langer, the builder. "Got a roof leak squire? I know just the man, mind you it will cost a few bob". Between these men he would have experienced capitalism red in tooth and claw.

By 1871 Marx had moved up market a degree to the other side of Regent's Park. He is in the first house on the street and next to a John Ford, a "Fancy Worker". There is a Clinton, a Clerk in the War Office, a Batchelour, a retired Treasury Clerk and a Preece in the high tech of the time Telegraph Service, distinctly all of the petty bourgeoisie.

Then in 1881, on the same street, there are the immediate neighbours. On one side Edwin Willis, of the leading organ builders. They had a branch in Liverpool which Edwin took care of at a time when the different faiths were trying to out build each other.

If our present Liverpool Lefties want to get close to Marx, one of their local Parish Churches may well have a Willis organ for them to sing along to. The London Lefties have a rich choice of churches but The Royal Albert Hall with its Willis organ for The Last Night Of The Proms might be worth a visit.

On the other side of the Marx house is Henry Goddard and his wife, Kate. He is a doorman at the House of Lords at a time when many of them thought that the House of Commons was no longer reliable and the Lords should reassert their authority. Previously he was a senior messenger in a City Bank, who put the capital into capitalism.

Before that Goddard had served in the Army between 1844 and 1863 and discharged as a Sergeant on a Chelsea Out Pension and he had been in Bengal with the Royal Artillery. Which means he was there when it went bad in the mid 1850's, Mutiny or Revolt as you prefer and witnessed the end of the East India Company.

Did Marx ever spend a warm evening or two in a garden with the neighbours chatting about this and that and drawing on their invaluable experience? Who know what could have happened?

When Goddard nipped down to Chelsea now and again to see about his pension he might have encountered Naish Hannay, the Waterloo veteran who was in Bath at the same time as the Austen family as a youngster.

What might have happened if he had put Karl Marx onto reading Jane Austen? 

Putting Up And Taking Down

Another day, another statue, this one the Millicent Fawcett suffragette. Whether these memorials of the past are there to inspire us or to warn us is an interesting question. Ideas and beliefs change down the generations.

Those we thought great at one time are not later. Beware the heroes of war who saved us from Napoleon but believed in things we do not. Perhaps we might have a campaign to have the six wives of King Henry VIII as a group to remind us of what things used to be.

Martin Kettle in the Guardian newspaper of 26 April, today, says there are too many statues and we could do without many of them and certainly stop putting them up. He may be right. There are many town centres where you wonder who and what that person had to do with the town.

The Duke of Wellington has statues in London, never mind a magnificent tomb. The one by Hyde Park Corner is interesting in that there are four soldiers, perhaps one each for Scotland, Ireland, Wales and England, see above.

One I know, of a fusilier of the 23rd Regiment of Foot, is for Wales, the others I do not. Interesting though in that a great grandfather of the singer Kathleen Ferrier, Daniel Murray, was in the 23rd at Waterloo. But he was Scots Irish from Co. Down. Kathleen was the ultimate Lancashire lass of her time.

Statues are becoming common, if that is the right word, at football stadia to baffle the fans of the future and provide a target for visiting supporters to go in for a bit of publicity seeking vandalism.

But moving on from the post of a couple of days ago calling for compensation for conscripts to the British Army perhaps the ordinary squaddie deserves one.

A man who as well as training, fighting and doing parade ground stuff spent a large chunk of his not so spare time peeling potatoes. That is a tribute to all the spud bashers as we were known.

Quite where the best place for it to be is a puzzle. One might be the Embankment in London near the Savoy Hotel where some of the War Office bosses spent much the war. I would prefer Waterloo Bridge which so many crossed on their way abroad in the 40's.

The picture above which might provide a model is dated 3rd September 1944 and in northern France where the British troops were advancing against a determined enemy.

The logo on the arm is a Jerboa, a Desert Rat, and tells us that these men were in the 7th Armoured Division, which went from El Alamein to Berlin via Italy and Normandy.

That fact that I wore the same logo a few years later is purely a coincidence.

Naming Of Names

Naming of names, how about Karl Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov Joseph Jeremy?

My Nose Hurts

My nose hurts. As for many others it has been a bad few days.

This is one story that tells the tale. 

This is one way to look at it, only the Wizard may be of less use than a cold shower.

The government should do something about it.

On the other hand that might make it worse.

Compensate The Conscripts

The Windrush row is replete with grim ironies. Not least is the passenger ship that gave its name to the whole business, the Empire Windrush, was built in Hamburg named "Monte Rosa" and served the German navy during World War Two.

The UK took it as reparations and needed extra troopships in the late 1940's to return troops from abroad and send out different ones to clear up the many messes of Empire, other wars, as well as being ready for a hot war to start during the Cold War.

The years of the "Windrush Generation" which we are told by our modern media was the shock horror of its time coincides with the period of conscription in which millions of British men were required to do their duty by their King/Queen with no questions asked. The labour shortages that resulted meant recruiting migrants.

Some did not return, see the picture above, others were damaged for the rest of their lives. Essentially, the conscripts lost two years of income, job experience, family or other personal life and might experience horrors rather beyond those of migrants from the West Indies inconvenienced by administrative errors.

A key to all the trouble today is the question of the landing cards  thought to be lost or scrapped. High words and allegations have been made. Now, it turns out to the astonishment of all they could be in the National Archives.

As someone who often has a look in these on the web and in the past has searched for a great deal of information there, one can only have a sense of wonder of a civil service that failed to check its own archive before making its blunders, never mind the politicians.

In the period in question the Brit's had to have their documents, birth certificates and marriage, military discharge papers etc. as routine. The Inland Revenue, the banks and other offices would often ask to see them. Some of the Windrush Generation did not have basic documentation as in the colonies among the local populations they might be ignored.

In the UK now if you want to find out what grandad or a relative was actually doing and where during their National Service you may be out of luck. It was the age before computers and such machines. The amount of paperwork handled by the armies of clerks was vast. What happened to it?

When in the Army at my unit I was the Lord High Chief Incinerator. As when mobilised we could only take what we could carry then nothing had to be left behind. As my chief preferred me to be out of the office it fell to me to do the burning. What was in the files or such was of no matter, up in smoke it went.

During my later career, especially local government reorganisation, these skills were regarded as an asset. Shredding took for too much time, just dumping meant needed places to dump it. So we burned all that could be burned keeping only essential minutes and planning permissions, if I felt like it.

So the unlucky ones of the Windrush Generation, particularly those from locations where the registrations of births and marriages was skimpy, if at all there or could be accessed, were the ones where the paperwork was missing. They were but a small minority in a nation of losers.

What this issue does attract attention for is the chance to claim racism and of the British in general. This period was a different world. You disliked anyone who was not the same as you or your family. I recall yes there was racism and prejudice and in many ways, especially if looking for "digs" or a room to rent.

It was common to see "No Blacks" in the windows of rental etc. places. They usually followed the "No Irish". Given World War 2 few had "No Jews" but they did not find that out until they knocked on the door and were told that the room(s) had just been taken.

In London those with strong Geordie, Scots or Liverpool accents could have trouble. In the Army God help a cockney posted to the Durham Light Infantry. That was the way it was. You might suffer from it yourself, but then equally you might make others suffer.

You might be equal in your kind, but your kind was never equal to others. Except, perhaps in the Army when the bullets were flying.

There are not many left of that generation now and fewer by the day. Why not give compensation, if only to assuage the conscience?

A Taxing Question

In another blog a while back the writer accused the HMRC of playing "silly tax games" in its pursuit of raising tax from business corporations in a world with many tax havens inviting them to locate financial operations there.

Below is the comment I made, one in which I had a rare sympathy for the tax man.

Quote:

In your post you use the phrase "silly tax games", they are neither silly nor games. HMRC has been obliged to adopt a more forward and determined approach in dealing with major corporations, many international, to collect the taxes due.

There is real pressure on HMRC because governments have been increasing spending and taking on more liabilities. But what too many simply do not realise is the extent and rapidity of change in recent years, especially the politicians and also their leading civil servants.

The corporations on the other hand are able to move far more quickly and they can reorganise and put in place the teams of very able people on substantial earnings that will do the job on systems that are newer and better than those of HMRC.

The accidents of history have created a network of "independent" jurisdictions that are a flexible and ready to enable the movement of money, ownerships, titles to property and the rest to the advantage of these corporations. This is about wealth, who owns and runs it, power, politics and control.

When the corporations own so much and fund the politics, our Prime Minister when at her breakfast table confers with her husband financier, then the servants of the public, such as the HMRC are at another disadvantage.

For the rest of us, we have the problem of what sort of economy are we going to have to provide our needs when this collapses.

Unquote.

Now thrive the armourers.

Rooms To Unlet

Down the decades, indeed centuries, the word "Landlord" has always been one that produces an adverse reaction. There are many uses of land with many wanting to use it and so those who are the legal owners become landlords. In the 18th Century I suspect my tenant farmers could have been at odds with the gentry class.

Rather later, I recall my parents, who liked to welcome and enjoy the company of friends and neighbours, did not like it when the landlord called, especially when he persisted shouting "I know you are there" while we hid in the attic. As a student, I needed landlords, but many of them made it clear that they did not need me.

There was a time when a high proportion of the population rented, none of that lets make everyone a property owner business then. So the politics of the period meant a party that would "control" rents or promised only to allow "fair" rents etc. meant all the parties bidding for the mass votes of those for whom renting was the only way to have living space.

Having lurched about the property markets to promote mass ownership and that becoming rapidly unstuck and having consigned a good many to what is effectively debt slavery we are back to the business of renting being necessary for many. Bash the landlords is back on the agenda.

This is now complicated by the fact that in the longer past the tension was between Brit's of various kinds. In the 21st Century we have many and various sections with their distinctive ways and means inherited from the places of their origins. One feature is that migrants with money often chose property, those without money, especially refugees, then become almost a servile class.

This means that while landlords are heading back to the top of the bash the rich lists the politics means that potentially there are massive subsidies needed as welfare or other benefits for the rapidly increasing numbers who need and are beholden to the landowners and renters.

None of our parties has any sensible or rational answers to any of this all variously claiming to be promoting property building, helping business, guaranteeing welfare and keeping a lid on rents at the same time when this is clearly impossible.

In the meantime those at the wrong end of are queuing to buy lottery tickets in the faint hope of buying their way out.