George Walford: Hard Luck

It was recently announced that a speaker from the “Socialist” Party [was to appear on television’s Channel 4].

We believe this was to have been a first for the party. But on that evening one of the unions, in order to ensure greater freedom of speech, prevented the announced programmes from appearing. We very much hope the party will be offered another opportunity, but if they are they might bear in mind this statement made by the Chairman of the BBC in 1954:

There is no evidence to suggest that a broadcast interview necessarily furthers the case advocated by the person interviewed. (Observer 11 Aug 85)

If the (A-)SPGB do, as we hope, get their chance on television, the result will be to demonstrate once again that their exclusion from the mass communications media is rather a result than a cause of the overwhelming lack of interest in their “case.”

from Ideological Commentary 20, September 1985.