November Late 2017

2017 was the 25th anniversary of the death of Mike Harskin his friends got together to celebrate his life and to tell stories about him. Vincent Hanna's  former Newsnight BBC correspondent elique from 1992 perhaps says it best/ Hanna - himself now unfortunately not with us was supposed to be at a G7 meeting in Birmingham helping the government with the media for the event instead he spoke of his moments with Mike: 

“I asked why the YLs and not the Young Socialists – ‘they always have a true faith, an orthodoxy, against which some group are constantly in schism. And everyone knows that half-believers are far worse than complete heretics’[he said]. I met Mike at by-elections. He was one of the celebrated notorious crew, whom David Steel said didn’t exist, who inhabited the neither regions of the Party office.

“[Mike was an integral part of the] tiny crew who slept under photo-copiers and produced propaganda. It was dramatic stuff, scurrilous, offensive, acerbic, funny, unfair, occasionally half true or untrue, and it terrified the other parties to death. 

“I thought it was wonderful. Here were two great Party machines with offset printers clacking away, with glossy posters by the mile, highly paid staff, flashy cars, being driven rat-arsed by three Liberals with a letraset, a photocopier, a typewriter and a pot of paste.

“And Harskin was the worst. Peter Chegwyn said to me: “He’s talented Mike, you know but he goes a bit over the top.

In short, Mike Harskin was the most honorable of British political things, a pamphleteer……

“We live - relatively speaking – in a decent and humane society. People are not often imprisoned without a trial or arbitrarily executed. The opposition we see comes neatly packaged from government ministers and state torture is usually accompanied by redundancy payments.

“But in many other countries of the world you will find Mike Harskin. He’ll be living in some safe house, or keeping one jump ahead of the security police, or sharing a prison cell with a trade union leader or an outspoken priest.

“Without the Mike Harskins of this world or the next, opposition would be just a little bit more deep-rooted, and injustice more widespread.

“Mike Harskin took and gave no more – in the struggle. But nowadays that is edge is all you can have – the difference between night and day, or life or death.”