Christopher Hitchens and his critics
OBITUARIES that openly exult in the death of their subject remain something of a rarity. Ask not for whom the bell tolls, and all that. That hasn’t stopped all the wrong guys from cheering the passing of Christopher Hitchens. The Hitch was, according to a prominent contributor to Britain’s widely-read socialist blog, a ‘grubby apologist [...]
David Hart: an alternative obituary
THE irony is that David Hart no doubt saw himself as a friend of the working man, and all that. But the hardline Thatcherite – who has died at the age of 66 – was one of the most implacable and effective opponents of militant trade unionism, revolutionary socialism, and even mainstream Labourism seen in [...]
Michael Foot 1913-2010
I’M PROUD to possess two books given to me as presents by Michael Foot. One of them – a witty polemical assault on a couple of wartime Tories – was penned by himself. The other is an early edition of Leon Trotsky’s ‘Where is Britain going?’ As many of the obituaries since his death at [...]
Chris Harman 1942-2009
CHRIS Harman – former editor of Socialist Worker and International Socialism Journal, and a leading theoretician of the Socialist Workers’ Party – died in Cairo last night, reportedly as a result of a heart attack. A statement from the SWP central committee can be read here. He was a prolific writer, especially on history and [...]
Irving Kristol: American Idol of the right
FOR a man who purveyed little more than warmed over supply side economics and a stress on the need for religiously-rooted morality, Irving Kristol – who has died aged 89 – was idolised on the transatlantic political right to an extent entirely out of proportion with any distinctive intellectual contribution to their cause. Given that [...]
Guillermo Lora 1922-2009
GUILLERMO Lora – leader of Bolivia’s Partido Obrero Revolucionaria, one of the few Trotskyist organisations in history ever to gain a mass following – died on Sunday, aged 87, as a result of a liver cancer. I haven’t seen his demise announced anywhere online in English yet, but the most extensive Spanish obit have I [...]
Greg Tucker 1953-2008
Mr Tucker represents all that is wrong with the RMT. An unreconstructed figure of the hard left, and a fanatical supporter of Arthur Scargill’s Socialist Alliance, he was ejected from the Labour Party some years ago. He, along with several other RMT leaders, is a throwback to the trade unionism of the 1970s – an [...]
Pierre Lambert 1920-2008
Pierre Lambert – leader of the French Trotskyist organisation Parti des travailleurs, pictured left – has died at the age of 87. You can read his obituary in Le Monde – in French, what else? – here. Born as Pierre Boussel in Paris in June 1920, the son of a Russian-Jewish émigré tailor, Lambert was [...]
Andrew Glyn 1943-2007
Leading Marxian economist Andrew Glyn (pictured left) – who in the seventies and eighties worked closely with the Militant Tendency and the National Union of Mineworkers – died shortly before Christmas. Today’s Financial Times carries this obituary by David Soskice: Andrew Glyn, perhaps the leading leftwing economist in the UK for the past 30 years, [...]
Max Roach 1924-2007
I was lucky enough a few years back to catch what must have been the last-ever British concert by Max Roach, the great jazz drummer who has died at the age of 83. This bloke played with ‘em all: Hawk, Diz, Duke, Getz and, of course, the classic Bird quintet. The decidedly unatmospheric main auditorium [...]
