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Class Conscious
How we change. The Guardian has an interview today with Ian Bone, the founder of Class War. Thanks to his advocacy of violence as the sole means of overthrowing the "ruling classes" in the 1970s and 80s, Bone rejoiced in the tabloid title "Britain's most dangerous man."
Today? Bone's a grandfather, lives in suburban Bristol with his "partner", drinks Earl Grey tea (which he sets on Che Guevara coasters). He still calls for violence against the establishment, and attacks 2002's anti-Iraq war protestors for gathering together so many people without launching an all-out revolution.
The magazine he founded, Class War, was, like it or not, a forerunner of the blogs. Certainly, it was full of offensive rubbish, but it was also fiercely anti-establishment, cobbled together by enthusiasts, viewed by the mainstream as a threat.
The Guardian's interviewer is surprised Bone was never jailed. Hate to break it to you, but it's because Bone didn't break the law. Despite what many Guardian readers like to think, Britain under Mrs Thatcher wasn't a police state and you didn't get locked up for dissent. How we change, indeed.
It's almost charming - and the descriptions of life as an anarchist, complete with enforced "free love" and bisexuality - are richly comic. The fact his brick-throwing arm is giving him gyp these days doesn't make him an armchair warrior, though: He still plans an assault on Downing Street in May next year, when he believes Tony Blair is due to resign. EURSOC for one doesn't fancy his chances, though he might do better on the lecture circuits, like a more radical Tony Benn.
Bone certainly doesn't qualify for the title of Britain's Most Dangerous Man anymore - the real terror threat from al-Qaeda makes Class War anarchists seem quaint and eccentric.
Moreover, despite his lifelong delusions, it would be unfair to describe him as Britain's Stupidest Man, either. Bone's views on radical Islam weren't made clear during the interview, but a look at Class War's website reveals that the organisation is dismayed not to be included on a list of "Islamophobic" sites. Taliban abductee turned Taliban apologist Yvonne Ridley gets the Class War treatment too.
Elsewhere, it criticises the left for slavish devotion to Hezbollah's line (or Hezbollocks, as it calls it). Though don't get too excited, Class War isn't exactly uncritical of Israel either.
Class War was the rottweiler tendency among Britain's numerous leftist factions in the 1980s. The earnest donkey jacket-wearing boys who stood in the rain outside student unions trying to sell copies of the Socialist Worker were respectable by comparison.
Now the Socialist Worker lot are marching arm-in-arm with genuinely dangerous homophobic, misogynist theofascists. Class War is still bonkers, but compared to its peers on the fringes of British politics, seems relatively sane.
How we've changed, indeed.
