imposs1904
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“Troubling”?
I was being melodramatic for comedic effect.
F. M. Robins was a regular writer for the Standard in the early 1950s. All I know about her is that she was a member of the SPGB from 1950 until 1960 (she resigned for personal reasons), and that she was the daughter of F. Foan (Fred?).
There is more known information about F. Foan. He was a longstanding member of the SPGB (1906 until his death in 1954). He was originally a member of the very active Battersea Branch in the Edwardian era, worked originally as a bricklayer and was eventually a work colleague alongside Jack Fitzgerald as a teacher of building construction at the old Battersea Polytechnic. He was himself an incredibly prolific writer for the Socialist Standard for 40 plus years.
Barltrop briefly mentions him in this article from the June 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard:
https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2014/02/some-members.html
Back in 2020, ‘Pik Smeet’ reviewed A.M. Gittlitz’s book, ‘I Want To Believe: Posadism, UFOs and apocalypse communism’ in the Standard:
https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2020/07/a-trotskyist-oddity-2020.html
. . . which detailed the history of Posadism, a primarily South American Trotskyist movement which was “. . . mostly known among left trainspotter circles for his belief in UFOs and advocacy of nuclear war.”
Posadists were known for the unique position that, if and when, aliens visited earth it would turn out that they came from a fully-realized socialist/communist classless society, as it followed that only such a society would have the technological advancements to perform such a scientific feat.
All fun and games if you spent too much of your childhood watching Star Trek, when you should have been playing Subbuteo and listening to the Top 40 on a Tuesday lunch time.
Therefore, it’s troubling to stumble across some premature Posadism whilst scanning in the March 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard.
F. M. Robins in her article, ‘Anti-climax’, concludes with the words:
“We will close by following Mr. Heard’s lead and indulge a short flight of fancy. Supposing that space ships brought beings from another planet. One imagines they would be fleeting visitors to this miserable world of conflicts, and want alongside potential plenty. Interplanetary travel presupposes a more intellectual and very much farther advanced form of life, the outcome of which we should presume to be a classless society, where all the evils that are the outcome of capitalist society could not exist. The inevitable and ultimate goal of all human endeavours.
Many of us would want to “thumb a lift” for the journey back.”
http://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2025/03/anti-climax-1951.html
Apologies for the Star Trek gibe. I was more of a Buck Rogers in the 25th Century kind of kid back in the day. “Biddi-biddi-biddi”.
The longstanding British Communist Party leader, Harry Pollitt, was a member of Pankhurst’s Workers’ Socialist Federation in his early political days in the Greater Manchester area.
He definitely knew of the SPGB back then as he mentions Moses Baritz approvingly in his autobiography, ‘Serving My Time’.
The SPGB weren’t so kind to Pollitt in his CPGB leadership days, nicknaming him Harry Pollute . . . which I think is pretty funny, tbh.
Powerful scene with the late Gene Hackman from Mississippi Burning:
Mississippi Burning was reviewed in the August 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard:
https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2015/07/southern-discomfort-1989.html
A 2004 article on Leonard Peltier from the old WSPUS journal, World Socialist Review:
https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2019/05/leonard-peltier-and-primal-needs-of.html
An update about the Socialist Standard Past and Present blog:
https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2025/02/the-blog-is-glitching.html
According to the blurb for his book on Jack London, Barltrop seems to have regarded himself as a re-incarnation of Jack London:
In fairness to Barltrop, it’s because I read his biography of Jack London at an early age that I didn’t have any starry-eyed notions about London.
Fun fact. Robert Barltrop, of The Monument ‘fame’, was a boxer in his youth.
Link to the obligatory Socialist Standard article on boxing from yesteryear:
Ignoble art (1986)
“As an aside could I ask why people leaving the party was a subject for discussion in the first place? I would have thought, when compared to other political parties or voluntary organisations in general, the churn of members was quite low. Has this recently changed?”
That wasn’t the original topic of the meeting, but as the meeting progressed it strayed into that territory because of the anecdotal nature of the discussion.
It was an interesting and chatty discussion – and I’m not being dismissive in describing it as chatty – but I wouldn’t read too much into why the discussion took that turn.
Robbo203 wrote:
“. . . I cannot see any reason why the party should not advertise it.”
Maybe an alternative is for it to be reviewed in the Standard?
There’s an argument to be made that there should be expanded review section in the Standard that would cover the review of podcasts and video essays from YouTube and elsewhere.
PJS wrote an article about him in the December 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard:
https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2023/12/gb-news-and-garys-economics-2022.html
He’s also mentioned briefly in this Proper Gander TV column from the March 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard:
https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2022/03/proper-gander-where-wealth-went-2022.html
Woke up to this bollocks. What a time to be alive!
Bezos, Zuckerberg, Pichai join Trump at church
“Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg, Apple leader Tim Cook, and Google chief Sundar Pichai were seen taking their prime seats at St John’s Church.
Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, FIFA president Gianni Infantino and former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson were also spotted at the church.”“Anything new about this? Will it help?”
I think what’s fascinating about stuff like this is that it’s another indication of how short-lived the current Labour government’s ‘honeymoon period’ was. I think it’s unprecedented in recent political history that a political party which had won a landslide in seats has pissed off so many people in such a short period of time. (An indication of the current political climate, no doubt.)
Once upon a time, a dissident current within the Labour Party would have denounced a Labour govt’s actions but would have stayed in the party and fought their political corner. In Broxtowe, they obviously don’t see that as an option in 2024 . . . and that’s only 6 months into this Labour government.
This is a one-term government.
