LETTERS

Between the lines

Ever since his speech in Singapore, Tony Blair's idea of the 'stakeholder economy' has been heralded as the big idea that Labour has been waiting for. Anyone who has read Will Hutton's The State We're In knows that Blair has simply proved he can read.
Hutton's book was one of the biggest publishing surprises of recent years. The publishers originally thought they would be lucky to sell 2,000 copies of the hardback, and then found themselves reprinting five times. It came out in paperback last month and leapt into the bestseller lists straight away.
Most of the book is a detailed and angry demolition of the Tories' economic record over the last 17 years. But then it tails away at the end into a series of timid proposals for what a future Labour government could do.
All the same, its success shows that masses of people want explanations of what's happened to us under the Tories, and really welcome a book that strips away the jargon that most economic analysis is normally written in.
It's obvious, though, that Blair has only bothered to read the conclusion. Some of the best parts of the book are the chapters where Hutton shows the failure of privatisation and of the Tories' education policies--policies that Blair seems desperate to continue when he gets into office. The anger and bitterness that Hutton reflects, Blair ignores completely.
Perhaps it's just Blair being true to his principles, though. After all, if he believes in selective education for the rest of us, is it surprising that he practises it himself?
Charlie Hore
North London

A world upside down

If one arrives by air via Johannesburg one becomes immediately aware of South Africa's grave problem, its scarcity of water. Until one reaches the Hex River mountains, the landscape seems uninviting. Only when descending into the beauteous and bountiful valleys of the Western Cape, does one feel at home again. Inevitably my mind went back again to November 1933, when as a refugee settler Table Mountain came into my view for the first time.
It would be superficial to state now that nothing has changed during the last five years, since the official colour bar was abolished. There is a new assertiveness in evidence, amongst those who previously smarted under the impact of racial discrimination, enduring 'Job Reservation' for whites and segregation under the Group Areas Act.
The president is Nelson Mandela and Coloured and African politicians are now in charge of national ministries. However, the old system of private enterprise, ownership of gold and coal mines, of principal secondary industries and most of the land mass is still safely in the hands of traditional proprietors.
The former leader of the South African Communist Party, Joe Slovo, in charge of housing before his death, battled with banks and building societies to obtain mortgages for African home buyers, the risk to be underwritten by the state. He was only partly successful. Millions of homeless migrants still live under terrible squatter camp conditions. The Group Areas Act is no longer on the statute book. Those who can afford to buy properties in previously reserved White Areas may now do so. Yet without massive state intervention the bulk of the population will have to squat, as in the past.
The Afrikaner National Party no longer consists only of poor whites, miners, railway and customs officials. 'We now represent also gold mining, finance, insurance, the stock market, science. Our money men have come to realise at last that we need allies, a non-white middle class and consumers of the products of our industries and goods sold in our shops!'
That observation represents sound materialism. Yet one does sense a softening of former rigid attitudes. However, the state of the nation shows grim reminders of slavery conditions. In the Orange Free State there was a recent attempt to unionise farm workers, earning 125 rand (approx £21) per month. Irate landowners dismissed 600 African workers and evicted them from cottages they occupied.
The injustices and brutalities of past decades require more than commissions of inquiry. They cry out for retribution. The world of South Africa is upside down. Like a Pandora's box, it contains all the blessings and all the ills of the world, and perhaps even hope.
Bernhard Herzberg
North London

Poor record

Pat Stack (December SR) in reviewing the recent interest in the Beatles was right to recognise their impact in the early 1960s. Despite incredibly bland lyrics the Beatles brought a refreshing new sound that was exciting to a youth frustrated with a dull postwar world that needed to move on.
Where I would disagree with Pat is in the implication that the reinvigorated Beatles of the late 1960s, with Lennon's 'politicisation' central, in any way touched the nerve of a far more revolutionary time. While students demonstrated against a rotten system, the civil rights movement swept America and 10 million workers struck in France, the Beatles could only respond in 1968 with the song 'Revolution'. This anti-revolutionary song bleats the refrain, 'We don't want to change the world.' Other lines in the song explain the real character of Beatles opinion: 'You know you're gonna be alright,' and it's 'better to free your mind instead'. This points to their infatuation with 'all you need is love' and flower power through drugs and mysticism. This might have produced some wonderful music such as 'Strawberry Fields Forever', but nothing beyond a drug induced utopian dream. After 1968 the Beatles' White Album did contain some mildly political songs such as 'Back in the USSR'. Lennon did involve himself in anti-Vietnam War protests but this was all too late for the Beatles who had split up as a group of very rich men out of touch with the upsurge of social unrest after 1968. Many have a fondness for Beatles tunes but they had very little else to offer and shouldn't be idolised.
Patrick Connellan
South London

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