WITH the heatwave still going as strong as ever, Parliament has now broken up for the recess. I shall be spending most of the summer at home. But this heatwave reminds me of my childhood, when we had a similar heatwave in 1976.

It was very different time. I studied for exams by candle light as power workers strikes brought regular power cuts. The heatwave compounded a problem of billions of flies, breeding in the stacks of uncollected rubbish piling high as the refuse collectors strike entered its umpteenth week.

Although never affected by it personally, bereaved families had their losses compounded by the grave diggers’ strike. It was utterly dire and something that we, today, simply cannot imagine (unless you live in Labour controlled Birmingham, where they have first-hand knowledge of refuse collector strikes).

It was a massive failure of the Labour government, struggling to keep unions under control and a massive failure of socialism. Even nationalised industries were hopeless. We complain about railways now (and so we should – we need to press for ever improved services), but back then there were regular strikes on British Rail holding up workers from earning a living. Similarly, telephones. Obviously mobile ‘phones were a far distant futuristic dream, but ordering a domestic telephone line took 6 months.

All public services were hopeless and it wasn’t until the power of the unions was brought under control and the vast majority of nationalised industries were put back into private ownership through, in the main, stock market flotations that we started to have proper services.

Meanwhile, millions of people were starving in Communist China and we were ever living under the threat of being vaporised in a global thermo-nuclear holocaust initiated by Communist Russia, who were occupying (until just three decades ago) half of those countries that now form the wider EU.

We are all shaped, of course, by our own personal experiences. I read recently that people’s political views are formed during their teens and twenties, as they experience life as it really is, and not as their parents deliver it.

A western journalist was recently hailed for declaring herself “literally, a Communist”. She will have formed this view from her own personal experiences and disappointments in our current system. But I bet they won’t be voting for socialism, if they ever get a chance to vote again, in socialist Venezuela.