Alastair Morgan & Peter Jukes - Untold: The Daniel Morgan Murder Exposed

Private investigator Daniel Morgan was brutally murdered in 1987. Thirty years later, the case is "the most investigated murder in British history", yet despite this no one has ever been punished for their involvement in the killing. This remarkable book is the story of Daniel Morgan's family's struggle for justice. It is a book that exposes the rotten heart of the British justice system and forces the reader to confront ugly truths about our police forces.

At the heart of the story is the killing of Daniel Morgan. His brother Alastair and the rest of Daniel's family begin by trying to get justice but almost immediately they found themselves stunned by the inaction of the police and investigative failings. However it rapidly became clear that there was much more to the case, and as the family constantly put pressure on the police more and more dirt is exposed.

It is likely that Daniel was killed because he was about to expose major police corruption and collusion in criminal acts in a newspaper story. Anyone who has been paying any attention to British current affairs for the last thirty years knows that the behaviour of the police has increasingly come under scrutiny. It should come as no surprise that the justice system that failed so many people like the Birmingham Six or the Guildford Four would have institutional failings. One of the formative political campaigns of my life was the struggle for justice for Stephen Lawrence, the teenager killed in a racist attack in South London. That the police were found to be institutionally racist out of that campaign was a real victory. What Daniel Morgan's case shows is that there was also deep seated corruption in sections of the force at the time and it is likely that this is the reason he was killed. This begs the question, as the authors point out, who knew in advance about this? As they explain:

Yet rather than one issue of police corruption, Daniel might have uncovered many of them. Rather than the crime itself, he might have focused on the conspirators and discovered a network of corrupt police officers. The mention of a 'management committee' organising the murder and cover-up seems plausible. If there was a conspiracy to murder Daniel... then cover it up using police personnel, it would need to be carefully planned.

All the indications... suggest it was meticulously organised .The removal of incriminating evidence from all Daniel's belongings and the abortive media campaigns calling for more information suggest the conspiracy was in operation long after the murder too. Subsequent cover-ups may have escalated to hide the initial conspiracy... With the revelation of a network of corrupt police , dozens of trials could have collapsed and convictions been rendered unsafe. Senior officers may have decided then that burying the true story around Daniel was the lesser of two evils.

So the story's tentacles stretch far beyond the car park where Daniel was killed. There are multiple links to the News of the World phone hacking scandals. After the then PM Gordon Brown spoke in Parliament about the "criminality surrounding the News of the World" Alastair writes:

I was reeling. This was another example of how my brother's unsolved murder and its cover-up had spread so rapidly through so many institutions. I had warned about the dangers of leaving the corruption around Southern Investigations to fester decades before, and now another symptom of the rot was playing out"

I have deliberately avoided trying to retell Untold's story in this review. Partly this is because I would encourage readers to read it themselves, but if you would like a short summary then I recommend this Socialist Worker piece on Daniel Morgan's murder.

As a longstanding political activist I have no love of the police, nor any illusions in the British state. Yet I still found myself repeatedly shocked by Untold. Indeed this is one reason why I would encourage people to read the book, as it exposes the reality of British justice. There is no doubt that without the dogged persistence of Daniel Morgan's family his murder would have been forgotten long ago.

If there is to be any justice for the Morgan family then it will only be the result of ongoing campaigning work. One way to help them is to read this book. Another is to visit the campaign website.

Related Reviews

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Louise Raw - Striking a Light: The Bryant & May Matchwomen and their place in History

Louise Raw's book on the famous matchwomen's strike at Bryant and May is a brilliant work of working class history. But it is much more than an account of the dispute. Raw's argument is that up until now the strike itself has been completely misunderstood. Traditionally it has been seen as a strike led by a few outside socialist agitators, principally the Fabian socialist Annie Besant. In addition, the impact of the strike was negligible when compared to the much more important dock strikes that erupted in East London a year or so later. After finishing the book, to test Raw's hypothesis, I picked up a copy of Allen Hutt's "short" history British Trade Unionism, a 1941 book that is effectively an official Communist Party history. He has this to say about the strike:

In July, 1888, a Socialist-led strike of the girls at Bryant and May's match factory in the East End secured wide publicity, alike for the shocking conditions that it exposed and for the revelation of the number of Liberal politicians who were concerned as shareholders. The strike was successful.

To be fair to Hutt he does continue to say that the strike was the "light jostle needed" (quoting Engels) to kick start wider strikes. But his all to brief account makes a number of the mistakes that Raw's book demolishes. Firstly the strike was not led by Annie Besant. While it is true that Besant had published an important expose of conditions in the factory a few days before the strike began, she neither knew of its beginning nor welcomed the event. In fact, Raw's account makes it clear that Besant's middle-class politics preferred the idea of a well publicised boycott of Bryant and May, and perhaps legal action to expose the employers. She did not welcome the self-activity that the Matchwomen displayed, despite the women having some hopes in her.

Hutt himself seems to subordinate the strike to the publicity it generated to embarrass some liberal politicians. This is to downplay the role of almost 1,400 women in bringing out an entire factory and creating a huge political problem for the employers and politicians. The women, despite the vast majority of them being very young, were confident, politically astute and able to articulate their demands. Rather than being the tools of outside agitators as Bryant and May liked to believe these were women who had a history of struggle, organisation and engagement with radical political ideas.

Careful research by Raw shows how deep these traditions went. In 1871 Raw describes how the government (under Gladstone) wanted to introduce a tax on matches. This would have had a significant impact upon the already impoverished workers at Bryant and May. The workers "convened a mass meeting at the Victoria factory, passing a resolution 'unanimously amid great cheering' stating that 'we the matchbox makers and employees of ... match factories, resist to the utmost of our power by all legal means the imposition of this cruel tax upon our labour'." They then marched to Parliament to hand over a petition, and despite their peaceful intentions encountered the full brute force of the police trying to stop them. It is notable that Bryant and May's management simply intended to pass the tax onto their workers rather than challenge the government. 17 years later the workers would again march to Parliament, following the same route as in 1871*.

Popular legend would have the "match-girl" as a tiny, innocent, poor little girl freezing to death on the streets. The reality, as Raw demonstrates over and over, is that she was often a highly political figure willing to organise her comrades, fight the police and protest to try and improve conditions. This wasn't just true of the strike. Raw's research uncovers the latter-day history of some of the strike leaders who became key community figures prepared to fight for their neighbours and friends, as well as being trade unionists.

But conditions definitely needed improving. Despite the enormous profits made by Bryant and May, life in the factories was notoriously hard, and low paid. The work itself inflict tremendous suffering on the workers, with the phosphorous causing a painful bone disease known as Phossy Jaw. Despite the link between phosphorous and the disease the company sacked people who showed symptoms and downplayed the threat. The suffering must have been horrific. Raw quotes one contemporary account of a former Matchwoman who had completely lost her lower jaw.

Gender

The second strand to Raw's book is the question of gender and its role within the strike. Raw argues that you cannot understand the matchwomen's strike without understanding the wider position of women in contemporary society and in the trade union movement of the late 19th century. Despite a few exceptions women workers were not seen as part of the workers movement, in fact, the official trade union movement tended to see women workers as a threat that would reduce male wages or employment. This was closely linked with fixed ideas of gender roles within the family. As Raw writes:

The ideological victory of the concept of 'separate spheres', and all that went with it, had resulted from a long and sometimes hard-fought battle over ideas of sexual morality, the sexual division of labour, and gender itself: what it meant, or should mean, to be a man or a woman in the nineteenth century.

This meant too things. It meant that women who did work, like the matchwomen, were portrayed as immoral, violent and lacking in womanly qualities. But it also impacted on the labour movement and those who wrote its history. The result is, Raw argues, a "history of the figureheads of women's unioniusm rather than of the rank and file, and of these leaders' estimations of the female workforce, often as weak and undisciplined before the imposition of order from outside". Here is the origin of the myth that the strike was "Socialist-led" or organised by Annie Besant.

Raw's book rescues the Matchwomen from a "gender blind" tradition that cannot conceive that ordinary women could self-organise and defeat a powerful and rich employer. But her book is much more than this. While telling the story of the strike Raw also tells us the story of working class life in the East End - the extreme poverty, the appalling conditions at work and home, the arrogance of the middle and ruling classes who only saw violence and promiscuity. Against this Raw shows us a world of solidarity and self-organisation. Of women and men who fought as best they could for their neighbours, workmates, communities and their families.

The finest example of this is Raw's argument that there was no real separate between the action of the Matchwomen and the more famous (and more celebrated) strikes that followed. Against those historians who argue that there was a gap, or no interrelation between the events, Raw painstakingly pieces together the close community and family links between dockers, matchwomen and other workers. More recent historians might have believed that there were no links, but that was not true of trade unionists at the time.

Dockers' leaders Tom Mann and Ben Tillett were both unequivocal, indeed generous to an almost surprising degree, in attributing to the matchwomen's action the very beginnings of New Unionism. Tillett described the matchwomen's victory as quite simply 'the beginning of the social convulsion.

In my own studies of rural class struggle I've often noticed how  ruling class accounts of strikes begin with a belief that there must be some outside agitators starting the commotion. They cannot believe that the peasants and labrouers were able in and of themselves to organise, let alone threaten their wealth and power. This condensation is also true of the matchwomen, though in this case, it has also been copied by some labour historians who should have known better. Louise Raw's book is a brilliant rescue of the role of ordinary working class women in fighting to improve their lives. It is also a masterpiece of historical study - a model for those of us trying to understand and write about the struggles of the past. I urge you to read it.

* I would like to add a personal note to this. Louise Raw points out that the Matchwomen marched in 1871 and in 1888 to Parliament via Bow and Mile End. In 2003, when war in Iraq broke out, a march by thousands of school and college students followed the exact same route to Parliament to protest at Tony Blair's war. It was fairly spontaneous, and it is nice to know of the unconscious celebration of East London history.

Related Reviews

Tully - Silvertown
Marriott - Beyond the Tower
Wise - The Blackest Streets
Mayhew - London Labour and the London Poor
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Fishman - East End 1888

John Tully - Silvertown

In 1889 nearly 3,000 workers at Silver's, an enormous factory in East London, in Silvertown went on strike. The men and women who walked out were inspired by the New Unionism that was sweeping the city. They'd seen mass strikes by dockers in the East End that had won major victories and they wanted improvements too.

Their twelve week strike has almost been forgotten today. Perhaps because it ended in defeat. But John Tully's important book rescues the struggle for readers today, and, perhaps surprisingly, the reader will find that we can learn much from those brave men and women.

Silver's was enormously profitable. Having made a fortune from rubber, the plant was now a central part of a world-web industry. Their products literally stretched across the globe - a key, and very profitable, part of their work was manufacturing the telegraph cables that spanned oceans. Silver's even owned the ships that laid the cables, as well as the plantations that provided some of the raw material. Even after the twelve week strike, with production badly hit, Silver's could still declare "a half yearly dividend of 5 percent, or 10 shillings a share, tax free". Its shareholders, which included some of the most important political figures in the country, could breathe a sigh of relief. Not only were the profits still rolling in, but the company had faced down New Unionism.

For the workers who made these profits possible, life in the East End was appalling. Tully quotes some figures.

In 1906, Silvertown suffered infant mortality rates of 181 deaths per 1,000 live births compared with 141 per 1,000 in West Ham's central ward. Twenty to thirty years earlier, up to one-quarter of all babies in huge swathes of the East End died at birth of shortly afterward. By way of comparison, the UK's rate between 2005 and 2010 was 4.,91 deaths per 1,000 and that of war-devastated Afghanistan during the same recent period was 135.95 per 1,000..... [those for] Rwanda, the Central African Republic, Somalia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo were respectively, 100,15, 105.37, 106.67 and 115.81 per 1,000.

As Tully comments, behind these figures "was a universe of human pain and sorrow".  Low wages meant poverty and hunger, lack of medical care and appalling living conditions.

The strike was impressive. At the forefront of it were women workers who led the collections, walking mile after mile to collect money for the strike fund. Some of them walked so far they wore out their shoes and new ones were purchased out of funds to enable them to carry on raising solidarity.

Eleanor Marx, who played a central role in the dispute argued explicitly for the equality of women and men in the struggle. Tully quotes one account of her speaking:

"she... appealed strongly to the women. They must form unions and work in harmony with the men's trade unions. As the dock strike had taught them the lesson that skilled and unskilled labour should work together, so the present strike should teach them a further great lesson, that they could only win by men and women working in combination. The capitalist was using women to underwork men and that would be the case until women refused to undersell their brothers and husbands."

Eleanor Marx was tireless in her work in support of the Silvertown strikers. But this was matched by the enthusiastic hard work of the strikers and their families. Regular marches, protest meetings and rallies took place from Hyde Park out to Silvertown itself. Large pickets tried to stop scabs going in, and encourage those workers who remained inside to come out.

For the strikers this was the crucial problem. New Unionism is so called because it represented a break from the old craft unions. By the late 1880s, these unions were still powerful (and sometimes very wealthy). But they represented a small and distinct layer of a growing working class. The power of the union was mostly used to protect the interests of a tiny minority of skilled craftsmen, and their leaders often looked snobbishly down on the new, mass based, trade unions. The failure of a handful of engineers to join the strike meant that Silver's management were able to keep the plant running and provide work for scabs imported from outside London to undermine the strike.

One can speculate about the debates inside the Silvertown strike meetings about how to win. Tully doesn't provide us much information on what took place on a day to day basis - perhaps because none is to be had. We can guess mass pickets by the strikers weren't enough to stop the scabs going in. Perhaps solidarity action by other groups of workers would have helped shut down the plant in the face of such determined management. Certainly the government and the state were doing everything they could to intimidate, imprison and occasionally beat the strikers back to work. In the face of this, only mass solidarity action could have won - though had the engineers walked out it would have made victory much more likely. History can only judge the AES in East London as helping management win in Silvertown.

The defeat of the Silvertown strikers came with a bitterly cold winter as the strikers were starved back to work. Hundreds were victimised for their roles and some never worked again. The defeat helped pave the way for a renewed employers offensive against the workers, which together with an economic down turn helped undermine the gains of New Unionism.

John Tully has done the working class movement and labour history a real service with this detailed book on our forgotten history. Sadly it reads all to familiarly, the story of greedy bosses and shareholders and underpaid, poverty stricken workers desperate for better conditions. But there is much in this book that can teach the modern trade unionist. The Silver's workers were considered unorganisable, and yet they fought a powerful industry nearly to a standstill. From their tragic, and unnecessary defeat, we can learn lessons and be inspired to fight ourselves.

Related Reviews

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A S Jasper - A Hoxton Childhood

A S Jasper's memories of life in Hoxton in East London, in the first two decades of the twentieth century portray a life of poverty and suffering. Jasper's working class family suffered doubly; from the limits of East London's economy and a father who's semi-legal income mostly made its way behind the bars of the myriad of local pubs.

So this is a autobiography of a childhood blighted by poverty, unemployment, alcoholism and violence. The violence of individuals who took out their suffering on those around them, together with the violence of a system that turned people on the street for falling behind on their rent, or because their labour was no longer needed.

Unfortunately while Jasper's tale is illuminating in the reality of life for the majority of those living in East London, unlike other similar accounts, we learn little about social life. There certainly is no sense of the collective acts of resistance that marked out East London life, or the workers' organisations such as their left parties and trade unions. Perhaps this is because Jasper is remembering the earliest years of his life, but East London did have its share of struggles in the years described.

The arrival of World War One brings with it death and destruction. The fear of German Zeppelin raids and friends and family who joined up. Some, like Jasper's brother-in-law couldn't stand the army and got out as soon as they could desert. Others never returned. Leaving young families to fend for themselves.

Those interested in the lives of ordinary people will find this book interesting, but lacking in substance. Certainly nobody could believe that Eastenders between 1900 and 1920 lived a happy, but poor existence. In a postscript written in the 1960s, Jasper hopes that his readers will be thankful that these times of poverty are past. Sadly, as the economic crisis continues, and British governments pursue their austerity programmes, the safety net helping those in poverty, low pay and unemployment is getting thin. We can hope we avoid such times again, but its not automatic. Let's hope for some resistance before following generations have to live like Jasper's friends and family.

John Marriott - Beyond the Tower: A History of East London

When I lived in East London, I always felt it was one of those urban areas where events of historical importance seemed to have taken place on every street corner. I lived in Poplar, and there were murals, monuments and plaques everywhere. East London was the place of the Match Girls, George Lansbury, Jack the Ripper, Dock Strikes and the battles against the fascists in the 1930s and the 1990s.

John Marriott's new history of the area then is a must read for anyone who lives or works in the area. It is also a must read for anyone trying to understand the wider social development of London, and particular the lives and struggles of the ordinary inhabitants.

The poverty and grim lives of many of East London's inhabitants, led the area to be seen almost as a foreign country. In particular, Jack the Ripper's Whitechapel Murders led the press to paint a picture of "outcast London", but those who lived, worked and organised in the area knew that the reality was very different. Yes there was immense poverty, but the tabloid like descriptions of violence and poverty served to sell newspapers, but not educate readers to realities. Some, like William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, saw in East London,a foreign country;

"As there is a darkest Africa is there not also a darkest England? Civilisation, which can breed its own barbarians, does it not also breed its own pygmies?"

But Clara Grant, a teacher in a charity school in Bow, argued:

"novelists and journalists demand vice and squalor when they come down to write us up. The expect evil and seem horribly disappointed if they discover we are not black at all, but only grey... a rich man, wishing to help our work, induced a big daily paper to send down a journalist... He said, 'it won't do. You're not black enough.' I pointed out that I could not very well work up a murder or two, or put every child in rags and bare feet to rouse interest."

Real life in East London was very different to the squalor depicted in the popular press. There was immense unemployment, something that has bedeviled the area since the early days of capitalism and continues today. But alongside the big employers, the Docks, the factories and the like, there have also been numerous smaller trades. The textile industry, in various forms, from the days of Huguenot immigrants to the sweatshops of the 1970s has been a central part of the local economy. One of the great strengths of this book is the way that Marriott demonstrates both continuity with the past, and the change. East London's industry is one part of this.

But at the heart of this book is struggle. The struggle of ordinary people to try and improve their lives. Some of this is criminal. Marriott deals with the criminal gangs of the 40s, 50s and 1960s. But some of it is more collective. Drawing on several books that I've already reviewed on this blog, Marriott looks at the history of the East End's Anarchists, Jewish Radicals and socialist movements. He sees them as mainly peripheral to wider politics, and downplays some of the larger achievements of the struggles in the area. For instance, Marriott argues that the Match Girls strike had far less of an impact than many have argued, "that it inspired the wave of industrial struggle that followed is unconvincing" he writes.

Certainly though, Marriott doesn't ignore these struggles, though he tends to imply that industrial militancy on the Docks or in the gas workers strikes of the late 1800s, had only shortlived impacts. Though he certainly acknowledges their importance in shaping the workers movement of the 20th century. Similarly, Marriott argues that the great anti-fascist mobilisation at Cable Street had little impact in stopping the BUF. That is probably true, but only if you ignore the wider impact of the mass protest, both in terms of the larger population and the people of East London themselves. That tens of thousands took to the streets is of more consequence than the fact that the police stopped the march. The march could not have proceeded, and the decision of the police was one made to prevent a far more bloody outcome.

Those who know more about such individual instances might find Marriott's book frustrating in places. Certainly however, I think it gives an excellent overview of the history of this important centre of the working class. Marriott doesn't give an inch to any criticisms of immigrants, arguing that they have played a central and important role in the areas economy, and the struggles of its people. The book finishes with the looming 2012 Olympics. The author doesn't see much benefit accruing from this international gala of corporate sponsorship for ordinary people. But that's in tone with the history of the area. Working people pushed aside and exploited by larger forces. Those changes, and the resistance, make this an interesting read that will bring to life much forgotten history.

Related Reviews

Fishman - East End Jewish Radicals
Fishman - East End 1888
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Branson - Poplarism 1919 - 1925
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Christian Wolmar - The Subterranean Railway

In his introduction to this history of the London Underground, Christian Wolmar makes the point that few writers on London discuss the enormous rail systems that lie beneath the surface. Indeed, Peter Ackroyd's wonderful biography of the city apparently only has half a dozen references to the Underground. This is a shame because the history of the London Underground parallels the rise of London the city and carries the marks of many of the social events that go with it.

In particular, the Underground bears the marks of the political and economic choices made to build it. Like most great Victorian innovations, the early lines were driven by private finance, raised by railway entrepreneurs who hoped for a swift return on their investments. Few of them, or their shareholders lived to see their money back and as the system got expanded, rival companies swallowed up others, until the 20th century when the whole became partially taken over by the government and part of what is now London Transport.

To the modern traveller this might seem unimportant. But it might be worth contemplating the years of delay caused by such early private finance schemes as when your tube sits waiting in the dark for no apparent reason, it could well be because of decisions made by early industrialists. They may well have chosen to install a rail junction instead of routing tunnels above and below each other. The money saved made the total cost easier for the board of directors, but generations of travellers have cursed their wasted time.

The lines themselves often follow roads, lost rivers and may not take the most direct route. Again this was often about saving money. Early tunnels were made through the "cut and cover" method. Engineers effectively dug an enormous ditch then covered the tunnel over. This was costly and caused enormous disruption, it also meant compensation had to be paid. Railway companies were accused of directing their proposed routes through areas were residents were easier to displace. Wolmar quotes a local vicar, near Smithfield who said against the builders of the early Metropolitan line:

"The special lure of the capitalist is that the line will pass only through inferior property, that is through a densely peopled district, and will destroy the abode of the powerless and the poor, whilst it will avoid the properties of those whose opposition is to be dreaded, the great employers of labour."

The problem wasn't just the capitalists. It was also the government. Victorian laissez-faire capitalism frowned on government involvement in such projects, so the "haphazard" design of the underground was partly due to "being a pioneer" but also "due to the refusal of the government to engage with the planning of the system". As Wolmar comments the "French system of central planning was not the British way."

Of course this doesn't just apply to the London Underground, but also other major transport systems. The lack of a central London overland station of any note, and the multiple lines heading into diverse train stations from around the country, making travellers lives overly complicated. Nonetheless there were many who wanted to make the system more rational, though not all of them had the view of a publicly owned system. Albert Stanley, appointed to oversee their investments by a group of American businessmen began the process of branding the whole tube with iconic signage at the same time as joint tickets for all the lines were coming into play. Stanley, like all good capitalists did his best to ensure that his lines made profits for the shareholders and to do so the largest bus company. Rather than close it down he began to "integrate the services in such a way that direct competition against his own underground lines was reduced, but also ensured he could weaken the remaining three lines outside his control by using buses to run against them."

Anyone who has witnessed the traumatic effects of bus de-regulation will have seen similar tactics employed by travel companies against each other, trying to drive competitors out of business before putting up their own prices.

It is tempting to repeat the many fascinating stories of social history or technical engineering in this review. Wolmar tells the story of the way that in the early days of the Blitz, Communist Party members and others forced London Underground to open up the tube as bomb shelters. He then tells the less well remembered stories of the way that the Underground became almost a permanent home for many Londoners. Authorities put on trains to provide food and water to those sheltering in the stations, and their were enormous problems with sanitation. Underground denizens even elected representatives to negotiate with the authorities. Wolmar also reminds us that the Underground was a shelter during the First World War, something often forgotten by those whose history only goes back to 1939.

After World War Two, the Underground entered a long period of decline which the system has only recently escaped. He blames this on two things:

"The lack of investment for much of the past fifty years, and overcrowding, with record numbers now using the system. The story of the Underground since the Second World War is a sad tale of missed opportunities, displaying a lack of foresight over the need for new lines and based on the mistaken notion that usage of the system would decline as a result of the nearly universal ownership of the motor car."

This lack of investment is partly to blame, in Wolmar's view for the tragic fire that took place at Kings Cross Station, an event which recently had its 25th anniversary. Perhaps more importantly Wolmar argues that successive governments saw the London Underground as a problem rather than something to assist London's economy and indeed he complains as much about "short term political interference" as he does privatisation when listing the ills afflicting London's transport system. Tucked away in a footnote he points out that:

"Even today, London Transport receives around half the level of subsidy in relation to income compared with its counterparts in European cities - typically only 30 per cent of its money comes from subsidy, compared with twice that level in Paris or Berlin."

In addition, he points out that it is almost impossible to measure the importance of the system through the money it can make:

"A financial study of the Victoria line made thirty years after the first section opened in 1968 still suggested that it was only a marginally worthwhile development even when taking into account the social benefits such as savings on car journey times.  Looked at financially, the Victoria line appeared to be a complete non-runner... Yet the line is operating at virtually full capacity for much of the day and is a vital part of London's infrastructure."

I had expected Wolmar's book to be a interesting anecdotal history of a part of London. It is that, but it is much more. It is an argument for a rational public transport policy and that makes this an even more worthwhile read. That said, it is full of fascinating information, the stories of the underground trains powered by steam and filled with smoke, the attempts to move trains with long ropes or compressed air and the experiences of passengers underground with few windows and lights are fascinating and will almost certainly give the modern commuter something to think about while waiting for the Central Line.

Ben Aaronovitch - Rivers of London

The idea that there is an alternative, hidden, secret London just out of sight of the tourist filled streets is not a new one. In fact, the throngs of people lining the streets, bedraggled in Jubilee bunting this weekend are partaking in the most superficial level of London's strata of reality.

Ben Aaronovitch is not the first to use this metaphor in fantasy fiction. Neil Gaiman's book Neverwhere is a superb example of the genre. Aaronovitch though uses the medium of the Metropolitan Police to explore this alternate world of magic and fantastical powers.

Aaronovitch has some interesting ideas. The personification of the rivers is nice, the ladies who represent the lost London rivers forming a alternate powerbase to Old Man Thames and his sons upstream, for instance. But much of this feels superficial and, indeed the story structure feels borrowed. Our hero, Peter Grant, a lowly police constable destined for a life trapped in the lower echelons of the force's bureacracy, sees a ghost and thus begins his encounter with a secret wing of the Met. It's wizard. Like many other muggles beginning their encounter with the world of magic, he stumbles through various encounters, each more fantastical than the last, until the reader themselves discovers this new world. Neil Gaiman did it far better, J K Rowling did it with far greater numbers of words.

Aaronovitch writes for a London audience. He's keen to name drop the various cafes and bars that he and his friends clearly frequent, and anyone who has lived in the capital for long will find themselves following the streets in their minds eye. He's also keen to make it clear that he is writing about the progressive "post Macpherson" force. Our "mixed race" hero, experiences no racism, except for allusions to how it was, and women are scattered liberally through all ranks of the force.

The Met itself is a metaphor for stability and consistency through hundreds of years of riot and apparent chaos. Aaronovitch makes much of the long tradition of the force, with only a half joking reference to the them keeping down the working classes. Ironically, the centre-piece riot of middle-class theatre goers only serves to underline the unreal nature of the story. A great story-teller should be able to make the fantastical seem believable. Aaronovitch hasn't got the writing ability to do this well, and using the Metropolitan Police as a vehicle of stability and sanity in a world of chaos will raise an eyebrow from anyone whose experience of London is several layers below the pomp and circumstance of the flag waving Jubilee idiots.

Related Reviews

Gaiman - Neverwhere
Collins - London Belongs to Me

Henry Mayhew - London Labour and the London Poor

Henry Mayhew's classic text, London Labour and the London Poor is a powerful and fascinating study of life on the streets during the later half of the nineteenth century. This new edition comes with a very useful introduction which puts Mayhew's life and work into the context of the times.

Victorian attitudes to the poor varied considerably, but the majority opinion seems to be that they were lazy, feckless or represented some sort of unemployable section of society that could never make good. While clearly having great sympathy with his subjects, Mayhew does reflect these sentiments occasionally. His four part classification (Those that will work, Those that cannot work, Those that will not work and Those that need not work) summing this up well. But Mayhew doesn't try and explain the situation, he wants to report it, and his interviews capture the lives of those trapped in poverty at the bottom of society. Through the voices of the individuals he meets, we see that often their poverty is the result of mishap, old age or family circumstance.

Some of the tales are extraordinary. To take one example, the young man, turned burglar, whose succession of jobs are ruined by his brother who pressurises him to steal money or materials from each business, eventually leading him into unemployment and a life of crime. Here is one of Mayhew's common themes, the idea of a fall from grace leading to criminality or life on the edge of society. Occasionally Mayhew's generalities can seem annoying to the modern reader

"The chimney-sweepers generally are fond of drink, indeed their calling, like that of dustmen, is one of those which naturally lead to it."

But such statements reflect the prejudices of the time, rather than any attempt to understand life at the bottom. Is it any wonder that men, who, Mayhew is told have "vomited balls of soot" like to have a good drink?

Mayhew's reportage was immensely popular at the time. This seems slightly strange. Many of the people who bought and read these tales, must have seen this life all around them. But what may have been attractive to them are the lives that are led behind the scenes - the small tricks of the trade - how the pickpockets learnt to steal, or the life of "Old Sarah" the blind hurdy-gurdy player who in her forty years on the streets had gone through "four guides and worn out three instruments" until struck by a cab and left unable to play, finally died alone. The modern fascination for tricksters and swindlers shown by the popular program, The Real Hustle, is no different to Mayhew's detailed accounts of the tricks of beggars, or the activities of burglars and other criminals.

Many of the jobs are forgotten today - some are unnecessary - the crossing sweepers, who cleared the horse-shit and rubbish from the road when higher class people wanted to cross the road are one example. These young men created their own organisation, with code-words and slang, nicknames for particular police men and strict codes of conduct for who could lay claim to particular individuals that approached. They would encourage charity and employment by turning cart-wheels, and presumeably, like all young boys, boast to Mayhew about being the best at particular tumbles. But there are more oddities. Then man who earns a living by imitating farmyard animals, another who gets a few coins allowing people to look through his microscope and so on.

Mayhew is not afraid of the poverty or the people. He paints a picture of a society dominated by the lack of wealth, struggling to survive. But despite the poverty, a strong sense of solidarity comes through. While crime was rife and people thought nothing of cheating a customer (the photographers are a particularly amusing example of this - most people had never seen their own image, so the pictures often weren't even of the subject) people did help each other. Unlike some Victorian writers, Mayhew doesn't hide things that he doesn't approve of. Prostitution was part and parcel of the life he was documenting, and while he doesn't go into great detail, his interviews with prostitutes of different ages show that the reality was far from the lives documented in a few recent fictional depictions of life on the streets at the time.

Some of the book seems dated and Mayhew's methodology may be suspect - he has suspiciously accurate figures for the amount of rubbish discarded (2,240 lbs of cigar ends annually) for instance. But these stories (and this new edition from OUP is but a selection of the much larger Mayhew collection) are a wonderfully evocative taste of life in Victorian London.

The patter of the street seller who, in the 1800s encouraged his onlookers to purchase his goods like this:

"Well, then say 17,16,15,14,13,12,11, 10 shillings; what, none of you give ten shillings for this beautiful article? See how it improves a man's appearance'....'Any young man here present wearing this chain will always be show into the parlour instead of the tap-room; into the best pew in church,.... But I'll ruin myself for your sakes... Say 9s. for this splendid piece of jewellery - 8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 -a shilling.... will anyone give me a shilling...."

He could be transported to street markets the length and breadth of the British Isles today and find his pitch and sell his gear. In many respects, despite the lack of crossing-sweepers and animal impersonators, very little has changed.

Related Reviews

Fishman - East End 1888
Wise - The Blackest Streets

Philip Pullman - The Ruby In The Smoke

The sheer brilliance of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series for young adults has unjustly hidden his excellent other works. His series of novels about Sally Lockhart, that begins with The Ruby in the Smoke, contains no fantasy, though at times they are fantastical and amazing. Ruby is at times a deeply disconcerting novel, even for the adult reader. The plot begins with Sally trying to find out about her missing father, by enquiring at his former place of work. Anonymous letters and brief allusions, as well as the sudden death of one of her fathers colleagues when she mentions an unknown phrase, spur her to dig deeper into a growing mystery.

This is a novel for young adults. So the structure and plot is not as complex as adults might expect. It is however deeply descriptive and for those who know East London, it certainly feels real. Indeed I wouldn't have been surprised if Pullman had tramped the streets of London to get the descriptions right. There are shocks, and Pullman doesn't hide any of the nastiness of Victorian poverty. In fact he highlights it, partly I think to underline the horrible future that Sally faces, should she fail in her adventure.

As in so many other novels aimed at this age group, most of the people who Sally meets are kind, and she falls on her feet many times. Though at one point late in her adventure, the expected rescue is nothing of the kind. Sally travels back and forth across London, eventually facing down her evil enemy, who is a brilliantly realised nemesis aimed particularly to frighten, or at least un-nerve younger readers.

Pullman has created a brilliantly realised world. It evokes a time of poverty, hunger and unemployment, when women were expected to know their place, but were people were already questioning the social setup. Later novels in the series develop this further, exposing and challenging other aspects of Victorian society (anti-Semitism for instance).

In many ways Ruby is a precurssor to the Dark Materials, not by content but by structure and emotion. It's a great read for an adult, it'd be amazing for younger readers.

Peter Ackroyd - Thames, Sacred River

The number of books available on the Thames is immense - the bibliography of Peter Ackroyd's book contains at least 300. But it's worth digging out this one, because it's very different from most other books on the river. It's more than simply history, though there is a great deal of history within, it's more than a travel guide, though their is an entertaining final section which takes you from source to sea, explaining the names of places on the shores and many anecdotes;

"Buscot... is famous principally for having a church with no aisle.... The area was once well known for its brandy distilled from beetroot. The beverage was not popular."

But what is really different about Ackroyd's book is his style. In the chapter on "words of the river" he comments that "There seems to be a tendency, in the writers of prose, to break into verse in the course of the narratives - as if the river itself elicited a less than prosaic response". This is just as true of Ackroyd himself; some of his chapters having elements that are poetic in their style. The chapter on the vessels that have existed on the Thames, opens by listing some 30 or so types of boat, but its not a simple list, there is poetry in this pedant's paragraph;

"There have been wherries and clinkers, hoys and onkers, houseboats and skiffs, yachts and motor-boats, tilt-boats and shallops..."

The history of the Thames is no less poetic. From the votive offerings thrown into the water near to crossing points and bridges. To the historic burial mounds and earthworks that line the shores. People have relied on the Thames for water, for transport and trade for hundreds of centuries. Many have left their mark, and the Thames has made it's mark on them.

There are darker moments - the suicides and accidents, the poverty that marked the London shorelines for instance. And Ackroyd is selective in his history - despite the importance of the docks in shaping London and the Thames, there is nothing here of the great class battles that took place around them - the Dock Strikes of the 1880s that helped to shape a new Trade Unionism for the 20th Century.

Nonetheless, there is much to enjoy here in this casual history. Occasionally Ackroyd's style gets in the way of substance and his desire to find evidence of some inherent fascination with the Thames water stretches things too much, this little paragraph for instance;

"In 1756 Stephen Duck, a country poet who became a target of ridicule, flung himself into the Thames behind the Black Inn at Reading; perhaps his surname had drawn him towards the river."

But this aside, Ackroyd has written a lovely book that deserves to be read for its entertaining look at one of the most important rivers in the world.

Noreen Branson - Poplarism 1919 - 1925; George Lansbury and the Councillors' Revolt

Noreen Branson's excellent work looks at one of the great high points of the British Labour Party's history. In the early 1920s, when the Labour party still remained very much on the fringe of mainstream electoral politics, it started to make gains out of the radicalisation that followed the First World War.

Almost immediately debates took place inside the organisation that would continue in one form or another to this day. Basically, to what extent should socialists within the Labour Party accommodate to mainstream politics in order to win elections, or fight for a more radical set of ideas, using electoral politics as a platform for the struggle for socialism.

Nowhere was this clearer than in the East London borough of Poplar (now part of Tower Hamlets). George Lansbury and a number of other Labour candidates took a majority on the local council in November 1919. Lansbury was a well known socialist and pacifist. He and many of the other newly elected councillors had long roots in the socialist and trade union movements locally. On the back of increasing radicalisation, they were elected to improve the lot of a borough, which was then, as it is now, one of the poorest places in England.

Initially the election of Lansbury et al, had little impact. They made some significant changes to local services, building baths, increasing library use and so on. But then, as the economic crisis of the early 1920s started to take hold, they set upon a path that was to bring them into radical confrontation with the government. This hinged on the allocation of rates. The Poplar councillors recognised that the existing system, whereby all the London councils paid into a pot and money was then distributed back out, was discriminatory to the poorest of boroughs which had the most need to help the poor and unemployed. The Poplar councillors refused to pay a section of this money to the government, instead spending it on employing the unemployed and ensuing poor relief at much higher than normal levels.

This illegal action, though clearly morally fantastic brought down the wrath of the courts, and the Poplar councillors served weeks in jail, until they were released by the pressure on the government from outside.

The story is a complex one. The Poplar councillors refused to bow down to the powers that be. Mobilising thousands of local workers in a huge protest movement that started to radicalise the wider London population. But this was not in the interests of the fledgling Labour Party, many of whom wanted to court legitimacy to ensure they were seen as respectable.

Noreen Branson's history is detailed and passionate. Particularly if you've been involved in radical East End politics at any time since the 1920s - she draws out the problems that face those who would struggle for radical change using bourgeois methods.

The councillors were indeed up against a situation which was new at the time, but which has faced many dedicated socialists since. Convinced of the need for fundamental changes in the system, such people have believed that if elected they will be in a position to make a major impact on the lives of those they represent. But once elected, whether in local or national government, they have found their opportunities are smaller than expected. They are hemmed in by the structure of property relations which in turn is reinforced by administrative ties and legal props. They are bound down by the financial fetters imposed from on high. The existing framework is too strong for them.

Many of the victories of Poplar are considered normal today - that working people should receive unemployment benefit when thrown on the scrap heap of the dole. Family Allowances that don't force extra suffering on larger families. No means testing and so on. But the real lessons from Poplar's struggle is that fighting for change means mobilising large numbers of people, and socialist organisation is crucial to do that.

Related Reviews

Fishman - East End Jewish Radicals, 1875 - 1914
Fishman - East End 1888
Wise - The Blackest Streets
Piratin - Our Flag Stays Read

Sarah Wise - The Blackest Streets, The Life and Death of a Victorian Slum

The East End of London has had more than its share of historians. This shouldn't surprising as it was the centre of some of the most important industries to the British Empire – in particular its docks. But the rich diversity of the area, the first stop for a succession of different immigrant cultures that continues today, has made the area a magnet for writers.

Sarah Wise concentrates her book on a tiny geographic area. She has chosen the area known as “The Old Nicol”. A long since vanished slum, filled with the most appalling housing and poverty. In the late 1800s the area was already gaining a reputation and was often the destination for visitors who had something to say about the poverty. Everyone from anarchists and socialists to the rich charity donors and the clergy had something to say about the way in which such poverty could exist at the heart of the richest city in the world.

Wise looks at who this slum came about. How it developed out of need, with landlords (themselves often secretive and very wealthy men) could make fortunes offering housing to the poorest people. She shows how early attempts at reform and improvement were often blocked by the rich local politicians – who often had their own fingers in the pie.

We learn of individuals, some courageous with nothing but alturism on their minds. Others with the vested interests of others – in particular the church – came to the area to try and alleviate the suffering. We also learn of the struggles that shaped the region, how the people themselves tried to escape the poverty, by resisting the system itself, or by stealing and living below the law. One of the interesting themes that runs through the book, is that there is a instinctive collectivism by the people who lived there. A mistrust of authority, that means those escaping the police could always besure of an open door or a helping hand.

Finally Wise discusses the destruction of the slum and it's replacement by what is now the Boundary Estate. These new homes were designed as ideal homes for the poor working people of the Nicol. Yet they proved inadequate for the needs of those whose lives didn't fit the Victorian idea of working life. No trace of the Nicol remains. Wise has brought it to life from contemporary accounts, newspapers and census records. A fascinating expose of the foundations that modern London are based on.

Mark O'Brien - When Adam Delved and Eve Span, A History of the Peasents Revolt of 1381

The title of this book, refers to the famous couplet that raised the question of class relations in society in a way that made sense to the ordinary people of the medieval ages.

"When Adam Delved and Eve Span, Who was then, the Gentleman?".

Mark O'Brien's inspiring history shows exactly how and why such a piece of rhyme could capture the ideas of the 14th century peasant and inspire many tens of thousands of them to rebellion. The 1381 Peasants Revolt sent shock waves through the English class system. It led to many of the worst criminals of the aristocracy loosing their heads and fundamentally changed the relations between rich and poor.

Mark O'Brien paints a fascinating picture of an England on the cusp of change. The Black Death had decimated the population of Europe and for the first time, a shortage of manpower was allowing hitherto unalterable class relations to be challenged. Previously a local Lord held his population in an iron fist. Peasants rarely left the local land, the ideas in their heads dominated by a religious orthodoxy that had a place for everyone in Gods kingdom, ruled over by a rigid class system with the king at the top. But this was falling apart. The labour shortage meant that for the first time, labourers could move around and demand higher wages. Undermining the basis of the Lord's local power.

Simultaneously, the power of the church itself was also being undermined. Internal arguments in the church nationally and internationally, meant questioning of religious doctrine. And finally, the needs of the ruling class to make others pay for it's ongoing wars created a situation were the ordinary English peasant had had enough.

O'Brien depicts the spread of the revolt not simply as a spontaneous uprising against the collection of the Poll Tax, but as a growing, developing, organised movement that involved tens of thousands of people. The rebels didn't indiscriminately loot and murder. They targeted the buildings, individuals and documents that they saw as propping up an unequal society. They were organised - the revolts leaders sent letters and messages to villages across the country, co-ordinating, organising and inspiring further revolt. And they were armed. The peasant armies that besieged London, were tens of thousands in number, armed with the weapons that many highly trained soldiers had brought with them from the wars with France.

The revolt was incredibly successful. London was captured and the King and his closest advisors besieged in the Tower of London. The King was forced to negotiate with the peasants as equals, something from which the country's rulers would never quite recover.

O'Brien shows how the rebel's ideas developed and grew. Starting of rebelling against the hated taxes, by the end they were demanding freedoms that were unthinkable months before. The abolition of the churches property - the redistribution of wealth and land and so on.

Despite the trickery of the King who murdered the rebel leaders and massacred their way around the country to regain power, England was fundamentally changed. Peasants could look their rulers in the eye, knowing that they too were human. Mark O'Brien's short book packs in a huge amount and gives a different version of medieval history - one to inspire us today at the great potential for rebellion amongst those who would be ignored by Kings and rulers. Ignored at their peril.

Related Reviews

O'Brien - Perish the Privileged Orders, A socialist history of the Chartist movement

Phil Piratin - Our Flag Stays Red

Unusually for an MP, or indeed a local government councillor, Phil Piratin didn’t believe that political change came from Town Halls or even parliament. He firmly believed that change came because ordinary people fought for it. The role of Councillors and MPs representing working class people was to help facilitate those struggles.

In this capacity Piratin was elected a Communist Party councillor in Poplar and then MP for Mile End in the 1945 General Election. His campaigns centred very much on the struggle to improve the lot of ordinary working class people – working men and women who then, as now, live in overcrowded, poverty stricken conditions. Today of course Poplar council is part of the larger borough of Tower Hamlets, but 60 years ago the gulf between rich and poor was remarkably similar for the people of the East End.

This short book tells the early life story of Phil Piratin, how he became involved in the fight against Mosley’s blackshirt fascists in the 30s, and how he became a member of the Communist Party. It has much to offer the casual reader – particularly one who lives in the East End. Many of the places mentioned still stand and it’s amusing to read of the street fighting, street meetings and demonstrations that happened on this or that road.

Those who would really benefit from reading it are those socialists and radicals up and down the country campaigning against injustice and poverty today. This isn’t simply because of Piratin’s inspiring story. Nor is it to get a sense of what can be achieved, though both of these are important. While the reader may cheer to read the accounts of the Cable Street battles that stopped the British Union of Fascists marching through the Jewish East End in 1936, what is truly important I think for readers today is the way that socialists then are faced with the same challenges that we face today.

The late 1930s was a period of history when war loomed on the horizon. Millions of people were fed up of poverty and felt disillusioned with their normal leaders in the Labour and Trade Union movements. Radicals in the Communist Party could get large audiences for their anti-capitalist, pro-peace message. Translating this into deeper support and getting deeper networks in working class communities was the challenge.

As I write this in 2008, the picture is similar. There is anger at the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Millions face economic uncertainty and there is deep cynicism at the established “workers” parties.

At the same time, organisations of the far right, openly fascist in the 1930s but more “suited and booted” today (though still wearing their Nazi credentials close to their heart), thrive in conditions of poverty, alienation and government racism.

How socialists and radicials turn this anger into co-ordinated political activity is the question of the day, and it was also the challenge for Piratin and the Communist Party then. This is/was even more important as fascist movements need to be stopped before they can grow any further.

Piratin lead a hard battle within the Communist Party. He argued that at the same time as being involved in national campaigns like the anti-war movement, you also had to fight over bread and butter issues. In his time this was the issue of rents and housing conditions and the Stepney Communist Party threw itself into building rent-strikes and housing occupations to campaign for better living conditions. The CP didn’t ignore those supporters of fascism facing eviction. Indeed by fighting to defend their homes too, they won BUF families away from fascism, by demonstrating practically the value of working class solidarity.

As the war approached, the pressures on the CP given their uncritical stance towards Soviet Russia clearly have some effect, though the basic nature of their work on estates and in communities continued to have a hearing. Every time you see a photo of people hiding from the Blitz on the underground platforms, remember that the government refused to let the tube network be used like this, until CP members had forced open the gates to save people’s lives. Only then did Churchill’s government cave in and promote the underground as deep bomb shelters.

Piratin’s victory in 1945 came on the back of a huge desire for change that swept out the Conservatives and brought in a Red Flag singing Labour government. This book doesn’t cover Piratin’s experiences in Parliament, if his time there was spent as it was in the Poplar council chamber providing a voice for the voiceless, it must have been very inspiring indeed.

While many socialists today have numerous criticisms and differences with the ideas of the Communist Party of the 1930s, we all have much to learn from a group of men and women who believed that it wasn’t enough for the left to provide propaganda from the side-lines. The only way that socialist politics could be won to a wider audience was through the comrades rolling up their sleeves and getting stuck in. For that reason, if no other, “Our Flag Stays Red” should be read, and re-read by all those who want a better world today.

Norman Collins - London Belongs To Me

London 1938 - war hangs like a shadow over the heads of every inhabitant of the town. But London doesn't stop. In his beautiful preface to this, Norman Collin's most famous novel, the author introduces the "Real Londoners" who star in his novel.

These Real Londoners "sleep the night in London as well as work the day there", and of these, some are "in love, some in debt, some committing murders, some adultery, some trying to get on in the world, some looking forward to a pension, some getting drunk, some losing their jobs, some dying, and some holding up the new baby."

Each of the characters in Collin's book are perfectly crafted. None of them are perfect, they are ordinary working-class folk (though some pretend otherwise), often struggling to survive living ordinary lives. As with all people, ordinary lives are full of drama and excitement, love and hate, passion and fear. And London on the eve of war, is a city that forms the back drop to their stories.

First we meet Mr. Josser, fiercly proud of his job, at the moment of his retirement,struggling with a bag of memories and an ornate clock as he tries to get home to Dulcimer Street to spend Christmas with his family. As he arrives, we met both his family and the other characters who live in the house they share with their landlady, Mrs. Vizzard who seems to be waiting for the end of her life.

To tell more about the story would ruin the book. But beware, if you base your knowledge of this story on the famous film, the novel is more complex with a longer ending.

But what struck me as fascinating, as someone who lived in London for almost 7 years, is how contemporary the novel reads. The streets are crowded and the tube over-full. People work different hours, but still laugh and joke as any officer worker does in the run up to Christmas. The pubs are full and people watch their pennies, calculating how much they can afford to drink, and everyone dreams of getting out. I was surprised at how often extra-marital sex is mentioned (or hinted at!), so that's accurate too!

It's a great novel, funny and exciting and a window on a strange moment of history, when war was on the horizon and London was on the target list.

Peter Linebaugh - The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century

Loath as I am to quote favourably anything from the odious Daily Mail, when reviewing Peter Linebaugh’s monumental work, they got it absolutely spot on - describing it as “A remarkable book… this is history as it should be written”.

Linebaugh’s starting point is to argue that you cannot understand the history of London without understanding property relations within that society. And you cannot understand property relations and the development of capitalism without understanding the struggles that took place between those who had property, and those who had little or none. In this he consciously echoes the famous lines of the Communist Manifesto, whose authors wrote that “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”

Following on from this argument, the author examines how punishment and indeed crime changed to reflect the changes taking place in society itself. The ultimate in punishment is death and Linebaugh’s work examines society through the often detailed records that accompany the judicial murder of London’s criminals by hanging at Tyburn Hill.

Those with even a cursory knowledge of crime and punishment will recollect that capital punishment in the early eighteenth century was often for what we would consider the most minor of crimes – the stealing of a handkerchief for instance. What this book argues is that the public spectacle of capital punishment had a more complex purpose – to shock and cow the public into the acceptance of new forms of property relations and the destruction of old forms.

Perhaps the genius of Linebaugh’s book is to combine this understanding of the rise of capitalist society with the voices of those who where hung. Their explanations of why they committed the crimes, their contempt for a society whose only interest in their lives was the brief life history before their condemnation, and their belief in a more just way of living.

The way our modern world is shaped by the struggles of the past is brought out in fascinating detail. The network of national banks arose as a response by rich farmers unable to return home from the markets in London and Bristol because of the overwhelming numbers of highwaymen. But those highwaymen themselves were often those whose traditional livelihoods in the countryside had been destroyed by new practises that centralised farming and destroyed the small butchers and traders, replacing them with larger businesses.

Time and again, through Linebaugh’s detailed examinations of the lives of butchers and highwaymen, prostitutes, Irish immigrants, former slaves and shipbuilders we discover a willingness to hold onto the few “rights” they had, the customs and practices of decades, in the face of a brutal and rapidly changing world. Sometimes this exploded into anger as with the burning of Newgate prison. For too long this event was described as an anti-Catholic plot by a drunken mob, yet in relating was a huge mass movement that targeted and destroyed symbols of oppression, such as the prison, as well as the houses and homes of those establishment figures who had condemned so many to it.

We learn of the first “general” dock strikes in Shadwell where the strikers raised the Red Flag for the first time in history and on a smaller, but no less important scale, we read time and again how the crowds gathering to watch a hanging often tried to intervene, sometimes with great success.

Towards the end of the book, Peter Linebaugh describes a world where capitalism is almost triumphant. Through his examinations of day-to-day custom and practice in the Deptford shipbuilding yards, we see how establishment figures are grappling with the very nature of exploitation through work. How they measure, quantify and calculate surplus value. We see the first attempts to deskill a workforce, to introduce piece work and to “rationalise” industry through the introduction of technology.

Shipbuilders, in all their different tasks, had for centuries taken “chips” home. These were the excess cuttings from the colossal amounts of wood required to build the ships needed for Britain to further its imperialist ambitions abroad. For the capitalist, these “chips” represented waste, inefficiency and outdated methods. For the workers on the other hand “chips” were the difference between starvation and life, in an industry where payment was often 15 months behind schedule.

The attempts by the establishment to stop this tradition – first through legislation, then with violent punishment and then to the aborted attempt to use technology to make sure that the waste was minimised are countered by the struggles of the dockyard workers themselves – from the smuggling of bits of wood under clothing to strikes and machine-wrecking.

These stories are mirrored throughout this wonderful work in the stories of the men and women who struggled against the consequences of a rising capitalism, to try and ensure that their space within the new society was their own.

In his afterword to the second edition, Linebaugh makes an obvious point – we continue to live in a world where countries around the globe, and in particular the world’s major capitalist power still use capital punishment to cow and batter their oppressed peoples. The struggle for justice and freedom cannot be successful, until that is no longer the case.

Through their struggles, the men and women of eighteenth century London ensured that hanging was no longer seen as a safe option for the London establishment, and brought forth a new (if still oppressive) form of justice – it is a battle that will have to be won again and again today.

Leon Kuhn, Colin Gill - Topple the Mighty

If, like me, you enjoy walking around the streets of London looking at sites of historic importance, then you will have often raged at the statues to extremely wealthy, reactionary members of the ruling case. Often what distinguishes these people is not their work for the greater good, but their ability (or sometimes inability) to create and defend the immense wealth of the tiny strata at the top of society. Some of them so eager to protect this system of inequality they put tens of thousands of ordinary people to the sword.

This book is a breath of fresh air; the first part looks at the people behind a number of statues in London - war criminals like Bomber Harris and rich wastrels like George IV. The stories are well illustrated by Kuhn’s artwork caricaturing the statues and in the case of Nelson’s column, imagining the crowd that will one day pull down that ugly edifice.

But it’s on the subject of destroying statues and icons that this book really comes into its own. When May Day protesters attacked the statue of Winston Churchill in parliament square, labelling him an anti-Semite and a murderer, they were the latest in a long line of ordinary people, who destroyed the icons of hated monarchs and religious figures.

This little book brings that history alive, through the story of the English revolution and other revolts and in doing so reminds us that history isn’t the story of a few great men, but about working people struggling for justice.

So I hope this book encourages a few alternate historical walks through London. Indeed, I’m off to Holborn viaduct, where there is a statue to the man who killed Wat Tyler during the peasants’ revolt - something that really ought to be removed.

===

More information about some of the statues, and a walk through London with the authors, at Socialist Worker's website here.

Angus Calder - The Myth of the Blitz

What springs to mind when you you hear about the Blitz? Probably, if you have lived in Britain for any length of time, you'll imagine chirpy cockneys standing together against the might of Hitler's armies. You might well think of pictures of the contrails caused by the dogfights as Spitfires battled Messerschmitts in gloriously sunny skies over Kent.

Even if you don't think of these things, you'll have heard of them, and you will also have heard of the way that the whole of England pulled together and stood united, uncomplaining against the common foe.

Angus Calder's book "The Myth of the Blitz" would no doubt leave many retired colonels spluttering into their Daily Telegraphs, because he seeks to examine the story of the Blitz, as it is normally told, and unsurprisingly he finds that it is not without fault.

First and foremost he demolishes the idea of unity. Firstly the idea of class unity is taken apart - unsurprisingly the workers worked longer and harder, and suffered more (no deep bomb shelters for the East Enders, the tube stations had to be occupied, in a struggle often led by the Communist Party).

Calder examines how the "Myth" was created, even as the battles and bombings were being fought. From the moment Churchill made his speeches (hated by many in the Tory party) he was part of weaving a story, backed up by the media and filmmakers, of plucky little England.

It's interesting for instance, how even shortly after the Battle of Britain, observers describe the lovely summer, even though the weather was unusually bad. This is important, because it shows how quickly particular images and ideas took root in popular consciousness.

Calder uses many little examples to proves his sweeping points (how many fishermen refused to travel to Dunkirk, and how even the ones that did helped little - but that doesn't stop the myth of the small ships being created). He then discusses the idea of "Deep England" as the backbone to the myth, from both the left and the right.

This part is much harder to totally agree with. The theory is that a vision of England as a pastoral, classless country with thatched roofs and small villages is what was created to try and pull the English together. No doubt there is some truth in this, but I think he gives it too much importance. You can read more in the Wikipedia article here.

Either way this is an important book, pulling away as it does the lies and half-truths told about one of the most important periods in recent English history and pointing the way to a better understanding of the social and political forces that ended up shaping the later half of the last century.

Related Reviews

Angus Calder - The People's War: Britain 1939 - 1945
Houston - Went the Day Well?
Gluckstein - A People's History of the Second World War
Gluckstein (ed) - Fighting on all Fronts: Popular Resistance in the Second World War

William J Fishman - East End 1888

1888 was a monumental year for East London. It was the year "Jack the Ripper" brutalised prostitutes and brought the eyes of the world on an impoverished region. It was also the year of the "match girls strike" which ushered in New Unionism and changed forever the battle between employer and employees.

But William J Fishman's excellent work doesn't simply dwell on these famous events, rather he weaves those stories into a well researched and thoughtful account of what life was like in East London. In doing so, he illuminates both the world of Jack the Ripper and his victims and helps us understand why young girls would be employed in matchmaking and why they would strike in their hundreds.

Along the way we meet many famous people. Dr. Thomas Barnardo, William Morris, William Booth, Annie Besant and many others. Some of them deserve to be remembered, but not all. Dr. Barnardo shouldn't be considered a saint for helping children, but a man who would rather rip children from their roots and ship them off to work for a pittance in Canada, rather than attempt to solve the real causes of their poverty.

But the real heros have left precious few words for Fishman to quote. Rarely could the poor of East London read or write, and for his accounts we often have to rely on police and court reports, or statements of officals from the workhouse.

Life in 1888 for someone in East London was short and difficult. Housing was over expensive, crowded and unsuitable. Work was short, badly paid and the hours were long. For those who had no other option, the last choice was often the workhouse - were officials often treated you as the underdeserving poor, rather than the victim of circumstance.

Many people tried to challenge this poverty - some motivated by religious ideals, some by simple humanity, some for political reasons. There were those who campaigned against charity - both from the right and the left - and those who tried desperately to make a difference.

Fishman has to cover a lot of ground and in places you feel that you have only had a glimpse of what he could have said, the chapter on politics feels in my opinion very short. Though in Fishman's defence I should point out that his companion book, that I blogged about elsewhere, covers at least some aspects of this in far greater details.

But Fishman's work brings that year to life. Often what shines through is that the poorest of the poor in East London often had more morals and more solidarity than their "betters". The match girls who collect money to help one who has fallen on even harder times, the bystanders who help an escapee from the workhouse.

I'd recommend anyone interested in the real history of London, not that of Kings and Queens, to read this. After all, for all that has changed in East London, overcrowding, unemployment, poverty and the need for solidarity haven't entirely disappeared.

Related Reviews

Fishman - East End Jewish Radicals

William Fishman - East End Jewish Radicals 1875 -1914

In the later years of the 19th Century, and the early decades of the twentieth, right-wing politicians led campaigns full of prejudice, lies and racism aimed at the Jewish immigrants living and working in London's East End. The editorials and front pages of today's newspapers and tabloids and politician's speeches are an eerie echo  of this statement from the past

"Their [Jews] alien looks, habits and language combined with their remarkable fecundity, tenacity and money getting gift, make them a ceaseless weight upon the poor amongst whom they live...truth compels the sentiment, that wherever the foreigner comes in any numbers, the neighbourhood in which he settles speedily drops in tone, character and in morals... Their very virtues seem prolific of evil, when like some seed blown by the wind, they fall and fructify on English soil"

The Jews who came to London in their thousands in the early part of the 20th Century fled the most vile conditions in Eastern Europe. For Jews, life under the Tsar was one of destitution, racism and regular pogroms. Violence was common, as were systematic attempts to destroy Jewish culture and traditions. It's no wonder that so many fled to Britain, with it's supposed traditions of compassion and freedom. Rarely did they get the welcome they hoped for.

Arrival in the East London docks meant abuse and poverty. If you had any wealth left after the struggle to cross Europe and bribe your way out of Russia, you soon lost it to the greedy landlords and business-men that haunted the East End. If you found a job - working in appalling conditions, for 10, 11 or 12 hours making clothes or shoes in a sweatshop, you wages barely paid for the leaking, filthy, overcrowded hovel that was supposed to be home.

The other side to this picture of despair was the brave attempts to fight back - against anti-Semitism of course, but also the struggle for shorter working days and better conditions and William Fishman's classic work, just republished, documents the struggles of ordinary people to improve their lives. Fishman paints brilliant portraits of the men and women who led the struggles, strikes and attempts to build Trade Unions, often in the face of incredible hostility. Names like Rudolf Rocker, Aaron Lieberman and many others echo down to today as another generation of immigrants struggle against oppression and racism.

For someone like myself, active in political campaigns in the East End today, this book is an inspiration. The streets where the Jewish anarchists and socialists met, planned and debated are the same ones where radicals still met today. The times have changed but the campaigns seem very similar, as do the arguments about the way forward.

There can't be many radicals alive today in Whitechapel, Poplar or Tower Hamlets generally that wouldn't give their eyeteeth to have been at the rally, whose flyer is reproduced in the book. On Nov 1st 1890, a mass meeting gathered in Mile End to "protest against the inhuman treatment and persecution of Jews in Russia". Speakers included several MPs, William Morris, Eleanor Marx, Felix Volkhovsky, Prince Kropotkin and many others.

Like so much of the radical tradition in Europe at that time, the Jewish anarchists in the East End didn't survive the repression and ideological confusion of the First World War. But the struggles then left a legacy that went beyond a simply Jewish tradition, but means that we can justly view the East End as somewhere men and women, Jew and gentile, black and white have fought for a better world many times in the past, and continue to do so today.

Related Reviews

Fishman - East End 1888
Branson - Poplarism 1919-1925
Piratin - Our Flag Stays Red
Marriott - Beyond the Tower: A History of East London