We need more than just MPs
Thursday 15 November 2012
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EmailI Heartily agree with Dan Quille (M Star November 8) and Neil Findlay MSP (M Star November 3) that it is a very good thing that members of the Scottish Labour group have had traditional working-class jobs.
However, while it is obvious that strong working-class representation in a socialist government is highly desirable and necessary, it is by no means sufficient in attaining socialism.
We only have to look at the 1930s Cabinet of Ramsay MacDonald, himself of working-class origins, to learn this lesson.
It included Arthur Henderson (a former iron moulder), John Clynes (cotton-mill worker), Tom Shaw (textile worker), William Anderson (miner), Albert Alexander (leather worker), Margaret Bondfield (apprentice draper) and others of similar backgrounds.
The problem is that the Labour Party has always been a bourgeois workers' party - as Lenin explained.
This means that there is no programme for the party to follow, which results in the adoption of ad hoc policies and actions whenever the Labour Party forms a government.
We can never proceed to socialism unless the party in power has a strategy based on Marxism - electing working-class MPs will not suffice.
Jim Dymond
Aldershot
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