Remember Maxton?

The Red Clydesider, James Maxton, accused the Conservatives of being murderers. Maxton complained, in a debate in June 1923, that cutting grants to child welfare centres in Scotland would lead to an increase in the death rates among children: "I call it murder ... a cold, callous, deliberate crime in order to save money . . .” As a notably crusty Tory defended the cuts, Maxton and three other Clydesiders were suspended. 

There was prolonged uproar in the House; Honourable Members, after all, did not expect their complacency to be disturbed so abruptly. Macdonald, the Labour leader, sat pale with anger at the outrage — not at the suspensions nor the protest nor even the cuts which were depriving the needy children but at the misbehaviour of the Clydesiders who were his supporters and who needed to learn how to behave among their betters.

Well, the Clydesiders are all dead now, with little to remember them by apart from their protests. Capitalism has weathered their disruptions, their impatience, their demands. The railways and the rest of the means of wealth production and distribution, still do not belong to the people.