Failures fortuitously avoided

It is said that all political careers end in failure (the quote has some caveats that are generally ignored).

When I reflect on my own career, I see some failures rather fortuitously avoided.

As a child, I wanted to become a theoretical physicist. I went to Warwick University in 1969 determined to study the subject. For various reasons that all went wrong, but today I read at Backreaction Sabine Hossenfelder's experience:

"I finished high school in 1995. It was the year the top quark was discovered, a prediction dating back to 1973. As I read the articles in the news, I was fascinated by the mathematics that allowed physicists to reconstruct the structure of elementary matter. It wouldn’t have been difficult to predict in 1995 that I’d go on to make a PhD in theoretical high energy physics.

"Little did I realize that for more than 20 years the so provisional looking standard model would remain undefeated world-champion of accuracy, irritatingly successful in its arbitrariness and yet impossible to surpass.

"We added neutrino masses in the late 1990s, but this idea dates back to the 1950s. The prediction of the Higgs, discovered 2012, originated in the early 1960s. And while the poor standard model has been discounted as “ugly” by everyone from Stephen Hawking to Michio Kaku to Paul Davies, it’s still the best we can do.

...

"During my professional career, all I have seen is failure. A failure of particle physicists to uncover a more powerful mathematical framework to improve upon the theories we already have. ... "

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In my early twenties I was a reasonably-successful member of the International Marxist Group - I was on the National Committee. Just a few years later, I became disillusioned - just a gut feeling that something was wrong with Trotskyism and that the revolution was not going to happen. Most of my comrades of the time remained in left politics their entire lives.

I mention John Ross, the IMG leader and latterly Ken Livingstone aide on the GLC, and Kate Hoey, now a Labour MP, amongst many others.

Still, the revolution never happened, nor are we any nearer to it.

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In my thirties, at Standard Telecommunications Laboratories (STL) in Harlow, Essex, I worked on my PhD in artificial intelligence. By 1990 that funded research had terminated with the takeover by Canadian telecoms giant Northern Telecom (Nortel).

I briefly considered a career in academia as an AI researcher but there was no obvious possibility, so I bit the bullet and retrained as a telecoms network architect. It proved both interesting and lucrative over the next 25 years.

Had I stayed with AI, I would have entered the twilight of the classical AI research programme known as GOFAI. The field became moribund until the recent explosion of 'deep learning' in the quite-variant neural net tradition.

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So looking back, I had an opportunity to dedicate my life to changing the world in a political tradition which has proven ineffectual plus two opportunities to push the boundaries of knowledge forward .. in areas where history shows that nothing of great worth emerged.

Instead I got to design a lot of state-of-the-art networks, some of which even got built.

Engineering may be less ethically-challenged than many other professions - but I'd still rather have done the science.

Red Lion Square

In 1974, aged 23, I finished my teacher training course and had already decided that no way was I going to take a job in a secondary school. Two maths teaching practices with the recalcitrant kids of London had seen to that. That summer found me instead working for London Underground at the southern terminus of the Northern Line, cleaning tube trains.

This job was more enjoyable than it sounds. I would turn up around 11 pm and spend some hours dusting and mopping the allotted number of carriages; later I graduated to washing down the outsides of trains, rubber booted in a long protective gown, scraping with a spiky brush dipped in a bucket of acid.

By 2.30 am we had done enough and then we kipped on the trains before clocking off at dawn. With all day free, a complimentary bus & tube pass, and real money I was delighted. My workmates were also interesting: the dispossessed of the world washed up in Morden. I remember a Nigerian teacher - unable to work as such due to unrecognised qualifications – with whom I shared many erudite conversations in our small tea-room at night.

So it was as a proletarian that I participated in the infamous Red Lion Square demonstration of Saturday 15 June 1974. Here is how Wikipedia describes it:

"The British far-right organisation, the National Front booked Conway Hall in Red Lion Square for a meeting to take place on 15 June 1974. A counter-demonstration was called by the London Area Council of Liberation (formerly the Movement for Colonial Freedom). This counter-demonstration attracted support from groups not directly under the control of Liberation, including the International Marxist Group (IMG), the Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist) and the International Socialists (later the Socialist Workers Party).
...
"The front of the Liberation march came westwards along Theobald's Road and entered Red Lion Square by Old North Street before turning right where a platform was set up for the meeting. A police cordon blocked the square to the left of Old North Street.
...
"The cordon was then charged by the larger contingent from the IMG who were closely followed by the smaller CPE(M-L) contingent . Several minutes of pushing and scuffling followed. There were several charges and countercharges. The police cordon was reinforced by members of the Special Patrol Group and by mounted police who eventually succeeded in forcing the demonstrators back.

"Photos show the use of truncheons by some police officers. At least one demonstrator reported being knocked to the ground and trampled by a police horse.
...
"A large number of demonstrators were arrested. Photos show that many who were arrested had their hair pulled or were otherwise treated with what appeared to be excessive force by police."

Picture us as we marched into the square. The IMG was a large contingent, marching in order about eight abreast. IMG stewards including myself, walked outside the crocodile moving up and down the ranks giving directions. Outside of us the police also marched, but as we came towards Conway Hall the side roads and the hall itself were blocked by cordons of police reinforced with horses.

The IMG intended to stop the National Front from using Conway Hall and charged the police cordon. I was close to the action but was rapidly ejected from the mêlée and found myself fifty yards away, wondering what to do next. As I could see my comrades struggling with the police, some being arrested, I figured I needed to return to the fray and had soon locked arms with the front line, pushing and shoving with the police not twenty yards from the hall entrance itself.

In my opinion, the police did not abide by middle-class demo-etiquette. I was grabbed by the hair and ‘private parts’ and dragged to the ground, where I was immobilised by a couple of extremely large constables. The IMG surged back and I was dragged into a police van with other, equally disoriented demonstrators.

As we were driven off, the supervising policeman in the back revealed he was from Norfolk, drafted in as extra manpower. He seemed genuinely baffled to be dealing with us: “”What are people like you doing mixed up in all this?” – We were far from his staple diet of low-lifes.

I gave a stock answer, “Those who ignored fascism in the past were overrun by it,” which even at the time seem less than totally compelling as a narrative about the rather marginalised National Front. The real answer was that most Saturdays I was doing a demo, it was one of the main ways the IMG recruited, so I was there as part of the road to revolution. But that argument seemed too cynically utilitarian to use.

Things were busy at the police station where I was banged up in a narrow cell which looked like a toilet, white porcelain tiles and a single bench. I was bailed by one of the ‘red lawyers’ who always attend demos.

My trial came a few months later. I was charged with assault on the police, a stock indictment. Several officers stood up in court and gave bored recitals about how I had stood there, punching them until they had managed to restrain me and lead me away. My lawyer carefully cross-examined them to ensure their version of events was minutely described. I was looking at six months.

During the police evidence I remember shouting in exasperation that none of this was true – I was genuinely shocked at the idea that policemen might calmly stand up in a court of law and just lie – but was shushed by my lawyer for my naivety. Only later did I understand that everyone knew this was a tedious charade and they all just wanted to get through the script.

We had a secret. I am now embarrassed to talk about it, but at the time I had an intense attachment to what can only be described as thick, woollen, diamond-patterned, Rupert Bear trousers. These were exceptionally distinctive. I had steered a bee-line to where the action was, but so had half the press and their photographers. My defence team had their pictures, many of which featured a young man in Rupert Bear trousers being wrestled to the floor and then squashed by burly cops.

Press photographers hate to be subpoenaed in these circumstances for all the obvious reasons. Nevertheless we had the guy there and the photographs were duly shown to the magistrate. Let us say there was plainly discordance between the official version of events and what the photographic record actually showed: with great reluctance, the magistrate acquitted me.

I was very lucky; most of the arrested had no such compelling defence and went down.

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While I was having my mini-drama of being arrested, a student in our contingent from my old university (Warwick), Kevin Gately, was actually killed. The IMG view was that he had been hit over the head by a police baton from the Special Patrol Group but this was never definitively proved.

My story merited a few column inches in the papers: “London tube worker acquitted of police assault”.

My parents were mortified.

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IMG-related:  Occupying the Embassy and A Mission to Prague.

Occupying the Embassy

The Chilean Embassy in London

In the early 1970s, the International Marxist Group had a serious crush on our cousins across the channel, the Ligue communiste révolutionnaire (French Section of the Fourth International). Initially just another French groupuscule, the Ligue had surfed les événements de mai 1968 to become a formidable Trotskyist force in left-wing politics, with perhaps 10,000 members.

The IMG had around 450.

The Ligue did serious stuff. It allegedly smuggled guns to the FLN in Algeria and occupied Embassies. Wanting a piece of the action, the IMG restructured its prosaic demo stewarding organisation to form the ‘Red Defence Force’ (RDF), and I was asked to head it.

Soon afterwards I'm enjoying a pint in a pub at King’s Cross, near the IMG headquarters in Pentonville Road. What's that I hear? It's the veteran working-class activist and IMG leader Bob Pennington referring to me derisively as the IMG’s Che Guevara.

In an uncharacteristic moment of moral courage I walk across to his table and confront him:

“It was the IMG leadership’s idea to set up the RDF, not mine. If you think it’s so stupid, take it up with them, not me.”

I like to think that’s when he first took a shine to me.

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In 1973 the Chilean military overthrew the socialist government of Salvador Allende, which was then in the process of wrecking the Chilean economy. What was probably in hindsight the least bad option was nevertheless a messy and thoroughly cruel and repressive event. Naturally the IMG was signed up to all the London demonstrations against the Chilean coup.

So we have this enormous demo coming up on Chile, and an IMG leader takes me aside (was it Peter Gowan? I think it might have been) and tells me it has been decided we should occupy the Chilean Embassy on the morning of the demonstration. The demo will pass the Embassy and the IMG contingent will break through the police cordon and rescue us.

I have never heard of a more unlikely proposal in all my life: the police are quite used to our demos and we never manage to break their cordons.

Nevertheless, I have my instructions. Clearly someone has to reconnoitre the Embassy, to plan our incursion, and that person has to be me. At this time I'm a teacher-training student at Furzedown College in south-west London. I therefore concoct a story that I'm doing a project on education in Latin America, and specifically Chile. I call the Embassy and make an appointment.

I turn up - dishevelled clothes and long hair - and a security-goon escorts me up wide curving stairs into the sumptuous office of the junta's cultural attaché. We discuss Chilean secondary education, and somehow in the conversation it comes up that the whole Embassy is Chilean territory, that the guards possess guns and that they're authorised to use them.

I file this useful information away.

On the Saturday I brief my RDF team, carefully explaining about the guns, and we arrange to meet at a location about half a mile away from the Embassy at 8.30 the following morning. We all experience a rather troubled night’s sleep.

Sunday morning arrives, as it is wont to do, and I turn up a little early to check out the Embassy. I don’t get too close, just stroll in its general direction from the tube station until I have it in view. To my gathering unease there are way too many vans of the Special Patrol Group cruising the otherwise deserted streets while a large body of burly policemen block the Embassy entrance.

Returning to the rendezvous point, I gather my team together and tell them the operation is cancelled as we have no chance of getting in. We retire to the students union at UCL to debrief. I share my opinion that the police must have been forewarned about our mission; probably by an informer. Strangely, no-one seems that disappointed. I say that with one exception: when I inform Peter Gowan later that morning, he clearly expresses his view that I have messed up big-time.

We join the rest of the IMG contingent for the demo that afternoon. As we approach the Chilean Embassy we see phalanxes of police and mounted officers guarding it. Not in a million years would the IMG have got through that.

So I save the bacon of my fellow RDF comrades and myself - at the cost of showing yet again that we can't play in the league of the Ligue.

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I once said to a senior comrade, “I don’t understand why they put me in charge of the RDF. I have no combat skills and I’m not at all aggressive. In fact I’m much more of a thinker than a doer.” The comrade smiled and replied, “Did you ever consider that that might actually have been the reason?”

The RDF didn't last long and performed adequately in its comfort zone of marshalling street processions and the odd agitprop street theatre. No more direct confrontations with the forces of the state!

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IMG-related: A Mission to Prague and Red Lion Square.

A Mission to Prague

Hradčany Castle, Prague

It’s London in the early nineteen seventies. I’m 22 years old and a senior member of the International Marxist Group. I’ve been invited to an unexpected meeting with a leader of the IMG, a member of the Political Committee.

I have no idea why.

We’re a Trotskyist organisation, as opposed to the Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe as to the capitalist West. It turns out that the IMG has been running a secret project with the Czech opposition in exile; ‘subversive’ books are being smuggled to groups within the country. They need volunteer drivers – would I be interested?

The IMG’s part in all this is to provide a team of two to share the driving. I’m given the impression that my co-conspirator will be the blond, vivacious Anna, so I’m pretty keen. It later transpires that I’m to be paired up with a bespectacled, public school educated comrade called Peter. I know Peter well because we shared a flat.

I reflect: what happens if the secret police catch you? How would the interrogation go? How many years would you spend in jail?

Our mission starts with a visit to a Czech dissident’s mansion in Hampstead. The émigré organisation supports several groups with different political orientations in-country. Each group has its own tailored bundle which must be delivered correctly. On no account must any of the groups get the idea that other organisations are also being supported – each apparently believes they are the unique, chosen ones.

We’re shown the white transit van we’ll be driving. The rear has two benches along the sides: the packages will be hidden in secret compartments beneath them. There are boards and mattresses to assemble beds in the back. At the border this will create additional barriers to a thorough search. We practice assembling and disassembling the back of the transit, and commit to memory which package is going to which group, the rendezvous locations, procedures and codes. A cover story for colleagues and parents is concocted, as we’ll be away for two or three weeks (hopefully!).

A few days later we’re off, driving the transit from London to a ferry port, and then along the motorways of northern Europe towards the safe house in Vienna. Only two moments of drama occur in this initial phase of the mission.

Driving at speed along a motorway in the fast lane the bonnet of the van, which hadn’t been fastened properly, suddenly flips up under the force of the airflow, blocking my view (I’m driving). I don’t panic, use the wing mirrors to steer across the lanes and stop on the hard shoulder.

The second incident is much more serious. Peter and I realise we’ve forgotten which package goes to which group – as per instructions, we never wrote anything down. We find a phone box and make a call to the Hampstead house. A man answers and has to repeat – in clear – the detailed delivery instructions. He is deeply unamused. Whatever security this mission might have had, it is surely compromised. We proceed regardless.

A day or two later, we arrive at the safe house in Vienna in the late afternoon. The plan is that we drive north to cross the Czech border shortly before dawn, just before the shift changes. The concentration of the border guards should be minimal at this time (but don’t border guards ever see through this ploy?). Both Peter and I are making frequent visits to the toilet – we’re rather ‘apprehensive’.

We leave in the small hours of the morning. Peter is driving, we have the bed down and I’m in it – more cover. It’s been decided that Peter will be the one who deals with the security police while I pretend to be asleep. I think the mission organisers are placing a lot of trust in Peter’s accent and general breeding; it may help that Peter’s public persona is that of an upper class bumbling idiot. I am not wholly aware that Peter is carrying on his person a bunch of letters which need to be posted in-country: we are not privy to their contents.

The guards do what guards do. They come out of their warm control room – it’s winter and very cold – and open up the back of the transit. I do a convincing rubbing of the eyes, stretch and yawn. They poke around and consider our story – we’re students taking a vacation, en route to Prague. Bored, they let us proceed.

Peter, back in the driving seat, tells me that he’d put the secret letters in his underpants, thinking they’d be safest there. Unfortunately, while he was being questioned by the border guards, the letters had slipped out and fallen down his trouser leg. He’d been terrified they’d fall onto the floor but somehow the top of a sock had halted their progress.

We continue through the snowy wilderness of southern Czechoslovakia. Soon we have a problem: there is something very wrong with the engine. We have to stop in a small town and in some combination of English and German find a garage. We sip at sweet black coffees while the mechanics fix the gasket or whatever. We worry about the time, mindful of our rendezvous timetable.

Once we’re on the road again, we find a quiet spot. Peter keeps watch while I disassemble the back of the van, restoring the two bench seats and contorting myself to reach into the hidden compartments to retrieve the packages. They’re placed on the floor and covered with spare bedding. From now on, even the most cursory search will find them. Finally we reach Prague, where we have been told to check into a certain hotel. We’ll be rooming together, writing notes to forestall eavesdroppers.

Our immediate assignment is to meet with a teacher who is the first group's contact. She lives in a high-rise apartment a few miles west of the centre of town. We drive out early next day, well before the working day starts. Everything goes well: we find her and deliver the goods. Then she says, “It’s getting late and I have classes. Could you give me a lift?”

Having grown up with a juvenile fascination for tradecraft, I do a double-take at this. She joins the two of us in the front of the transit and we navigate the rush-hour traffic back into town. We drop her a block away from her school, just around the corner - very casual.

The next part of the mission is more complex because we have to split up. Peter has to take a train to meet his contact in a cafe-bar at the end of the line, far out in the suburbs. At the same time, I have a brush contact with someone at Hradčany Castle which overlooks the centre of Prague. We will meet back at the hotel (everything is timed).

I drop Peter off at the station and wend my way through the dense, narrow, inner city streets to park near the castle entrance. I have studied the layout: there is a cobblestone square near the castle walls. I am to sit on a bench with the bag. There is a recognition phrase and a required response.

I sit on the bench with the bag at my feet and shiver. It’s early and the square is deserted – no sign of surveillance. I see a man, mid-thirties, bearded and dressed against the cold shuffling towards me. He stops and says “Is that it?” I nod helplessly; no one had explained what to do if the person doesn’t use the right codes. He continues, laughing dismissively, “Sure it’s the one for me, not one for the other lot?” (So much for the groups being in ignorance of each other).

Without more ado he picks up the bag and walks off. I return to the transit and drive back to the hotel, relieved that the mission is almost over. I sit alone in the hotel room. The time allocated for Peter to return comes and goes. The clock measures out the slow hours; I’m in an agony of indecision. Surely Peter has been picked up? Again, no one had told us what to do in this eventuality but surely it’s madness to just sit here, just wait for the arrival of the secret police?

At last I hear footsteps in the corridor and the door opens. I fear the worst, curse myself for being an idiot, nothing like the resourceful heroes of espionage fiction. But it’s Peter. He was held up, he says, by his contact, who wanted to drink with him and regale him with stories. He just couldn’t get away. We have seen so much atrocious security that this seems far from impossible.

So now we’re done. Next day we leave Prague and eventually cross the western border into Germany. Peter turns to me and says something which strikes me as odd: “What a relief to be back in bourgeois democracy.”

It's like he's stating the obvious.

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IMG-related: Occupying the Embassy and Red Lion Square.