100 Not Out - Labour In North East Derbyshire

This is the statue of William Edwin Harvey which stands in front of the former Miners' Offices at Saltergate in Chesterfield. Harvey helped to establish the Derbyshire Miners' Assocation (DMA) and held various key positions with them, becoming their Financial and Corresponding Secretary in 1906. This was a position he continued to hold following his election to parliament for the then North Eastern Derbyshire in a by-election in 1907. For MPs weren't then paid. He was initially elected as a Lib-Lab MP with the backing of the local Liberal Party. But following a national ballot, when the Miners' Federation of Great Britain decided to affiliate to the Labour Party he joined the Parliamentary Labour Party. This was in 1909, a hundred years ago. He then stood successfully as Labour in the two General Elections of 1910. He died in 1914.

The article below initially appeared on this blog in December 2006. Harvey's main interests were trade unionism, politics, methodism and cricket. So it has turned out to be appropriate that I used cricket analogies for the headings. Warning - the following is 6,000 words long.

(1) OPENING BATSMEN

The Labour Party burst onto the national political scene over a century ago with a breakthrough at the 1906 General Election.

To work for this success it had initially been formed under the title of the Labour Representation Committee (LRC) at a Conference in London in 1900. But in that year’s General Election it barely got started, only running candidates in 15 seats. Just 2 of these were successful.

One of the victories came in Merthyr with the election of the legendary Keir Hardie. The other win was in Derbyshire, with the election of Richard Bell in Derby itself. He was a member of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants and the first Treasurer of the LRC.

The LRC was soon on the move, however, and achieved three subsequent by-election successes.

As we will see in our own area of Derbyshire, the struggle for the working class vote was particularly keen between the long established Liberal Party and the newly emerging Labour Party.

At the 1906 Election, the LRC ran 50 candidates and 29 of these won seats. Their Parliamentary Group then immediately adopted the title of the Labour Party. A new force had entered British politics.

At the time Labour had not set up its stage in the area covered by the current North East Derbyshire Constituency, yet some significant local moves were taking place.

(2) PREPARING THE WICKET

Before we examine the birth of the Labour Party in our area, we need to reflect upon just how difficult things were for Labour to gain a foothold.

In the 19th Century, Parliamentary politics had been dominated by the Conservative and Liberal Parties and labouring people weren’t in a position to directly influence election results until a whole set of changes began to take shape in the final quarter of that century. Even then, the changes which occurred were limited and they only provided restricted possibilities.

It wasn’t until the 1874 General Election that the vote was first exercised in secret. Prior to that the limited number of workers who qualified to vote were aware that news of how they voted would feed back to their bosses and landlords. To use a vote as one thought fit or in one’s own interests, could prove costly.

Even when Reform Acts in 1867 and 1884 expanded the vote to wider numbers of working men, many were still excluded. Women did not even obtain the vote at all until legislation changed this is two stages in 1918 and 1928.

The franchise prior to 1918 was, however, still based upon property forms of qualifications, including household rate payments.

The 1884 legislation was important in our area as it enabled numbers of miners and farmers to qualify to vote for the first time. Yet even after this legislation, less than 60% of the men in the country had the vote, with the unenfranchised invariably being concentrated amongst the poor, including the unemployed.

As our corner of Derbyshire was strong mining (and farming) territory, miners in particular had an opening to effect the outcome of local parliamentary contests. What was needed to achieve this was organisation and mobilisation, including action to ensure that miners registered to vote.

A further assistance to these influences was the redrawing of Parliamentary Boundaries on a fairer scale in 1885. In our area, this meant that the former seat of Northern Derbyshire which returned two members on a highly restricted franchise was replaced. It had lapped over into the High Peak and had been under the influence of the Duke of Devonshire, returning Liberal MPs including members of his family.

From 1885 three seats returning a single member each were established. These were entitled North Eastern Derbyshire, Chesterfield and Mid-Derbyshire. Moves could now start which would eventually lead to each seat being represented by a miner in the Labour interest.

There remained, however, a further hurdle to overcome before labouring people could begin to embark on a parliamentary career. MPs weren’t paid. This wasn’t introduced until 1911, over a quarter of a century after the 1884 and 1885 reforms had given mining and (the less united) farming communities some voting influence.

The landed and business classes could find the funds to allow their MPs to exercise parliamentary power and influence at Westminster. But how could a labouring man meet his travel, accommodation, living and electioneering expenses ?

(3) CHOOSING SIDES

Two conflicting approaches emerged to tackle the problem of how MPs from labouring communities could be found a livelihood. The two approaches were, of course, linked in with contrasting political interests. One was the Liberal approach, the other was the Labour approach.

The Liberals across the north of Derbyshire had traditionally been in the driving seat, but now they had to come to terms with a growing registration of miners votes. Some were prepared to enter into deals to keep the Liberals in control in the area.

Their approach was to be willing to provide the necessary financial and organisational backing to a Miners Association candidate, if the person concerned looked as if they could deliver the miners’ vote and would agree to take the Liberal whip if elected.

Such candidates were known as Lib-Labs. On a national basis, the first two were elected in 1874 and the number was to rise to 24 by 1906. The latter election was the same one at which Labour first broke through with 29 seats. So Lib-Labism and Labourism were in competition with each other for which would eventually take the radical wing of the workers’ votes.

The alternative approach to Lib-Labism was adopted by Keir Hardie, whose early involvement was with his fellow miners in Lanarkshire and Ayrshire. He came to argue for the establishment of a Party for labouring people which would be independent of both the Liberals and Conservatives, who at the time dominated the political scene between them.

He was first elected to parliament in a West Ham seat in 1892 as an Independent Labour candidate. The following year he helped establish the Independent Labour Party (ILP), who acted in line with his above approach.

Large sections of the Trade Union movement came to be attracted to the notion of running their own candidates, free from the entanglements of Lib-Labism . So a variety of national and regional sections of Trades unions, plus local Trades Councils and the ILP helped form the LRC in 1900. This is the body which went on to adopt the name of the Labour Party in 1906.

Affiliations fees and contributions from these bodies could then form a pool to pay for the running of candidates where prospects appeared good for victory, and also towards their upkeep when elected. By passing the hat round the Labour and Trade Union Movement, labouring people could cut themselves free from the restraints attached to Liberal funding.

Although the Lib-Lab and Labour approaches were in competition with each other, there were some behind-the-scenes arrangements made between the two camps in the run up to the 1906 election in numbers of two seat constituencies. If the Liberals and Labour ran a candidate each, they believed that they both stood a better chance of defeating the Conservatives who would normally run two candidates against them.

The tactic worked well in 1906. It aided the Labour break-through, so we need to be aware that similar deals today could backfire against us.

(4) SWAPPING BATS

In our corner of Derbyshire it is the Lib-Lab approach which first succeeded, but it soon came to be subsumed by the position pursued by Keir Hardie and the Labour Party.

There are two statues outside the former Miner’s Offices on Saltergate at Chesterfield of the first two Miners’ MPs in the area. James Haslam was elected for Chesterfield in 1906 and William Harvey for North Eastern Derbyshire at a by-election the following year. They had both served as leading officials of the Derbyshire Miners’ Association (DMA) since its inception some 30 years earlier.

They illustrate the nature of the Lib-Lab versus Labour struggle, for whilst they were both initially elected with Liberal backing they went on to win at the two General Elections of 1910 as Labour candidates.

The explanation for this is to be seen in a shift in the approach of the DMA’s parent body, the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain (MFGB). So why did the MFGB first favour the Lib-Lab approach ?

This occurred because the franchise which grew following the reforms of the mid 1880’s benefited the miners more than most sections of the working class. They were living in solid mining communities in coalfield areas .which dominated what were otherwise rural constituencies. Yet at the time, the Labour Party wasn’t in operation and the Lib-Lab option seemed to be the only feasible avenue that was open.

Haslam, for instance, narrowly failed to win the nomination of the Liberal Party to stand with their backing in Chesterfield in 1886. The Chesterfield Constituency at that time included a wide surrounding area pockmarked with pits.

Some other areas of the MFGB outside of Derbyshire were having more success and numbers of their candidates were returned to parliament under the Lib-Lab arrangement.

So when the LRC was finally set up in 1900, the MFGB did not affiliate as a national body. The dominant view within the Miners Union was that they were doing rather well under the alternative Lib-Lab tactic.

The Labour break through in 1906 helped to challenged such reasoning. A shift in attitudes was now on the cards, especially as the whole of the Trade Union Movement was radicalised in that period by legal judgements which hit at its funds. The Labour option began to look more relevant to miners interests. Eventually a national ballot was held by the MFGB in which it was decided to affiliate to the Labour Party. In 1909 Haslam and Harvey then dropped the Liberal whip in the Commons and joined the Parliamentary Labour Party.

In all 12 Miners made the move and the Lib-Lab strength in the Commons was cut in half, whilst Labour’s ranks were boosted to over 40.
This was how Haslam and Harvey came to be Labour Candidates in the 1910 elections. They do not, however, have the distinction of being the first Miners to win for Labour at the polls. That distinction goes to John George Hancock, the agent for the Nottinghamshire Miners Association who was elected as Labour in Mid Derbyshire in a by-election in 1909. Keir Hardie canvassed on his behalf .

Mid Derbyshire included a section of the modern North East Derbyshire Constituency at North Wingfield.

(5) DIGGING IN

In 1906 there were no less than 176 pits throughout Derbyshire. Even areas which now have large middle class populations , such as Dronfield and Holymoorside had pits. Whilst 50 years later there were still 30 deep mines in North Derbyshire alone, with the Collieries at Markham employing over 3,000.

But although the area was mostly mining, it was not exclusively so. Mining itself requires support industries and miners pull in linked communal services. In particular, areas such as engineering, railways and ironworks made ready use of the local output of coal.

As a town, Chesterfield had a variety of services and trades, whilst mining in the nearby areas was surrounded by farming.

The dominant pattern was one of people living together in separate closely knit communities. The men, in particular, often walked to work to the pits or factories. They and their families later socialised together. Some would meet up again in the pubs. Others in the chapels. Then there were the connected communal activities around local football clubs and allotment holdings. These were all local avenues of mutual support where labour values could flourish.

Whilst the town of Chesterfield was something of a variation on the above theme, with its trading and market characteristics, the surrounding Derbyshire areas were to produce a clear pattern of political development. They became solid Labour Constituencies often persistently returning DMA nominees to Parliament as their Labour Members. Although as we shall see later, every rule has its exception.

(6) NEDs TEAM GAME

North Eastern Derbyshire with its successor in name (if not fully in territory) of North East Derbyshire became a prime example of a Miners seat.

Harvey was its MP from 1907 until his death in 1914. In the subsequent by-election Labour was badly defeated. A consequence of the defeat was the first establishment of a Constituency Labour Party in the area, for it was felt that too much had previously rested upon Harvey’s personality and influence.

Few other Constituency Labour Parties existed at the time. To adopt Labour Candidates and to fight elections, use was made of local Trades Councils or ad hoc committees of local Trade Unions and local ILP branches.

It was only in 1918 that Labour nationally set up an individual membership scheme, plus a modern style Constituency Party structure. So on the latter, North Eastern Derbyshire was in the lead over many other areas.

At that time, the Constituency included Dronfield, Eckington, Killamarsh, Clowne, Barlborough, Staveley and Bolsover as well as areas which were later moved into Sheffield, such as Beighton. Its shape differed considerably from the current North East Derbyshire Constituency.

In seven General Elections from 1918, the Labour Party ran Frank Lee as its candidate. He was an official of the Derbyshire Miners and won five of these electoral contests, serving in parliament for a total of 16 years until his death in 1947.

He lost narrowly in his first contest in 1918. He also failed in 1931, which was a crisis year for Labour. Ramsey MacDonald, the Labour Prime Minister left the Party to form a National Government as a response to a massive financial crisis. After carrying out a programme of cuts, he called a General Election at which the defeat of Lee was one of over 200 losses sustained by Labour.

The first of Lee’s five victories came in 1922. It was an incredibly close result. Six recounts took place, then the boxes were resealed. Numbers of fresh counting clerks were employed and two further recounts took place. There was no agreement as to the result and the matter ended up before the King’s Bench Division of the Courts. Lee was finally declared the winner by 15 and was finally able to make a belated entry into parliament. On the second count his majority had been down to 2..

At a Clowne Labour meeting in 1918 he had been an early advocate of the nationalisation of the coal industry and was claimed to be a Communist by local Conservatives in 1931.

Lee was followed by Henry White, who was also from the Derbyshire Miners. White held the seat from 1942 to 1950. The Constituency Boundaries were then redrawn and a North East Derbyshire seat was established which formed something like its current “C” shape around Chesterfield. White also represented the new seat until 1959. In all he served 17 continuous years as an M.P.

Two other Derbyshire Miners’ officials followed. The first was Tom Swain, from 1959 to his death in 1979. Then Ray Ellis from 1979 to 1987.

Swain was a powerful personality. He was killed when a Coal Board lorry hit his Mini. Otherwise the Callaghan Government would have survived the vote of confidence four weeks later which led to the 1979 election which Margaret Thatcher won. This is because the Speaker’s casting vote goes to the Government in the case of a tie. But if this had happened, it would probably have merely delayed a Thatcher victory.

Ray Ellis was the last Miner to represent North East Derbyshire. Within the Derbyshire Miners he had at one time been the Secretary at High Moor, which was to be the last deep mine in the County.

The old North Eastern Derbyshire when added to by the current North East Derbyshire was represented by Miners only in the Labour interest for a total of 66 years, until I became MP in 1987.

(7) BOLSOVER’S LEADING BATSMEN

The other seat in the area which has had long term representation from Miners’ nominees is the current Bolsover Constituency. It first came into existence for the 1950 General Election, with Harold Neal as its first M.P. Then the present Member, Dennis Skinner took over in 1970. He originates from Clay Cross and prior to his election to Parliament chaired the North East Derbyshire Constituency Labour Party. He needs no introduction to anyone interested enough to read this article.

Neal had also represented a former Clay Cross Constituency (which covered the town of Bolsover also) from 1944 to 1950. So the Neal-Skinner representation in the area has, to date, covered a period of 62 years and by the next General Election could reach the 66 year Miners record held by the North East Constituencies.

Mid Derbyshire seemed to be setting out on its own long term pattern of Mining representation in our area when Hancock was elected in the by-election of 1909. But the seat was abolished in 1918, with its replacement’s boundaries falling outside of our area. Nor did the two other seats in our area follow the above pattern. One was Chesterfield and the other was the Clay Cross seat which operated from 1918 to 1950. The latter’s deviation from this Mining pattern is particularly surprising as (in its time) it was the strongest Coal Mining area in our corner of Derbyshire.

(8) CLAY CROSS RECORD BREAKERS

The only Miners to stand for Labour in the Clay Cross Constituency were Frank Hall and Harold Neal. Hall obtained 45.9% of the vote in its first contest in 1918, losing to a Liberal Coalition Candidate who was part of the successful effort by Lloyd George (the Prime Minister who had run a Wartime Coalition Government) to continue in office with some form of a Coalition remaining in power. Although this worked for a period, the Coalition was dominated by Conservatives and the tactic merely advanced a split which had developed in the Liberal Party. This was all to the long term advantage of Labour.

As we saw above, Neal was MP between 1944 and 1950 before moving over to the new Bolsover seat. But in eight successful electoral contests for Labour between 1922 and the arrival of Neal in 1944, not one of Labour’s four different candidates came from the Miners Union.

One of the reasons for the breaking of the mould in Clay Cross was because it was such a powerful Labour seat and it, therefore, attracted the attention of influential Labour outsiders. None more so than Arthur Henderson who was elected at a by-election in 1933. As we will see below, he was a huge figure on Labour’s national stage.

Passionate socialist commitments were also probably even stronger in the Clay Cross Constituency than elsewhere in the area. The ILP, for instance, had a keen branch of activists at Bolsover which formed part of the Constituency. It had Miners amongst its membership, but whilst these were also active in their trade union, their first loyalty was to their political ideals. The Methodist Chapels in the area also provided another network for Christian socialist visionaries. Lay preachers doubled as local Labour Councillors. And whilst all this was a common pattern throughout our area, it was even more concentrated in the Clay Cross seat; exactly because it was an extreme version of the communal strengths of mining areas.

The Constituency included Clay Cross and surrounding areas such as Tupton, Holmewood and North Wingfield. It also included Blackwell, Glapwell, Pilsley, Pinxton, Pleasley, Shirebrook, Stonebroom and South Normanton. Pits abounded.

Its first Labour MP was Charlie Duncan of the old Workers’ Union; a body which had been present at the founding of the LRC in 1900. He went on to hold the seat until his death in 1933. He even triumphed in 1931, which was a disastrous year for Labour as explained above in connection with the loss of Frank Lee’s seat in North Eastern Derbyshire. Duncan’s majority was 9,552 and was one of the best Labour results anywhere in the country at a time when Labour only held onto 52 seats.

Duncan was the first in a series of four Clay Cross Labour Members who died in office over a period of only eleven years. He was succeeded by Arthur Henderson.

Henderson had been the General Secretary of the Labour Party and had produced the 1918 rule changes at national level which set in motion the modern structure of the Labour Party. He twice took over the leadership of the Labour Party from Ramsay MacDonald. First in 1914 when MacDonald adopted a pacifist position in relation to the First World War. Then for a short while in 1931 and 1932 after MacDonald deserted the Party.

Henderson served in Lloyd George’s Coalition War-time Cabinet as one of its select five members and was in MacDonald’s Labour Cabinets, becoming Foreign Secretary in 1929. Whilst he was the MP for Clay Cross, he received the Nobel Peace Prize.

In winning the 1933 By-election, one of the candidates he defeated was Harry Pollitt who was the General Secretary of the Communist Party. Pollitt with 10.8% of the vote lost his deposit, whilst “Uncle Arthur”(as he was widely known) took nearly 70% of the vote.

The seat was highly prized and after Henderson’s death in 1935, hopefuls included Ernest Bevin (who became Foreign Secretary in Attlee’s post-war Government) and R.H. Tawny (the leading socialist intellectual). But neither won the candidature.

Alfred Holland (a local Methodist) was elected MP from 1935 to 1936. On his death he was followed by George Ridley of the Railway Clerks Association, who was locally known as being “the Labour Party’s leading pamphleteer”. He also died in office in 1944 and Harold Neal was then elected. Neal was the first and only Miner to hold the seat. In the Labour landslide victory of 1945 he took 82.1% of the vote, with a Clay Cross record majority of 21,517.

By 1948, 40 of the 46 County, Urban and Rural District Council seats in the Constituency were held by Labour, whilst Labour controlled 14 out of 16 local Parish Councils. The majority with 100% representation.

(9) CHESTERFIELD’S SECOND INNINGS RECOVERIES

Although Chesterfield took in mining areas such as Markham and housed the home of the Derbyshire Area of the Miners’ Union, its municipal and town characteristics also provided it with some countervailing tendencies to the rest of the North East of Derbyshire. Engineering and General Workers’ Unions had strengths in the area which could either challenge or supplement that of the Derbyshire Miners.

It was not able to shake itself free from the influences of Lib-Labism as easily as in neighbouring Constituencies. Haslam had started out back in 1885 as a form of independent Labour Candidate, well before the ILP came on the scene. But after his defeat in that year’s election, he decided to seek the Liberal nomination for the 1886 General Election. He lost out in a short list of two, but kept looking out for the opportunity of being a Lib-Lab candidate. It came his way in 1906. When the MFGB voted to affiliated to the Labour Party in 1908, he supported the DMA in its unsuccessful efforts at the 1909 MFGB Conference to allow associations such as his own to opt out of the requirement. It was only when the DMA lost the day, that he came to terms with the MFGB’s decision for its parliamentarians to move over to Labour.

When Haslam died in 1913, his successor Barnet Kenyon was even less accommodating to Labour. Kenyon had held posts as President, Assistant Secretary and General Agent of the DMA and was nominated to stand for Labour in Chesterfield. But due to his close links with the Liberal Party, the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party withdrew his endorsement as being their candidate. A move which was then confirmed by the MFGB. The DMA also criticised his approach. Kenyon was then elected with Liberal financial and organisational backing.

The subsequent Annual Conference of the MFGB spent a whole day discussing the problem and then the Labour Party Conference also covered the issue.

In the elections of 1918 and 1922 Kenyon was able to manoeuvre himself into a position where he was elected unopposed . It was not until 1923 that the Labour Party in Chesterfield finally opposed him. He won elections against Labour opposition, however, in both 1923 and 1924. It was only when he retired in 1929 that George Benson took the seat for Labour.

Benson had been educated as a Quaker and had worked in his father’s land and estate agency in Manchester. Both he and his father had been National Treasurers of the ILP. He fought the seat for Labour ten times in all. Losing to Kenyon in 1923 and 1924 and failing in the Labour collapse of 1931. But in all, he served as Labour MP for Chesterfield for 31 years, receiving a knighthood in 1958 for his work on penal reform. The period from his first candidature until his departure as an MP spanned a period of 42 years.

Benson was followed by Eric Varley, who served as MP from 1964 to his surprise resignation in 1984. He served in Labour Governments as Secretary of State for Energy then for Industry. He was a former Miner who as a Minister dealt with the consequences of a Miners’ Strike which had helped bring down the preceding Conservative Government of Edward Heath. He was the only Miner ever to serve the Labour interest in Chesterfield who had never spent time in the Lib-Lab camp.

Tony Benn won the Chesterfield By-election of 1984, when no less than 17 candidates stood. Like Dennis Skinner, he will need no introduction to readers. In the circumstances of the time, his initial victory was seen as a sound Labour achievement. Little notice was made of the fact that the Liberals moved into a poor second place over the Conservatives at that time. A position then developed in which the Liberals gradually squeezed out much of the Conservative vote, allowing any disaffected Labour voters to move into the Liberal camp without any fear of letting in a Conservative candidate.

The trend in Chesterfield can be seen in what happened to its voting pattern between the depth of Labour’s post war national performance in 1983 and the height of its post war performance in its landslide victory of 1997. Nationally the Labour’s share of the vote improved by 15.6% (17.7% in Bolsover and 19.7%. in North East Derbyshire). Yet in Chesterfield it only improved by 2.7%. Also the Conservative vote went down to a dismal 9.2% in 1997., The writing was on the wall. The Liberals taking the seat in 2001 and then holding it in 2005.

But just as Chesterfield returned to Labour in 1929 with George Benson, it stands the chance of bursting back again. Everything is still to play for.

(10) THE MODERN GAME

In the 1960s and 1970s there were large number of pit closures, including those at Parkhouse near Clay Cross, Morton, Shirland, Holmewood, Williamthorpe, Oxcroft, Glapwell and Langwith. What was significant was that replacement pits were no longer being established.

At the same time, external and internal changes were altering Constituency make-ups, especially in North East Derbyshire.

Dronfield trebled in size in the 1970s, at one time seeing the second largest private housing development in Europe taking place on its Gosforth Valley. It then became a town of 20,000 with many of its new voters working in middle class occupations in Sheffield. Wingerworth developed in a similar way as did estates scattered throughout the Constituency in what had once been Mining areas.

For the 1970 General Election, Labour areas such as Halfway and Beighton were placed into Sheffield. Whilst for the 1983 election, areas which formerly had pits such as Stonebroom were transferred to the Bolsover Constituency in exchange for sections of the north of Staveley from the Chesterfield Constituency . So in a bad year for Labour nationally in 1983, the majority fell to 2,006.

A sign of the changing make-up of the Constituency was that when I was selected as candidate in 1986, the Derbyshire NUM only had 17 delegate places out of the 87 attending the Selection Conference. I became the first non-Miner to represent Labour in the Constituency. Perhaps my role was transitional as I had taught politics to Derbyshire Miners on Day Release Classes for 21 years before being elected, and my Wife and I came from solid Mining stock.

The final closures of Markham pit in 1994 and of High Moor the following year ended deep mining in Derbyshire. The Miner’s Strike of 1984 had proved to be the final struggle to try to save pits in Derbyshire and in many other areas.

Such changes were added to by the closure of a swathe of manufacturing and other industries in the area, which in North East Derbyshire included Biwaters at Clay Cross and Avenue Cokeworks at Wingerworth.

The days of tightly knit communities were being quickly eroded. Political and industrial struggles such as the Clay Cross Rent Rebellion of the 1970s and the lengthy Miners’ Strike of 1984 were probably the last major final flings of such approaches in the modern era.

Those who lost jobs often moved into temporary and low paid work and had to travel to work, often over increasing distances. Newcomers and the newly trained shared similar patterns, but were usually better paid and had greater prospects.

These moves took place in an overall national shift to a more mobile society which was undergoing widespread technological change within a world wide pattern of globalisation. Even friendship networks began to cut across communal links and often came to be based on chance or shared specialised interests.

North East Derbyshire has changed over time from having mainly a common make-up to having a variety of distinctive arrangements. It came to have a mix of deprived communities, working class areas with relative prosperity where many were purchasing their own homes, middle class commuter territory and a rural mix of prosperity and poverty. The past links have not, of course, been fully eliminated. But a new form of lifestyle rubs shoulders with older traditions.

(11) MAIDEN CENTURY

Natascha Engel became the new Labour MP for North East Derbyshire following my retirement in 2005. In a parliamentary area formally dominated by Mining, it is perhaps understandable that she is the first woman MP. It is not, however, defensible that we have had to wait the best part of a century for this to occur. But there couldn’t have been a clearer change to show we have moved into new times.

Change does not, of course, need to jettison tradition. It can draw from it in meeting new challenges. Natascha’s past work with the Trade Union Movement and her current connections with them fit in well with the areas’ past.

There is also a tradition of there being numbers of powerful and effective women who have always been at the forefront of Labour activity in our area. Ethel Lenthall from Dronfield Woodhouse, Dot Walton from Halfway and Thelma Lide from Grassmoor are just three names from the recent past who illustrate the point.

As Labour moves into its second century, we can only speculate how we will go forward. But without being stuck in the past it is still possible to draw inspiration from the tradition which Keir Hardie and many other dedicated people in the Labour and Trade Union Movement set in motion.

Sources

“The Derbyshire Miners” by J. E. Williams (George Allen & Unwin. 1962).

“Memories of the Derbyshire Coalfields” by David Bell (Countryside Books, 2006).

“Guide to the Coalfields 1953” (Colliery Guardian).

“The Common People” by G.D.H. Cole & Raymond Postgate (Methuen, 1938).

“British Political Facts 1900-1967” by David Butler & Jennie Freeman (Macmillan 1968).

“The Labour Party Foundation Conference and Annual Conference Reports 1900-1905” (The Hammersmith Bookshop, 1967).

“Charles R. Dod’s Electoral Facts from 1832 to 1853” edited by H.J. Hanham (Harvester Press, 1972).

“Clay Cross Divisional Labour Party, Souvenir 1918-1948 (A. Else, Printer, Pilsley).

“Boundaries of Parliamentary Constituencies, 1885-1972” compiled and edited by F.W.S. Craig (Political Reference Publications, 1972), along with a series of Parliamentary Election Results by the same editor and publisher.

Maps of Derbyshire Parliamentary Constituencies, including UK Genealogy Archives and Kelly’s 1922.

APPENDIX

Where areas covered by current Local Labour Parties in North East Derbyshire have been situated for Parliamentary Electoral purposes since 1885.

Key
NED(1) = North Eastern Derbyshire Constituency (1885 to 1950)
NED(2) = North East Derbyshire Constituency (1950 onwards)
C = Chesterfield Constituency (1885 onwards)
CX = Clay Cross Constituency (1918 to 1950)
MD = Mid Derbyshire Constituency (1885 to 1918)

Current NED(2) Local Labour Parties

	1885-1918	1918-1950	1950-1983	1983 to date
Clay Cross	C	CX	NED(2)	NED(2)
Dronfield	NED(1)*	NED(1)*	NED(2)	NED(2)
Eckington	NED(1)	NED(1)	NED(2)	NED(2)
Grassmoor	C	C	NED(2)	NED(2)
Holmewood	C	CX	NED(2)	NED(2)#
Killamarsh	NED(1)	NED(1)	NED(2)	NED(2)
North Wingfield	MD	CX	NED(2)	NED(2)
Staveley (North)	NED(1)	NED(1)	C	NED(2)#
Tupton	C	CX	NED(2)	NED(2)
West	C	C	NED(2)	NED(2)

* Barlow was in the Chesterfield Constituency at these times.
# At the next General Election Holmewood will be transferred to the Bolsover Constituency and there will be alterations to the make up of Staveley North.

Notes
(a) NED(1) also covered areas now in Sheffield plus Bolsover and areas to its north. It also included the whole of Staveley.
(b) NED(2). Between 1950 to the 1983 election the Constituency was the same shape as the NE Derbyshire District Council‘s area. Both the Council area and the Constituency were, however, reduced in size in time for the 1970 General Election when areas were transferred to Sheffield.
(c) CX included Glapwell,Blackwell,Holmewood,Langwith,North Wingfield,Pilsley,
Pinxton,Pleasley,Shirebrook,Stonebroom,South Normanton,Tibshelf,Wessington and
Clay Cross itself.
(d) C has always included the town of Chesterfield, but its additional areas have
varied.
(e) MD. A new seat is being established using this name at the next General Election.
(f) The Bolsover Constituency at its introduction in 1950 was the same shape as the Bolsover District Council area. From the 1983 election, areas in NED(2) to the south and east of Clay Cross were moved into the Bolsover Constituency.

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Hat Tip to Fat Man On A Keyboard

May Day Greetings From The Iraqi Communist Party

50 YEARS AGO TODAY OVER HALF A MILLION PEOPLE MARCHED IN A MAY DAY DEMONSTRATION IN BAGHDAD WHEN IRAQ HAD A POPULATION OF LESS THAN SEVEN MILLION. THEY WERE LED BY THEIR TRADE UNION LEADERS (above) WHO WERE ALSO MEMBERS OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE IRAQI COMMUNIST PARTY (ICP). THE EXCERPTS BELOW ARE FROM THE EDITORIAL OF "TAREEQ AL-SHAAB" (People's Path),THE CENTRAL ORGAN OF THE ICP AS ISSUED ON 27 APRIL, 2009.


Hundreds of millions of workers and people around the world and also in Iraq will celebrate International Workers Day, the 1st of May, which has been associated with the revolutionary and democratic movement and the struggle to end all forms of exploitation and subjugation by the classes that control wealth and dominate political power and society. It is an occasion to highlight the pioneering role played by the workers, since the dawn of history, as the main force in building human civilization and as the real creators of material wealth.

The 1st of May entered the annals of the history of international class and political struggle after the strike organised by trade unions in Chicago on 1st May 1886, when protesters clashed with the police that were acting on behalf of big business, resulting in large numbers of casualties among the workers, with many arrested and several of them sentenced to death.

Since that day, the 1st of May has become a symbol of the struggle against poverty, hunger, unemployment, social injustice and marginalization in all its forms, and to raise the standard of living, improve working conditions, reduce working hours, regulate wages and enjoy social security.

In Iraq, the workers celebrated this glorious day openly for the first time after the 14th July 1958 Revolution, when the 1st of May was declared a national holiday. Baghdad still remembers, to this day, that million-strong demonstration organised by the Iraqi workers and their trade unions, supported and backed by the Iraqi Communist Party, on the 1st of May 1959. That historic event was echoed in towns and provinces all over Iraq with carnivals and celebrations unparalleled in the history of our country.

Before the 14th July 1958, Iraqi workers used to celebrate this occasion, dear to their hearts, in clandestine conditions, away from the eyes of the secret police of the monarchic regime. Since the formation of the first trade union organisations and the birth of the Iraqi Communist Party in 1934, the emerging Iraqi working class led the struggles of the people and their strikes, economic, social, political and class battles and courageous uprisings. These struggles have become shining landmarks in Iraq's contemporary history and a memory that haunts dictatorial rulers, parasitic elements and the enemies of freedom, democracy and social justice. The role played by the Iraqi Communist Party in those demonstrations and uprisings, by coordinating with the patriotic and democratic forces, was instrumental in deepening the content of those battles and giving them a broad national and democratic character.

Under Saddam's dictatorial regime, the Iraqi working class was subjected to various forms of exploitation, political repression and the falsification of its will. Trade unions and professional associations were turned into "yellow" organizations and empty fronts for the ruling Baath party and its security and intelligence organs. In the aftermath of the war and collapse of the dictatorship on 9th April 2003, despite the extremely difficult and complex conditions that existed under occupation, trade union work and other forms of political and social activity began to emerge and develop. But exceptional circumstances, especially the vicious terrorist campaign waged against our country and the presence of occupation forces, curtailed that promising start and prevented the Iraqi working class and people from reaping its fruits on the level of organisation and in the broad arena of labour.

PHOTO OF TODAY'S MAY DAY IN BAGHDAD

In addition, government interference in the affairs of the General Federation of Trade Unions in Iraq, and other associations and unions, played a negative role that hampered its activities in defense of the rights of workers. For example, successive governments have continued to give a deaf ear to persistent workers' demands for abolishing Decree No. 150 (1987) that was issued by the so-called "Revolution Command Council" under Saddam's dictatorship, which turned state sector workers into government employees, prohibiting them from setting up their own trade unions.

Decree No. 45 (2003), issued by Bremer's occupation authority, which suspended the election activities of trade unions and put them under the mercy of a ministerial committee, is still in force. Furthermore, the government is still insisting, till this day, on its unjust Decree No. 8750 (2005) that called for freezing of the movable and immovable assets of the unions, in a blatant manifestation of interference in their affairs that resulted in paralysing unions' work and activities. The position of the government has regrettably remained unchanged in spite of many appeals and several meetings between the representatives of the General Federation of Trade Unions in Iraq and key government officials, and despite the many promises given by these officials to find quick solutions to these outstanding issues.

Iraqi workers and our people in general have been following closely the positive steps witnessed by our country in terms of pursuing the networks of terrorism and acts of sabotage and tightening the noose around criminal elements and outlaws. They are also aware of increased stability, the acceptance of the peaceful political process, and Iraq's expanding regional and international relations. While expressing support for these developments, they also look forward to practical, quick solutions to the problems of unemployment, high prices, health and education, providing protection for national products, restoring the status of industry and agriculture in Iraq, finding solutions to the crisis of housing, transport, water and electricity, developing social welfare programs and the laws of retirement and health insurance, and addressing the disparity between the salaries of senior officials and those of government employees.

In addition, millions of workers are looking forward to bold steps to be taken by the government in order to strike with an iron fist at the corrupt, big and small, who are stealing people's food and wealth, and who are hostile to the aspirations of the poor, the widows and orphans, and the families of martyrs and the "disappeared".

Today, as the spectre of unemployment creeps and the gains made by broad strata of the population in advanced capitalist societies are eroded because of the nature of the capitalist system and its mechanisms, and as a result of the new global financial and economic crisis, the struggle of workers' unions and professional associations in the developed capitalist countries is intensifying. This struggle enjoys broad support and active participation of all the forces that are opposed to savage capitalist globalization and are calling for a truly humanitarian globalization. There is an escalation of struggles to preserve the gains that the workers, those with low income and wage-earners in general, had achieved through struggles for more than a century, particularly the gains made in the areas of reducing working hours, increasing wages, obtaining health and social security and to strive to enrich these achievements in line with the development of society and the requirements of modern life. We have great confidence that the workers and toilers of our country, Iraq, will spare no effort to contribute to these struggles, for a better future for themselves and for all mankind.

We salute, once again, the Iraqi working class people, as well as the workers of the world, on their International Day.. the 1st of May.
_______________

HAT TIP - LABOUR FRIENDS OF IRAQ AND IRAQI LETTER.

THIS PROVIDES A LINK TO MY OWN 4 PART HISTORY OF THE IRAQI COMMUNIST PARTY.

UPDATE 2 MAY : FOR A REPORT OF THE ICP AT YESTERDAY'S MAY DAY IN BAGHDAD INCLUDING 9 PHOTOS, SEE HERE.

Craig Murray : Not To Be Missed

Craig Murray former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan and author of the outstanding Murder In Samarkand gave crucial evidence earlier today to Parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights about the UK Government's complicity in torture. The interview appears here on the parliamentary video. If it has disappeared from the parliamentary slot go instead to You Tube here, where it appears in seven parts. It is not to be missed. His question and answer session lasts for almost an hour. Then click into Craig Murray's website here and then into my link below.

UPDATE 29 APRIL - See here also.

Shame On Byers

A Good Day To Bury Byers - He Resigns As Minister Of Transport May 2002.

In his budget speech in 1988, Nigel Lawson announced that he was cutting the top rate of income tax from 60% to 40%. This meant that in one fell swoop those on top earnings found themselves almost 50% better off - coining it under Thatcherism. The bulk of the Labour MPs in the Commons were incensed at the announcement. Alan Meale immediately shouted out "shame" from the back benches and I was one of a host of Labour MPs who joined in the call. The Speaker was obliged to suspend the Commons, to give us a cooling off period.

The gut reaction of many Labour MPs had changed by 1997, when we were elected on a manifesto which said that there would be no increase in income tax rates. I have always believed that we should have a progressive taxation system. One which provides for reductions in those tax rates which effect the poorer, with increases in the rates that effect the rich.

When I finally made it into a meeting in 10 Downing Street, I raised with Blair the possibility of removing our commitment to there being no income tax increases for the rich, at least at the subsequent general election. To which he replied "Harry, we can't go into a General Election promising to raise income tax." That seemed to me to be a permanent stance, for in a democracy there is always a coming election.

When I later raised the matter at a back-bench meeting in the Commons with the Chancellor, Gordon Brown replied that "nothing is set in concrete". With Alistair Darling's introduction of a 50% tax rate, it has taken some 10 years and a world economic slump to break through the concrete.

Leading the attack from within Labour ranks to the 50% rate is Stephen Byers. From December 1998 to June 2001 he was a disaster as Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. In pursuing his private enterprise ideology, he undermined both of the areas he had responsibility for - trade and our industry. The manufacturing industry which disappeared on his watch would have had the competitive edge today, given the collapse in the value of sterling which makes exports cheaper and imports dearer.

Within the North East Derbyshire Constituency which I represented at the time,he facilitated the dramatic foreign take-over and closure of Biwater at Clay Cross. This was done despite Biwater being economically viable and having booming overseas order books for its ductile pipe production, with an annual turnover of £60 million (at 2000 prices) and a local work force of 700. Nor was he ignorant as to what he was doing; for the details of the workers case was put fully to the Commons, to his Department, to the media, to the Office of Fair Trading, to Tony Blair and repeatedly to himself.


I have no respect whatsoever for Stephen Byer's political views, including his recent attack in the Commons on the belated and modest move to a 50% tax rate.

This is the last time I had a go at Byers.

Join The NHS Debate

Aneurin Bevan, Labour's Minister of Health whose NHS Act of 1946 came into operation on 5 July, 1948. Who should run the NHS now and how? Join the debate here.

Alice Where Art Thou ?

Four Year Past This Even,
And Thou Wert By My Side
-Rebelling Against New Labour.

Alice Mahon and I were both Labour MPs from 1987 to 2005. We were both members of the Socialist Campaign Group. We are both over three score years and ten. We have both held Labour Party Membership Cards for 50 years or more. She has just resigned from the Labour Party. I disagree with what she has done. Here is why -

1. Socialists Politicos need to be in a political party.

2. In current British circumstances there is no feasible alternative party for them apart from Labour.

3. The argument that the Labour leadership is wrong is no reason for resigning. It was wrong when I joined it in 1957 and has tended to be so ever since.

4. Labour still has the bulk of the Trade Unions affiliated to it. An avenue to developing a consciousness of socialism is via trade union consciousness.

5. Why desert your comrades, most of whom are still pursuing the type of tasks they plugged away at in the past?

6. Rebels should rebel and not give up.

7. You might start a trend and leave those who remain even more isolated.

8. Those of us who took the King's shilling under Kinnock and Blair have already sold out. We can't put the clock back.

9. It is much more fun to be expelled from an organisation on an issue of principle, than just to pack it in.

10. It is difficult for those over three-score-years-and-ten to learn new tricks.

Comrades Come Rally

The Photo is from the Mass Rally in Baghdad celebrating the 75th Anniversary of the Iraqi Communist Party (ICP). For more photos see here. For a report and more photos from the same source see here.

Here is my own four part history of the ICP -

Part 1.

Part 2.

Part 3.

Part 4.

Hat Tips - Labour Friends Of Iraq and Iraqi Letter.

Wanted - A Full Franchise

The vote should go to any adult resident within a nation who can (with help for some) exercise that right. This is because any person who is subject to the law should be able to have a say in its formulation. This would mean -

(1) VOTES FOR THE IMPRISONED

This is currently a live issue, see contrasting takes here and here. I go beyond either approach in arguing for the full enfranchisement of all prisoners.

Prisoners are subject to one of the most powerful aspects of law, imprisonment. They thus all have a powerful case for enfranchisement. "No imprisonment without representation".

If instead we insist on taking the vote away from people because they are nasty and anti-social, where will that end?

Sometimes prisoners are discovered to have been subject to a miscarriage of justice. Under the current arrangements they have also been subject to the further miscarriage of justice of being denied their voting rights whilst in prison. Full enfranchisement would overcome that aspect also.

There are many people who have never been captured nor convicted for the crimes they committed. They are able to keep their right to vote, whilst those imprisoned are not. The present position makes no sense at all.

(2) VOTES FOR ALL RESIDENTS FROM OVERSEAS

Nor is it right that we have residents in this country who come from nations outside of the Commonwealth and the Republic of Ireland and who are not entitled to vote. They are also subject to our laws.

(3) VOTES FOR THOSE MISSED OFF CURRENT ELECTORAL REGISTERS

Then electoral registers are in a mess, with up to 2 million people missing even though they do qualify to vote under the current arrangements. They are also subject to the laws of the land. We need an electoral registration system which is proactive and recognises that all adults have the same rights as they are subject to the same laws.

WHICH OF THE ABOVE SHOULD INITIALLY BE ENFRANCHISED?

The most serious problem in terms of numbers disenfranchised probably means that (3) above is the priority, then (2) and finally (1). Yet they are all democratic requirements which arise due to the same principle. Ideally, therefore, all these shortcomings could be overcome at the same time. If a person can’t see this, then I doubt whether they understand what democracy is about.

WHY SHOULD WE HAVE A FULL FRANCHISE?


The answer to the question "Why should people have the vote?" provides the answer to the question "Who should have the vote?". People should have the vote because they are subject to the laws, regulations and policies of those they elect. So everyone so effected (but not outsiders such as UK citizen's resident overseas who need to be granted franchise rights in their country of residence) should have equal rights to the UK franchise. The only people who should be excluded are the young and those who have a serious lack of the relevant mental capacity. In deciding who these excluded groups are, we should err on the side of caution so that we don't exclude groups of people unreasonably. The dividing line is a matter for judgement and can not be derived from the democratic principle itself. In connection with the young, I would take 16 as the starting age. We could also then use registration through the school system to ensure that all receive their initial franchise rights.

Here is a brief history of the franchise, but we still have some way to go before we reach a full franchise.

Basra, Bombs And Books

Today's news that the final procedures are in motion which will lead to the withdrawal of British Troops from Iraq, takes me back to my own military service in Basra.

I was undertaking my National Service and I arrived at our Movements Unit on the banks of the Shatt-el-Arab river in February 1955, leaving 20 months later in October 1956. I was there in a peaceful period and only ever heard one shot fired in anger. A prisoner escaped from the surrounding Iraqi Army Camp and was pursued by Iraqi Troops. When he dived into the river to escape, a shot was fired at him. Luckily it missed.

It was only as I was leaving Iraq and was in transit via the then RAF camp at Habbaniyah that troubles emerged. This resulted from the build up to the Suez Crisis which came to involve Britain playing a key role in the invasion of Egypt.

But in the earlier peaceful conditions which I experienced one of my greatest joys was a weekly visit to the centre of Basra when I invariably went to an English Bookshop run by a bookseller from India. I would collect from him my regular order of the New Statesman in its Air Mail edition published on rice paper, plus dated copies of the Observer and Reynolds News which had arrived by sea.

He had a collection of Rationalist Press Association books from which I made regular purchases. I would find plenty of other works to purchase such as "War and Peace" and the Complete Works of Shakespeare. I also ordered books from him that had captured my interest; especially those by James Joyce and George Bernard Shaw. The only disappointment I had was when I ordered a copy of Karl Marx's "Das Kapital" and he told me the following week that the local Chief of Police had vetoed the purchase.


Many Iraqis have a great love of books and my own experiences with books in Basra make me particularly attracted to a modern true story which is written and illustrated for children of all ages. It is about Alia Muhammad Baker, the librarian who saved 70% of the books in Basra's Library from the bombs. See her photo on the right along with that the author and illustrator Jeanette Winter. Full coverage of the work (whose cover is pictured above) can be pursued via the link here and (better still) downloaded here.

Iraq's Teachers Are In Urgent Need Of Your Help

Here is an important message from Labour Start

In the last few minutes LabourStart has been asked to launch a major international campaign in defense of the Iraqi Teachers Union which faces the threat of a government takeover.

The teachers are demonstrating tomorrow in their thousands in Baghdad.

Today, they're asking all of us to take just a minute and send off a message of protest.

Please click here to do so - and forward this message on to other members of your union.

Thank you.

Eric Lee, Labour Start

Here is an explanation of the situation. AND HERE IS AN UPDATE VIA LABOUR START.

League Table Of Shame

Click onto the above to enlarge and read the statistics of judicial murders.

Amnesty has published its report on "Death Sentences and Executions in 2008" stating - "Last year 2,390 people were executed in countries around the world. This represents a significant increase since 2007 with more countries in Asia using the death penalty than anywhere else. Amnesty’s annual death penalty report also reveals that at least 8,864 people were sentenced to death. The death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. Beheadings, electrocutions, hangings, lethal injections, shootings and stonings have no place in the twenty-first century."

China carried out at least 1,718 executions, 72% of the global total — the actual number (as in many other countries) is believed to be much higher. But if the populations of the 15 countries that carry out the most executions are taken into account, Iran and Saudi Arabia emerge as more zealous employers of capital punishment than China. At the top appears the hideous league table for executions per million for the "top" nations executions.

Hat Tip : Iraqi Mojo

The Final Straw

Craig Murray (left) has posted a key item today. It starts as below and needs to be pursued.



"Justice Secretary Jack Straw to be Accused on Torture in Parliamentary Inquiry

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights has agreed to hear my evidence on torture on Tuesday 28 April at 1.45pm. Many thanks to everyone who helped lobby for this.

I am delighted, as I have been trying for over four years to lay the truth about British torture policy before Parliament. I will testify that as British Ambassador I was told there is a very definite policy to accept intelligence from torture abroad, and that the policy was instituted and approved by Jack Straw when Foreign Secretary. I will tell them that as Ambassador I protested formally three times in writing to Jack Straw, and that the Foreign Office told me in reply to my protests that this was perfectly legal.

I will prove my evidence with documentation.

Here is the written evidence I will speak to" - click here



Craig Murray's evidence needs to be seen in relation to his compelling book "Murder in Samarkand" which I reviewed here and which I list amongst my favourites.

Much More Than Arthur

Arthur's Castle : NUM Offices at Barnsley


Here is a link to a video showing the fine NUM Council Chamber at Barnsley. I went there yesterday to hear Arthur Scargill and others address a meeting organised by the Yorkshire Area of the NUM. The room was packed with some 400 people attending. Many of them standing.

The meeting was held as a Memorial Lecture to David Jones and Joe Green who were killed when picketing at Ollerton Colliery 25 years ago today.

In talking in detail about the Miner's strike, Arthur essentially covered the case he recently presented in this article in the Guardian. But it was a tour-de-force reminiscent of the old days.

For me there was an extra attractions about the meeting. It was held in the Council Chamber which I attended annually between 1966 and 1986 and remember with affection.

I was appointed initially as a temporary Assistant Lecturer in Industrial Relations and Political Studies at the Sheffield University Extramural Department in 1966. But before I was yet on the pay roll, it was suggested that I should participate in a Saturday morning selection conference that was held in the Council Chamber at Barnsley.

The purpose of the conference was for the Extramural Department to meet with Yorkshire Miners who wished to attend a course they ran. As there were often 100 to 200 applicants for a class of 20 places (which was later expanded to two classes covering 40 places), a selection process had been devised.

The pattern was for the Miners to initially engage in a note-taking exercise. One lecturer would explain what was being looked for. Another lecturer would give a talk which fitted in with the pattern that had been explained. Time was then given for the applicants to write their rough notes up as had been suggested.

What this did was to give the lecturers an idea of whether anyone had any serious difficulties with written work. A preliminary course on Student Skills was held in Barnsley in the Miners own time on a Saturday morning for those we felt had potential, but needed extra help with their written work. Many of these were later selected for the full course and produced some of our best students.

We then divided the applicants up into discussion groups. Each group would discuss a couple of topics. One topic was on the mining industry and the other was on politics. We had 8 tutors teaching our full range of courses and we were joined by trusted helpers if there was a particularly large group of applicants.

Our job was to chair the discussion groups, swapping to a second group after the initial discussion. We needed to ensure that everyone got a fair crack of the whip and that the debate did not get diverted. Otherwise we were on the look out not just for potential but for people we felt could work together. The tutor running the selection conference moved from group to group, to gain an extra impression of what was happening.

In 1966 as a novice lecturer, I initially chaired a group of eight or so miners who were sitting on the platform of the Council Chamber. When I heard the high quality of the discussion I was taken aback. I thought "crikey, I will have my work cut out keeping up with these".

After the applicants had departed, the lecturers would meet together to collate their impressions and check on the results of the note-taking exercise. The tutor in charge of the course would also understand that some additional factors needed to be taken into account. The successful applicants would be given a day off work a week with their wages still being paid by the Coal Board and the course fees would be paid by the Yorkshire NUM. It wasn't, therefore, feasible to take three electricians from the same pit in one go. Each pit would also need to be given as fair a crack of the whip as possible (at least in the long run). We held fuller information on those who re-applied and had earlier attended a preliminary course. Then if others were repeat applicants, it indicated their keenness to attend.

By I arrived the word was also out that attending the course wasn't just a day off work. Students were expected to apply their minds to what they were studying and to work on reading and essay work in their own time. The few who misjudged this and found their way onto the course, usually packed it in in the first few weeks. But they were the exceptions.

The Yorkshire Miners attended classes which were held at Sheffield University. They came for a day a week over a 24 week period, for three years. Initially they studied Student Skills and Industrial Relations. In the second year they studied economics, and politics in the third year. Classes started with 20 attending and often ended with 16 or so still being in regular attendance.

These courses were unusual in the University in that they attracted Government Inspectors. One of these regularly attended the selection conferences at Barnsley. Not because there were any problems, but because she found them to be so stimulating.

There were no exams nor qualifications at the end of the Industrial Day Release Courses. I shared the teaching of the class which we selected on that first day of mine at the Council Chamber in 1966. It included students who went on to hold the following positions - Terry Patchett MP, Norman West MEP, Ron Rigby Leader of the Council at Barnsley, Jack Wake NUM Branch Secretary at Cortonwood.

The standard of debate in Yorkshire (and Derbyshire) Miners Day Release Classes and in other Trade Union and related classes I taught upon was normally superior to that I later experienced in parliament over 18 years. But then participatory education is about judgement and precision and not about persuasion and press-releases.

In 1984-85 I taught two classes of Yorkshire Miners during the Miner's Strike. Despite being on strike they still attended the classes. One of the students was absent for four weeks as he had to spend time in Lincoln Prison, convicted for a picketing offence. So he then addressed the class and we discussed his prison experiences. One of the finest students was Bob Genders, who a year after the end of the strike was killed in an accident at Rossington pit.

Above there is a photo of Bob Genders taken during the Miners' Strike. Yesterday's meeting was about much more than Arthur.

Stiglitzisation

Joseph Stiglitz the former Chief Economist at the World Bank and author of "Globalization and Its Discontents" and other readable books on what used to be called political economy, puts the case for nationalising the American Banks. Listen here.

Hat Tip : An Unrepentant Communist

More Shameful News From Iraq

Widows and children beneath a photograph of their husbands inside a trailer at Al Waffa. Among Iraqi women aged 15 to 80, 1 in 11 are estimated to be widows. Only about 120,000 widows receive any government aid. Photo by Johan Spanner. Source and above comments from the New York Times. See here.


Read this important report and see the attached video about the current plight of the huge number of widows in Iraq. A failure to assist bulks of these and a massive cut in the overall budget serving their interests has led to the resignation of Nawal al-Samari the Iraqi Minister of Women's Affairs.

Hat tip : Nadia

Iraqi Government Latest Attacks On Trade Unions

SUE ROGERS
(Chair TUC Iraq Solidarity Committee)



The TUC has called for protests to be aimed at the Iraqi Embassy in London over attempts by the Iraqi Government to seize control of the Iraqi Teachers' Union (ITU). The Iraqi Embassy can be contacted via this link.

Urging trade union members to email their protest to the Iraqi Ambassador, Sue Rogers the Chair of the TUC Iraq Solidarity Committee and Treasurer of the Teacher Union NASUWT said:

'The Iraqi Government is acting like Saddam Hussein, treating unions as the property of the state. Iraqi trade unionists and teacher trade unions around the world are outraged at this latest attempt to seize control of our sister union.The Government has demanded that the union hand over the keys to its buildings, its membership lists, and is demanding that the existing leaders stand down or face jail sentences of three to seven years despite doing nothing wrong. This is a breach of fundamental human and trade union rights. The Iraqi Government must not be allowed to act in this dictatorial way.'

Sue Rogers is leading a TUC delegation at a workshop in Erbil, Iraq for trade union leaders from all over Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan. Yesterday Iraqi trade unions issued a joint statement of solidarity with the ITU, who have angered some in the Iraqi administration by securing substantial pay rises for teachers after a series of strikes and demonstrations last year.

The statement, signed by the leaders of the main Iraqi trade union confederation and the two Kurdish confederations, as well as the Kurdish Teachers Union and the powerful oil unions of Southern Iraq, appears below.

ITU President Jasim al-Lami, who has been invited to the NASUWT conference this April, was yesterday travelling back from the workshop to meet with Ministers in Baghdad. Mr al-Lami was jailed for six years in Abu Ghraib under Saddam Hussein and says he is ready to face jail again to defend his union.

Protests by global trade unions have already been lodged with the International Labour Organisation which last year censured Iraq for its anti-union laws, some of which have been left over from Saddam Hussein. The TUC has also written to Ministers in the UK.


Erbil Declaration of Solidarity with the Iraqi teachers' union

We, the leaders of the trade union movement throughout Iraq - including Iraqi Kurdistan - meeting with our international colleagues in Erbil, condemn the harassment and threats directed at the Iraqi Teachers' Union and their democratically-elected leaders.

This action is an attack on fundamental human rights and contrary to your Government's obligation to uphold the ILO core conventions, including Convention 87 on Freedom of Association.

We call on the Iraqi Government to respect the right of the Iraqi Teachers' Union to decide its own leadership in accordance with its own rules. We call on you to withdraw your threats to imprison Iraqi Teachers' Union leaders and to desist from your attempts to seize the assets, membership lists and documentation of the Iraqi Teachers' Union.

We reject your attempt to seize the union and express our solidarity with the membership and leadership of the Iraqi Teachers' Union.

Failure to respond positively can only result in a major campaign - across Iraq and around the world - to highlight your Government's appalling action.

We are copying this letter to the President and Prime Minister of Iraq and making it public.

Signed by

General Federation of Iraqi Workers

Kurdistan Workers Union

General Workers and Crafts Syndicate Union of Kurdistan

Kurdistan Journalists Union/Iraq

Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions

Kurdistan Teachers Union/Iraq


There has also been an additional attack by the Iraqi Government on the operations of the Iraqi Agricultural Workers Union as shown here. Add your protests on this to your email to the Iraqi Embassy.

A Blessing From Margaret?

Support and encouragement from a Socialist Campaign Group hardliner for a Labour Government Minister is not to be missed, see here. Alan Simpson's fine article appeared in yesterday's Morning Star and seeks further action from Margaret Beckett on the Council Housing front. Here are my links (trawl down) around Council Housing and Margaret.

Vote For Us

In connection with the Compass project "How To Live In The 21st Century", two submissions have been made by the Dronfield Labour Party Discussion Group. These can be found on the appropriate Compass web-site if you click onto the following - "Political Education, Political Education, Political Education" and "Integrated Transport"

COMPASS MEMBERS CAN VOTE FOR THESE SUBMISSIONS AS WINNERS - Never mind the width, feel the quality.

Background explanations on our two sets of proposals are provided below -


On "Political Education, Political Education, Political Education"

A vibrant and intelligent political culture requires issues to be debated openly (but not violently) within the context of widespread commitments to civil liberties, including those of free expression. In the modern Labour Party and often in the wider Labour Movement, a past tradition of considering practical political alternatives in the light of the concepts of social equality, collectivism and democratic participation has tended to be sidelined. This is not an argument for the adoption of a political dogma by today's movement; for core values themselves need to be under continual testing and re-examination and to be attuned to changing circumstances. But unfortunately in today's movement too often core values tend to have withered away, rather than being re-assessed and updated.

The Labour Party in particular needs to encourage and facilitate internal debate and discussion about our times. A key avenue to achieve such an approach is the establishment of a political education programme to stimulate debate and discussion amongst what could then become a growing and active membership.

Such an approach is likely to require a serious publications' avenue which the Labour Party membership could contribute to. This would require moves towards a weekly Labour Party newspaper, the establishment of a theoretical journal, the publication of discussion pamphlets, the running of discussion groups and study courses; plus the use of web-sites and other avenues of more modern technology. The Labour Party itself should aim at running such provisions, building upon the efforts (amongst others) of Tribune, Chartist, the Fabian Society and Compass.

Such forms of Political Education will, however, only achieve a living impact when the internal structure of the Labour Party is openly democratised - yet political education could also encourage such a development.

The TUC, individual Trade Unions and the Co-operative Movement form essential parts of our Movement. They have their own traditions of providing their own internal educational programmes. The focus of such activities are often centred around the practical needs of health and safety representatives, shop stewards and equivalents. These programmes need to be leavened with fuller investigations around the historical, political and core values of the Labour Movement.

Ways and means of re-establishing a pre-Thatcherite tradition of working class education centred on the earlier practices of Colleges such as Ruskin, Coleg Harlech, the Northern College and Newbattle Abbey need to be explored.


On "Integrated Transport"


A programme to move towards the effective use of an integrated public transport system; involving the establishment of a variety of forms of social ownership for the operations of buses, trams, taxis, aeroplanes, ships and lorries. In order to reduce congestion on our roads, priority will be given to public forms of transport over the use of private cars. A full use of an expanded rail network would be employed for the movement of goods as well as passengers. To maximize the use of public transport facilities, cheap and free fares would be extended, based on need. Current free and concessionary travel facilities for pensioners and others would provide a model for such schemes. Publicly run (or supported) taxi services, buses, trams, planes and ships would be linked whenever possible at bus and tram terminals, airports and ports. Entitlement to air travel would balance the needs of travellers with carbon footprint considerations.

When considering integrated transport policies, account should be taken of how transport effects climate change, and any decisions regarding integrated transport should include plans to reduce carbon emissions from future forms of transport. Consideration must therefore be given to future plans to convert the existing rail network to a completely electrical system of rail transport. An expanded rail network should also be fully electrified. An integrated transport policy should also include plans to develop road transport vehicles with greatly reduced carbon emissions. Types of electrically driven vehicles, which satisfy future transport requirements, will therefore have to be developed if this objective is to be realised. Electrifying the rail network and the provision of road vehicles, which depend on electrical power, will transfer demand from fossil fuels to electrical power and will place greater demands on the electricity supply industry. An integrated transport policy should therefore include plans to increase the amount of electricity produced by renewable sources and plans to replace the current generation of aging power stations with power stations with low carbon emissions.

The role of railways in an integrated transport system would require a curb being placed on the need for the use of heavy road transport with limits being placed on the use of lorries and huge pantechnicons. Their operations would need to be restricted, especially where alternative rail services are available. This could be achieved through the licencing of the giants of the road.

Whilst cheap public transport would attract many away from private car usage, it is likely that a programme of restraints on private car usage will need to be introduced to relieve major avenues of congestion. This will need to be done via a programme of restrictions rather than via a market policy involving the use of congestion charges.

Last Chance Saloon

Today and tomorrow are the last opportunities to join in Dronfield Blather's debates on Political Education and Integrated Transport ,before they are finalised and submitted to Compass. Check these to see the latest suggestions.

In Memory Of My Mother

Today is the 100th anniversary of my mother's birth. She died in 1999 and was buried on my 63rd birthday.

She was born at Sunniside in an area that was then the South West Durham Coalfield. She was christened Betsy Gray, although she became known as Betty.

Her parents John and Elizabeth (Lizzy) Gray moved to Sunniside on their marriage in 1898, with John working at the local pit throughout their married life. My grandparents had eight children, two of whom died as youngsters. John Gray himself died in 1920 when he was only 49. The harsh conditions of that time are shown here.

The six surviving children were obliged to leave school at 14. although my mother was always top girl of her class which is shown here. The two boys found work in the local pit, whilst three of the four girls went into domestic service. Only the youngest child, Alice was kept at home because of the poor state of her health.

My mother went into domestic service at Oldham alongside her elder sister Bella. The above photo was taken the month after the 1926 General Strike when she was 17 and she was still working at Oldham. She later worked in domestic service in other places such as Whitby (her favourite) and Seaton Carew.

When her mother moved the family home to one of the new Council Houses at Easington Colliery, my mother temporarily packed up work when she received a description of the Council House which had been acquired. The house had gardens around three sides, a proper bath, a flush toilet, plastered walls and even a landing window. It was a complete transformation to the family home back in Sunniside which was a back-to-back terraced house, with a midden across the street. Even the weather was milder, as Sunniside is exposed at the highest point in County Durham and Easington is next to the sea.

My mother was to be based in Easington for the remaining seven decades of her life. In 1933 she married my father, who was a miner at its pit. The 100th anniversary of his birth is something which I will record in just over 3 months time. The photograph below was taken in Sunderland around 1946, when my mother and father would have been 37 or so and I would be about 9 or 10.
My mother retained the closest of links with her side of the family in particular, which was aided by the fact that during my school days we lived only four doors away from her mother and her unmarried brother, Bill.

With her brothers and sisters she had attended the Sunniside Methodist Sunday School and was married at the Easington Bourne Methodist Chapel, where I was then christened. When she was 40 she once more started to attend Chapel and became fully involved in its activities and in the social life around it. She became Secretary for the Women's Meetings, undertook Overseas Mission work and took a leading role in acting in the plays it produced.

Although she did not find paid work during her married life, apart from her own housework she looked after her mother's home as Granny was always frail. Then she often cared for others, as when my Aunt Alice developed cancer.

She was bright, lively, friendly and popular. She regularly visited the local library and read three modern but serious novels per week, until Alzheimers finally caught up with her in her mid 80s.

She ended her days in a nursing home, which had been the Colliery Manager's house, being visited by my father for long periods each day. My wife and I told her about my father's death, but it did not register with her until on a later visit she said to us "Joe doesn't come to see me any more." He was the last person she remembered. She couldn't come to terms with the idea that the man in his 60s in front of her could be her only child. She had a long, tough, active and happy life - helping others. Her immediate family being at the top of the long list, which was completed when I married Ann and then her two beloved grandchildren arrived.

The photograph of my mother above was taken when she was in her early 80s, but before the onset of Alzheimers. The photograph below is taken at Christmas 1979, when she and my father were 70. Her grandchildren are Joanne (7) and Stephen (11)

Not Dead - Only Fired

Kerron Cross keeps placing this photo of me on his blog. It was taken nearly 22 years ago. I don't, however, ever remember being fired. In fact I had just been elected as an MP at the time. I didn't even have the whip taken away from me when in the Parliamentary Labour Party, although I tried hard enough. When I wrote a lengthy letter to my Regional Whip to explain why I would be voting against the Labour Government on yet a further issue, he merely told me that I had won that week's Booker Prize.

Confirmation - I Am Not Actually Dead Yet

I am pleased to see that although Kerron Cross has issued Andrew Gwynne MP with the HARRY BARNES MEMORIAL AWARD, Kerron believes that I am not actually dead yet. To test his latter theory out, I will have to carry on blogging.

The State Of The Franchise : A Democratic Disgrace

Chartists For Male Suffrage, 1848: Suffraggettes For Female Suffrage, Released From Prison 1909


Here is a potted history of the growth of the right to vote in this country since 1832. It is generally assumed that the journey towards a full franchise has been completed, apart perhaps for those who argue for votes for 16 and 17 year olds. Unfortunately, too few notice the huge gaps which still need to be filled. They include -

1. Some 2 million people who are entitled to be registered to vote, but whose names are missing. The numbers missing are heavily concentrated amongst the poor, racial minorities, those living in bed-sitter land and those who are otherwise rootless and move about from one address to another, including those suffering from homelessness. As the missing millions are not spread equally throughout society, this has the knock-on consequence of seriously distorting our electoral boundaries.

2. Residents in this country from overseas, other than those who already qualify to vote because they come from the Republic of Ireland or from Commonwealth nations. (The other side of this coin is that British citizens overseas should be registered to vote in the country whose laws they are then subject to and not in this country.)

3. Those who are imprisoned. Yet this is a group of fellow human beings who could not be more clearly subject to the laws of the land. The paradox is that the large numbers of people who are never caught or convicted for their crimes, retain their franchise rights. If prisoners were registed to vote in the Constituencies in which they were imprisoned then it would give strong reasons for their local MP and candidates to pay attention to their interests. That is what accountability is supposed to be about. (This issue is regularly pursued on Jailhouse Lawyer's Blog.)

4. The case for votes for 16 and 17 year olds is that the teenagers concerned could initially be registered to vote via their schools as 15 year old "attainers". Not only would their names not be missed from registers, but schools could be obliged to run classes on the development of the franchise, its importance and its usage.

5. To overcome the problem raised in (1) above about under-registration, it would be possible for registration officers to be given the means to trace the movements of people once they are on registers (as in 4 above) to ensure that their voting rights were automatically transferred. There is a case here for the democratic usage of a compulsory ID card system.

In addition polling cards could be issued as soon as formal electoral procedures start, with widespead publicity given to their issue. This needs to be done so that those who don't receive cards can become aware they may not be registered. They can then be given the opportunity to register as long as they were present in the area concerned when the relevant electoral proceedure commenced.

6. Many of our legislative powers have been passed over to the European Union (EU), yet it does not operate under a proper parliamentary system. The EU has a huge democratic deficit which can only be overcome by its transformation in a fully democratic, social and federal structure.

Unfortuneately, we have halted the process of the advance of the franchise. Its current shortcomings are nothing less than a democratic disgrace.

Iraqi Democracy?

This is the start of Jim Muir's report this morning for the BBC from Baghdad.

History may look back on the provincial elections held on the last day of January this year and see them as the point at which it could be said that Iraq had turned a corner and was heading towards a stable, democratic future.

Here is the rest of report. Let us hope he is correct.

Purple Pride

The purple fingers belong to a group who voted in the recent elections in Baghdad. Dr Mohammed a 25 year old dentist tells us that his friends in the photo are Sunnis, Shiites and a Kurd. Dr Mohammed blog is called Last-of-Iraqis and he is my favourite Iraqi Blogger. He is no wild optimist as is shown in the item he posts, but he gives us hope. In part he states -

I woke up with hope, hope for Iraq to be taken along the correct path by its sons. I woke to the noises voters were making in the street. As I dressed I was thinking about how different this election would be. Most of the people I know were not voting based on sects, but on sense. We are sick to death of corruption and sectarianism, and desperate for a change.....With the sparse crowds, I had only a short wait before the employee found my name in the list and gave me my voting paper. I took it to the booth and chose what I believed was best for Baghdad, then I painted my finger purple — it might look ugly, but I like it and I’m proud of it. At the same time, a child reached the table and insisted on painting his finger, too; everybody smiled because he was so happy about it.....On my way home I developed an obsession of looking at the fingertips of every man and woman I passed. Too many had no ink. I hope the electoral committee does its part better than we did. I hope the election will not be fraudulent and the winners will not let us down. And I hope the people who didn’t vote this time will do so next time, and a real democracy will be achieved in the land where the first laws of the human race were set.

Better still go to his blog here.

A Good Day For Thinking About Transport

If you are stuck at home because of the snow, why not join this debate about the future of transport? Should we phase out our addiction to the use of the private car?