Who's Afraid of Margaret Thatcher?

'I am in favour of a coalition. I don't believe that society can be transformed solely by the male white working class. But the coalition we need is one which includes skilled and unskilled workers, unemployed young and old, women, black people as well as the sexually oppressed minorities. A socialist political party must act broadly for and with all the oppressed in our society. This means us changing. I am opposed to cynical attempts to co-opt women and blacks just because we need their votes. The Labour Party needs to listen to new voices and then change itself.' Ken Livingstone Ken Livingstone is a product of the political changes that have already taken place in the Labour Party. As Leader of the Greater London Council he has provided a voice and a vision for tens of thousands of party activists and Labour supporters. in the process implementing a set of measures that indicate the possibilities 01 a real alternative to Thatcherism. His determined opposition on the Falklands War. subsidised public transport. Ireland. the 1984 miners strike. sexual liberation and racism has made him a far more elective spokesperson for Labour than the shadow luminaries who occupy the front benches in the House of Commons. In these fascinating conversations with Tariq Ali. the Marxist writer and activist debarred from the Labour Party by Kinnock/Hattersley. the two men discuss the future of Labour and socialist politics in Britain. What emerges is a picture of Livingstone as a formidable socialist politician and an adroit tactician, who displays a refreshing ability to discard the stale and battered formulae of traditional Labourism. Socialism is defended with humour, warmth and passion in a discussion that ranges from the merits of proportional representation to the delights of herbaceous borders in London's parks. In a polemical introductory essay, 'Labourism and the Pink Professors'. Tariq Ali contests the views of Bernard Crick and Eric Hobsbawm, which have become the 'common sense' ol the consensual Establishment in the Labour Party and the liberal media.