Atheism And Politics

UK Polling Report, under the heading "WOULD YOU VOTE FOR AN ATHEIST" concludes -

"In the US survey, the most electoral objectionable group was atheists, with 53% of Americans saying they would not vote for an otherwise well-qualified Presidential candidate who was an atheist. One would expect that figure to be much lower in the UK, but actually it is still surprisingly high at 20%. One might not have guessed it, but not believing in God would appear to be almost as much of an electoral handicap for a potential leader in the UK as being Muslim or gay."

I appreciate that becoming President or Prime Minster is somewhat different from being a back-bench MP. But I was an MP for 18 years and an atheist. No constituent ever asked me what my religion was. I went to Civic Services and Church/Chapel Funerals as part of what I saw as being my civic (or personal) duty. On the other hand I attended meetings of the Humanist Society in Parliament. I neither hid nor pushed my atheism. I was fully involved in the politics of Northern Ireland, but no-one even raised religion with me - not even to ask if I was a Catholic Atheist or a Protestant Atheist. Politicians (and others) who beat the religious or anti-religious drum worry me. It is, for instance, possible to oppose faith schools without being anti-religious. Politicians should neither do God nor Anti-God. There are plenty of other things to get on with.

Hat Tip NightHawk

God Save Me From This Fellow Atheist

A.C.Grayling is Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College. A good selection of his books can be found on the ever-shrinking Philosophy shelves at Waterstones and Borders. Unfortunately, a recent book of his entitled "Against All Gods"(Oberon Books, 2007, £8.99) is a setback for atheism.

Lacking Both Quantity And Quality

The book is only some 10,000 words long; which is only the length of my last nine blogs. Yet it could be a pleasing (if still expensive) short read, if it wasn't equally short on quality.

Apart from its introduction, it consists of six self-proclaimed polemics against religion and a more positive six page essay which he grandly tells us is on "non-religious ethics".

These brief snippets "began life as journalist contributions". We aren't told where they were cut and pasted from and some repeat points taken from Karl Popper and from Grayling's earlier works.

My Polemic Against Polemics

He has two strange arguments for presenting us with these "brief and blunt" polemics. First; if we would like more detailed (and reasoned?) expositions of what he is saying, then he tells us we can consult three of his longer books. It was a pity I did not know that before I purchased the book under review - although I find that I have picked one of these books up recently as publisher's surplus.

Secondly, he feels that a "combative" tone is appropriate as there can be no "temporising" with religion over the matters he covers. This indicates that he is keen to take on the propaganda of religious zealots, rather than to face up to theology at its strongest and then cap it with reasoned arguments.

He is a most unphilosophical philosopher.


I will now respond to three of his polemics. If I tackled more, there would be a danger that my review would end up being longer than Grayling's book. I use his own chapter titles

1. Does Religion Deserve Respect?

He feels that religious people overwhelmingly expect and receive far too much respect for the views they hold. Whilst there are, of course, many cases where this happens, there are two important considerations which Grayling gives no thought to.

First, some religious people are aware that there are strong counter-arguments to their particular religious stance. Some have felt the need to try to overcome such "doubts". If we argue with them without rancour, then they (and any third party involved ) will benefit from the friendly dialectics of such discussions. I had hoped that a Professor involved with Adult Education would have held such a perception.

Secondly, whilst I believe that all religious belief in the existence of God is mistaken, I recognise that some people have come to the viewpoint I reject - yet they link it in with many of the "humanitarian" values which Grayling and I share. In challenging someone's belief in God, we should not do this in ways which will also dent such related value systems.

2. Can An Atheist Be A Fundamentalist?

Grayling finds the use of the term "atheist" to be a strange one, as it attempts to describe a non-belief or a nothing. More than once in his book he repeats his past argument that we don't feel a need to refer to people as "a-fairyists" because they don't believe in fairies. So he sees no scope for an atheist to be described as being a fundamentalist or otherwise. Atheism is just a non-acceptance of other people's claims about God.

But what if a person's non-belief in the existence of God is part of a wider-belief system in, say, historical materialism or evolution? Surely, we can have fundamentalists and extremists in such camps, who wish to ram their views down our throats in ways that refuse to grapple with any counter-claims. The strength of Darwin's position is that it has stood up to rigorous debate.

To me, atheism (along with any other belief and non-belief system it is part of) can be pushed by some in extremist and fundamentalist ways. I hope that it is an approach I normally avoid.

3. The Death Throes Of Religion

Grayling claims that religion is on its way out. The rise of extreme versions of Islam, faith schools and creationism are merely its death throes.

He claims that this is what happened in the Victorian Era and after the Counter Reformation. This is an interesting theory, but where is Grayling's proof that this seems to be happening now?

In fact, the above argument is the exact counter to the one presented by Alister McGrath in his book "The Twilight of Atheism" (Rider, 2005, £7.99). For McGrath, Atheism took off from the time of the French Revolution and has started to move into free fall with the collapse of the Soviet Union. As with Grayling, he offers no evidence for his claim - although it takes him 279 pages to develop his case, compared to 5 pages by Grayling.

I find it worrying that Grayling should adopted a similar non-methodology to that pursued by McGrath as a Christian Crusader.

Conclusions

A further problem with Grayling's book is that whilst his polemics sometimes repeat points, at other times they contradict each other. So that whilst in the above polemic he sees the coming triumph of atheism, in another he worries about a survey which shows that 30% of University Students believe in creationism and intelligent design. He then reads like a Daily Telegraph editorial as he attacks what he sees as the lowering of educational standards by the opening up of University access.

I have now had a go at two atheists who have "God" in the title of their books - Richard Dawkins and AC Grayling. I will, however, correct the balance in the future for there are some fine atheist writings for which I don't need God's protection.

A Disservice To Atheism

I have finally read Richard Dawkins' book "The God Delusion ". It was a big disappointment. It falls way short of his key works on evolution, such as "The Blind Watchmaker"

Bible Bashing

Whilst Dawkins' argues that all religious beliefs share similar defects, much of his criticism in "The God Delusion" is directed against Christianity. The Bible comes in for a bashing. It is, therefore, paradoxical that I requested and received my copy of his book as a Christmas present.

A clear sign that I found the book to be highly problematic was that it took me so long to read it - the whole of January. Picking it up became a task I kept avoiding. It was rather as if I had set myself a chore such as reading the Bible itself.

Knock, Knock

The book is full of knock-out and knock-about arguments. Such an approach is neither intellectually not emotionally stimulating.

To maintain sets of knock-out arguments, a writer is obliged to set up a series of Aunt Sallys which can be bowled over. Dawkins' criticisms are also directed more at the easy target of the Old Testament than at the Gospels (although he disputes that this is what he is up to).

For knock-about, he deals with American style Christian fundamentalism, rather than the type of socially conscious Methodism I absorbed in a pit village over 50 years ago.

The knock-about comes in when Dawkins' delights in digging up the best bits of Christian stupidity he can find. Some from experiences in his past, the others from a great deal of Googleing.

Dialect instead of Dialectics

Dawkins uses the same tone (or harsh dialect) all of the time. Religion is always mad and bad. There is no delving into the inspirational aspects of religion, which in Christianity alone have grabbed such people as Martin Luther King, Keir Hardie and Desmond Tutu.

It is easy to despatch the nonsense which emerges from creationists and the pro-life lobby, but answering religion at its most inspirational requires both empathy and deepth of thought. The best arguments as to whether God exists should touch on morality and metaphysics as well as science. All these forms of analysis require a critic to be involved in 'give' as well as 'take'. Such an approach is called dialectical reasoning. You will not find it in this book.

Dawkins lack of questioning also leads him to condemn religion as being a catalyst to social conflict and political excess. Yet when similiar patterns of trouble emerge in atheist regimes such as the Soviet Union, they are said to have risen from factors other than the prevailing godlessness. What goes for the goose does not go for the gander.

Using his same logic on the Soviet Union, it is possible to argue that the recent troubles in Northern Ireland were of a tribal form relating to the question of whether the region should be part of the Ireland or the United Kingdom and that religious affiliations only slotted people into the two different camps.


The Problem With The Interesting Bit

Dawkins is at his best when he draws from his own expertise.

He explains the significance of Darwinism in ways that will turn many readers to those fine Dawkins' books which litter the Popular Science section at Waterstones.

In one of these ("The Selfish Gene") he developed the notion that there is a similarity between genetic development in nature and the development of mental/cultural understandings in what he named as the equivalent of the gene - the "meme".

When he concentrates on genetic mutuations and on survival resting with those whom nature has best adapted to the conditions around them, then I am fully with him.

When, however, Dawkins claims that concepts such as that of God develop in our understandings in similar ways, then I am not convinced with his explanation. He may be making what Wittgenstein used to call a category mistake.

I am not, of course, arguing that God put the idea of himself in our minds. To explain what has happened I would seek to resort to historical and sociological explanations. Turning Darwin's biological explanations into explanations about thought processes seem to be unlikely, even for someone like me who rejects Decartes distinction between body and mind.

The Weakness Of His Strength

Unfortunately for Dawkins, his very strength is also his weakness. He is a leading scientist, but he turns science into a creed. The Scientific method needs to draw from other methodologies and needs to be aware of Karl Popper's argument that any understandings it comes up with must at least in theory be falsifiable if they are to be meaningful. So just as Einstein's theories subsumed Newton's theories, then the same is always possible for Einstein - and even for Darwin and Dawkins.

Dawkins gives the appearence of someone who believes that it is science alone (and isolated) which can move towards solving the problems of the universe.

I am no critic of the achievements of science and of the significance of the scientific method. But I don't think that we should ignore what other forms of intellectual investigation have to offer.

The Philosophical Vacuum

I had expected a book about the question of God's existence to contain a reasonable amount of philosophical analysis. Dawkins, however, knocks down classical theoretical arguments for the existence of God at breakneck speed. This results in him skimming over both the pros and cons of these arguments.

Yet amongst the critics of such arguments is the highly readable David Hume the 18th Century Scottish Philosopher in works such as "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion". Although Hume is given a nod and a wink by Dawkins, he isn't given any serious coverage.

In dealing with the problem of whether we could be good without having God to guide us, again there is only a passing reference to the philosopher Immuel Kant. Yet Kant is recognised as one of the world's greatest thinkers. Whilst his "Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals" is his most (or his only) readable book.

A serious canter around the Philosophical problems is "Difficulties in Christian Belief" by Alasdair C. MacIntyre (SCM Press 1959). Dawkins missed this one as it came from a serious Christian publisher. Anyone reading it, however, can see why MacIntyre became an atheist soon after its publication.

Tunnel Vision

It is the form of Dawkins' scientific certainty which leads him to his absolutist claims and to his unwllingness to look for a good thing to say about religion. Aided by the fact that he is writing also for an American market, he regularly turns his face and fire towards Christian fundamentalism. They present. of course, a serious problem. But they should not have been allowed to distort the issues Dawkins was investigating.

His approach leads him to take up a counter fundamentalist position of his own. So the non-fundamentalist religious person is dismissed as he or she are held to be guilty of opening the door for extremists (including terrorists). Whilst the agnostic (and even the closet atheist) are damned for failing to root out religious viewpoints.

As Dawkins seeks to win each contest hands down (and each sub-point), his book loses its way. It even lacks a conclusion in which the threads of a writer's arguments can be drawn together. This is because his many separate issues only really have one thread to them.

As a result he ends up talking a great deal about himself and his own experiences. He does not need to do this, of course, as his knowledge is encylopedic. So he knows how to keep saying things. The problem is that what he adds in relation to his subject matter is always exactly where he started out from in his very first chapter. To repeat ones case in numerious different contexts gives an unfortunate impression of padding.



What Next?

What worries me about Dawkins'approach is that he (and anyone taking on board his stance) are in a vunerable position.

They are unlikely ever to adjust to the above types of criticism. To do so requires a different form of mind set. But there is something which just could get him to shift his ground. The very form of religious fundamentalism which he currently abhors.

In intellectual terms his position is hard. Yet hard atheism and hard religious belief have more thinking processes in common than they would care to admit. It is soft and closet atheism that is less likely to be subject to a death bed conversion.

If Dawkins ever gets around to giving in to Christianity and then writes "The Atheist Delusion", I will give it a miss as I have already struggled through its equivalent.

How Do We Tackle That Delusion?

My Old Style Religion

In criticising those who draw their main argument for the existence of God from the scriptures, Richard Dawkins in his "The God Delusion" takes on those who claim that the Bible is the literal truth. He is so frustrated with the views expressed by such people, that he even doubts whether many of them can actually have studied the scriptures.

"Do these people never open the book that they believe is the literal truth?", he asks on page 94. He then goes on to spell out numbers of serious inconsistencies in its texts.

As I pointed out in "A Gentle Atheism" , I was an active Methodist in my youth. From at least 14 to 18, I went to Chapel 3 times each Sunday and during the week, especially to what was termed the Christian Endeavour. I became Secretary of the latter and once recognised that the preacher had picked a particular line of argument from the preface of a play by George Bernard Shaw!

The Methodism I was used to seldom took on the form of the evangelical brand which Dawkins is criticising within the above section of his book. Except that an occasional meeting would arise where efforts were made to get people to come forward to express their faith. These worried me and I would hold onto my seat to ensure that I would not be carried away by an emotioinal spasm against my better inclinations.

If someome had ever asked me what arguments I had for the existence of God, I don't know what I would have said. I listened to scripture readings, sang hymns (which I still enjoy doing) and heard sermons in which the scriptures were referred to. I even achieved a low level certificate in the scriptures.

But what struck me about the Dawkins quote is that it was correct about me as an individual, even if I was not really the sort of character that he was criticising. I did not read the Bible.

A God Read or A Good Read?

I happen to hold a list of the books I read over the first nine months of 1952 when I was 15 and partly 16. The list ended when I started work for the first time as a railway clerk. Neither the Bible, nor any works propounding the supposed truths of the scriptures make the list. My mother was as active in the Chapel as I was, initially going at my request and in a return to her own youth. She read three novels a week from the local library, but not the Bible or the like.

I read 50 books over the above period (outside of my school work and Sexton Blake booklets). 19 were by John Buchan. 8 were by George Bernard Shaw and were mainly single plays or collections of plays with prefaces. 3 by Conan Doyle. 2 by Henry Williamson. There were 18 others all by different authors. Some of the latter were plays or collections of plays by writers such as J.B Priestly and Oscar Wilde, whilst most others were novels and included George Orwell's "Animal Farm". The main non-fiction work was H.G. Well's "Short History of the World".

I remember starting to read the latter seated on the terraces at the Roker End of Sunderland's football ground waiting for the kick off. Many of the books I read were paperbacks often bought in Sunderland on the way to watch Shackleton play his magical soccer. Although the bulk of the John Buchan's were hardbacks in the Nelson series and were purchased at equivalent of almost 23p , two to three times the cost of most of the paperbacks.

So what room was there for God, apart from all that Chapel attending? Not much really.

Thinking of these things afterwards, I have felt that all that Chapel attending (for most of us) was more of a social activity than a religious one. This seemed to me to be the case in the 1992 General Election Campaign when I was one of the candidates who went to a hustings at the Evangelical Church in Clay Cross to answer questions on "moral" issues such as abortion and euthanasia. Each line I took upset the Church Elders, but most of the congregation that listened to me nodded kindly and I did not appear to be losing their votes. I suspect that as with my Methodism, their evangalism had more to do with sharing a social bond than from religious conviction.

If what I say is widespead, then perhaps involvement by atheists in social work would have more impact upon the behaviour of active Christians, Muslims and others than Dawkins barnstorming rationalism will. Perhaps socialisation and socialism are the cure for religious extremism.

Hope Amidst Despair

Despair

I am not religious, but I am struck by the feeling and despair expressed in this song from Iraq. Here is a second presentation together with the words.

Hope

A high water mark of hope for Iraq occurred on May Day 1959 when over half a million marched in peace in Baghdad. The Iraqi population was less than 7 million at the time, spread from the mountains of Kurdistan in the north to the port of Basra in the south.

The celebrating of May Day reflected a strong secular, pro-democratic and human rights tradition. This was seen in some of the political parties of that time and in newspapers, women's organisations, youth and student bodies and the Trade Union Movement who had organised the event.

The tradition re-emerged immediately in the open following the 2003 invasion. The people involved had opposed invasion, but moved into the openings it had provided. Those who sulk in their tents get nowhere.

No Illusions

We are all aware of the desperately destructive and difficult circumstances which terror and turmoil have created in Iraq since the invasion. If we look back at what has happened for almost half a century after that great May day event, then it will make us shudder further.

Soon after the demonstration, the Government closed down Trade Union newpapers and arrested thousand of trade unionists. Back and forth, oppression kept re-emerging in a series of coups and counter-coups from 1963 to 1968. Finally the Baathists were in complete control and trade union oppression, imprisonment, brutuality and murder were more fully on the agenda, except (in degree) for a short period when Saddam Hussein courted the Soviet Union for its military assistance. But Saddam also picked up information from Stalinism on how to run State controlled Trade Unions.

The economic improvement which Iraq had seen from its growing oil wealth was sent sharply into reverse under the impact of the massive Iraq-Iran War from 1980 to 1988. In 1987 Saddam banned Trade Unions in the public sector which accounted for 80% of the economy. What remained was absorbed into a State run movement under the absolutist control of Chemical Ali.

In 1988, Saddam also started his campaign of genocide against the Kurds. Then with his invasion of Kuwait, UN economic sanctions further hit the condition of the Iraqi people.

The well being of Iraqis was further smashed by the destructions of the Gulf War and Saddam's subsequent massacres against the Shia and Kurds for rebelling against his rule. The Marsh Arabs were also made destitute by his actions in diverting the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates.

When the deaths from invasion, military excess and (above all) the terrorism directed at the Iraqi people are added to this picture, we have a situation that too many will turn away from in despair.

Who Do We Support?

We can start by indictating those forces we don't wish to associate with. These include criminal gangs, Al Qaeda in Iraq, religious extremists and Sunni and Shia terrorist groups. These are all brutalised by their experiences under Saddam. Neither can we associate with any Western interests looking for financial rip-offs in the oil industry or for military bases and footholds for the future. Nor can we be on the side of those who would Balkanise Iraq, falsely arguing that it would fit into neat Shia, Sunni and Kurdish packages.

What remains? Well there are those who work within the framework of the 1959 May Day tradition; even if it means little to them. These include those who organise for women's rights, student interests, facilities for young people, for jobs, for decent wages and conditions, for improved hospital and electricity supplies, for communal self-help and the like. You know what I am on about. It happens the whole world over in different forms.

It isn't easy to focus our attention where it is needed. Nor are the two types of world I have mentioned always separated from each other. Terrorist groups also try to muscle in on social welfare provisions and self help for their chosen peoples. But even (and especially) in Iraq there are many with alternative understandings. Lets work with those who work with each other often irrespective of religous sect, ethnic or national background, family or tribal links, sex or sexual orientation, race or creed.

We can start out with cries of despair, but we need to move on to what is Iraq's best hope.

A Gentle Atheism

When I arrived in Iraq as a National Serviceman in 1955, I was a practising Methodist. Back home I had attended Chapel three times on a Sunday as well as on a variety of other occasions, for instance as secretary of its Christian Endeavour.

Some of the lay preachers were ethical socialists and I remember being deeply moved by the socialist content of a sermon by the leading Methodist Minister, Donald Soper who eventually I was to come across on a regular basis in the pages of Tribune. I also lived in a solid Labour and Mining area, with some of the Methodist lay preacher’s being local Labour Councillors.

But there was probably no great depth to my Christianity for my Chapel attendance was mainly a social and communal activity. I was, therefore, pretty ill-equipped for the culture shock I experienced in viewing the lives of the people in Basra and Baghdad. I felt that I was in the midst of extensive areas of poverty and exploitation.

The question which came to my mind was how could an all loving, all perfect and all knowing creator permit such conditions to exist? I had no idea that this was a perennial philosophical question, nor that it would come to form part of my later studies and teachings at University.

In the forces, I never rose above the rank of Leading Aircraftsman and I only ever found one person to discuss my religious problems with. Corporal Murphy had “atheist” on his locker where we had to designate our religion. He was an ex-Catholic who thankfully introduced me to the works of James Joyce.

I was based in Basra and a local bookseller was also helpful. Not only could I order books from him, but he sold English books and had a handsome supply of Rationalist Press Association(RPA) titles such as “Let the People Think” and “Men Without Gods”. When I heard the Anglican Minister in Basra preach a sermon against the evil influence of such books, the ideas they expressed became even more appealing to me.

Unfortunately, both my bookseller and the Anglican Minister would today be stopped in their tracks by Islamic extremists.. But to my shame the religious ideas I never came in contact with 50 years ago were those of Islam. This is in part a reflection on the absence of any form of educational facilities at our small RAF Movements Unit.

New converts to a belief (or to a non-belief) are likely to become a little strident in its advocacy. So I let people back home know of my newly found lack of faith through a letter I sent to a local newspaper. I used my home address. There was then to be no doubt locally as to who I was and the RAF were unlikely to find out.( I still had “Methodist” above my locker and was disturbed about the problems my friend told me he had in changing his designation. - but it was a tough RAF Catholic Priest he had to deal with.)

My newspaper letter is now quite quaint. The Durham Chronicle gave it the heading
“Atheist’s Views of Premium Bonds”. These were just being introduced. I quoted from George Bernard Shaw and was keen to show that Atheists as well as Christians could have prickly moral principles in opposition to any State operated form of gambling. This puritan streak is still with me in my opposition to State sanctioned Casinos, although I now care little about Premium Bonds.

But I soon stopped my new form of preaching. This was partly because the Methodists I had grown up with (including my mother) were kindly people and not ranters. I had come to disagree with a key to their beliefs, but did not see the Christians I knew as an alien force. My newspaper letter had done enough to show I was no longer fully with them.

Added to this was an experience I had soon after I was demobbed. I went to a meeting of the South London Ethical Society to hear a talk on Nietzsche by Archibald Robertson. He was a member of the Communist Party and I had read some of his books in Basra, as published by the RPA. But the whole set-up made me feel that I was back into a form of Chapel. The final straw was when they passed around what looked like hymn books and we sang to the glory of reason. I decided that I had left one church and was not about to enter another.

In fact, as an M.P. I went to Civic Services and as an old man I keep going to funerals. I always join fully in the singing of hymns to the glory of God, more than I would ever be able to muster to the glory of Reason.

It seems to me that there is plenty of scope for dialogue between those who share similar moral and political values, irrespective of their differing approaches to religion and amongst religions. Indeed the dialogue should go much wider. I spent a considerable amount of my time as an M.P. in Northern Ireland discussing its problems with people right across the political and sectarian divides. No one ever asked me whether I was a Catholic, a Protestant or neither. Which is just as it should be.

As I type this I can look out onto the Baptist Church next door, where since retiring I have addressed Dronfield Churches Together on “Making Poverty History”. I don’t know if they knew that I am an atheist. For it should not matter, for there was considerable unity on the subject matter. If their religious feelings draw them into such campaigns, then that seems to me to be to the credit of their views - even if I don’t share them.

Oliver Kamm reminds us that the late Sidney Hook had something important to say on these matters in his book “The Quest for Being” (1961). In that it is possible to appreciate the nobler feelings some achieve through their religion, without then falling for the bedrock of their doctrines. Kamm also contrasts Hook’s approach with that of Richard Dawkins in his latest book “The God Delusion”. It is one thing for Dawkins to argue that religion is false, but it becomes sanctimonious for him to argue that religion in itself is a main source of oppression. It is theocratic movements (not religions as such) that have displayed such totalitarian tendencies - as did Stalinism. The fact that Stalinism was godless, doesn’t thereby turn other non-believers into his kin.

There is, for instance, a stark contrast between a Reverend Martin Luther King drawing from his religious values to help bring about an end to segregated schools and on the other hand creationists using their religious interpretations to try to undermine scientific investigations in schools.

A Tribute to Eric Barker

Eric Barker was a friend of mine. He lived at Eckington in North East Derbyshire. He died six months ago and his funeral service was conducted by the Humanist Association, in line with his wishes.

On 30 July, I placed an item on this blog about the late Kevin Hughes. We had been colleagues as M.P.s and Kevin was also a humanist, but in preparation for his own funeral he opted for a Church Service as a means of saying farewell to his family and friends.

There is sharp contrast in these two approaches, both of which seem to me equally valid. As I am myself a humanist, it has made me consider which of these arrangements I should myself opt for. Hopefully, I will be given some time to give the matter further thought.

An additional connection between Kevin and Eric is that I taught them both politics on Industrial Day Release Classes run for members of the NUM. I first met Eric in a class of Derbyshire Miners in 1972 and Kevin in a class of Yorkshire Miners in 1978 .

Eric's family asked me to speak in his memory at Brimington Crematorium at Chesterfield on 10th February. I give below the tribute, I paid to him.

I first met Eric when he was already 49 - over 33 years ago. Back in 1972, he was in a class of Derbyshire Miners who were on Day-Release. I was a Politics Tutor.

Eric was in his element. He loved to study, read, investigate, write, debate and (above all) argue. Anyone who received one of his lengthy letters will know all about these abilities.

He used to pride himself on being the "old man" of the class, with experience of life to offer to the rest of us. He helped to make our meetings quite exceptional.

Let me quote from my class report of their work.

"I never met a class which worked together so well as an integrated unit. They enjoyed each others company tremendously and worked together keenly. Their enthusiasm was such that they managed perfectly with a minimum amount of formal teaching, but were able to investigate problems amongst themselves and make there own intellectual discoveries.

The class fulfilled many of the ideals of liberal adult education..... A measure of the(ir) enthusiasm.....was I experienced the most intellectually stimulating coffee breaks ever".

Eric's fatherly role in that class was essential to its success.

Eric became active as a delegate to meetings of the Derbyshire NUM and to
the NE Derbyshire Constituency Labour Party. I rubbed shoulders with him at the latter. They were days of heated debate and political turmoil. Eric was in the thick of events and he loved the dialectics of debate.

His great Labour Party success came at the 1977 Labour Party Conference at Brighton. The leadership of the Labour Party were trying to sideline a resolution from our Constituency Party, aimed at defending two teams of rebel Labour Councillors from Clay Cross.

Eric's famous white cap could be seen bobbing about the Conference floor, as he went round getting signatures for a petition to support our resolution. The same went on at a series of fringe meetings which Eric turned up at each lunchtime and evening. His cap was even highlighted on television.

I was with him as a Conference visitor. He finally won the day. The motion was debated and overwhelmingly carried. It all took a lot out of Eric as the opening of his speech indicated.

He said, "Conference, yesterday I was emotionally upset and was in the process of tearing up my card, but Harry Barnes stopped me, and you, the Delegates of Conference have restored my faith in the organisation. The bureaucracy of the machine can be moved".

Eric served actively and effectively on both the Eckington Parish Council and the NE Derbyshire District Council. In 1986 he became Chair of the District Council. This presented him with some challenges.

First, there was the Chair's Charity Appeal. He was determined to be proactive. Although he was now approaching 65, he went on a sponsored walk of the Pennine way from Derbyshire to Scotland. The Youth Service were active in his support.

My wife Ann worked for the Service and assisted. In fact Eric ended up in our native County Durham in my mother-in-law's bed. Not many can say that. She was, however, away on holiday at the time.

Eric's second challenge was what he could do about the Chair's Civic Service which was due to be held at the Eckington Parish Church. For as you see today, Eric was a Humanist and definitely non-religious. So he wrote one of his long letters to the then Bishop of Durham.

This was because the then Bishop was much more of a Humanist himself than he was a Christian fundamentalist. So the Bishop came and gave a talk that was followed by questions and answers. Eric participated. It was more like a political discussion meeting than a Service.

He next wished to go one step further. He refused to place his symbol of office (the Chairman's Chain) around his neck. He wanted to sell it off for Charity. But I think that the District Council had had enough of such independence of thought by then.

For the bulk of the second half of the time I knew Eric, I was the local M.P.

He never inundated me with issues, but he certainly knew how to make the best use of our friendship. He would send missives to the local authorities on blocked rights of way, Japanese Knotweed running wild, the swimming baths losing its water (into his cellar) and many other local issues.

He would mark my name on the letters to show that I had been sent a copy. But I did not have to respond, unless he came back to me to say that his tactic hadn't worked. But with a lot of hard work and the help of some media coverage, he normally moved the bureaucracy once more.

He also knew that an M.P. can often get to someone who can find things out for them.
So he would call into my M.P.s surgeries to set the wheels in motion for a search. When I sent him what had been discovered, I knew that some avenue of officialdom was about to receive a well argued missive and I would get a copy.

On one he added a note saying - "Just to let you know that the old dog (Barker) can still bite a little."

From l973 he served 19 years as a Labour Parish Councillor, but when he finally got round to tearing up his Labour Party Membership Card, he returned to the Eckington Parish Council as an Independent in 2001. But I could never think of him as a political opponent, only as a friend and a socialist.

Thanks to the family for asking me to speak today. The last time I saw Eric was when the Constituency Labour Party gave me a farewell evening on my retirement as an M.P. Although Eric was not in good health, he arranged for Emma to bring him and he spoke. Even though he sent me a last long and treasured letter, just in case he couldn't make it.

On such occasions there are many kind speeches, but none were more telling than Eric's. It won't be forgotten.

We sometimes say about departed friends that there will never be their like again. But the strength of Eric was that he believed that many others (even without his personal characteristics) could be just like him inside. In a world of violence, exploitation and poverty; it is with people in Eric's image that our hopes for the future rests.

Thank you Eric. We will be looking for you in the other people we love and admire.

Socialist Humanism in Church

On 26th July, I went to the funeral of Kevin Hughes. We had been colleagues as Labour M.P.s from his first being elected in 1992 until we both retired at the last election.

Whilst I retired because of my age and have now reached 70, Kevin’s retirement was a sad matter. He had a variant of Motor Neurone disease and knew that he would only survive for a limited time. Yet, typically, he tried to keep other people’s spirits up when he told them his sad news. He was only 53.

I had known Kevin since 1978, when I was his tutor in politics in the third year of an Industrial Day Release Course for N.U.M. members which was run by the Sheffield University Extramural Department. Appropriately, we were studying politics.

He had just resigned for the Communist Party in Doncaster, where I have been told he was made Secretary at the first meeting he attended. By I met him, he had moved into the Labour Party in the Don Valley Constituency. But from his full and passionate contributions, I had him marked down as a “revolutionary socialist”.

He arrived in Parliament five years after I did and, unlike myself, he moved solidly into a New Labour agenda.

I believe that his approach was shaped by two important factors. First, he believed in team loyalty and carried this over with him from the days of his political apprenticeship in the Communist Party. And whilst he started out in the Labour Party on the far left, he acted as a loyal grouser with his team loyalty coming to the fore as his responsibilities grew. This is by no means the same thing as coming to sell out his principles for preferment. It is his preferring to advance his principles by seeking to unite his Party with the community he represented.

Secondly, the industrial wing of the Labour Movement which he was always part of, was the NUM. He was fully active in the 1984 Miners Strike, but came to see Arthur Scargill’s approach as adventurist. This confirmed Kevin in his belief that socialism needed to be practical and to deliver for working people and their families.

The Church service in celebration of his life was held in Campsall, near Doncaster in his former Constituency and near where he had lived.

The things I will remember about the service are Kevin’s own arrangements for it. Because he knew that his final moments were approaching, he selected the hymns and the readings. He had worked at Brodworth Colliery , being on their NUM Committee when I first met him. So he arranged to have their branch banner in the Church. We started singing with Blake and the need to build “Jerusalem in England’s green and pleasant land”.

Just as Blake’s hymn combines the best of Christian and Humanist feelings, then so did the reading from Chapter 2 of James. It called for practical help for the poor and concluded that if our faith “includes no actions, then it is dead”.

It was then no surprise that the address given by the Bishop of Doncaster, revealed that Kevin was indeed a Humanist.

The fact that he had arranged a Church setting for his funeral, seemed to me to tell us about Kevin and his strengths. To have held a Humanist Service outside of Church would have been seen by him as mere posturing.

I am sure that he felt that his family and his community would be at home in their Parish Church. These were the people from which he drew his commitments and he needed to be at one with them at the close.

Whilst Kevin and I were often in disagreement on policy matters in the Commons and he felt that as a former tutor I was given more to serving ideas than his people, we were far from being in conflict.

He used to claim, as part of his typical banter, that I still had not returned one of his essays from nearly 30 years ago. Responding in kind, I used to threaten to dig it out and have it published to reveal his past revolutionary disposition. But the banter always continued, with “have you found that essay yet?”

I know one thing, whatever it said was said with conviction, the same conviction which led him to serve his community, his union and his political party in the most effective ways he could.