Prisoners and Voting - Yesterday in Parliament

There were two grounds on which MPs could have voted yesterday against the motion in Commons on “Voting by Prisoners”. The first of these was to uphold the right of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to determine what the position should be. The second was out of a belief that prisoners should have the vote. It was, of course, possible to have voted against the motion whilst holding to both of these positions.

Unfortunately, in the absence of many Labour MPs in the Chamber the debate was dominated by Conservative MPs who were opposed to the general role of the Court and also were strong critics of the EU (although the ECHR isn’t an EU institution.) The few people who opposed the motion mainly defended the ECHR, so the coverage of the issue of whether prisoners should have the vote was only thinly dealt with.

With the addition of the tellers for the “No” vote, only 24 MPs voted against the motion. 10 were Lib Dems, 3 Welsh Nationalists (PC), 1 Green, 1 Conservative (Peter Bottomley) and only 8 were Labour – only 3 of whom who spoke in the debate (Kate Green, Yasmin Qureahi and Jeremy Corbyn).

I find the general failure of Labour MPs to give serious consideration to franchise rights to be highly disturbing but not surprising. The list of Labour MPs who supported opposition to the ECHR and prisoners voting rights is particularly worrying.

Tunisia, Egypt And Iraq

Protests in Iraq inspired by events in Tunisia and Egypt - see "Musings on Iraq". The photo shows the situation in Basra.

Still A Colliery And Not A Town

The Daily Telegraph's Web Site are running a story to say that John Darwin (on the left) who is known as the "Canoe Man" has been released from prison after three years under the condition that he does not talk to the media. They also indicate that he is living at Easington Colliery in County Durham.

I was born at Easington Colliery and was brought up there in what were probably its best days, although it also suffered its worst experience at the same time due to a massive pit disaster in 1951 when 79 local miners and three rescue workers were killed.

Yet it was an era of full employment, a highly productive local pit, a newly established and functioning health service, a wider welfare state and a nationalised coal industry. All of which provided hope for the future. Easington Colliery itself was a closely knit community.There were jobs in all parts for young people such as myself without qualifications. Coal was first drawn there in 1910 and its communal spirit had been forged out of the experiences of two world wars, the major mining strikes of 1912, 1921 and 1926 and the years of the inter-war economic depression. Especially from the mid-40s to the mid-50s its life seemed to me to have a tight social bond and to offer security for the future. No doubt much of what I felt was due to the feelings and hopes of youth. But there were also sound reasons for optimism about the future.

The start of the Daily Telegraph article now paints a starkly different picture for today. It reads -

"Easington Colliery is an obsolete town with an obsolete name. The coalmine that gave it its purpose is long shut but the place remains, lines of drab terraces marching down to the grey North Sea.

Desolation is its chief asset. When the makers of Billy Elliot wanted the perfect 'It’s Grim Up North’ setting, they settled on Easington. The town figures prominently in tables of deprivation, and lays claim to the most obese population in the country. Pound shops rub shoulders with pubs protected by steel window shutters, the standard furniture of broken Britain. No paradise, then. Certainly not the paradise envisaged by John Darwin when he was dreaming of wealth and sunshine"

The judgement of the writer is partly journalistic but it also makes use of uncomfortable truths. Strickly speaking it is wrong to call Easington Colliery an obsolete town with an obsolete name. It was and still is a colliery and not a town. It did not exist before its pit was sunk, although it lost its main purpose when the pit was closed in 1993. But it grew up as a colliery in the days when the pit, the miners' lodge, the local labour party, the workingmen's clubs, the miners' welfare, the co-op, local cinemas, chapels, allotments, the miners' own welfare park with its local football team, a long row of shops on the northern side of Seaside Lane , and almost a thousand colliery houses plus council housing and other rented accommodation and aged miners' homes all flourished. Its population peaked at 10,000 in the 1930s. Much has changed and much has gone, but it rightly refuses to be robbed of the word "Colliery" in its name. Also much of what remains makes use of and is embedded within its past.

And even though the Daily Telegraph's writer is correct to say that the Easington Colliery is no paradise, he is obviously unaware that the area in which I lived (containing mainly council houses) was known as Paradise - as a young boy my mates and I formed a football team which we grandly called Easington Colliery Paradise Rovers and beat Richie's Rockets 20-10. Perhaps it is that paradise that John Darwin now lives in.

To Hack Or Not To Hack?

Today's Morning Star contains (a) an editorial on its centre page attacking hacking by News Corporations which it runs alongside (b) a major article by John Pilger which supports the use WikiLeaks is making in using information acquired in similar ways. I suppose the difference between the two uses of similar techniques is felt to arise from what are perceived to be the different purposes behind them. Yet the proximity of the two items does raise the question of just when we are justified in hacking and when we are to be condemned for doing it.

Democracy And The Vote

The democratic principle should require that within an appropriate electoral area each person should have one vote. Any deviation from this principle requires a precise and equally principled justification. I can only see two main acceptable restrictions on such franchise rights. One that a person is considered to be too young to vote. As we should err on the side of caution in withholding franchise rights, I would like to see people enfranchised from the date of their 16th birthday. A second restriction on franchise rights needs to apply to those who have a serious mental condition such that they can not exercise a choice and there is a danger that persons they are dependent upon will exercise their voting rights in their place.

If we add to this list of restrictions, we need to be able to establish a solid and principled case. To say that prisoners who have been convicted of particularly nasty crimes should be excluded, is not a good argument in itself as it merely appeals to popular feelings of disgust for them. But to exclude people from the franchise because we judge them to be evil is a worrying approach. It could lead to different people wishing to exclude a variety of categories of the electorate by using arguments which are racist, xenophobic, sexist, anti-capitalist or what you will.

Furthermore it is not just prisoners who are currently excluded from the franchise. In the United Kingdom the ban includes those who are settled here from overseas nations other than Ireland or Commonwealth Nations. Then there is the lack of attention we pay to the efficiency of the electoral registration system. Millions who qualify are missing from registers. These involve a high percentage of the homeless, the rootless, ethnic minorities, the poor and the young. An extra reason for votes at 16 is that those who are due to attain the vote at that age could initially be placed on electoral registers at school when they are"attainers" at the age of 15. If we achieve 100% electoral registration for 16 year olds, it will be easier for the registration system to keep people on registers as they grow older.

Are there no people who should be excluded from electoral registers outside of the two main categories I mentioned in my opening paragraph? There are only two more that I can think of. First, under the principle I am arguing from there is no need for people to register in more than one place at the same time and then choose which of their franchise rights they use on any particular occasion. And if people register in more than one place, there is no automatic check to ensure that they have only used their franchise the once at any one time. Secondly, there is no case for British Citizens settled overseas having the vote in this country. Under the democratic principles I am arguing from, they should be given the vote in the country in which they are resident. We should support any of their efforts to achieve these rights in their country of settlement.

If my arguments are to be challenged, then I hope that critics will either seek to show how their arguments fit in with democratic principles. It is, of course, possible to argue against the democratic principles which I have used on fascist, stalinist, elitist, populist and other non-democratic grounds. We should judge the opposition to "votes for prisoners" to see which of these perspectives they fit into.

Of course, democracy requires much more than democratic voting rights. But it is seriously hampered without them.

We Should Not Pick And Choose As To Who Is Entitled To The Vote

Radical Jack

So much for the democratic and civil liberties credential of Jack Straw and David Davis in their efforts to withhold voting rights for prisoners. I am not against them obtaining a debate on the issue in the Commons, but I hope that enough MPs will be present to challenge the line they are taking.

Everyone who is capable of exercising a choice, is resident within the United Kingdom and has reached an agreed age (which I would put at 16) should have the vote in our parliamentary elections. They should all then be subject to laws determined under parliamentary procedures - even though acts of peaceful civil disobedience can be a justifiable avenue of protest against unjust measures where the protesters are willing to face the legal consequences of their actions.

Now and again we come across prisoners who are released because they are innocent. Then we are aware that masses of people who have committed crimes have never been captured. If we adopt the principle of kicking people off registers because we think they are nasty, heaven knows who will left with the vote.

We need to get people onto electoral registers and not kick them off. At least three and million who are entitled to the vote are currently missing from registers. Young people, ethnic minorities, the poor, the homeless and the rootless form the bulk of these. We need a pro-active system to ensure their rights are given to them.

Then there there are people who are firmly resident in this country other than Commonwealth and Irish Citizens who are find themselves disenfranchised, yet they are firmly subject to the law of the land and are not tax exiles.

What we are entitled to is a Full Franchise - we should not pick and choose as to who is entitled to the vote. It is for the people to choose who should represent them.

This Blog Is Still Alive

This Blog is still alive and I anticipate that it will soon be kicking.

A Liberal Interpretation

On page 39 of the 'Liberal Democratic Manifesto 2010' it states " We will scrap unfair fees for all students taking their first degree, including those studying part-time, saving them over £10,000 each. We have a financially responsible plan to phase fees out over six years, so that the charge is affordable even in these difficult economic times, and without cutting university income. We will immediately scrap fees for final year students"

Needed - A Vote Of No Confidence

Nick Clegg has booted the Doctrine of the Mandate into touch by making the strongest possible commitment at the General Election to vote against increases in student fees (see photo), then advocating the exact opposite as Deputy Prime Minister.

Vince Cable (below) as Business Secretary is the responsible Government Minister on the issue. Whichever way he votes on the matter in the Commons his changing speculations as to what he will do has driven a coach and horses through the notions of Ministerial Responsibility and Cabinet Collective Responsibility. He has changed his mind as often as he has shifted his views on what type of economic policy we should pursue.


There is now a great opportunity for Labour to undermine the position of the Lib-Dems on Student Fees by calling for a Vote Of No Confidence on the issue.

Snow Good

These are views from my home in Dronfield in North Derbyshire. First there is the view I look out upon when sat at my computer. Next is the garden, with a table at the back. Finally there is the view from the front step. Click onto the photos to enlarge them.

We have had 22 inches (56 cm) of snow and it is still snowing - and the gas heating has cut out. I have now cleared the front for the gas man. (Update 3 December : Didn't need the gas man, my wife Ann fixed it.)

Trying To Put Howard To Flight

Howard Flight is in trouble again. He just won't follow the autocue.

I once attempted to nail him for raising a question to the then Prime Minister (Tony Blair) relating to an item in his own Declaration of Interests which referred to what was then his deputy chairmanship of Guinness Flight Hambro Asset Management Ltd. I claimed that his question was unparliamentary in that it amounted to advocacy on behalf of that body.

I raised the matter via a written complaint to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards preceded by a couple of points of order to the Speaker, Betty Boothroyd. But when Howard Flight responded the Commissioner accepted his submission. The Commissioner's response was then accepted by the Commons' Standards and Privileges Committee. This is the link to their report.

In 2005, Flight was secretly recorded stating that if the Conservatives won the coming election they would make more spending cuts than those they had promised to the electorate. It led to a spat with the Tory Leader Michael Howard and the blocking of Flight's re-selection as a candidate. But perhaps it is exactly what Flight then said that appealed to David Cameron who recently recommended him for a Peerage. But then he should have known that Flight can't keep his lip buttoned.

Well I did try to sort this out in 1997.

A Constitutional Fix

54 newly appointed peers, 50 fewer democratically elected MPs.

Hat Tip : Bob Piper.

Linking To The Formal Parliamentary Work Of Your MP.

At the end of the "links" section at the right hand column of this blog, I have added four new links to the parliamentary activities of my local MP and parliamentary successor, Natascha Engel.

The first link provides access to the relevant sections of Hansard which provide (a) the oral and written parliamentary questions she asks and (b) her contributions in debates. The second link gives the Early Day Motions which she has both submitted and signed. The third link is to her section at the BBC's "Democracy Live" which includes access to various videos of her parliamentary contributions. The fourth link provides access to the reports of the Back Bench Business Committee which she Chairs.

(Note at 6.40 pm : Although these four links are working at the moment, two of them broke earlier. But others will have better technical skills than mine when adapting what I propose below, mainly via here)

Others in the UK could use these links to then search out the work of their own MPs and then to set up their own links. Areas I have not so far sorted out include links to relevant Hansards for Standing Committees and submissions and support for proposed amendments to Bills. Nor have I links for an MP's own Private Bills.

It should be noted that even in parliament, the above areas only form part of an active MP's work. For most of their parliamentary activities no Hansard writers or Common's Clerks are involved. These additional avenues include formal and informal meetings with Government Ministers and their opposition shadows, their own Party meetings including a wide range of back-bench committees, all-party and other groups on a range of topics, letters/emails to Ministers etc (normally on behalf of constituents) and a whole host of informal links to seek to advance their concerns. Such extra avenues are only possible, of course, because an MP has the normally unspoken threat in the background of raising their concerns via formal parliamentary procedures unless the informal avenues produce results. The hurdle they always need to overcome is the power of the Executive over back-bench MPs. This is why the work of the Backbench Business Committee which Natascha chairs is so important.

It should also be noted that the use of the above formal and informal parliamentary avenues only form part of an active MPs' work. Constituency work, campaigning and fact-finding are as significant and need to be added to the equation.

In my experience it is the MP who is active in parliament who is also active in their constituency.

Passion and Precision

There is an art in an opposition MP using the nooks and crannies of parliamentary procedure to seek to alter practices by the Coalition Government and its officials which are socially harmful.

My local Labour MP Natascha Engel (see photo) led a Westminster Hall debate on 27 October which had exactly this intent. She spoke with passion, understanding and precision.

Her topic was the future of work capacity assessments. These were brought in on April 2010 by the previous government to assess the work capability of people who are long-term claimants of incapacity benefit. However she raised concerns that their increasing use was solely to "bring down the welfare bill" and urged the government to see "people not the benefit". A video of the full half hour debate can be found here.

On this matter Natascha has worked closely with the Derbyshire Unemployed Workers' Centres, who are chaired and supported by Graham Baxter who was the subject of this earlier item I posted.

Her Politics Are Even Worse

Ann Widdecombe's politics are even worse than her dancing. Far worse. And that is saying something. Congratulations to Martyn Norris for providing the details via Pickled Politics.

Hat Tip : Bob Piper.

A Labour Success Story - Don't Now Upset The Applecart

Graham Baxter (front figure) carrying a Unite banner on the Chesterfield May Day March 2009. He has been an active trade unionist since his first day at work 54 years ago. (Click onto the picture to enlarge it).

There are times when it is appropriate to put forward words of appreciation for those whose actions we too often take for granted.

In what have been difficult times for Local Government, the North East Derbyshire District Council (NEDDC) has made remarkable progress in recent years under the controlling Labour Team led by Graham Baxter.

In 2008 the NEDDC made local government history by becoming the first council to leap straight from being designated as "weak" to "excellent" in an official national scheme established to judge council performances, known as the Comprehensive Performance Assessment.

The Audit Commission also found that the Council had made good progress in reducing crime and anti-social behaviour, in supporting economic development via successful infrastructure projects which reversed the decline in local jobs and industry, in meeting housing needs including those of the homeless, in working with neighbouring councils and with its local population, in contributing to progress in health, cleanliness, sustainable waste management and much more.

The Council has also received an impressive list of awards and commendations for its services from bodies such as the National Municipal Journal, the Local Government Association, the Cabinet Office, and the Chartered Institute of Public Relations. Currently it is also nominated for further recognitions of its services. In fact, it is possible to produce a list of at least 34 awards, nominations and commendations which the Council has received since July 2007.

Graham Baxter has also recently been awarded the MBE in recognitions of decades of public service, culminating in his work as leader of the Council since 2004.

But it is not just officialdom which recognises the Council's achievements; three quarters of those responding to a survey felt that the Council has worked to make the area cleaner, greener and a better place. 80% feel that North East Derbyshire is a good place to live.

The support which the Council gives to the Derbyshire Unemployed Workers' Centres is also exceptional. Graham Baxter is an active Chair of this key organisation. It provides welfare rights advice and makes representations on all aspects of Welfare Benefits to anyone that requires it. Each year it deals with around 10,000 enquiries and represents some 200 people at tribunals, recovering over £1.5 million for the local economy and thereby preserving jobs. NEDDC's continuing support and involvement with this body is crucial in current circumstances.

The Coalition Government is now proposing to cut the budget of the Department of Communities and Local Government by 36.6% over the next 4 years, whilst capping Council Tax levels as an extra means of cutting local authority access to resources.

In the years ahead, the North East Derbyshire District Council will need to exercise the same forms of creative response which it has recently shown under Graham's leadership. It will also need to link with the wider Labour Movement to push back the Coalition's threat of massive cuts.

It is imperative that Graham and his team have local backing from the electorate to be returned to office in next year's District Council Elections.

In the meantime, it is a big thank you.

A Welcome Admission

Here Alan Johnson admits that Labour got its economic priorities wrong under Blair and Brown. It now seems to be accepted that those in the Labour Movement who attempted to save our manufacturing base and to restrain the growth of financial institutions were correct all along, even though they were dismissed at the time as merely being the "usual suspects".

What is now important is how we learn from the mistakes of New Labour and how we change the strategy for the future. But an apology should always be accepted as it offers fresh openings.

Votes For Prisoners - And Many Others

The vote should be available to anyone over 16 who is settled in the United Kingdom, with the exception only of those who have such a serious mental disability that they are unable in any way to understand the process they would be involved in. This is because we are all human beings who are subject to the decisions made by those who are elected.

People should not be excluded from the vote on the grounds that they are in prison or are nationals of a foreign country (in this category at the moment only Commonwealth and Irish citizen can qualify).

Serious action should also be taken to ensure that the missing millions who are entitled to vote (but who are missing from registers) are discovered and added to the registers. Those missing from registers are a significant proportion of the poor, the young, the rootless, the homeless and ethnic minorities.

A major case for giving the vote to 16 year olds is that they could initially be registered via their schools when 15 as "attainers" and it would then be easier to trace them later to ensure they then maintained their voting rights.

I can not understand anyone who otherwise sees themselves as a democrat and a believer in human rights coming up with reasons to exclude any category of people. The vote is not something that one should earn. It is for politicians to seek to earn our votes.

As things stand with criminals, we have the odd position that we keep discovering prisoners who are innocent whilst we know that most criminals are never captured. If there was a justification for excluding prisoners from the vote, (which there isn't) we would need a superior justice system to the one we have - yet it is currently being subject to Government cuts.

The Future Of Northern Ireland

The Belfast-based "News Letter" is hosting a debate on the future of the Union in 2021, the 100th anniversary of the creation of Northern Ireland. My contribution to this series appeared in the paper on 13 October under the following title. Ian Paisley, Gerry Adams, Peter Robinson, David Trimble and Sir Reg Empey are amongst the previous contributers to the discussion. My article appears below -

COULD ECONOMIC CUTS HURT THE PEACE PROCESS?

Economic cuts could harm Northern Ireland's path to peace argues blogger and former Labour MP Harry Barnes.

Published Date: 13 October 2010

Although progress has not always been smooth since the time of the Belfast Agreement, Northern Ireland has moved into an era marked by relative peace and reconciliation.

One clear possibility for the coming decade is that this progress will continue and the conflicts of the past will be minimised.

A new generation given a favourable context will be capable of transcending past divisions.

Yet even given that we now live in a more mobile society, the social bonds of upbringing are likely to remain strong enough for most people to retain commitments to their respective unionist and republican backgrounds.

As the unionists are in the majority and the prospect of being surpassed via a higher Catholic birth rate declines, majority support for the Union should remain.

If a period of relative peace delivers sufficient prosperity, then increasing numbers of republican sympathisers are likely to give a de facto acceptance to the Union.

This is especially the case to the extent that cross-border links have been developed and seem likely to extend.

The above pattern is one that I would anticipate and find attractive.

Constitutionally Northern Ireland would remain in the Union, but economically and socially the island of Ireland would become more integrated.

There are, however, some stark economic circumstances which could disrupt such developments.

The coalition government is keen to cut Northern Ireland’s dependence on public services and its bill for welfare benefits.

So unless those dependent on these avenues of expenditure act in a common defence of their interests via bodies such as trade unions, then there is a danger that under deprivation both Catholic and Protestant communities might be used by extremists to turn against each other.

So efforts to see that Northern Ireland’s politicians reflect a common stance to protect the province’s social and economic well-being are also priorities.

There is also a danger that social and economic integration across the whole of the island of Ireland will be seriously hampered by the economic crisis which has hit the Republic.

I take it as a fact of life over the next ten years that there will be comfortable continuing majority support for the maintenance of the Union.

This does not, however, need a form of unionist political unity in the assembly nor at Westminster.

I have long been an advocate of the Labour Party coming to function fully in Northern Ireland whilst making moves to draw its support from both the unionist and republican traditions.

Yet I do not envisage a major breakthrough by Labour in Northern Ireland by 2021, although I would take what can be got.

It needs, however, to be recognised that the growth of Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland politics is itself likely to be seen by many unionists as a reason for their clubbing together.

This does not mean that outside of the constitutional objectives of both unionism and republicanism that common ground cannot be sought on issues such as housing, education, health services, benefits and employment.

When it comes to assembly elections in a democratic sense any winner (Sinn Fein or otherwise) is acceptable in providing a first minister.

Whether such a person is someone who is acceptable in the sense of being almost likeable seems to me to depend first of all on how committed they are to the process of peace and reconciliation.

It is then a matter of judging their economic and social programme. For me Sinn Fein and any another party needs to prove its worth according to its practices.

Harry Barnes was Labour MP for North East Derbyshire from 1987-2005, during which time he served on the Northern Ireland Select Committee, the British-Irish Parliamentary Body, was joint-president of New Dialogue and worked with the Peace Train. His political blog is at http://threescoreyearsandten. blogspot.com/

People Who Are Just Like Me

I'm not sure of the exact date, but it was probably exactly 50 years ago today that I embarked upon what they call a "life changing experience".



At 24 years of age and with a notable lack of educational attainment, I took leave of absence from my job as a railway clerk to embark upon a two year politics and economics course at Ruskin College - whilst retaining my free passes and privilege tickets.

I had been active for nearly three years as secretary of the Easington Colliery Local Labour Party and had undertaken another voluntary role as secretary of the Peterlee and District Fabian Society.

It was the latter involvement that drew me into attending a Fabian Weekend School at Oxford at the end of March 1960. It was held at the College's section at Headington which was used mainly for first year students.

Hugh Dalton, Roy Jenkins and Tony Crosland were amongst the speakers, whilst Bill Rogers was running the show as the Fabian's General Secretary.

I had no idea what Ruskin College was about until someone else attending the week-end school who had recently graduated from St. John's College, Oxford said "you should come here, it is for people like you". That is people with an interest in politics who lacked formal qualifications. It was the first time I knew that politics could be an academic subject.

Later in the year I saw an advert for the Ruskin courses in "Tribune". I immediately applied for something-I-knew-not-what as I was unmarried and had no major commitments.

Entry was based upon filling in an application form, writing a couple of essays (one was to try for a scholarship), plus an interview and three references. My referees were Mannie Shinwell the Constituency MP, my Union Branch Secretary and a former teacher who had joined our Local Labour Party in search of a headship in Labour dominated County Durham.

I had little idea as to what a Diploma Course entailed having left school at 16 with four low "O" levels and failures in what seemed to be the most important topics of Maths and English Language. It just seemed to me to be great that for two years in my life I could read books and write essays on politics and economics. After all the reason I had joined the Labour Party was to qualify to write an essay on nationalisation in a contest run by Mannie Shinwell, where I had taken the second prize of £3.

The subject I took to the most at Ruskin was Political Theory which opened up the way to reading theorists including Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, John Stuart Mill (on whom I wrote my best essay) and Karl Marx.

The photo at the start of this item was taken by Ann my future wife after the final exams and just before we all left Ruskin. The four on the photo were all fellow students and friends. I am the one in glasses at the back. Next is Ian Pickard whom I first met at the interviews at Transport House. Ann and I have visited Ian and Beryl his wife earlier this year. Ian became a Senior Lecturer in Communications at Wakefield College. Second from the front is the late Karl Hedderwick who was best man when Ann and I married in our native County Durham. He was also a colleague of mine at Sheffield University Extramural Department and in his final years had lived just a few hundred years from Ann and myself in our home in Dronfield. The chap at the front is Doug Chewter who was the only student in our year to obtain a distinction in the Oxford University Diploma. We keep in touch indirectly via the comment box of someone else's web-site.

Ann at Christchurch, Oxford on her visit in the summer of 1962


When I moved on to Hull University as an undergraduate my studies were shaped by my experiences at Ruskin. I dropped economics where my theory tutors report said that I showed a distinct ability to think for myself but at a rather superficial level ! I added philosophy to my politics studies as political philosophy and ethics seemed to me to add to my interests in political theory. After graduation I became a tutor in Sheffield University Extramural Department teaching Trade Unionists (especially NUM) in day release classes and other adults in an environment akin to that which I had experienced at Ruskin and in the areas of politics and theory which had then appealed to me.

Ruskin was the key to what I was engaged in from turning up their 50 years ago and for the next 27 years until I went on to serve for 18 years as an MP. Even then the discussion of political ideas was still central to much that I did; whether in the Commons, Committee meetings or political gatherings. Even in retirement I organise political discussion meetings for what looks very much like classes of adult students who are also labour movement activists. The Ruskin experience of the early 1960s shaped my life and, thankfully is still shaping it.

Also see -  http://newruskinarchives.org.uk/wp/?page_id=202