Why I Have Joined the Greens

While defections are in the news, there's another that might be worth reporting on. My own. Yesterday I cancelled my Your Party membership and signed up to the Green Party. The local party meets next week, and I'm looking forward to becoming actively involved. For those interested in such things, here's the politics bit.

Binning off Your Party wasn't a difficult decision. Joining that was more a duty than anything approaching enthusiasm. Never has the left outside of Labour been handed such a golden opportunity, only for it to be squandered by prima donnaism and control freakery. Without re-litigating what happened in depth, Zarah Sultana should not have unilaterally launched the membership. The timing was right, but had she acted with the pre-party collective and abided by its ad hoc discipline the momentum would have still been there when it did go live, which was about a fortnight later. But once the die was cast, Jeremy Corbyn and his minions should have swallowed it - just as they did in the summer when Sultana announced that the new party was happening - and rode the wave. Doing so would have avoided bad blood and, most crucially, would have built on the 800,000 that signed up the mailing list. A party of more than 200,000 was in reach ... and Corbyn blew it because his helpers would rather run a much smaller, tightly controlled outfit that guaranteed them a living. Labour Party mk II not in name, but certainly in form.

And things have not improved. Despite handily winning positions aligning Your Party with an inclusive conception of class and democratic organisation, it's as if the conference votes never happened. Exclusions of members of left groups still stand, and candidates for the Central Executive Committee have been barred if they are suspected of paying subs to another organisation. Funny how there were never any complaints when the likes of Michael Lavalette, for example, was travelling around the country stumping for the new party and encouraging people to sign up. This is a violation of the spirit of what was voted on in November, and a big up yours from the unaccountable cabal that runs Corbyn's show to the membership. It now looks like this bar will be affirmed, assuming that Corbyn's slate of loyalists and idolaters sweeps the members' CEC ballot. Which it is likely to do. On top of that, there is the utter stupidity of the party's name, which alone demonstrates Corbyn's lack of political nous. And, let's be frank, Sultana's absence of political judgement. From childishly calling the awful Tory London Assembly Member Susan Hall a "boomer", boycotting the first day of her own conference, wanting to "nationalise everything", and being unnecessarily spiky toward the Greens is just daft. No confidence in the Corbyn clique, no confidence in Sultana, and no confidence in the prospect of Your Party becoming anything other than a shrine to St Jeremy. It didn't have to be this way.

But the Greens? It's doing rather well, and unlike Your Party has not bungled its opening. As the class composition of this country has changed, as recounted in the book, countless talks and podcast interviews, and on this blog on many, many occasions, politics has shifted too. A shift that the Greens are handsomely benefiting from.

Key to this is the growing importance of immaterial labour. In the post-war period in Western societies, the expansion of the state saw millions of workers taken out of private employment. Their jobs were less about producing material goods for private profit, and shifted toward producing services the public consumed. Education, welfare and social services, health care, the administration of the growing state at all levels. To use the old language, large sections of the work force were paid a wage to reproduce the conditions of capitalist production. They were tending to the gaps in the system, paving over the cracks, cleaning up the messes, making people broken or maimed by the system better, looking after those it discarded, and preparing generations of children for life under it. Alongside this the increasing complexity of production and the division of labour created similar roles within businesses. The expansion of management, the need for planners, logistics workers, technical specialists, office workers, cleaners, service-oriented work has come to absolutely dominate most advanced economies in terms of people employed and volumes of capital tied into and produced by services. Alongside this, postwar affluence kicked off mass consumption and the rise of privatised leisure activities. The casualties of this, at least in Britain, was declining church attendances, the withering away of the millions-strong political parties, and an erosion of working class community culture - which accelerated following the Conservative attacks on and defeats of the labour movement in the 1980s. But the expansion of immaterial labour selected for certain traits. In service work based on the production and maintenance of social relationships, sociability, knowledge, patience, and care were the key forces of production increasingly mobilised by the emerging post-industrial economy. Despite the privatisation of many state services and the intrusion of commodification into all facets of life, this "immaterialisation" of labour has continued apace.

The consequence for culture and politics has been profound, but to stop this from becoming another book, there are two key developments that are reaching fruition now. Because the nature of labour has changed with the object of work being the production of social relations, care, knowledge, social roles, etc., which in turn places a social premium on relatedness and sociability, this has resulted in a long-term tendency toward tolerance. Or, in other words, the gradual replacement of social conservatism by social liberalism. Each generation becomes increasingly comfortable with difference as they are socialised into and experience life as an immaterial worker. The generational differences we see in values surveys are not a reflection of lefty schooling or an essential tendency toward conservatism as we age, but a class cohort effect. There is a direct link between class, of being socialised into and working for a living in the post-industrial economy, and accepting socially liberal values as the everyday commonsense. Generation Z are the most radical, most socially liberal generation so far. And are likely to surrender that title to the younger people coming after them. The mores are cumulative, and we're now at the point where social conservatism is a minority outlook, and one that shrinks by the year.

The second consequence of this is overtly political. Faced with a politics that tries screening out the interests of the rising layer of workers, a typical mass response is disengagement and abstention, but for others it's a marked tendency to vote centre left or left. The first coming of Corbynism and, for a period, the rapid passage of the Labour Party from a husk to a true mass party - and then the 2017 general election - was the first mass electoral flex of the political conscious sections of the new working class. Though Corbyn lost badly in 2019, his real achievement, buried under the self-serving rubbish about the worst result since the 1930s, was hitching Labour to a new political articulation of class relationships. And one the party needed to build on for sustainable success. Unfortunately for Labour, it elected Keir Starmer whose project ever since has been to disperse this coalition to the point where his party courts extinction. But that dispersed support doesn't simply disappear. This is not 1997, it does have somewhere to go. Your Party looked like it could have been it, until they derailed themselves. And so, the Greens. A socially liberal party with left wing positions on a raft of issues that speaks to the class interests and outlooks of immaterial workers, stands up against the scapegoating and racism of the mainstream, and being the only party that really takes climate change, energy challenges, and the green transition seriously, Zack Polanski's leadership and his adroit interventions have catalysed and coalesced mass support around the Greens.

As argued here previously, there are two types of Green Party. The so-called realists, who elevate members to high office and inevitably disappoint - much to their cost. Like the German and the Irish Greens. And those parties that go down a Nordic path, that are to all intents and purposes Green-Left radical parties. This is currently the trajectory GPEW is on - the Scottish Greens being their own, somewhat different, thing - and is likely to draw in more members and more supporters on that basis. Far from the petit-bourgeois party as labelled by the little Lenins, the Greens are being taken over and getting filled out by our class, our rising class, and are inhabiting it as an instrument of our collective interest. It is a party that is becoming, a symptom and driver of a wider politicisation. It is occupying the position Your Party could have taken, but rejected. As Labour under Corbyn was one moment in developing the generalised political consciousness of a class, this is another. That task has fallen to the Greens. These are my reasons for joining. And why you should too.

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Desperate for the Limelight

Not another one! Having blogged on many occasions that Nigel Farage would never be so daft to take on Suella Braverman, on Monday he unveiled Reform's latest star defector - Suella Braverman! There she was giggling on stage as if she was doing something very naughty, she launched into a hypocritical rant about how awful her old party was, how most Tory MPs would be better off sitting as Liberal Democrats, etc. Snore, bore, we've heard it all before. Braverman moaned about being politically homeless for "two years" - but obviously was comfortable enough to stand as a Conservative candidate at the last general election. In reality, what she couldn't stand was being out of the limelight. As Kemi Badenoch took over, there was little backbencher Braverman could do to attract attention as the new leader took the party even further rightwards. And now she's back in it. Top billing in politics news, knocking the Andy Burnham fallout off its perch, hundreds of comments on Conservative Home, and she can look forward to framing the front pages tomorrow morning with her and Nige striking the old chums pose.

Farage justified taking her on because Reform have got to fill out "the experience" the party so far lacks in government. One might wonder if recruiting a bunch of clodhoppers responsible for the disasters of the worst administration in British political history is wise, seeing that many Reform supporters turned to the party because they were fed up of the chancers Farage's recruitment drive keeps scooping up. For Braverman, she has the licence to say many of the racist things Sarah Pochin can't and can do this far more effectively than Farage's other misfits and turncoat failures. A useful idiot in the truest sense, the danger to Farage comes not from offending a liberal opinion that Labour, more than anyone else, has contrived to snuff out, but in reminding the more racist-minded core support of Reform that the woman who promised and failed to deliver the abominable Rwanda scheme is now making a living off the back of their party.

The Tory response was silly and apolitical, suggesting - at least initially - that Braverman's defection had something to do with poor mental health. When, in fact, all she's suffering from is incurable narcissism. By blowing up her membership, Braverman can enjoy her 24/48 hours as if she's relevant again. But Reform in the Nigel Farage show. Yes, she can say racist things, but she cannot be allowed to have more exposure than the party's dear leader. Her trajectory is on the Lee Anderson track, once a noted gobshite the media could not get enough off, and now a strangely cowed, strangely silent presence. Like a Sleeper bloke anonymously strumming in Louise Wener's background. Cutting through and being a face again won't be helped by further Tory defections as they seek their moments in the sun, and the prominence existing Farage minions, such as Zia Yusuf, and Laila Cunningham feel they've earned ahead of the conveyor belt of carpet baggers. A dictatorship Reform might be, the toxins and petty jealousies clinging to each imported recruit is sure to give the party bilious stomach cramps sooner or later.

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Farewell Labour

Mark it on the calendar. 25th January, 2026. The date the Labour Party called it a day.

I have no brief for Andy Burnham. Politically, he moved from the right of Blairism to somewhere adjacent to the soft left. How serious this was never properly got tested. During the Ed Miliband years he was recognised for championing a national care service and turning against privatisation in the NHS, something his erstwhile chums on the Labour right have never forgiven him for. But also, in the 2015 leadership election, his pitch was all over the shop. Trying to keep the soggy centre moist while appealing credible to Labour rightists, once Jeremy Corbyn entered the fray there was nowhere for Burnham to go. Except for adventures outside the Commons when the Manchester mayoralty came up. But, to his credit, Burnham respected the members' vote. And as mayor, he has delivered a competent administration, not rocked the boat, and stood up to the Tories during their efforts to stiff northern England as Covid raged out of control.

Burnham also has that which many a Labour front bencher aspires to - authenticity. Burnham beats all other Labour figures on approval ratings because, unlike many a member of the cabinet from humble beginnings, he avoids coming across as managerialist, he avoids their practised 10-yard stare, and comes across as genuinely warm and relatable. Something that used to endear Angela Rayner to many punters, until her self-inflicted downfall. He impressed many because he stuck up for Manchester while Keir Starmer tailed the government on pandemic management. And so, when he announced his intention to seek the nomination for Gorton and Denton and return to parliament, he had to be stopped.

The Labour right love procedure when it hides political manoeuvres, which is exactly what they did. Burnham cannot be allowed to run because it would cause an expensive mayoral by-election and the party is brassic. How handy. How convenient. With Lucy Powell the sole voice of dissent and, it appears, the only NEC member with a grasp on political realities, the Labour right, the Starmer loyalists, have declared their party done. They didn't just veto Burnham's eventual leadership bid, they snuffed out the only real chance Labour had of avoiding a catastrophic, historic defeat at the next election. The government can give as many councils permission to cancel elections as they like, the bloodbath this May cannot be avoided. But with Wes Streeting now the obvious frontrunner to replace Starmer, at least most of the Labour right will keep their jobs and prominence for a few more years.

And so, Burnham denied means liquidation is a step closer. A parliamentary seat that, at any other time would be a shoe-in is likely to fall, and Labour's political decay continues apace. With Your Party dead on arrival, the Labour right have gift wrapped more of the party's voters and handed them over to the Greens. Burnham was a chance, the chance to turn things around. Instead, the NEC have engaged full steam ahead toward inevitable disaster.

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Grown Up Politics

Is this what adulting looks like? After straying outside of his comfort zone at the weekend for saying "no" to the United States, Keir Starmer rowed back in familiar surrounds on Monday morning. At a press conference the Prime Minister said tariffs are in no one's interests and allies should sit down and calmly discuss differences. This was why the UK would not be meeting US tariffs over Greenland with counter-measures of its own. A position somewhat at odds with the European Union, and one unlikely to endear London to EU capitals - dspite the warm words of mutual support and protecting sovereignty.

In his speech, because no occasion is too important to punch leftwards, he condemned "grandstanding" and "performative" commentary, saying this "may make politicians feel good, but it does nothing for working people whose jobs, livelihoods and security rely on the relationships we build across the world." Or, just perhaps, the leaders of the Greens and the Liberal Democrats know that if the government does nothing that would be read by Trump as a sign to pressure the UK for future concessions, such as binning food standards. This is nothing but an appeasement strategy - something this government has experience of. Number 10's hope is that doing nothing now will invite favourable treatment later.

The political problems are obvious. In the UK, Trump is marginally less popular than diphtheria and most find his aggressive language over Greenland bewildering, stupid, and scary. Views very common among US punters, incidentally. So yes, Starmer is right that this should be "moment for the whole country to pull together". But not one where we, collectively, raise the white flag and hope for better treatment than an EU seemingly standing up to White House bullying. Those Starmer attacked for "grandstanding" are likely to politically benefit, as they are more in tune with the fear and growing frustrations of public opinion. Meanwhile, our "grown up" PM will be awarded for his "maturity" in due course - an ever-plummeting personal rating that this ridiculous crisis will deepen. How low will it go before his hapless party administers the coup de grâce?

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The Softness of the Hard Right

Blimey. On Friday, Keir Starmer put out a statement that said "no" to the White House. The language wasn't tough and it did play into the fantasy that Russia is a threat in the north Atlantic, but it also said applying tariffs on NATO members supporting Greenland is "completely wrong". And, for legal eagles of international law, arguably a breach of the first four articles of the alliance's founding document. Emmanuel Macron was somewhat tougher in France's statement, and the EU collectively have threatened €93bn worth of tariffs and scrapping the US/EU trade deal if the heavy arm-twisting/bullying continues. As Donald Trump might say, it makes for great television.

Fresh from sacking Robert Jenrick, Kemi Badenoch is backing Starmer. As are the sovereignty maximalists and Brexit supporters of this country's right. Right? Conspicuously, Nigel Farage - who was due on Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday morning - cried off. Was he ill? Did he want to avoid a face-to-face clash with Zack Polanski? Or might questions over his Greenland whataboutery and Trump cronyism cause him embarrassment, and help that recent dip in the polls pick up momentum? Farage is not alone in his equivocation over American provocations, however. Last week, Tim Stanley was at it.

In his wretched piece, Stanley pushes the usual peace-through-strength rubbish, in the context of Trump's pirate raid on Venezuela. But rather than Britain attempting to project power, he advocates for a position that his employers at The Telegraph would ordinarily frown on: an almost Corbynist position. He writes, "We cannot defend Ukraine. We might, if we try very hard, be able to, say, construct a decent system of care for the elderly." But this is in the context of saying bon voyage to any influence in foreign affairs. Not so bad, you might think, considering the centuries of Albion's perfidy but what Stanley is trusting in is letting the USA tear around the world as it sees fit. Greenland, Venezuela, Ukraine, they're no concern of ours. We'll sit by ourselves in splendid isolation.

Why are the hard right soft on Trump? Our old friend Peter Mandelson spelled it out last week. The British state, and particularly its military, is integrated into the US projection of global power to such a degree that its operations, as a matter of course, need Washington's nod. The so-called independent nuclear deterrent cannot be supplied without US support, let alone launched. And because the City remains the key global centre of finance, the dominant wing of British capital is highly internationalised but, in the main, bound up with US capital. Sections of the ruling class are so compromised, particularly its most class conscious sections - which just so happen to be the ones (rhetorically) obsessed with sovereignty. They rightly see the US as the main protector of their interests, because they're so closely intertwined. It means that much of the right, most overtly the Tory press and Reform, can at best be ambivalent and at worse outright apologists for Trump's antics. Hence dullards like Stanley who argues that an American world is fine, even one as brutal as Trump's USA, is entirely fine with him and his employers.

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Kato feat. Jon - Turn the Lights Off

Plenty going on, but not feeling particularly writerly at the moment. So enjoy this tune, one that waited 18 years to become a hit until a meme catapulted it to new audiences.

A Bolt Hole for Failed Tories

So frightened was Nadhim Zahawi, that 11 years on he shook Nigel Farage's hand and joined Reform. For Farage, bagging another (former) leading Tory is always a coup. It attracts favourable coverage in the right wing press, encourages more ex-MPs who'd like to have another crack at Westminster to think Reform is the better bet, and for everyone else it confers the impression that the momentum is still with them. The only time Nigel is likely to say no to a petitioning defector is if they're a big personality/loose cannon. Which is why the door remains firmly shut on Suella Braverman.

Zahawi though. He's always been a bit of a no mark. Serving for two whole months as the chancellor, he distinguished himself there for calling on Boris Johnson to go without resigning. And later he got sacked by Rishi Sunak for dodging tax while threatening to sue journalists for defamation. A pity it never went to court as the self-inflicted humiliation would have been delicious. Anyway, for a man even Keir Starmer mocked as a lightweight, the reasons for throwing in with Reform are predictably vacuous. The country needs a "glorious revolution" we're told, we're reeling under an avalanche of illegal immigration, and the Tories are likely to cease trading as a national party before long. One wonders when he reached these conclusions. Was it before or after Kemi Badenoch rejected him for a peerage?

Looking at the list of notable Tory-Reform switchers, they all have something of the second-rate about them. Nadine Dorries, Jonathan Gullis, Jake Berry, Danny Kruger, Andrea Jenkyns, all at best were side characters in the Tory dramas of recent years. Despite strenuous efforts at courting notoriety or having public tantrums. Legends in their own lunch times they undoubtedly were, but they are anonymous to the public at large. And Zahawi fits right in, a non-presence who'll be a stranger to most Reform members, let alone its more disengaged support. Which begs the question, does Farage actually benefit from providing a bolt hole for Tory mediocrities and failed politicians?

A lot of it depends on who's doing the pointing out. From a Labour Party perspective, the numbers show that Reform's claim on its 2024 voters is scanty indeed. For this marginal group of voters, highlighting how Tory faces from Boris Johnson's tenure are popping up in Farage's supposedly anti-Tory party might be supposed to be a killer argument. If Labour hadn't kicked off its first year in office with attacks on elderly people while unapologetically helping themselves to the spoils of office. For this layer, their perception of little difference between the Tories and Labour in power is unlikely to dissuade them from giving Farage "a chance", even if his party is fit to bursting with Tory turncoats. If the Liberal Democrats and Greens are going to talk about it, then perhaps they can stymie that small proportion of Labour's vote tending to the right, but it will be they who benefit from residual anti-Tory feeling attaching to Reform, not Labour.

But could the wave of Tory defections put off Reform's existing supporters? It's doubtful. The lack of big personalities, competence, or shred of intelligence between them means no one is about to upset the Nigel show. If a new arrival was to get into a pickle, like problems with taxes, too-strong racism, or a good old Tory sex scandal, it won't be a problem for Farage to shrug it off. Or them, if necessary. Charges of school boy racism, dodgy funding for his home, collusion with Russia, and buddying up with Trump haven't unduly damaged him. So difficulties involving next-to-invisible trophy minions won't either. He knows this, and so more defections are likely to come. And more of them will get nodded through.

Their Best Pal

What happens when a useful hanger-on of the well-heeled has to resign in disgrace? They get rehabilitated. Again, and again, and again. How many times has Peter Mandelson been in this position during his career? Everyone has stopped counting. In the space of four months, we've gone from the embarrassing disclosure of his obsequious relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and sacking as Britain's man in Washington, to a leading piece defending Trump's foreign policy in The Spectator, and the chance to exculpate himself on the BBC with Laura Kuenssberg. Some might say people with a sense of shame would keep their heads down.

In his big interview, Mandelson demonstrated how he is useful to the powers that be. Just like the Speccie piece, he laid out his understanding of the Trump doctrine. That the world is a messy place, too many nations are flouting the rules, and the moment requires decisive action by a decisive leader. Venezuela being a case in point, and last year's joint US-Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities another. What about the bellicose threats over Greenland, repeated this last week? More theatre. Mandelson argues this is Trump's effort to stop Europe free-riding on US military supremacy. He's trying to force Europeans to spend more on guns, not butter mountains. So, in this case, you might say more Danish and non-American NATO troops in the Arctic suits the White House as it boosts the strength of their far northern perimeter. Of course, what Mandelson doesn't mention is the so-called scramble for the North Pole as the ice disappears is a fantasy for a new great game, the appearance of big power rivalry between the US-led West, and Russia - which can't even defeat Ukraine after four years of bloody war - and a China that has no assets or territory in the region. And Mandelson overlooks how the biggest violator of international rules is the United States itself. No surprises there - this is less a Trump-explainer, and more his condensing the slavishness of the dominant section of British capital. If this is to continue, he's saying, we've got to toady some more and get cranking out those weapons.

On his close friendship with Epstein, we got the hand-wringing. "I never saw anything", "Never noticed young women", "Perhaps because I'm gay he kept me out of the sexual side". On the support he offered after the sex offences conviction, Mandelson said he genuinely believed Epstein's protestations of innocence and what his lawyer was saying. To Kuenssberg, he threw down a challenge: "Do you think I would have stayed friends with him had I known?" Mandelson was canny enough to try and make it about the women who survived Epstein's abuse, but he refused to apologise for continuing the friendship when all facts were out in the open. Obviously, like everyone else we don't know what Mandelson did and didn't see/knew, but because of his character and fondness for prostrating himself before billionaires, I don't for one minute believe he would have let knowledge of Epstein's offences get in the way of warm relations. This is why Mandelson did not say sorry. It's not just that he doesn't feel particularly apologetic, something reinforced by the trained inauthenticity common to Blairite figures he affected, but it signals a willingness to debase himself, and to take a fall if serving the powerful requires it.

Between the article and the interview, Mandelson's laid it all out. He can be sacked, humiliated, live (temporarily) in disgrace. But it doesn't matter. If the wealthy or the powerful need him, he'll still be their best pal.

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The Power of the Bare-Faced Lie

Sympathies to the family of Renee Macklin Good, the woman murdered by an ICE agent on Wednesday. And solidarity with the people of Minneapolis that have taken to the streets to protest this outrage. As everyone knows, the US joke of a vice president, JD Vance, has thrown his oar in. ICE employee Jonathan Ross, the killer, is exonerated because Good was driving right at him. As this is an open-and-shut case of self-defence, who wouldn't pull the trigger? Camera footage showed how, quite clearly, Good was set on driving away from the scene. Ross's own body cam footage was then released, which showed that before attempting to drive away she said "That’s fine, dude. I’m not mad at you" to him. He then shot her three times in the face through the windscreen and called her a "fucking bitch".

Presumably, ICE released Ross's footage to bolster their version of events. Something Vance doubles down on. Obviously the self-defence argument does not stand up. Vance knows what the footage shows. ICE knows they haven't got a leg to stand on. And Ross knows he shot in anger, not defence. There is no good faith here, no honest disagreement. It's an exercise in outright cynicism. Only but the most gullible, those who've willingly surrendered their faculties to Trump's misinformation machine are going to believe it. But the lie isn't about shoring up the base, giving activists lines-to-take on social media. It's much worse.

For Vance, his lie is a weapon. Not of misinformation, but as a demonstration of power. It shows that he cannot be called to account, no one can correct him, and that the administration he's (formally) integral to can say and do what they like with impunity. This is important because, along with filling the zone with shit, the brutality and brutalism of Trump's regime is based on shock and awe. We have military spectaculars abroad, and the lawless violence of a state-funded militia for domestic consumption. Particularly in those places that have the temerity to vote for Democrats. In seeming to be beyond democratic checking and reason, murderous violence and brazenly lying about it is supposed to frighten people, cow them, demobilise, and push millions into resigned pessimism. Vance and co. know the polls are against them, but if most opposition-minded people are sufficiently fearful, what are they going to do about it? The lie stands for unaccountability. Its obscenity can stand because no one can cast it down. It's a goad, an insult Vance and ICE are rubbing in the public's face.

Such is the political use of the bare-faced lie. But relying on arms for political power is never the safe bet in the long-term. And the lie, which emotes power, also issues a challenge. Are you going to stand for this? Vance and friends need to be careful, because sooner or later enough Americans will say "No".

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Baudrillard on the Appeal of AI Slop

"If men create intelligent machines, or fantasise about them, it is either because they secretly despair of their own intelligence or because they are in danger of succumbing to the weight of a monstrous and useless intelligence which they seek to exercise by transferring it to machines, where they can play with it and make fun of it. By entrusting this burdensome intelligence to machines we are released from any responsibility to knowledge."

"What such machines offer is the spectacle of thought, and in manipulating them people devote themselves more to the spectacle of thought than to thought itself."

Jean Baudrillard, The Transparency of Evil, 1993, p.51.