Three Score Years And Ten

More From the Iraqi Communist Party

2009-07-15T12:05:00.002+01:00

See this video clip of the Iraqi Communist Party (ICP) celebrating the 51st anniversary of the 14th June 1958 National Democratic Revolution which led to a period of social improvement and hope under the Government of Abd al-Karim Qasim whose portrait is seen being carried by the demonstrators.

Unfortunately a counter-coup against the regime took place in February 1963 involving the Ba'thists when the ICP saw that what was needed instead were democratic reforms.

This item provides links to my four-part history of the ICP which towards the end of part 1 and throughout part 2 covers the Qasim era. Whilst this item is also of relevance to this important period in Iraqi History.

If anyone can provide me with an English translation of the commentary on the video this would be most welcome.

Hat Tip - Labour Friends of Iraq.

Nationalisation : From the UK to Venezuela

2009-07-11T11:51:00.000+01:00

See "Dronfield Blather" here and here.

In Memory Of My Father

2009-07-06T19:50:00.004+01:00

It is 100 years ago today since my father Joseph Barnes (known as Joe) was born. He died in 1996.

The above photograph says a great deal about him. He is the young man in the centre of the back row. He is part of a locally organised football team of coal miners from Easington Colliery in County Durham. He was the goalkeeper and will be in his mid-teens when the photo was taken. Directly in front of him is his brother Bobby who was five years his senior and to your far right in the back row is his brother Arthur who was almost 2 years his junior. (Click onto the photo to enlarge it).

The team is sitting at the edge of an open field with a row of terraced colliery-owned houses in the background. This is Boston Street. Behind it is Baldwin Street which my father, mother and myself moved into some quarter of a century later.

Seven rows of streets further back is Bolam Street, where my father and Uncles lived with my grandparents John and "Polly" Barnes. These houses were part of a complex of almost 50 rows of terraced houses for miners which were clustered around the local pit.

The team are in their best suits, waistcoats and cloth caps. The man in the trilby is probably in charge of the team.

The photo explains the comradeship, spirit, commitment, family links, team competitiveness and football fanaticism of those times. It is likely to have been taken around the time of the aftermath of the General Strike of 1926.

No-one belonged more to Easington as a mining colliery than my father. He arrived there in 1912 before his third birthday as part of John and Polly's fully established family of seven children. Coal had only first been drawn at the local pit in 1910 and a community was rapidly being established on what had been farm and open land.

When my father died after 84 years at Easington, the pit had shut down just 3 years earlier. It was the final pit in County Durham to close.

My father's life, therefore, covered a distinctive era within a single tightly knit mining community. Not many people could have fitted Easington's mining existence so precisely.

In his 80s my father continued his daily walk down Easington's main road called Seaside Lane. He stopped to speak to friends and family. When my mother was moved into a nursing home (on the far side of the field shown in the above photo) he just walked further past long familiar territory to spend much of the day with her. The nursing home was the house of the former Colliery Manager.

Although Easington went through some tough pioneering years, by the time the 1931 economic depression broke and my father was 22 the population (of Easington Colliery and adjoining Easington Village combined) had reached 12,000. This meant that even with relative impoverishment it established a range of shops, cinemas, clubs, pubs, churches, chapels, schools and Miners' Welfare facilities. The Miners' Federation was committed to building Aged Miners' Homes and providing medical facilities. Whilst the Labour Council embarked upon Council House building.

It meant that although my father did not have an easy life, he had a full life. These fulfilments need to be appreciated if we are to put the harsh aspects of his life in perspective.

Tom and Polly had six sons and a daughter. The boys all became Miners on leaving school at 14 and Aunt Ada invariably went on to marry a Miner. Only Uncle Arthur finally deviated from this pattern when he moved out of the area to join the RAF in 1937.

( 3 of the 7 Barnes siblings who arrived in Easington Colliery in 1912. Uncle Arthur (left) was the only one of six brothers to move away from links with the local pit, when he joined the RAF in 1937 and then eventually retired to Eastbourne. Yet he often visited "home". Aunt Ada was the only girl and raised her own family living in the same Council House for over 60 years before moving into sheltered accommodation. They are with my father.)

The family went through tough times. In 1918 they were in the midst of a serious influenza epidemic, in 1921 the pit was subject to a 13 week strike, in 1926 the pit was at standstill for 30 weeks following the collapse of the General Strike, then the inter-war depression hit coal production at the local pit. In the midst of such developments John and Polly's children married and set up homes of their own. Even when post-war prosperity, full-employment and the welfare state helped to transform life; Easington experienced the terrible cost of coal when a mining disaster at its pit took the lives of 79 Miners and 2 rescue workers.My father was in the pit at the time, but in a different seam from the explosion. He later assisted with the salvage work. The extended Barnes family were lucky to avoid deaths in both the 1951 disaster and the earlier 1918 influenza epidemic.

My father then managed to engage in flying picket duties in the 1973 Miners' Strike before retiring the following year. He was then to share in the communal traumas of the 1984/5 Miners' Strike before witnessing the communal loss which came with the final closure of the pit in 1993.

He married in 1933 in difficult times (see here for my tribute to my mother). They spent several years in differing rented "rooms", essentially a bedroom with shared kitchen and toilet facilities. In 1936 I was born in "rooms" to add to the complexities.

Around this time my father was off work for almost two years with kidney trouble and could only return to "light work" for a period before he returned to the coal face.

A war-time move into a semi-detached Council house with a front and back-garden helped to improve life. As time moved on his luxuries became visits to the workingmen's club, meeting his mates, his continuing family links, betting (at one time the bookie sent him Christmas presents) and the visits from his grandchildren. And always there was football.

He had an extensive career as a local amateur goalkeeper playing for a variety of teams throughout the Durham coalfield. At 21 he had a successful season with Easington Village Rovers who acquired two trophies. He then moved to play for Stanley United in the Northern League. This led to him playing in a practice match for Hartlepool Reserves against the first team. They won 2-1. As a result he signed amateur forms with them, but when they sort to sign him as a professional Stanley United (who held his prior registration) insisted on a transfer fee of £25. Hartlepool either wouldn't or couldn't meet the fee!

He continued to play football until he was 40, disrupted by his spell of kidney trouble and the vagaries of war-time football.

I went with him to home and away games after the 2nd World War when he returned to play for Easington Village Rovers.

When I was 10, I walked with my mates to the neighbouring colliery of Horden to see Easington Colliery Welfare play our rivals Horden Colliery Welfare in the FA Cup Preliminary Round. Imagine my shock and predicament when my father turned out in goal for Horden. He had gone to the game to support Easington, but when Horden's goalkeeper didn't turn up he was signed up to fill the vacancy. It is the only time I saw him play other than for Easington Village Rovers.

Despite his 84 years in Easington, he was born in a terraced house close to Roker Park the then home of Sunderland AFC and became a lifelong supporter. At 10 his father first took him to see them play. The team he saw included the great Charlie Buchan. I was the same age when my father first took me to see Sunderland play. As we approached the ground my father showed me the house where he had been born. It was next door to a pawnbrokers.

But Easington was my father's home and the only time the two of us went to Roker Park to support the opposition was when Easington Colliery Welfare got to the final of the Shipowners Cup and played Sunderland Reserves on its hallowed turf. We lost, but only just.

In retirement my parents eventually moved into sheltered accommodation and enjoyed life as part of its elderly community. Pride of place in their flat was given to my father's football cups and to the photos of their two grandchildren which now look down on me as I type this.

(Enjoying retirement. My Mother and Father on your right, with neighbours.)

Left Split - But Find A New Hero

2009-07-02T16:38:00.003+01:00

Yesterday the Government was defeated in the Commons by 250 votes to 247 and thus lost Clause 10 of its Parliamentary Standards Bill. The Socialist Campaign Group split down the middle on this issue, with those left-wing twins Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell being in different lobbies.

The Clause in question related to the powers of both the proposed Independent Parliamentary Standard Authority (IPSA) and the proposed Commissioner for Parliamentary Investigations when they undertake their roles relating to MPs' salaries, allowances, financial interests and conduct. It would have allowed these bodies when proceedings against an MP in the courts or elsewhere to use evidence gleaned from proceedings in the House of Commons. Yet MPs enjoy freedom of speech in the Commons and Clause 10 would have removed this right in certain areas related to the work of the IPSA and the Commissioner.

The dilemma faced by MPs was (a) would the removal of Clause 10 inhibit the work of the IPSA and the Commissioner on the one hand and/or if passed (b) limit a right of freedom of speech in the Commons which MPs need in order to defend the rights of their constituents and others. The Clerk to the Commons and the Justice Committee (who rushed out a report on these matters) advised that the IPSA and the Commissioner would not be seriously effected in the absence of Clause 10, but that if adopted it would create a worry as far as MPs' freedom of speech under Commons' procedures was concerned.

Outside the power of the whips, a further dilemma faced by Labour MPs over the Clause was what would their constituents think if they voted down an item which their Government claimed was important in the battle to stop MPs using their position for personal gain.

In making their minds up on this matter the Socialist Campaign Group split three ways. 9 voted with the Government (including John McDonnell), 8 voted against (including Jeremy Corbyn) and 4 abstained or were not present (including Bob Marshall-Andrews).

As the Government lost the vote by three, it should also be noted that two former Cabinet Ministers helped to swing the result. Both Margaret Beckett and John Reid were in the "no" lobby.

In fact the Socialist Campaign Group ignored the discussions on the Bill. These lasted over three days in the Commons and it was only some 10 minutes from the end of all this that lefty Lynn Jones finally intervened to complain about the procedures under which the Bill was being rushed through the Commons. The absence of Socialist Campaign Group members meant that matters such as the case for having full-time MPs and otherwise getting value-for-money from them went by the board.

Jack Straw carried the bulk of the Bill from the Government side. The bits and pieces that were covered by his side-kick on the front-bench, Barbara Keeley were handled in an inept fashion. Only five MPs on the Labour back benches made speeches over the three days and only five others who had turned up for bits then intervened. The work on the Bill was mainly handed over to the Tory benches, with Sir George Young (the Chair of the Commons Committee on Standards and Privileges) gaining concession after concession from Jack Straw and improving a rushed Bill that now still needs to be bashed into shape in the Lords.

Yet this Bill arose out of the event that has transformed British politics - the expenses scandal. Its consideration should have been dealt with as a major parliamentary contribution to what should be a grand inquest of the nation. Yet the bulk of Labour MPs (in particular) ducked for cover.

It turned out that Tory Grandee Peter Tapsall (see photo) of all people hit the nail on the head just a few minutes into the start of the three days of debate -

Sir Peter Tapsell (Louth and Horncastle) (Con) : Why is it appropriate to go through this great constitutional rigmarole in advance of the recommendations of Sir Christopher Kelly’s committee, which is bound to cover all the same ground? The Prime Minister has said, I think unwisely, that we are going to accept in full all that committee’s recommendations, which are bound to cut across some of the proposals in the Bill, which means that we will have to go through the whole thing again.

Let us hope that next time Labour left, right and centre will use that opportunity to stir the conscious of the nation - for a starter trawl down here to Graham Allen. This short book also written by the Nottingham North MP is the classic text.

Nothing To Report?

2009-06-30T17:07:00.002+01:00

It is almost 8 weeks since the expenses scandal started to produce a massive upheaval in the politics of the UK. So you would think there would be widespread interest in arguing out what new arrangements can be put in place to see that the scandal is never repeated. But the debate just refuses to take off.

In Parliament : After coming to a rough and ready deal with the leaders of the other parliamentary parties, the Government is pushing through a Parliamentary Standards Bill to try to put the matter to rest. Its Commons' Stages are being rushed through in three days - yesterday, today and tomorrow. If yesterday's proceedings are anything to go by, then only a handful of MPs are themselves willing to contribute to the very matter that has dominated their lives in recent times. The silence is particularly deafening on the Labour side. Excluding the 7 speeches by Front Bench and minor party spokesmen (doing their duty slots) there were 16 speeches by bank-benchers. Only four of these came from the Labour side. The Government side of the House was almost empty. Not one Labour left-winger made as much as an intervention, let alone seeking to speak or even (as far as I could see) showing their presence.

The Committee On Standards in Public Life : Sir Christopher Kelly's Committee is in a peculiar position. They are conducting the inquiry into MPs' expenses and the main three parties leaders have in the past promised to act on whatever the Committee finally recommends. Yet by the Committee report in the autumn, the new Parliamentary Standards Bill is intended to be an Act. So Sir Christopher's recommendations will have to be stuck onto this measure. In the meantime, the media pays little or no attention to what parliament and Sir Christopher's Committee are doing. Nor do the medias' expert commentators seem to come up with any ideas of their own. (If anyone has come across exceptions to this rule, then I would pleased to be supplied with the links).

In the meantime, the Committee on Standards in Public Life has finally managed to publish 102 of the submissions which have been put to it. But that leaves more than 500 submissions still unpublished. Yet some of the material they are sitting on might just hold the efficient secret that will help them resolve this conundrum.

Update 8.15 pm : Two items of significance which have been highlighted during the Commons' debates on the Parliamentary Standards Bill to date appear here and here.

Burying Good News

2009-06-27T11:22:00.000+01:00

The saturation coverage of Michael Jackson's death has meant that the bulk of the media have been able to bury the good news about the total victory of the unofficial strike by the workers at the Lindsey Oil Refinery.

Thanks to the Morning Star. however, we can discover that all the 647 sacked workers have been reinstated, offers of new jobs are being made to the 51 workers whose forced redundancies sparked the original walk out on 11 June and no one is to be victimised for taking solidarity action.

This boost is just what the wider Labour Movement needs. No wonder it only makes headlines in the Morning Star.

I Told Them So - 14 Years Ago

2009-06-25T17:13:00.002+01:00

In 1995 I appeared before the First Inquiry that was ever conducted by the Committee on Standards in Public Life. It was then known as the Nolan Committee and was starting off life with a general enquiry into "Standards In Public Life". I concentrated upon matters such as the need for MPs to be full-time and to have no paid outside interests whatsoever and never to have long parliamentary recesses.

It is this Committee which is now chaired by Sir Christopher Kelly that is conducting the Inquiry Into MPs' Expenses. However back in 1995, I did briefly raise a matter that is central to its current investigations. I was responding to a point raised by a committee member, Anne Warburton who is now I believe a Dame. It went -

HARRY BARNES..... I do not like the current system in which there are allowances for Members of Parliament to determine, both in terms of their accommodation in London under a London allowance and in terms of other work they do, that they have control of those amounts and determine who they employ and generally how that money is to be used.

It also is taken very much on trust by the House authorities when people fill in forms to say they are using money in various ways without a great deal of checking taking place, on the grounds that everyone is an Honourable Member and therefore to be trusted in what they do. I think it would be much better if there were specific areas of facilities that were supplied by the Commons authorities, both in a Member's constituency and in the Commons itself. So that it should determine the size staff that a Member of Parliament should have. That staff should have to have suitable qualifications in order to do that job. But then the Member should be able to select, because he (sorry, should have added "or she" HB.) has got people who have political interests that he wishes to be associated with, as to who it is who does that work on their behalf. But I do not think that the business of filling in allowance forms and therefore having control of the finances oneself within a restricted area is something that is useful for MPs to be involved in. Some MPs make very good use of those arrangements and extend them very very considerably. But a system that you can use can also be rather abused and used very fully. I think it would be better if there were systems that were put into operation that would help to run MPs as well. It might be that some MPs actually emerge with rather limited experience in terms of running office facilities and organisations. If there are structures that are expected to operate, people who are appointed to them, then to some extent initially they may begin to run the MP but the MP then should come to be in control of that situation. The more they are in touch with their constituents' concerns or interests, then the better they are at knowing what to do.

ANNE WARBURTON. Mr Barnes, I think that I must leave it to colleagues who know that life in Parliament to ask further about you ideas of the organisation of work. But you have in your letter, used the word "abuse", that you think the allowance system - I think you said - "is" rather than just "can be" abused. I think that, it seems to me to come within the heading of - I don't like the word - "sleaze". So I feel I ought to ask you a little bit more on that front. Are you saying that you actually are aware of abuse which does take place. (Note : I had not in fact used the claim about abuse in the letter I had sent to the Committee, but I had used the following term in my above comment - "can also be abused" HB.)

HARRY BARNES. No. Maybe I have worded it rather strongly. It is just that the system is such that the forms are filled in and claims are made. Some areas require specific backing because money has been spent on a copying machine or something of that nature and the information has to be put forward. On other occasions it is claims for allowances for accommodation etc. and I know of no arrangements by which that is checked as to whether it operates, or any receipts begin to be required. That seems to me to be problematic and puts some temptation in people's way. Given that we are talking about a random sample of human beings, it is likely to be succumbed to in various cases." (We now know that although I never had any evidence to back me up that my speculation has since been shown to be correct in a number of high profile cases HB.)

CURRENT DEVELOPMENTS

In the above I indicate that it would be better if a system of expenses was replaced by a controlled system which provided needed services to allow MPs' to do their job. This is the basis of my current submission to the Committee. Unfortunately, my viewpoint has not yet been placed on its web-site.

My immediate step is to see if I can get anyone to raise my concerns during the discussions on the new Parliamentary Standards Bill in the Commons on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. But don't hold your breath.

Still Ducking The Answer

2009-06-24T21:28:00.001+01:00

The handling of the expenses' scandal gets stranger and stranger. Just look at the position of the three main sets of actors.

1.THE GOVERNMENT.

Yesterday the Government published its Parliamentary Standards Bill. According to Harriett Harman in a statement to the Commons, this Bill is directed at establishing "a new, wholly independent authority to take over the role of the Fees Office in authorising Members' claims, overseeing a new allowances system, following from proposals from the Committee on Standards in Public Life and maintaining the Register of Members Interests". The Bill is presumably intended to be passed into law quickly to seek to respond to public anger over MPs' expenses. So the aim seems to be to have it passed into law before the Commons goes into recess on 21 July.

Yet the Committee on Standards in Public Life is not expected to issue its report and recommendations until the autumn, so the Commons will then be unable to act on these until after it returns from the lengthy recess on 12 October. If the Committee recommends something entirely different to the road the Government is now going down, what then ? For the leadership of the three main parties are all signatories to a blank cheque agreeing to act on the Committee's recommendations come what may.

Or has it already been established that the Committee will act in conformity with what the Government is now doing? If so, that makes the current enquiry rather restricted as to what it can recommend. My own proposals, therefore, don't stand even a theoretical chance of being adopted as they would need the new Parliamentary Standards Bill to be mainly scrapped and for a fresh bit of legislation to be introduced. For I don't want a new expenses' regime. I want the present set-up to be replaced by a new system entirely which provides services instead of the filling in of allowance forms. Perhaps the Government never realised that such an alternative was possible. Which is understandable as Gordon's staff haven't even acknowledged the letter I sent him on all of this at the end of last month.

2. SIR CHRISTOPHER KELLY'S COMMITTEE.

His Committee on Standards in Public Life is currently ploughing through the submissions it has received and also has a set of evidence sessions to complete by 16 July. It also has to keep an eye on what the Government, Parliament, the Daily Telegraph and the rest of the media (who keep trying to play catch-up) are up to. The Committee did manage to publish a further single submission today, making the current total 74. The trouble being that they hold over more than 500 other submissions which have been in their possession since the final date for these on 5th July. At this rate my submission could emerge early in 2011.

3. THE DAILY TELEGRAPH.

They have produced acres of details on MPs expenses and call for more and more openness - that is, until we start to read the small print. In their lead editorial today when the Government's new Bill calls for more information to be provided about MPs' outside connections and earnings they state - "Yes, voters have the right to know what their MPs do outside of Parliament, but if the level of detail that must be declared proves intrusive as is planned, it will drive out high-quality people, or inhibit them from standing in the first place." It sees the move to publish such information as, shock-horror, being directed almost exclusively at Conservative MPs. It sounds like redacting to me.

They could, of course, put this argument and their other thoughts to Sir Christopher's Committee. But I don't think they have. If they had been amongst the backlog of the 500 plus unpublished submissions, then they do have a newspaper in which they can push their ideas. After all it has been full with nothing else but expenses details for some seven weeks now. If anyone has a duty, therefore, to tell us how to solve the problem over MPs' expenses then it is them.

After all even I have made this submission. If it ever takes off there is an interesting position which would be available under the Government's new Bill which is to set up an "Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority". One of its five members has to be someone "who has been (but is no longer) a member of the House of Commons". I wonder if they will pay expenses!

What Standards And When?

2009-06-23T13:35:00.001+01:00

I am becoming increasingly worried about the work of the Committee on Standards in Public Life in relation to its current inquiry into MPs' expenses. It is the key body which can recommend a new watertight system to replace the current and much abused arrangements. All three major political parties in parliament are committed to accepting its findings. Yet is it up to the job?

First of all it called for evidence to be submitted to it for its enquiry and gave the closing date as 5 June, which is 18 days ago. By that time it had published 71 submissions on its web-site. As it was holding its first hearing on 16 June and was questioning Harriet Harman the Leader of the House and her opposite numbers Alan Duncan and David Heath from the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, it rushed out evidence from the Government and the Lib-Dems that morning. Evidence from the Conservative Party Leadership having been published earlier. But up to now no more of the outstanding evidence has been published.

I complained about the fact that my own evidence had not emerged and received this following reply from the Committee's Business Manager -

Thank you for your email of 13 June. We have received over 600 submissions to date and therefore there is a backlog of submissions that need to be uploaded onto the website.
Please accept our apologies for this delay but we are working our way through this.

When will the 500 plus outstanding submissions be published? Who do they come from? Of the mere 73 published to date 33 are from MPs, one from an ex-MP and one from the Parliamentary Labour Party (to add to the three submissions considered at the Committee's first hearing). But of those published none come from the Daily Telegraph or the media who have given the expenses' scandal such detailed coverage. I would like to know if they have submitted evidence which is still in the pipe-line. If not, I would like them to explain why not?

A second matter which concerns me is that I have asked the Committee that when it gets round to publishing my submission, if it will add the evidence I gave to it when it held its very first enquiry. For the volume they published this in is not available on the Internet. I gave this evidence no-less than 14 years ago, on 15 January 1995. I raised the point that the expenses system "could be rather abused" and, off the top of my head made some suggestion as to how this could be tackled - although this wasn't particularly the subject matter of their first enquiry. My current submission which I placed on my blog here is in line with the case I put to them then. If they don't publish my submission soon nor add the 1995 evidence, then I will need to type this key extract from the past up and place it on this blog. But this is no substitute for the real thing.

Note 1 : the photo is an old one and I am in the thick of it. But its not 14 years old, because I am sat on the Government side.

Note 2 : two more MPs' submissions have just been placed on the web-site as they are appearing in front of today's hearing. There are still over 500 outstanding submissions awaiting publication.

Michael Martin And Me

2009-06-22T11:55:00.001+01:00

I owe a considerable debt to Michael Martin. He played a major role in helping to save the few brain cells I have left when I had a stroke in the Commons in 1998.

He was Deputy Speaker at the time and when he saw the condition I was in he immediately helped me into his car and rushed me to the Accident and Emergency provision at St. Thomas's Hospital.

He brought Dennis Skinner with him. It was late in the day as the Commons' was moving towards its adjournment, yet Martin and Dennis kept a watch over me in the hospital for two hours until my son had been contacted and travelled to St Thomas's to take over the vigil.

I have others that I am greatly indebted to at that time. These include Dennis who also contacted my wife by phone and an attendant at the Commons' Chamber who looked after me and helped me down difficult flights of stairs. Then there was, of course, the magnificent staff at the hospital and the attention of my son and of my wife. Ann quickly made it from our home to London, not just to help me with my physio exercises but to take over as my Constituents' de-facto MP for several weeks.

Yet the person who took determined action at a crucial stage was Michael.

I hope that it is not just from a sense of gratitude that I resent the fact that lesser parliamentarians helped to hound him out of office when they foolishly thought that this would help save their own embarrassment. They did not know that when you try to feed someone to the wolves, that it only makes the animals more bold.

Michael handled the Commons' far differently than seen from the edited TV snippets which were used against him recently. He mixed with MPs at Westminster in a way that no Speaker in history has ever done, for he broke down the barrier that had hidden his predecessors within the Speaker's quarters. When he held receptions and meetings in his own rooms he acted with dignity, intelligence and kindness and always brought the best out of others.

He has my eternal gratitude. This might not matter for most people, but I hope that in a small way it matters to Michael - as it does for me.

MPs' Expenses : What Is The Answer?

2009-06-19T15:00:00.008+01:00

Nothing can seriously move and develop in parliamentary politics in the United Kingdom until the current utterly discredited expenses system is replaced by an open and clear alternative. Yet I see little detailed discussion taking place as to what that alternative should be. Perhaps I have missed out on this and have instead just been carried away by the deluge of negative criticism about MPs which has appeared in the media. I am not for banning this outcry. But I do feel that when the media shouts and yells, it also has a responsibility to analyse, debate and recommend.

Everything in the meantime is being left in the hands of the Inquiry into MPs' Expenses which is being run by Sir Christopher Kelly's Committee on Standards in Public Life (see above photo). Perhaps the media and those who see themselves as "opinion leaders" are just following the leaders of our existing three main parliamentary parties in saying that they will accept whatever Sir Christopher's Committee comes up with.

This does, however, mean that we should be focusing our attention on the Committee's investigations and seeking to influence its outcome. The three main parliamentary parties have, of course, put in their own submissions and their spokespersons have given evidence at the Committee's opening hearing. I don't know whether the Daily Telegraph, the rest of the outspoken media, Esther Rantzen and our network of noisy opinion leaders have done the same.

One problem has arisen since the Committee made 5th June the closing date for submission about MPs' expenses. Up to then it had published 71 such submissions on its web-site. Two more appeared on the morning of 8th June - as these were from the Government and the Lib Dems who were appearing before the Committee that day. But although the Committee holds more than 500 more submissions none of these have emerged although they were all received at least 2 weeks ago. Perhaps Esther's and the rest are in the backlog.

My own submission is certainly held up in the back-log, so I posted it here. Essentially, I propose getting rid of the expenses system altogether and replacing it with the provision of essential services for MPs to be run (or supervised) by an independent outside body. We are now in an age of key-board technology and such a system is by no means beyond us.

To get the debate at the level it needs to be, we need to concentrate on Sir Christopher's enquiry and get him to update his web-site. If you are desperate, there is always my comment box to turn to.

Note 25 June : The first eight comments on this thread have nothing to do with the above subject matter and can fruitfully be ignored.

Note 28 June : There is now a ninth comment which fits the above pattern and given the obsessions of the "Coventrian" (whoever he or she is) there could in time be more.

My Submission On MPs' Expenses

2009-06-15T14:32:00.003+01:00

The closing date for submissions to the "Inquiry Into MPs' Expenses" which is being run by the Committee on Standards in Public Life was 5 June. I have been informed by the Business Manager of the Committee that over 600 submissions have been received. Yet since the Committee opened a web-site for the publication of these on 14 May, only 73 submissions have so far been posted. And tomorrow sees the Committee's first evidence session!

I had felt that I should not publish my own submission on this blog until it had first been posted on the Committee's web-site. But that could take some time given the current rate of progress. The Committee's Report could be out before then. So it appears below, less my home address and signature.

2 June, 2009.

Dear Committee Members,

This is a submission for your inquiry into MPs’ expenses.

I was the Member of Parliament for North East Derbyshire from 1987 to 2005. I gave evidence to your Committee in 1995, which appears on pages 66 to 70 in Volume 2 of your Committee’s First Report (Cm 2850-II). *

Throughout my parliamentary career I was obliged to operate under an expenses system which I always felt was fundamentally flawed. Yet I had to make use of it if I was to be in a position to undertake both my parliamentary and constituency work. Although the remit of your Committee’s initial enquiry in 1995 differs from that of your current enquiry, you will see that some of my concerns were expressed in my earlier evidence.

I always felt that rather than the responsibility being placed upon MPs to operate expenses’ claims, matters should have been transferred instead to a body equivalent to that which provides facilities for MPs on the Commons’ Estate. I have come to see that this body should be controlled by an independent outside body, or even run by that outside organisation. This new body should be responsible for providing a list of services which MPs could draw from. This approach forms the basis of the points I make below.

(1) Initially I will draw from my own experiences, although I am aware that MPs undertake their duties in a wide variety of differing ways. Changes may also have been made in some of these types of arrangements since 2005.

A great deal of my time as an MP was taken up with desk work. At Westminster, I was provided with a range of facilities on the Commons’ Estate for this purpose. These provisions did not come out of my expenses, apart from the peculiar arrangements under which the use of House of Commons paper and pre-stamped envelopes and cards are debited against an MP.

Eventually I was provided with a suitable room off the Upper Committee Corridor. It contained two desks, two typists’ chairs, two lamps, a telephone, a computer with a printer, a notice board, four filing cabinets, a book case, a storage unit, a waste paper bin and an easy chair which could be used also as a bed (for at one time the Commons’ had numbers of all night sittings). Initially, I shared the room with Ken Livingstone who was then an MP. But he eventually moved out into an office elsewhere on the Commons’ Estate. The second desk which he left behind proved useful, as it provided a base for members of my staff from my Constituency if they visited the Commons. There were also copying machines available for use on matters related to my work. These were at the end of the corridor where my room was situated.

An Assistant of mine who was based elsewhere in the Commons worked for me on Parliamentary rather than Constituency matters. He had a room of his own with its own separate set of facilities. Yet he also needed to visit my office and undertook desk work there on occasions.

When I ceased to be an MP, the rooms of my Assistant and myself and the contents as described above were all taken back for the Commons’ Estate. For they had owned them all along. I merely removed the considerable number of private files, parliamentary papers and books which I owned.

I feel that similar facilities should be provided for an MP in his or her own Constituency on the same pattern which operates on the Commons’ Estate. This would replace the need for an MP to be provided with an Office Costs Allowance. When an MP retires, the facilities he or she had used would remain in the hands of the body which had provided them in the first place.

To ensure that an MP’s demands for office facilities have limits placed upon them, he or she would draw them down from lists showing the range of provisions available and these would need to contain details of the maximum combinations of provisions which could be obtained. In some cases perhaps in rural constituencies, an MP and their Constituency Staff might prefer to work from their own homes. Suitable arrangements could be made for this.

In other cases, the MP might wish to set up a separate Constituency office. They could make recommendations for the hire of such accommodation to those running the scheme. This body would need to ensure that the MP’s request met their own requirements in terms of both costs and accessibility for local constituents. The relevant body would then be responsible for the payment of the rent, rates and office running costs.

(2). All other expenses provisions for MPs would also be ended and further regimes of service provisions would be put in their place.

a. An MP’s Staff appointments could be restricted to cover, say, no more than 100 hours total work a week. Whilst the MP could recommend who he or she wished to appoint, the body running the scheme would be responsible for checking that nominees were suitably qualified for their posts. This body would also be responsible for determining such Staffs’ contractual arrangements, salary scales and eventual redundancy arrangements. It would itself handle the finances involved. It would also instigate occasional checks to ensure that such Staff were performing their contracted duties.

b. Rented furnished or hotel accommodation in London would be available for MPs from Constituencies outside of the Capital. Initially MPs would themselves need to make provisional arrangements for such accommodation, within a set price limit. The contractual arrangements and payments would, however, be operated by the new body. When an MP retired or sort to move into fresh accommodation, that body would decide whether it would itself purchase the facility for potential use by another or a future MP.

c. An MPs travel costs in pursuit of their constituency and parliamentary duties would also be met by the new body. Rail warrants, air travel cards, bus passes, and electronic cards for the purchase of petrol and the use of taxis and phones would be issued on request. These would all be issued and controlled by the newly established body. It would be possible to monitor the use of such documents and cards and to place limits on their use.

d. All the above services (and any similar requirements such as the booking of rooms to hold MPs surgeries) would be provided by the new body who should be run from the Commons and would itself be subject to inspection by an outside and independent organisation, who would audit the new bodies accounts, issue an annual report and make recommendations on the development of the above system.

e. There would be no communication allowances for MPs . Local media outlets covering an MP’s Constituency would be encouraged to carry news items about their MPs’ activities and work load. There would also be available a free supply of Commons’ paper and pre-stamped envelopes and cards, sufficient to cover an MP’s needs for Constituents’ cases and for wider parliamentary issues; but restricted to such usages only.

(3). No provisions for “second homes” would be in operation other than those mentioned in 2(b) above. This arises from the following proposal. It is, however, a proposal which is made for reasons which extend beyond those of your Committee’s remit on the expenses of MPs . It involves the only constitutional change which I propose. I do, however, suggest an alternative to this at the close of this section, which falls within your remit.

No-one would be permitted to register to vote other than where they held their sole or main place of residence. When they change their sole or main place of residence, their electoral registration should automatically be transferred to the appropriate electoral register. A requirement for standing for Parliament in a specific Constituency would then be that the person concerned appears on that Constituency’s Electoral Register. If an elected MP then moved their sole or main place of residence outside of the Constituency they had been elected for, they would lose their parliamentary seat. Exceptions to this would, however, be in operation for the Prime Minister and Members of his Cabinet whilst they held their posts.

The main reason behind this proposal is to facilitate the election of MPs who will tend to have roots in the community they represent. Whilst the proposal will not exclude newcomers in a community from standing for parliament, it will aid local representation. As a spin off, it will end the need to cover the costs of any MPs accommodation other than for direct parliamentary purposes as in 2b above.

Whilst this proposal is my “ideal” solution, for the purposes of ending the expenses regime on “second homes” outside of London these entitlements could merely be withdrawn. Successful parliamentary candidates in these areas would then (in most practical circumstances) be required to find their own means of living within or near the Constituencies they represented.

(4). MPs should be expected to work full-time covering their parliamentary and constituency duties and to be motivated by a sense of public duty. Whilst these objectives can’t be legislated for, they can be facilitated in the following ways.

a. An MP’s job should be a full-time one. The taking up of further employment or outside paid interests should be banned. It is hard to see how an MP can effectively undertake his or her constituency and parliamentary duties on a part-time basis. If a ban on the holding of paid outside interests is not put in place, then at least MP’s annual tax returns should be published so that their constituents can judge their actions and priorities. An MP’s tax returns would, of course, no longer include a parliamentary expenses section if my earlier proposals were acted upon.

b. Except when an MP is ill, on short annual holidays or is dealing with a personal emergency such as the death of a close relative, no-one from their staff should act on their behalf as if they were a “substitute MP”. Normally the MP’s staff should assist the MP in their work and not act as a replacement for them. This is a matter for the body I wish to see established to check upon when investigating whether an MP’s staff are fulfilling (but not exceeding) their contractual commitments.

c. The time-table for the Commons should no longer allow for lengthy summer breaks of 12 to 13 weeks. Normally, the Commons should not sit during August. For the rest of the year (outside of emergency sessions) it should sit for a total of at least 30 weeks, but never be in recess for more than a fortnight. This time-table is designed to ensure that an MP will always have a reasonable access to parliament to pursue their constituent’s concerns and for what they see as other emergency needs. This adds to the need for full-time MPs .

5. Whilst my proposal in (3) above would end the practice of MPs spending public funds on second homes outside of London, the sweep of my proposals are not directed at finding means to reduce the overall costs of providing the nation with parliamentary representation. They are directed instead at ensuring that public funds are directed at providing needed services and that the schemes in operation will no longer be open to abuse by (or be burdensome to) MPs . For instance, under my proposals no MP would be in a position to ever acquire any Commons’ financed property nor facilities which they would then own.

6. A breakdown of the costs of supplying services for each MP will need to be published annually.

7. With the end of an expenses regime, the myth that MPs are self-employed for tax purposes will end and they can than be classified as being employee’s of the House of Commons.

8. Some of the principles I have raised were included in my evidence to your Committee in 1995. The major change in my stance since then is that in 1995 I was opposed to any outside supervision of parliament on these matters. This is because I am a strong believer in the need for an MP to enjoy full parliamentary privileges in order to be able to pursue his or her constituents’ interests and for wider political concerns. Recent revelations (which I knew nothing about earlier) have, however, convinced me that such privileges are inappropriate when it comes to the regulation of an MP’s individual financial operations.

Under my proposals MPs’ expenses would be zero, yet they would be provided with the services they need under a system which none of them could abuse. MPs’ costs beyond their salaries would be covered in a similar way to those in operation for Government Ministers, although they would remain much less costly. There would be no need to increase MPs’ salaries as a means round the current expenses’ scandal.

Yours sincerely,

Harry Barnes.

c.c. Gordon Brown MP.(I have made some minor amendments to a copy of the above which I posted to 10 Downing Street on 31 May, 2009.) **

* I have asked the Committee to attach my former evidence to the above.

** I sent a covering letter with this, but there has been no reply.

No Comment

2009-06-14T12:23:00.000+01:00

Sailed past these last week !

Only Inquiring

2009-06-13T20:35:00.001+01:00

71 submissions made to the "Inquiry Into MPs' Expenses" have been published on the web-site of the Committee on Standards in Public Life. These include submissions dated 5 June, which was their closing date. Unfortunately, my own signed submission posted on 2 June and then reinforced via an email copy sent on 3 June has not yet been published. Why not? After 10 days, perhaps we need an Inquiry into the Inquiry.

See here for the other submissions.

Standards In Public Life

2009-06-05T12:21:00.006+01:00

Today is the closing date for written submissions to the Inquiry into MPs' Expenses which is being undertaken by the Committee on Standards in Public Life.

I posted my own submission to them on 2nd June, having posted a pre-copy to 10 Downing Street on 31 May. My submission is comprehensive and totals 2,222 words. It should eventually be placed by the Standards Committee on their web-site here.

In a separate email I have asked for evidence I gave to their Committee back in 1995 to be appended to my current submission for it contains certain points which are relevant to their current inquiry. This earlier evidence appears on pages 66 to 70 in Volume 2 of the Committee's very first report (Cm 2850-II). Unfortunately, there seems to be no access to my earlier evidence on the internet and I had myself to copy it from a volume held in the library at Sheffield University. This is an extra reason for my asking the Standards Committee to append it to my current submission.

It seemed to me to be clear that what has been needed ever since the expenses crisis broke, is that a system has to be put in place which provides essential services which are needed for MPs to act fully and properly on behalf of their constituents (and for the nation) yet is under strict control so that it can never again be abused.

Instead we have had a whole host of moves which have been entirely irrelevant to what is the essential and prior need. These nonsenses have included the removal of the Speaker, attempts to remove the Prime Minister, calls for a General Election, proposals for changes in our constitutional arrangements, a persistent and irresponsible media hype and (worst of all) a likely boost for political extremism.

Let us first get on with what is the immediate need, which the Standard's Committee will hopefully help us to apply our (and our MPs) minds to. (Update 7.30 pm - it needs, however, to be recognised that by 19 May or so, 20 MPs' had made their own submissions to the Inquiry.)

Remember

2009-06-04T12:00:00.000+01:00

Hat Tip : The NUM

IRAN AND IRAQ

2009-06-04T11:37:00.000+01:00

Eric Lee of "Labour Start" is circulating an email which contains the following important items about an area of my special interest - the Trade Union Movements of Iran and Iraq.

IRAN: ALL OUT FOR 26 JUNE GLOBAL SOLIDARITY ACTION DAY

Four global union organizations representing over 170 million workers have called a worldwide action day on June 26 to demand justice for Iranian workers. Demonstrations will take place outside Iranian embassies and consulates to protest the ongoing denial of rights and arrests of trade unionists within the country. Please visit the campaign's new website at http://www.justiceforiranianworkers.org/ and make sure to click on the 'Get Active' link.

IRAQ: VICTORY FOR THE TEACHERS' UNION

Thanks very much to the 4,856 of you who signed up to support the campaign we launched on LabourStart in April in support of the Iraqi teachers' union. According to reports we've received, "the union won a legal battle against the government on 7 May. The landmark ruling against the government decision ... to take control of the ITU was a symbolic victory and stopped the government move to dismiss the ITU's democratically elected leadership." The struggle continues.

One Of The Efforts For Change In Iran

2009-06-01T15:23:00.000+01:00

See Azarmehr and his video link.

The NUM On The BNP

2009-05-31T11:53:00.000+01:00

Here is a free, special edition of the NUM journal "The Miner" which no-one should miss.

The Kidnapping Of Children In Iraq

2009-05-26T11:40:00.001+01:00

See this blog item from Baghdad.

The Newcastle Police Suspect The Culprits Are Sunderland Fans

2009-05-24T19:47:00.004+01:00

SEE HERE

Excuse the triumphalism. I am a Sunderland Fan and I am obviously greatly relieved that Newcastle United and Middlesborough have just been relegated from the Premier League rather than the Mackems.

But unlike many Sunderland Fans I am not massively opposed to our team's fellow North East rivals. I would be over the moon if Middlesborough were Premiership runners up and the Black and Whites finished third, as long as Sunderland took the title.

When I was 15 I had a very happy Easter watching Sunderland defeat Huddersfield Town 7-1 at Roker Park on the Good Friday, Newcastle defeat Man City 1-0 at St James' Park the following day and Middlesborough defeat Newcastle 2-1 at Ayresome Park on the Easter Monday. That seemed to me to be the natural order of things.

Mind you Len Shackleton played for Sunderland in those days and is the footballer I have seen play more games than any other. Having played for both the Black and Whites and their Red and White striped rivals, his take on the rivalry was "I'm not biased when it comes to Newcastle, I'm not bothered who beats them!". Not even Aston Villa, I assume.

A Sheffield FC Blather

2009-05-15T16:37:00.004+01:00

"Club 1857" is the Sheffield FC Supporters' Club. Its name arises from the facts that (a) Sheffield FC is known as "The Club" and (b) it was founded in 1857 and is recognised as being the oldest football club in the world.

Yesterday "Club 1857" held a Presentation Evening in a packed room at the White Swan in Dronfield. Before presentations were made to those whom the members had voted for as players of the season, we had a fine question and answer session with Dave McCarthy and Lee Walshaw.

Dave was a highly successful Manager of Sheffield FC for 10 years, whose final game in charge was a great end to his career. I reported on the match here. Over the recent season Dave has been the team's Operations Director and a Committee Member. Lee was Assistant Manger for 7 years and is now the Community Development Manager. Sheffield FC have a proud record of community involvement.

The question and answers were frank, entertaining and great fun.

Chris Dolby, the Sheffield FC Manager then made the presentations to the successful players. Mat Outram was third choice, Steve Wooley was second choice and Paul Smith was the winner. They have all had a fine season and were also my top choices.

I am, however, completely biased in favour of Paul Smith (Smudge) - see photo. We both lived at one time in the same street of miners' houses at Easington Colliery in County Durham. Both of our father's being local miners. I am nearly 40 years older than Smudge and I had moved on before he was brought up in Baldwin Street at Easington. But he lived just a few houses away from my parents, whom I visited regularly.The pit at Easington was closed in 1993 and many of the former miners' houses have been knocked down. Smudge's former home has gone, but for the moment my former home still stands. When I observed this on a recent visit to Easington, I was keen to tell Smudge my findings. But he knew all about this as he had visited Easington even more recently then I had. His parents now live elsewhere in what is still known as a Colliery.(The photo above is of my late father, myself and next door's dog in the yard in Baldwin Street.)

Yet it isn't just bias that made me vote for Smudge. Every Sheffield FC supporter knows about his abilities. When it comes to taking free kicks, we all know that it isn't so much that he can "Bend them like Beckham", but more that "Beckham can almost bend them like Smudge".

Sheffield FC finished in a mid-table position. On the surface this seems to be a disappointment as they just missed out on promotion the previous season - see here. But Sheffield FC had been a team which pulled in a great deal of sponsorship. When the credit crunch hit much of this financial backing went. Players were transferred and replaced, with some being drawn on from the youth and reserve teams. At first the Club suffered a dip, but then it developed. We have high hopes for the future, especially as it is our League rivals who will now be the ones to trim their sails and try to follow our pattern.

Note : By clicking into the "Sheffield FC" label at the close of this thread you will see that I used to provide regular reports of their games and activities. These started with a report of a 2-1 victory over Mickleover Sports in August 2006. They ended with a game against Lincoln City last November which was abandoned due to fog at half time when we were leading 1-0. I posted 55 such items in that period.

There are two main reason why I have dropped such reporting. First of all, Sheffield FC's activities are catered for admirably by (a) the Club's official web-site here, and (b) a supporters' group web-site here. Secondly, I needed to find some space to pursue other matters. I am trying to write a political biography which involves research and is time-consuming. (In fact, I have a day booked at the Durham Records Office to research matters about Smudge's Easington Colliery). Then fellow Sheffield FC supporter Martin Brader has set up a blog for a Labour Party Discussion Group which operates in Dronfield. As I am responsible for organising these meetings, I need to make regular contributions to his blog which is called "Dronfield Blather".

So my bits and pieces on Sheffield FC are likely to be restricted for some time.

100 Not Out - Labour In North East Derbyshire

2009-05-12T12:23:00.000+01:00

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.

Labour Moves Left

2009-05-05T19:16:00.001+01:00

Hat Tip to Fat Man On A Keyboard

May Day Greetings From The Iraqi Communist Party

2009-05-01T15:35:00.003+01:00

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.