I Can Spy the Ghost of Roderick Spode and his Black Shorts in the distance.

Sorry, it's silly I know, but I stumbled across this picture on the internet and, as I had never seen it before, I just had to post it on the blog. Despite my best efforts, I can't find out which constituency it was that Vanessa Redgrave contested as a candidate for the Workers Revolutionary Party in the October election of 1974. All I can work out is that the WRP didn't stand too many candidates in the February and October General Elections of '74 gripped, I guess, with the expectation that a fascist dictatorship was just round the corner for Britain.

So presecient were they with that prediction of an impending fascist coup d'etat that they were able stand sixty parliamentary candidates five years later at the 1979 General Election - not one of their candidates winning enough votes to retain their election deposits - but with their newspaper, 'Newsline', informing the working class that "The stage is set in Britain for a general strike and a civil war, whoever wins the coming General Election"*. [ A quote from the April 7th 1979 issue.] Those were the days.

The last time I saw Vanessa Regrave on my tv screen she was playing Joely Richardson's mum on Nip/Tuck. It may have been a while ago.

*That quote unearthed from the very readable 'The Rise and Fall of Gerry Healy' by Bob Pitt.