The Virtual Stoa

fallujapictures.blogspot.com.

Victor Serge [also here], revolutionary socialist, born 30 December 1890 in Brussels, died 17 November 1947 in Mexico City.

And there’s lots of bloginterest in this particular Dead Socialist today, with tributes flowing in from Hak Mao, Will Rubbish and SIAW. I’ll just add a link to my friend Dave Renton’s essay on the man, later republished in his collection, Dissident Marxism.

Robert Owen, utopian socialist, born 14 May 1771, died 17 November 1858.

Jennie Lee, below, marks the completion of two years’ worth of Dead Socialists: the series began on 17 November 2002 with the commemoration of Robert Owen, who may very well be commemorated again tomorrow, if I find the time to post. Fifty nine Dead Socialists were commemorated in the first year, a further sixty nine were added in the 2003-4 session, and there are a similar number in my notes, awaiting appropriate festivities.

Which brings me on to my annual call for More Dead Socialists: please send me the names of those you’d like to see celebrated in this ever-popular featuer at the Virtual Stoa: we still have very few Dead Socialists from Latin America, Africa and Asia, and I’d like to see an ever-greater eclecticism in those who are singled out for Dead Socialist attention.

Make your nominations in the Comments, or email me privately.

UPDATE [8pm]: Three dozen new Dead Socialists suggested by readers: many thanks! Keep ‘em coming!

Jennie Lee, socialist, Labour MP and Minister for the Arts, born 3 November 1904, died 16 November 1988.

So it looked as if I was prescient to file Boris Johnson under “In the bin” on the sidebar. Except that he isn’t in the bin at all. Why would Johnson want to be on the front bench? The Tories are so short of potential ministerial talent that he’s bound to be offered ministerial office in the unlikely event of the Conservatives forming a government, and right now he’s best off with a national platform at the Spectator and no strong ties to the doomed Howard leadership.

UPDATE [2pm] Now here’s a much better idea (via Eric): Boris for the new Bond!

Thanks to Nick for passing this along from somewhere or other:

The election is over, the results are now known.
The will of the people has clearly been shown.
We should show by our thoughts, our words and our deeds
That unity is just what our country needs.
Let’s all get together. Let bitterness pass.
I’ll hug your elephant.
You kiss my ass.

Bessie Braddock, Liverpudlian socialist Labour MP and local legend. More here. Born 24 September 1899, died 13 November 1970.

Canaan Banana, first President of independent Zimbabwe, born 5 March 1936, died 10 November, 2003.

Leonid Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, born 19 December 1906 in Kamenskoye (now Dneprodzerzhinsk), died 10 November 1982.

Leo Huberman, American socialist, founding co-editor of Monthly Review, born 17 October 1903, died 9 November 1968.

When did Pepper’s Burgers on Walton Street in Oxford open?

Please report any sitings from before 1992 in the Comments.

Étienne Cabet, French utopian socialist and author of Voyage en Icarie; born in Dijon, France, 1 January 1788, died St Louis, Missouri, 8 November 1856.

If you’ve got any strong political opinions, you might want to head over to the Polling Station at TC’s website, where he’s asking the important question, “What Should the Government Do Next?” As things stand, the Kendal Northern Relief Road is in the lead (seven votes), narrowly beating off a challenge from Improvements to the M6 (four).

And there’s a touching story about how “Christmas has come early” for 9-year old Sophie Hunter, who has won the competition to design Tim’s Christmas card (although, sadly, no picture of the winning design is provided.)

Oh yes, and there was an election in the United States during my Blog Silence, which annoyed me, not only because the Republicans won, but also because I’d spent the previous twelve months reassuring various nervous Americans I know here in Oxford that they wouldn’t.

Bugger.

Also great fun, of course, over the last few days, has been the saga of Stephen Pollard and YouGov. Pollard wrote a characteristically irritating post about how YouGov wasn’t very good, in his opinion, which prompted a damning response from one of the chaps who works there in the comments box (reproduced here).

A little later, Pollard announced that “Some of you will notice that a post which was here earlier today about YouGov, the pollsters, has disappeared. I’m afraid that, for reasons which I can’t go in to, I have had to pull it.” This is mysterious, for the title of the original post was “Pollard Speaks, YouGov Quakes”, which makes it highly unlikely that Pollard pulled the post after YouGov pointed out that it was libellous, Pollard not being the kind of guy to quake in the face of any kind of legal threat.

All of this then left regular readers puzzled, first as to why Pollard continued to leave the offending post up on his site here, despite having told the world that he had pulled it, and second as to why he went on to insist that he’d won some famous victory over YouGov (“Game, set and match”), even though, quite patently, he hadn’t.

Idiot.

(For more discussion, see Anthony Wells’ blog here, and for a good point well made try here.)