DAY 20: Interview with Communist candidate...

Gerrard Sables, Communist Party candidate for North Devon in 2010 general election.

IN THIS EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW:
"The first person in space was a communist; he certainly wasn’t a Liberal Democrat"/ “We find capitalism to be completely wasteful”/“Everybody has got the right to a decent home. Nobody has the right to three houses”/“I think a participative democracy would terrify the Tories and the Liberals and in an area like this”/“We’ve got a budget”/“I think it was George Bernard Shaw who said a communist is a socialist who means it”//“I don’t think there has been a communist standing in the South West peninsula ever”/“I’m not going to predict a communist landslide”

Question: Can I ask you how and why you became involved in politics?
It was back in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The Vietnam war was going on. All sorts of colonial wars were going on. The anti-Apartheid movement. CND. I was involved with that and I was a trade union representative. It seemed the communists were the only ones who had the answers to the questions I was asking. I joined in 1972.

Question: Can you describe the over-arching aims of your party and its revolutionary aims?
We find capitalism to be completely wasteful. The things that Marx said in the latest credit crunch have been found to be completely true.Communist economists had been predicting this terrible crash for about a decade. We knew it was going to happen and the worst is not yet over.

Our aims are complete transformation of society.

The economy belongs to the people, not the bankers.That means we are going to need a flowering of trade unionism and activity to fight for what we’ve got and to get more. We need tenants movements. We need the pensioners to be active.

There would be no room for a monarchy or a House of Lords for instance.We still want political parties and democracy and elections.

We would work towards pulling out of the EU because MEPs are lest get-atable than MPs; they are so far away and the EU has a very un-democratic structure.Nestle has more influence on what happens in the EU than any MEP.We see no need for NATO.

We see no need for nuclear weapons. We would say no more building of nuclear power stations and would look at green alternatives.We would also open up the coal mines again and use carbon capture.

Question: People will attack communism in a way they won’t attack capitalism. They’ll say capitalism is a system which allows people to be more free. How would you respond to that argument?
I don’t think the OAP freezing of hypothermia in a rich country feels that free.I don’t think people who have been chucked out on the stones because of a decision in a boardroom feel that free.I know the problems of what people think about the Soviet Union but you have got to remember that came out of a very repressive system, Tsarist Russia.

If you look at what the Soviet Union achieved. It went from a medieval, backwards, illiterate place to one that was able to send somebody into outer space.

The first person in space was a communist; he certainly wasn’t a Liberal Democrat.Things did get better for people in the Soviet Union but there was severe repression under Stalin; he was a bit paranoid, but what closed the Soviet Union down was the arms race.

Question: In a practical sense, how would communism work, changing the structure of British society?
We believe in a planned economy which means public ownership and every Journal reader would agree the water prices are too high here since privatisation.Electricity and gas: they’ve really ripped us off.We would say that we are spending £100billion bailing out the bankers for their gambling debts; we should control the banks and own them.

If you do that you can give low interest loans out to kickstart industry and to help our agriculture.Communications. We are opposed to the privatisation of the Post Office; there is no need for it.We also say that any company which is making a profit should not be allowed to lay people off in order to get a bigger profit.

Central to all of this is getting rid of the anti-union laws because capital can be withdrawn immediately, you have to give notice to withdraw labour. That needs to be turned around.

Question: What do you make of what the other parties are offering the people this time around?
I saw the Conservative election manifesto and I thought: you hypocrites. They are giving this image of people participating in things. I’ve never heard a Conservative or a New Labour politician saying: if you’re at work you ought to be in your trade union.I

’ve never heard a landlord like Philip Milton saying to his tenants: you really ought to set up a tenants movement to make sure I’m doing my job as a landlord properly.

I think a participative democracy would terrify the Tories and the Liberals and in an area like this where the Liberals flogged off all the council houses.

Question: What are your views on property ownership, from the point of view of individuals having mortgages from banks, for example?
I heard an estate agent saying 0.1% last year were first-time buyers so there’s a big crisis.We need millions of homes to be built.

That would also help the economy; houses need carpets, ovens, beds.I remember during the Thatcher years when mortgages went up to 15%; banks were being greedy and people were in despair.Everybody has got the right to a decent home.

Nobody has the right to three houses.I’m not against anybody owning a house per se. The whole question of land ownership needs to be looked at.

One third of all land in Britain is still owned by the descendants of the people who came over with William the Conqueror. There is a movement that says you should tax land value.Britain owns two thirds of the world’s tax havens; they could have been closed last week.

All of them. Billions are being lost in tax revenue.We decry this call to close down tax offices and sack civil servants because they are penny-wise and pound-foolish. Every public servant is worth their money, plus.

Question: What are your views on income tax?
I don’t think somebody on a low income should be paying any income tax at all.We’ve got a budget. Close the tax avoidance loopholes; that would bring us £70billion.

A 20% windfall tax on super-profits of British-based banks, oil corporations, energy utilities and retail monopolies and that would get us about £16billion.A Robin Hood tax on major transactions: £30billion a year.

We would also levy a 1% wealth tax on the richest 10% of the population: £39billion a year.We would increase corporation tax on big business profits: another £10billion.

Empty property tax: £3billion.We could save £3billion by stopping using private sector consultants. We had an example of that with the changing of the name North Devon College to Petroc and the other was the proposed incinerator; those two must have cost £700,000 in consultancy fees.

Replace PFI schemes by public funding and management: that would save £3billion a year.Scrap ID cards would save £6billion over the next ten years.

Scrap Trident and its replacement which would save at least £76billion.We would reduce military expenditure to average European levels which would save £13billion and take the British troops out of Afghanistan which would save £4billion a year.

We would halve the local Government bill for bringing in the private sector and that’s another half-a-billion.We are saying it can be done.

We’re saying there is no need for cuts in public spending.We are against private education so we would bring all schools into the public sector and have each school to get the same level of funding that is given to city academies.

Question: What is your take on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?

They were about resources, dodgy dossiers. It’s about oil and gas and big finance, utterly corrupt.

Afghanistan is a ludicrous, ludicrous situation for us to be in. The Moghul empire that controlled India for centuries couldn’t do it in Afghanistan. The British empire lost. The Soviet army couldn’t do it.The best thing to do with Afghanistan is to leave it to the Afghans; they’ve got to sort their own problems out. The main problem for Afghanistan is foreign intervention: us.

Question: There has been an argument for international solidarity with workers which could lead to an interventionist view?
The one thing about military intervention in a country is that once you’ve done it, they never invite you back.Imperialism is anti-democratic. It can’t be pro-democratic.

Question: When people think of communism they do think of the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, Cuba, all very different countries but still associated with communism in different forms. What’s your take on how the ideology has manifested itself in those situations?
I like Cuba. I had an email from a Cuban comrade who we had speak in Barnstaple last year and she wished me luck in the election. I’ve also been wished luck from a person in the William Morris society in Canada.I think it’s got to be what the people decide. A people has a right to decide its own form of government and democracy. North Korea is an awful place but it’s been at a state of war for the past half-century. That creates the internal repression.

Question: You wouldn’t say the examples of North Korea or Stalin have destroyed the ideology of communism?
I know that by putting myself as a communist, I know there is this communist bogey there. But there’s a long communist history in Britain that pre-dates Marx: the peasants’ revolt; the Diggers; the Chartists.We do have a long tradition and William Morris said communism is a system of neighbourly common sense. We’ve got to get that over to people and it’s going to be a difficult job, I know that.

Question: When I interviewed the Labour candidate for North Devon he said he was a socialist. But he’s not a socialist in the way you’re a socialist is he?
I think it was George Bernard Shaw who said a communist is a socialist who means it. The reaction to us shows we are understood to be serious. If there as a communist majority in the House of Commons I don’t think the capitalists would be happy; they would be quite happy with New Labour.

Question: Why would anyone vote for a candidate who has no hope of winning?
Standing in an election is part of a process of educating people as to what we believe in.This election gives me a chance to have a leaflet delivered to 47,500 homes and they will either throw that away or read it.

If they agree with what it says, if it touches them, they will have to consider: am I going to vote for somebody to keep somebody else out or am I going to vote for this, which happens to answer the questions I have been asking?Standing in a rural area; we’ve never done it before.

I don’t think there has been a communist standing in the South West peninsula ever. I think the last time anybody who could be described as a communist was in 1847 when a Chartist stood against Palmerston in Tiverton. About 160 years later, here I am.

Question: How would electing you improve the lives of people in North Devon?
I’ve talked about the education and that would make an enormous difference not immediately but a few years down the line.

An educated people would bring their income up.Another thing I would be doing is encouraging people to get involved in their trade unions. I’d really make an issue of that because a trade union member’s income is more than a worker that isn’t in a trade union, as a general rule.And also there are the fringe benefits that trade unionists get, like legal help.

Another thing that concerns me is the isolation of villages. The public transport isn’t really much better than after the Second World War. There are still villages with only one bus a week.There’s no reason why people should be isolated in the way they are. For example you can’t leave Lynton after 5pm unless you are driving a car and what does that say for elderly, disabled or blind people?

Question: How well do you think you’re going to do in terms of votes?
Haven’t got the foggiest. Its never been done before so I don’t really know. I was out the day before yesterday delivering leaflets and a bloke said: “My father was a communist but he died a while ago. How do you get to vote?”. I told him and he said: “I’m going to register and I’m going to vote for you.”

I’m not going to predict a communist landslide.Most people do not know the Communist Party exists; the media are very quiet about it. There’s a kind of conspiracy of silence.