Category: Politics

By Elliott West

“Success isn’t about how much money you make; it’s about the difference you make in people’s lives.”

Michelle Obama

Introduction

She can inspire so many. A black woman who has achieved so much in life and continues to help so many achieve their dreams. Someone who lights up a room with her presence and has sat at the heart of the US legal system and government. She is, of course, Michelle Obama, the wife of the former president Barack.The first African American First Lady who dedicated her life to supporting military families and ending child obesity. An advocate for poverty awareness, education, nutrition, physical activity and healthy eating. A lady whom the American media loves to interview and who has continuously been polled as the most admired woman in America. A lawyer and a writer, Michelle is like a flower that never fails to bloom.

This hugely inspiring woman describes herself as foremost a mother to Malia and Sasha. Someone very keen to separate her public life from her private one. The concept of family is hugely important to her and the values that come with being a parent were pivotal to her own family upbringing. Michelle fought adversity and succeeded in life but she knows how many black Americans haven’t been so fortunate. Living life on a shoestring, hand to mouth and trying to keep their heads above water. An eternal grind where many drown in debt and become reliant on the welfare cheque that barely feeds them day-to-day. A political system with many deaf ears and one where presentation outweighs conviction.

The Road to Success 

Born in 1964 in Chicago, Illinois, Michelle LaVaughn Robinson was brought up in a brick bungalow on the south side of the city. Her father Fraser was a pump operator for the Chicago Water Department. A father who lived with multiple sclerosis from a young age but was determined to never miss a day’s work. Her mother Marian, a stay-at-home mother, successfully juggled motherhood with the day-to-day running of the household. A bungalow that was filled with love, laughter and plenty of life lessons.

Determined to give their daughter the best start in life, Michelle attended public school, Princetown University and Havard Law School. An education that prepared her for the US legal profession. Employed by the law firm, Sidley & Austin in 1988, her eyes met across a crowded room with a distinguished man. Cupid’s arrow was fired and Michelle was instantly smitten. Barack would become her rock, soulmate and husband in 1992. A partner who fired her ambition through love and devotion. Yet her true calling would come a few years later when she pursued her love of the community. She served as an assistant commissioner of planning and development at Chicago City’s Hall and went on to become the founding executive director of the Chicago chapter of Public Allies, an AmeriCorps program that prepares youth for public service. In 1996, Michelle joined the University of Chicago as an Associate Dean of Student Services. A lady on a mission to bring the campus and community together. She developed the university’s first community service programme and as Vice President of Community and External Affairs for the University of Chicago Medical Centre, the volunteer rate skyrocketed.

The First Lady

If anyone thought Michelle was going to walk in her husband’s shadow when he was elected as the 44th President in 2009, they were far removed from the truth. This was the power base that she needed to really make a difference. Powerful campaigns ensued with Let’s Move, Joining Forces, Reach Higher and Let Girls Learn being her key efforts. US and global campaigns that really took the bull by the horns and strived to achieve where so many had failed. Some said she shouldn’t be involved in politics but why not? This woman has the burning desire that is often lacking in politics. Supporting economic stimulus, the 2009 Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. This was a First Lady who was often reduced to tears by  those that she met. Raw and horrific life experiences that she just wanted to help in any way she possibly could.

Yet some accused her of being a feminist nightmare, not concentrating on women’s issues, prioritising the trendiness of gardening and healthy eating over everything else. A lady who campaigned to bring back the kidnapped women and girls from Nigeria in 2014. Perhaps her key mistake was not running for President after the end of her husband’s second term in office. Instead she endorsed and campaigned for Hillary Clinton. Who knows what would happened if she had stood but I bet that the Donald Trump era certainly wouldn’t have happened.

Global and Chic

This lady of fashion who often wears the designers of the moment, has since toured the world, visiting countries such as Africa, China, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, and the United Kingdom. A lady who despite her stature, seems approachable and natural. A champion of LGBT rights, she has been compared to Jacqueline Kennedy and Barbara Bush and whose photographic naturalness has led her to be a subject of Vogue magazine. A presenter at the Oscars and Time magazines Person of the Year and was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 2021. A podcaster, writer and a regular on television comedies and chat shows, Michelle Obama continues to amaze and shine at the age of 60. 

By Elliott West

“The women’s efforts were brilliant. Without them, we would have been sunk long before we were, long before we were. They can organise, and the women can organise. There’s no two ways about it.”

A Welsh miner

Introduction

It lasted 11 months and 26 days, a miner’s strike where the very heart of the community was fought for. Yet beyond the well-known events of events that unfolded during this year of industrial strife, lies a powerful and spirited tale of the women who rose up and became the very definition of the ‘Coal Not Dole’ slogan. These spirited women accepted this challenge nationwide but for this piece, I want to concentrate on the firebrand women of the Welsh valleys. These ladies shunned the myth of staying at home and went to the very heart of the fight. Organising food parcels for numerous striking families and joining the men on the hazardous picket lines.

BBC Wales brilliantly depicted this female fight in the recent programme ‘Strike! The Women Who Fought Back’ concentrates on six Welsh women who were there and would do it all again in a breath. A battle that changed the course of their lives and fought with humour, humility and inner strength Welsh women who wanted to be seen and involved. My piece looks deeper into this fascinating story and shows how courageous these women were to keep Welsh mining communities going during one of the most tumultuous industrial battles in British history.

The Done Thing

Being a miner in Wales was a profession that was handed down through the generations. It was a job that your Great Grandfather, Grandfather and Father would all have done and the pit was the natural path to assume when you left school. A dangerous but loved job where you emerged at the end of a working day, caked in coal dust, weary, tired but knowing that you had done an honest day’s graft. So to have that birthright threatened with the prospect of being cast aside on a dole queue, was a future that few could stomach. They had families to support, and mortgages to pay and without a wage, the very action of being able to provide food for the family table was in danger. Thatcher’s Conservative government didn’t see this, they were devoid of empathy. 

This was a fight that they were determined to win and crush an enemy within that they saw as threatening the very core of the political establishment. Arthur Scargill was the instigator and his followers, an unruly mob who needed to be brought into line. To be hoodwinked back to work and shown that their fight was ultimately a lost cause. Only to have their jobs ripped out of their fingers a decade later when the pits were closed for good and the miners were thrown onto a desolate slagheap. Tumbleweed communities that would bear the scars of change for generations.

The Vital Link

The Welsh women in the mining communities already provided a vital role in the home lives of so many. They were the iron cog that kept the home going, juggling the pay packet to pay the bills and keep hot food on the table. Yet some couldn’t stomach the prospect of seeing their loved ones go without. Already employed as cooks, cleaners and office workers, they wanted to involve themselves and take up the mantle of the fight for social injustice. Those brave women who chose the path of activism saw past the fear of danger and set up soup kitchens, transformed community centres into places laden with sustenance, donated from across the globe, organised working groups and collected thousands of pounds to keep the movement going. Vital work that even Arthur Scargill went on to praise.

Donning t-shirts of support and shouting from the rooftops until their voices were hoarse, these Welsh women would go to the extremes of barricading themselves in mining buildings to scupper the supply of coal. They went on marches, gave speeches and stood on picket lines. These arduous women would sort through various vehicles such as a Mini Metro or a decommissioned ambulance to get the food to the mouths that needed it. It was an alternative welfare state that plugged the gap when the money wasn’t coming in. These busy bees would sort through the mountain of supplies and get them to communities in places like Neath and Swansea. So enraged was Margaret Thatcher by these actions that she tried to sever the cash supply. Yet she couldn’t fox these women as they got wind of it and withdrew the money from the bank and hid it under their beds.

A Helping Hand

“A crystallising moment for me was when Margaret Thatcher and Ian MacGregor described us as ‘the enemy within’. And I remember sitting there in front of the TV and thinking ‘Right you think I’m your enemy, I’ll be the best enemy you’ve ever had. You’ll be so sorry you even said that.”

Sian James

These Welsh women were emboldened by the support they received. A key ally was the LGBT community who came down in droves by bus, car and train to help the cause. A community that knew what it was like to be an outcast, joining marches, dancing the night away in community halls and taking the women to London to promote their fight on rallies as far as wide as on the street and key nightclub venues. These emboldened females would travel to places like Oxford University and hear the support from the students of the elite. An eye-opener that made many pursue their dreams after the strike, enrolling on degree courses and even standing as an MP. Sian James is one example.

This helping hand persuaded many husbands not to return to work and to stick out of the strike. In fact, Wales had one of the highest densities of striking miners during the strike. Communities were enraged by a government that didn’t understand the lives they led and how their concerns fell on deaf ears. These inhabitants of rows of terrace houses felt abandoned. A red wall that had years of economic decay inflicted on them. A constantly dripping tap of worry about where the next meal would come from and families forced to resort to higher purchases and purchases on a credit card. Concerns that ring true to this very day. A strike that severed communities and left many in an economic wasteland.

By Elliott West

“In politics, there are weathercocks and signposts. Weathercocks spin in whatever direction the wind of public opinion may blow them. Signposts stand true, tall, and principled. Signposts are the only people worth remembering in politics”.

Tony Benn

Introduction

It has been ten years since we lost one of the most brilliant parliamentarians that British politics ever witnessed. If you want an example of a conviction MP, you need to look no further than Tony Benn. A Labour Party politician who spoke from the heart and never feared speaking out about an issue that he felt passionate about. With a lit pipe and a steaming mug of tea never far from his sight, Benn dominated British politics for 51 years. A devout believer in the purpose of parliament, the mother of all parliaments, Westminster, Tony never feared getting to his feet to speak as a Minister or voicing his opinions from the back benches. A brilliant orator who captivated his audience on the House of Commons floor or a rally platform. An avid reader who charted his political journey in his numerous diaries. A political powerhouse who served in the Wilson and Callaghan governments.

Born to Serve

Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn was born in Westminster in 1925. The son of William and Margaret, Benn came from political stock. His father was a Liberal from 1906 and then a Labour MP from 1928. A father who received a hereditary peerage, becoming the 1st Viscount Stansgate. An MP, who crossed the floor in 1928, served as Secretary of State for India under Ramsay MacDonald until Labour’s landslide election victory in 1931. He also served as Secretary of State for Air in the coalition government during World War II. 

Tony’s mother, Margaret was a theologian, feminist and the founder president of the Congregational Federation. A member of the Church Militant and an impassioned supporter of the ordination of women. A devout Christian whose life was guided by the teachings of the Bible. A guiding light in Tony’s life and who had a profound effect on Benny. A son who became a committed Christian himself.

Tony’s background allowed him to enjoy the trappings of a private education. Educated at Eaton House, Westminster School and New College Oxford, Benny read philosophy, politics and economics. A President of the Oxford Union in 1947. A student who a five-year-old went to Downing Street and met Ramsay MacDonald. A meeting that later described “A kindly old gentleman [who] leaned over me and offered me a chocolate biscuit. I’ve looked at Labour leaders in a funny way ever since.”. He would also met in his childhood years, David Lloyd George and shook hands with Mahatma Gandhi. A member of the Home Guard during the early part of World War II, Tony would go on to serve as an aircraftsman and then as a Pilot Officer in South Africa and Southern Rhodesia.

Years in Parliament 

Tony Benn was first elected as an MP in a by-election in Bristol South East in 1950. A seat was vacated due to the ill health of Stafford Cripps. A seat that he won with the help of Anthony Crossland and so became the youngest MP of the time. Benn stood out in his early years, organising the 1963 Bristol Bus Boycott. A campaign that rallied against the Bristol Omnibus Company which had a colour bar at the time, refusing to employ Black British and Black Asian bud drivers. Tony vowed to not go on a bus and ride a bicycle instead until the fight was won. A fight that Harold Wilson put his support behind. Barred from the House of Commons in 1960 to speak after the death of his father and inheriting his peerage, Tony turned his back on his title and renounced it. Yet he would have to wait until the 1963 Peerage Act before he could formally relinquish the title, the first person to do so under the new legislation. He returned to the Commons the same year after winning a by-election again in Bristol South after he ousted the Conservative MP Malcolm St Clair from the seat.

A minister as Postmaster Master General in the 1964 Wilson government, Tony oversaw the opening of the Post Office Tower in London, the Post Bus service and Girobank. He also opposed pirate radio stations and their broadcasting in overseas waters. He would go on to be promoted to Minister of Technology in 1966. A position that saw him develop Concorde, the formation of International Computers Ltd. and the formation of British Leyland.

An opposer of Great Britain joining the EEC, Benn would have to wait until 1974 before he held office again. He held the post of Secretary of State for Industry, bringing in nationalised industry pay and the Health and Safety at Work Act in 1974. He was also Secretary of State for Energy. A candidate to succeed Harold Wilson when he resigned in 1976, Benn withdrew in the second ballot and supported Michael Foot. A leadership contest that James Callaghan would go on to win. He would later stand for the deputy leadership in 1981 but lost to Dennis Healey. He would stay on as Energy Secretary. A post that he held until 1979, promoting nuclear power and attacking the Labour government for abandoning their Socialist principles. A major factor that he felt led to the Winter of Discontent.

Shift to the Left 

By the end of the 1970s, Tony Benn’s politics veered firmly to the left. He seemed to have a youthful explosion, attacking anything that he felt was wrong. A supporter of devolution and Scottish independence, Tony would go on to be a thorn in the side of Margaret Thatcher during the Falklands Walk, Miner’s Strike and Community Charge debacle. and Tony Blair. on the invasion of Iraq. He was a highly vocal opponent of both the Gulf Wars and over time formed his politics of opposition that was branded Bennite.

Now an MP for Chesterfield since winning a by-election there in 1984, Benny strongly believed in representing his constituents and knew that his position remained at the mercy of the electorate. An impassioned supporter of the LGBT movement, nuclear disarmament and the opposition to the monarchy and the European Commission. Tony retired at the 2001 General Election, citing that he wanted to spend more time on politics. A frequent speaker at the Stop the War Coalition rallies, he would go to do regular television appearances, do a one-man stage show and was a passenger on the last flight of Concorde from New York to London in 2005. A true family man, Tony adored his family and was devastated when he lost his soulmate, his wife Caroline in 2000, an educationalist and writer.

The Benn Legacy

Tony Benn’s speeches are still played frequently on social media today. Agree or don’t agree with him, he was highly respected for his championing of causes and standing for social injustice. A man who would fight with his vast knowledge and vocabulary until the bitter end. A powerful voice that meant what it said and would jump through endless hoops to achieve his goals. He didn’t care if he was unpopular with the media because his true family was the British electorate. A rare breed of politician who has sadly almost disappeared today and who will always be lamented for his loss and the hole that was left in politics that came with his passing. Tony Benn died in 2014 at the age of 88. A political force whose spirit still burns bright in the Socialist movement.

By Elliott West

“Keir Starmer, this is for Gaza,” he said. “You will pay a high price for the role that you have played in enabling, encouraging and covering for the catastrophe presently going on in occupied Gaza, in the Gaza Strip”.

George Galloway

Introduction

George Galloway is a divisive figure, a politician who gains the vote by hoodwinking the electorate a shopping list of promises that he knows that he can’t ultimately deliver on. This comeback king who once acted out being a cat licking milk from a bowl at the feet of Rula Lenska on Celebrity Big Brother, has seized on the opportunity of a political implosion in Rochdale to peddle his rhetoric and win the seat with a an almost 6,000 majority. A seat that sadly became vacant after the loss of Sir Tony Lloyd.

Labour could have won this seat easily but made a fatal mistake. It rushed the selection process and didn’t vet the candidate properly. So it ended up with a Labour councillor who bought into the vile theories anti-semitism and verbalised them in the campaign. The party hierarchy looked weak by taking 48 hours to deselect the candidate. By which time, it was too late to remove Azhar Ali from the ballot paper. So his name remained with Labour next to it.

The Political Magician 

George Galloway is someone who loves to attack and has a deep rooted hate of the Labour Party. A party that he once represented but was ultimately expelled from in 2003 for his prominent opposition to the Iraq war. It would be quite easy to buy into his political beliefs if you were disillusioned by the state of British politics and by homing in on the Gazza conflict, he has picked up a large number of votes. Galloway has a track record of protest politics dating back to the two Iraq wars and when he has not been in Westminster, shouts from the pulpit sidelines. A disciple of old Labour, George has hated the direction that the party has lurched to. A massive critic of Tony Blair and Sir Keir Starmer, this wealthy politician portrays himself as a crusader for the working class, flitting from the Respect Party to his own formed party, the Workers Party of Britain. He even joined the London mayoral election in 2016 and came seventh.

The Dangers of Galloway 

“This is going to spark a movement, a landslide, a shifting of the tectonic plates, a score of parliamentary constituencies, beginning here in the north-west, in the West Midlands, in London, from Ilford to Bethnal Green and Bow”.

George Galloway

This Dundee born MP will only have one thing on his mind when he sits on the backbenchers. He wants to cause mayhem and make the most of the little time he has before a general election is called. Be under no doubt that this feisty Scotsman will be a needle in the side of the Labour Party and will use every opportunity to attack them from the back benches. A man who is no stranger to verbal and physical attacks and will heighten even further the need for MPs of all political persuasions to feel safe doing their job.

He returns after unseating his former party four times and representing his fourth constituency in 37 years. A one man band who aims to burrow under the political landscape and set off fireworks of opinion. He is a potential danger but his political momentum has to be swatted before it goes into free fall. A politician who will be emboldened by winning 12,335 votes-39.7 of the total vote in Rochdale and giving him a 5,697 vote majority. Throughout his campaign, Galloway bombarded the Rochdale electorate with campaign leaflets that aimed to attract voters with conflicting messages and attacks on Starmer.

Labour’s response of Galloway winning because Labour didn’t stand will wear thin. It’s a flimsy excuse that the Scotsman and the Conservative Party will be keen to capitalise on. To say that you will put a first class candidate up at the general election is a knee jerk reaction and if they don’t watch out, the damage could already be done. George Galloway won in the midst of a political mess and used intimidation to win it. A person who refuses to accept the state of Israel. The last time he won in Bradford West in 2012, Labour whips refused to give him an office and he set up a table in Portcullis House. A lone voice and an attention seeker, a pariah and conspiracy theorist.

Afterthoughts

George Galloway’s victory in Rochdale will send a seismic shockwave through politics. His aim is to field a number of candidates at the general election and grow his party. It’s a pipe dream but if politicians are not too careful, could loom as a reality. This is hate politics in its most vile form and must be stamped out before it gets out of control. Galloway is a brilliant orator but that’s as far as it goes. He is not the answer to our problems as he wants us to believe and uses rhetoric to disguise his empty promises and complete lack of policies. He rallies fear and discontent to get votes and capitalised on a self-inflicted wound for the Labour Party. Time will tell of what happens next in this nightmare scenario.

By Elliott West

“I want to help him to deliver the security and prosperity our country needs and be part of the strongest possible team that serves the United Kingdom and that can be presented to the country when the general election is held”.

David Cameron

Introduction

I have lived through many trials and tribulations in British politics in my 52 years and like the dying days of the John Major government in 1997, this current Conservative government looks like it is preparing itself for the opposition benches in the next 12 months when a general election is called. Many Conservative MPs are saving face and have announced their intention to not stand at the next election. With five Prime Ministers put up to lead the party, none have enriched this country in any shape or form, failing to understand how real society ticks. Instead, they continue to put power and personal ambition above what matters, fixing the nation. These posh boys only know what is going on in the tea rooms and bars in Westminster or the lavish surroundings of the private members’ clubs such as the Carlton Club. A party whose members have an average age of over 60.

I have never voted Conservative and never will. I have been a Labour Party member since the age of 17 and have stuck with them through the good and bad times. Yet it is equally important to hold whatever government of any political persuasion to account and I am sorry that these 13 years have been full of pain. From Cameron to Sunak, the British electorate has been inflicted with austerity, Brexit and Covid regulations that were broken by the Johnson government. The Cost of Living Crisis has been dealt with by giving payments that just scrape the surface and many in the public sector have felt the need to strike, just to try and get a half-decent pay rise. So Sunak’s slogan of a time for change is farcical. This is just repackaged Tory politics under a new leader. Sunak only appears to the media when has to and makes a farce of politics by having been given the position by a section of his party without the Conservative membership or the general public through a general election having their say.

Desperation Street

The comments by the now-former Home Secretary, Suella Braverman left her in extremely hot water with the Prime Minister under extreme pressure to sack her. His solution was to spend almost a week keeping the media and the public in the dark. On the Monday morning, an imminent cabinet reshuffle was rumoured and as per a well-rehearsed stage show, Braverman was sacked, citing her comment on homelessness, describing it as a “lifestyle choice”, forgetting all the other offensive comments she has made. Sunak then replaced her with James Cleverley, moving him from the Foreign Office to the Home Office.

The cat of the bag decision, not the Downing Street cat, Larry was to bring David Cameron back to the cabinet. A Prime Minister who had to resign because of the Brexit referendum and still tarnished with his involvement in the Greeensill lobbying scandal from 2020. A scandal where the former Prime Minister lobbied Rishi Sunak, then Chancellor of the Exchequer to allow Greensill to join the Covid Corporate Financing Facility. Cameron can’t appear in the House of Commons to be questioned and scrutinised by MPs. It will be up to his number two, Andrew Mitchell to do this. The former Prime Minister can only answer letters, and emails and appear before Select Committees and in the House of Lords. Greensill was enbroiled in a government loan scheme was initiated to support companies during the pandemic-related economic recession. A man who admitted recently that he stashed £30,000 in his Dad’s tax-free fund in the Bahamas.

Cameron who left government seven years ago and is neither an MP nor a member of the House of Lords, accepted the post after a deal brokered by William Hague. Given a life peerage to allow him to take the position, Cameron joins a whole list of people who come from a public school education and have enlisted because they are allies of Rishi rather than potential thorns in Sunak’s side. The last roll of the dice from a Prime Minister who knows his days are numbered either ousted by a late leadership challenge or a bruising general election defeat.

The Same Old Ways

The Conservative Party just seems to lurch further and further to the right, hellbent on sending illegal immigrants to Riwanda, a policy that can only be deemed unlawful by the Supreme Court. A decision that many in the party think they may lose. This probably why Sunak sacked Braverman early to stop her going on her own terms. Rishi is frankly a wooden politician who make odd decisions with odd timings, standing against a red wall where the bricks are crumbling, eroded by numerous by election defeats. By bringing back Cameron, he risks being dwarfed by his predecessor, a man who loves to bask in the media, who loves to cosy up to China and failed to bring peace in Libya and Syria.

This centre-left takeover of the Conservative party is like getting in a Tardis and going back a decade. Brown politics that is frankly bland, appealing to the shires and the home counties of the South to vote for them again in their droves. The Labour Party can sit back for now and watch the government implode but they will have to present a concrete, credible alternative in the next months if they are to pull off the sizeable victory that the opinion polls keep predicting. The Labour Party has buried the ghost of Jeremy Corbyn and rebuilt the party but it still has to prove that it is not one of borrowing and the division that tore it apart in the past. It is united for now because even the left of the party wants to win the election. Keir Starmer is their best hope but he has to define himself and show what he wants to achieve. A party that embraces the working class, supports trade unions and gives a brighter set of policies that are bold and progressive.

Afterthoughts

I don’t think this rejig will work and is just heading for the political buffers. The Conservative Party is like a bath where the plug has been pulled out and the water is slowly going down. Frankly, all these new appointments are people who have played their part in past visions of the Tory dogma. All tainted by the same brush and no new visions for exciting and radical policies. The recent State Opening of Parliament revealed a list of forthcoming bills that will increase the smoking age, a minimum service bill during industrial action for certain industries and more stringent prison sentences for the more heinous crimes but on the whole was a programme that much of the proposed will not happen in the tight parliamentary timetable that exists before the next election.

With an Autumn Statement in the offing, it seems unlikely that tax cuts won’t happen for many and just for businesses. Little can happen to improve peoples’ lives because of the fragile state of the economy and even if Labour do win the next election, they will be constrained by any bold policies they may announce between now and the election. It will take a different way of working before any of those affected by the economic pressures, feel the benefits. The electorate are sick of broken promises and manifestos that not worth the paper they are written on. We need change and a type of politics that produces results rather than half-baked solutions.

By Elliott West

“The language of priorities is the religion of Socialism … The argument is about power … because only by the possession of power can you get the priorities correct”.

Aneurin Bevin

Introduction

The Labour Party has been on a rollercoaster journey of victories and defeats since it was first born out of the trade union movement in 1900. The highs of Attlee, Wilson and Blair and the lows of Foot and Corbyn. Yet after 13 years of Conservative governments, the party is on the verge of election success with a general election expected in the next year. After Labour has spent several years rebuilding its credibility and proving it had the right to hold the keys to power again, the party sits on a political verge with a sizable majority a strong possibility.

The Labour Party is currently riding high in the opinion polls with a 44.1% lead over the Conservative Party who are trailing at 26.6%. The party has won several key by-elections including its most recent win in Scotland in Rutherglen and Hamilton where it snatched the seat from the SNP with over a 20% swing. A place where Labour used to hold over 40 seats but was practically wiped out by the SNP and now holds just 2 seats. It also narrowly lost the seat of Uxbridge, vacated by the disgraced former Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, won by the Conservatives on an anti-ULEZ platform.

The Mystery 

Indeed, any opposition party need not flesh out their alternative policies until they produce an election manifesto. The Labour Party has chosen to remain vague in the lead-up to the next election with just a matter of policies, preferring to attack and oppose a dying government that is running out of petrol and privately admitting that it is on course to lose with many of the party’s MPs preferring to stand down at the next election before they are pushed out. Labour attacks but produces little in return for the electorate to ponder over. The jury is out and with so many floating and undecided voters, they still have a political mountain to climb before the electoral ballot papers fall in their favour.

Labour needs to learn from its recent and distant past. It can’t be seen to lean too far from the centre ground because if it does, it will be put into the disaster books that the now Independent MP, Jeremy Corbyn and Michael Foot have been put into, producing suicide note manifestos with massive defeats, opening the door for Johnson and Thatcher to prevail. The party can no longer borrow heavily to implement its policies. It has to be bold but at the same time prudent in the early days of office. Otherwise, it will just dig itself an early grave. Even the greatest Labour leaders eventually fell out of grace and Tony Blair remains stained to this day with his choice to join Bush in invading Iraq.

Labour has pledged to bring a decade of national renewal but it knows that it will be able to achieve very little until it has seen the state of the economic books that the Tories have left them. Borrowing from the Covid pandemic, and helping Ukraine fight Russia have all taken a massive toll with inflation still high and the cost of living crisis still a prevalent force. Many people are still struggling to pay their bills and food banks are still the only option for a growing percentage of the population. It’s a political mess that can’t be swept under the carpets of Westminster and will have to be tackled rather than talked about.

Starmer

I have to admit that as a long-time Labour member and voter, I haven’t been greatly enthused by the man called Sir Keir Rodney Starmer. The former Director of Public Prosecutions lacks the charisma of John Smith and is more corporate than Socialist. I would accuse him of flip-flopping as the Tories do but his pragmatic style often gets in his way for someone who I am sure is a brilliant politician at heart. Yes, he has done well at healing the wound of the anti-semitism that lingered in the party and has picked several members of the shadow cabinet that I admire, Rachel Reeves and Yvette Cooper being two of them. Business leaders are starting to warm to his policies but trade unions are still sceptical of him. He was aloof with the recent wave of strikes and failed to dip his toe into the pool of industrial strife.

I feel he was a reason why Scottish Labour won the recent by-election. Starmer rolled up his sleeves and went to Scotland to campaign and in the end, it paid off. Yet there is a still massive red wall in the North that he will have to break down if he is to win the election. He can’t be seen to be a Westminster politician, he has to be a national one and understand the problems of the working class that the party was built on. This has to be adopted by not only him but the whole of the party. Otherwise, Labour will forever be seen as champagne Socialists.

His first chance comes with his speech at the annual Labour Party Conference where he has to to put flesh on the bones of his vision for the future. One year is a short time in politics and Starmer knows that he can’t rely on opinion polls to win. Neil Kinnock learned that the hard way when he lost to John Major in 1992. Key policies in economics, home and foreign affairs have to be fleshed out and we must hear how he is going to get us out of this Tory mess. It’s all very uniting on the conference floor but he has to convince a sizeable chunk of the electorate to vote for him.

The Challenge 

The Labour Party can’t be seen to be complacent. When it has problems, it has to nip them in the bud and can’t for one second be seen as disunited. Starmer has to do what Blair and Wilson brilliantly did by keeping both wings of the party together because only united parties win elections. Spin and slickness must be ironed out of the agenda and the party has to engage. All eyes will be on Labour in the next year and the media will pounce on any mistakes to discredit them. The party has a political minefield ahead of them and has to dodge the many slings and arrows fired at them. The key is to remain clear and not vague. Avoid the political trap of not answering a question and acting like the government is waiting at all times.

This will in no way be an easy task but it will be made easier by the mess that Sunak’s government is currently in. It is like the Conservatives have sprung a leak and will sink sooner rather than later. They lack vision, and drive and are constantly on risk management watch. Scandal and U-turns dog the party and their party is led by a leader whom neither the members nor the electorate were given the chance to vote for. No wonder Rishi doesn’t want to call an election and is happy to ride it out until the last calendar date available. He won’t be coming to the ballot box in a rush and will deny Labour the chance to prevail as long as possible.

By Elliott West

“The lesson to be learnt for today is that where a council is prepared to stand up and fight and not roll over in the face of Tory bullying (of course, they cannot surcharge anymore), then you can get the support, people will back you. Workers came out and voted for us at record levels as new people came forward to replace those who had been removed”.

John Dunn, Clay Cross councillor.

Introduction

It was 51 years ago in the Summer of 1972 that twenty-one councillors from Clay Cross District Council in North Derbyshire decided to defy the Conservative Heath legislation, the Housing Finance Act or the Fair Rent Act as it became to be known. Until 1972 councils had been allowed their rent levels and Clay Cross Council was extremely proud of its housing record in the 1960s. A programme of slum clearance had seen all the terrace houses without inside toilets pulled down and replaced with brand-new council houses. A programme that if it had been repeated nationally would create an additional one million new council homes nationally every year.

The Labour-run council prided itself on keeping its rents low with subsidies from its rent account paying for the elderly in bungalows to have 24-hour warden support. Where houses were demolished, the council rehoused the tenants in the same communities with the same neighbours. Houses that were bright, modern, and high quality with gardens, green spaces and community gardens.

Fighting Back

Initially, there was a unified response by councils to fight the Housing Finance Act but as the implementation date drew closer, all bar Clay Cross fell into line. To punish these brave, rogue rebels, the Tories pressed the punishment button with the District Auditor in January 1973 ruling that eleven councillors be found guilty of negligence and misconduct. This also involved a collective surcharge of £6,350. Each councillor was liable for this fine and as it exceeded a £2,000 limit, all eleven were instantly disqualified from the council.

There was no way that ordinary working people would be able to pay this fine and so they lodged an appeal in the High Court but they went on to lose, incurring an additional £2,000 in costs. Lord Denning summing up the case stated:

“They are disqualified. They must stand down…I trust there are good men in Clay Cross ready to take over”.

Lord Denning

Clay Cross Labour  decided to take Lord Denning at his own word and elected another eleven councillors with ten elected to replace the ten surcharged. This was done so the policies of their predecessors could be continued. However, this didn’t, unfortunately, work as a surcharge of £2,229 was issued, just enough to disqualify them from the council. The Conservative government also sent in a housing commissioner, Patrick Skillington, a retired civil servant from Henley on Thames to collect the rents. Such was the furore of this visit that Skillington had to abandon his planned press conference after just ten minutes.

The opposition continued with Patrick Skillington being denied an office in the council offices and having to set up an alternative one in the Chesterfield Hotel six miles away. Both sets of councillors adopted a policy of non-co-operation and tenants were asked to pay the rent set by the council. When Skillington left due to the Labour Party gaining power nationally in 1974, he hadn’t collected a single penny in rent. Unlike the other councillors, he wasn’t surcharged and was instead given several thousand pounds for his expenses.

Tragedy

Despite hopes that the Wilson and Callaghan-led governments would reverse these decisions, neither did, refusing to lift the surcharges. The effect was devastating for these eleven, unable to obtain credit, losing possessions to bailiffs and one of them, George Goodfellow, losing money to a booked holiday when the travel company went into liquidation, only to have the money seized by the receiver when he got refunded. Several also lost their cars but there was an olive branch gesture of their wives being given the option of being able to buy the cars back!

The second team of councillors were saved from bankruptcy by a fund of donations from the labour movement but remained barred from office. In 1974, a local government reorganisation meant that Clay Cross UDC was abolished and instead became part of the North East Derbyshire Council, led by Bob Cochrane. Bob couldn’t wait to collect the outstanding rents, even raising the rate on Clay Cross to collect a deficit. He went on to form the Social Democratic Alliance and split the Labour vote in 1983.

These 21 councillors were brave souls, paying a price but keeping a money-hungry Conservative government at bay for two years. This isn’t where it ends. In the Thatcher years, the council used the £25 a year chairman’s allowance spent on an armistice day wreath, increasing it to £300 to pay for free milk for schools that Margaret Thatcher had abolished. The £275 difference was just enough to pay for the milk. They also introduced free television licences for all OAPs. Prominent streets were also named after notable figures in the labour movement. These included Bevan Road, Brockway Close and Pankhurst Place.

By Elliott West

“The opportunity to serve our country—that is all we ask”.

John Smith

Introduction

There have only been a small number of occasions when I have cried due to a famous person dying. The passing that pulled my heartstrings was when the then Leader of the Opposition, John Smith suddenly died from a heart attack on 12 May 1994, aged 55. The then-leader of the Labour Party was the only member of the shadow cabinet who had tasted power before, a junior minister in both the Wilson and Callaghan governments. John got his opportunity to shine after Neil Kinnock stood down due to Labour’s defeat in the 1992 election, a result that defied the opinion polls that had them on the crest of a wave. Smith was cautious, not wishing to rock the boat, preferring to prod the John Major government that was gradually imploding due to divisions over Europe and misuse of expenses.

The Smith Way

John Smith was described by Margaret Beckett as “a mischievous man, fantastically intelligent, a brilliant debater, especially in the House of Commons”. Smith was a ferocious debater with a quick-witted sense of humour A man who put his family and faith above politics and put investment and training as the fundamentals of his vision for government. A committed Internationalist and Socialist who was the first to accept the principle of a National Minimum Wage. A close friend of Gordon Brown and someone who had the odd spat with his mentor but always held each other in high regard for their 20 years of friendship.

I would liken John Smith to Harold Wilson in his formidable years. A politician who was secretly loved and admired by politicians of every political persuasion. He had a devastating punch that was able to peel John Major like a tangerine, exposing his flaws and weaknesses on the floor of the house. His power lay in his expert choice of the English language, forensic from his days as a lawyer/QC and many years of treading the campaign trail. A defender of the UK’s membership of the European Union. Yet someone who revalued his priorities in life after his first heart attack in 1988. Smith decided to eat healthily, gave up smoking and took up Munro bagging, the pursuit of climbing the mountainous terrain of Scotland.

On the Cusp

Smith’s opportunity to become Prime Minister couldn’t have come at a better time. Margaret Thatcher had been told to go by the men in grey suits in 1990 and the Conservative Major government, now only had a wafer-thin majority of 21. Yet privately Tony Blair and Gordon Brown waiting in the wings, patiently sitting on their hands until his ‘one more heave’ approach unravelled. With the general election rapidly approaching, a poll in May 1994 suggested that Labour had a 23 points lead over the Conservatives.

Leaving too Soon

John Smith’s death in 1994, rocked a party and a nation. Smith who had made a speech at a fundraising dinner at the Park Lane Hotel the previous night, suffered a massive heart attack at his Barbican flat the following morning. Despite his wife, Elizabeth calling for an ambulance, John was declared dead at St Bartholomew’s Hospital an hour later. Smith had only visited the hospital a fortnight before to campaign against the proposed closure of the A&E unit and had raised it as a question at PMQs later that day.

When his death was announced by John Major in the House of Commons, he revealed that he often shared a drink with the other John, sometimes tea, sometimes not. Such was the outpouring of grief in the chamber that you hear the sound of weeping. Smith was buried on the island of Iona and the Labour Party headquarters in Walworth Road was subsequently changed to John Smith House. It is thought that if John had lived, Labour would have had an election result similar to Tony Blair’s later landslide victory in 1997. This was largely due to the turmoil in the Conservative Party with the economic disaster of Black Wednesday and internal wranglings over Europe. The Conservatives would probably have had just over 200 seats, a result similar to Labour’s share of seats in the 1983 election.

By Elliott West

“My memories stretch back almost a hundred years. And if I close my eyes, I can smell the poverty that oozes from the dusky tenement streets of my boyhood”.

Harry Leslie Smith

Introduction

Life was very different for people living in Britain before the establishment of the National Health Service in 1948. A picture that was eloquently and emotionally portrayed when Harry Leslie Smith addressed the Labour Party Conference in 2014. The idea of providing healthcare services that are free for all at the point of delivery was then merely an aspiration. Smith’s childhood in Barnsley, South Yorkshire certainly wasn’t a walk in the park, revealing an upbringing in the 1920s where poverty and illness was a stark reality. 

Harry lived with his parents Albert, an unemployed coal miner and Lillian Dean with his sisters in slum conditions. Despite his parent’s best efforts, neither could shield them from the harshness of poverty. Smith’s sister, Marion, caught tuberculosis, a disease that tortured her, leaving her an invalid and had to be tied to a bed, and looked after by her mother until the weight of responsibility became too much. She was then taken to the workhouse infirmary and died at the age of 10 in 1926, buried in a pauper’s pit. A tragic end to a young life that had been showered with constant love and attention and whose parents staved off starvation with a constant supply of bread and drippings. A death that could have been prevented with the right medicines and doctors but they didn’t have any money and so the cards of common illness ran riot through the slums that all inhabited in the area, endearingly referred to as home. This story is not unique, it was commonplace at the time, literally making those that lost loved ones, numb in their resilience.

A Humble Survivor

Harry Leslie Smith was a humble man who spent his entire life trying to educate people on the sheer importance of the NHS and how his life had been completely changed as a result. The Attlee government of 1945-51 brought hope to Britain which was ravaged by the scars of war with bombed-out buildings and an unrecognisable landscape. The formation of the NHS was not only monumental but it helped stamp out common diseases with standard medicines. Smith who was a Great Depression survivor and who served in the RAF during the Second World War, quickly became an activist against postwar austerity, for the poor and the preservation of social democracy, emigrating to Canada in 1953 with his future wife Friede.

Harry was a prolific author, writing five books about life in the Great Depression, the Second World War and post-war austerity and had columns in The Guardian, Mirror, New Statesman, Morning Star and International Business News. He turned to writing as a means of consoling his grief with the death of his wife in 1999 and his middle son Peter in 2009. An avid writer of memoirs, and social history and would divide his later life between Ontario and Yorkshire.

Politics

Harry supported the Labour Party through the good times and the bad times. A regular at the annual party conference, he endorsed Jeremy Corbyn’s run for the Labour leadership and described him as “a very honest-minded man”. Despite Corbyn’s woes as a leader, Smith still backed him and even believed that Jeremy wasn’t antisemitic during the bitter row that broke out in the party, especially amongst Jewish Labour voters. Smith would also campaign on the refugee crisis, attacking the use of the Calais Jungle to temporarily house them and would highlight the increased dependency on food banks.

Afterthoughts 

Harry Leslie Smith died on 28 November 2018 at the age of 95 in Belleville, Ontario, Canada from pneumonia. This former oriental rug importer was just an ordinary man but extraordinary and inspiring in so many ways. Through his speeches and writing, he opened our eyes to a bygone age, his youth. A stark reality that only transpired nearly a century previously. At a time when poverty was rife, food scarce and diseases led many to an early grave. A time when the NHS was merely a pipe dream.

It is very easy in these modern times to lose sight of the gift of life and it is only when it is extinguished that we wake up to our loss. Harry helped us to widen our horizons and look at the bigger picture. A mouthpiece for those at the bottom of the social ladder who have to endure a living nightmare on a day-to-day basis, wondering where their next meal will come from. Homeless or housed, both have their challenges and once committed to the social poverty trap, it’s very difficult to escape the snare.

By Elliott West

“You never know what people are capable of until you give them the opportunity to show it.”

Betty Boothroyd

Introduction

Politics has always been a subject close to my heart. I first joined the Labour Party when I was 17 and have supported them continuously through the bad and good times. Through the long history of this political party that was first founded out of the trade union movement in 1900, there have been a number of impressive and straight-talking female Labour MPs who have truly inspired me, Barbara Castle and Mo Mowlam to name but two. However, for this piece, I wish to concentrate on someone who fought the political doctrine of the Conservative Party throughout her life but made legions of supporters and friends throughout the political divide. The lady in question, is of course Betty Boothroyd, the Labour MP for West Bromwich and West Bromwich West from 1973-2000 and later Speaker of the House of Commons 1992-2000 and finally, a cross-bench peer in the House of Lords due to having been Speaker.

Formidable and Proud

Betty Boothroyd hailed from Dewsbury, a town in the heart of Yorkshire and when she was born there in 1929, a hive of industrial activity with many of the textile mills based here and both her parents, Ben and Mary working there, entering service at the tender age of 13. An only child, Boothroyd had a working-class upbringing where she first witnessed the rise of the black shirt fascists under Oswald Mosley and experienced the rise of the Labour Party. Educated in locally run council schools, Betty would go on to attend Dewsbury College of Commerce and Art. A college that she attained a scholarship to attend, at age 13.  Although not academic, Boothroyd loved writing essays. Her parents instilled in her the importance of education and her father even once used his lunch break to collect Betty’s homework when she was ill for two weeks. A foundation that would draw her towards the bright lights of the arts and then the fascinating world of politics.

The Limelight

Betty was part of an age where the theatre played a dominant role in the social lives of the UK population. It was an escape from the humdrum world of manual labour and the well-used clock that monitored the start and finish times of the workers. So it wasn’t a surprise that Boothroyd wanted to escape and find her own career path. This wouldn’t happen until she had spells as a shop assistant and a short-hand typist. Politics would come later but Betty would travel with her mother to a number of Labour Party rallies in Huddersfield or Leeds on a Saturday afternoon, armed with a mountain of jam sandwiches and the odd cheeky rolled-up cigarette that her father had taught her to roll. Here they would hear the early stirring speeches of Clement Attlee, Nye Bevan and Jennie Lee. It inspired Boothroyd to join the Labour League of Youth at 16.

Betty would go on to join the famous dance troupe, The Tiller Girls. She loved dancing, so much so that she nearly broke her father’s heart when she tried to turn professional when she was 17. Prior to joining the famous troupe, she was a singer and dancer with a jazz band called the Swing Stars, Betty and the band used to hoof it, entertaining servicemen under the auspices of ENSA. These were happy days and a throwback to a more innocent age where entertainment and music were a vital escape from the working day.

Boothroyd craved excitement and glamour and so she travelled to the bright lights of London to audition for the Tiller Girls. An audition where she was successful. However, it wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be. It was the freezing winter of 1946 and Betty was miserable in her cold lodgings at the Theatre Girls’ Club on Greek Street. She would go on to perform a brief stint at the London Palladium before moving on to Luton for a performance in Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

However, this stab at stardom would only last five years and Betty was forced to leave after getting a foot infection. Limping home with a bruised ego, she later admitted that she wasn’t very good at it and it would be another 30 years before she would appear, like the Tiller Girls at the Blackpool Winter Gardens but this time as part of the Labour Party’s national executive committee. She never forgot her brief period under the bright lights but back in Dewsbury she put her nose to the grindstone and took on a job as a secretary to the Road Haulage Association.

The Lure of Politics

The London calling was too great for Betty to resist and she packed her suitcase and returned in 1952. This time it would be for the lure of her burning passion, politics. Boothroyd joined the research department at the then Labour Party’s headquarters at Transport House on Smith Square as a secretary. Quickly recognised as a rising star, she went on to work as a parliamentary secretary in the House of Commons, first to Barbara Castle and then to Geoffrey de Freitas. This would be followed by spells working for a US congressman in Washington DC for two years, working on the John F Kennedy election campaign and for one of the first Labour peers in the House of Lords, Lord Walston.

This was a fitting beginning to her political trail, a journey that she described as “coming out of the womb into the labour movement”.  Betty served as a Labour councillor at Hammersmith Borough Council from 1958 until 1968. However, she had to do it the hard way and becoming a Labour MP would take five attempts. She failed to win Leicester South East in 1957 in a by-election and later in 1959, Peterborough in a general election. Many would have faltered and given but not Boothroyd. She loved the campaign trail and wasn’t afraid to get on the battle bus and pick up a microphone, using her booming voice to appeal to the constituents of the local community. Success came at last when she won the safe Labour seat of West Bromwich in 1973 with an 8,000-seat majority. A triumph that meant so much to her, Betty commented at the time, saying:

“I had become the girl least likely to succeed,” she later recalled. “If I had lost West Bromwich, I would have slit my throat.”

Betty Boothroyd

This was a time when the Conservative government of Edward Heath was in its death throes. A United Kingdom that was wracked with industrial strife and the National Front was on the rise. Betty rolled up her sleeves, joining just 27 female MPs in the House of Commons at the time and got stuck in. Spotted for her potential, this gutsy lady who shunned love for politics was appointed as an assistant whip in the Harold Wilson government of 1974. She would go on to serve on both the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Speaker’s Panel of Chairmen in 1979.

Boothroyd loved a fight and wasn’t afraid to take on the looming and potentially dangerous National Front in her constituency or the troublesome and poisonous militant tendency that had infiltrated the Labour Party in the early 1980s. With a style of politics that was loud and proud, Betty’s’ politics were all about getting your point across and heard, fighting for the issues of the time. A role that she successfully did from 1973-2000. Although part of this time was spent in the Speaker’s Office.

The Voice

In 1987, she took on a new role and joined the Speaker’s Office as deputy speaker in the House of Commons. A position that she would hold until 1992. This was the year that the then speaker, Bernard Weatherill decided to step down and Betty was persuaded by colleagues to stand for the position. In the election she romped home, winning the ballot by 372 votes to 238. This was an enormous achievement, smashing history by becoming the first female speaker and the first opposition MP to be elected to the role. A popular choice that was supported by all political parties and as she was traditionally pulled to the speaker’s seat, all members of the house got to their feet and applauded her. She went on to say in her acceptance speech:

“Elect me for what I am, and not for what I was born”.

Betty Boothroyd

Boothroyd’s time as the speaker was a joyous one. She was referred to as Madam and she definitely ruled the roost. Ditched was the traditional wig as being too heavy, she took on troublesome members of the House of Commons and put them in their places, so much so that she had to prise a question of the then Liberal Democrat MP, Simon Hughes in the middle of a rowdy house. Her catchphrase became “Time’s Up” and you would be a brave person to argue against that. She stuck to the rules and adopted a no-nonsense approach. A speaker who was there in the early days of live coverage of the house with television cameras only being first permitted in 1989.

Although a woman, Betty was a traditionalist and didn’t agree with some of the more liberal practices trying to be adopted. She once banned women from breastfeeding during select committee hearings but only once banned an MP. It had to be the firebrand DUP member, Ian Paisley who accused a minister of lying and so was sanctioned for 10 days. Her time was full of glorious moments including the state visit to Britain of Nelson Mandela in 1996 who was at that time frail and had to be guided by Betty, Jacques Chirac’s visit the same year where he kissed her hand and Labour’s landslide victory in 1997. Her time would finally come to an end in 2000 but she would go out in style, clapped out by MPs after her farewell speech. A lady whose personal motto was “I speak to serve”.

The Lords and Beyond

Betty Boothroyd would go on to serve as a cross-party peer in the House of Lords. Here she remained vocal, especially on Brexit, highly critical of the Cameron and Johnson governments and believed that leaving the EU would have a detrimental effect on future generations. She gave a rousing speech in the House of Lords on the subject and at a youth rally. At the time, having been first elected as an MP 47 years previously and having witnessed nine Prime Ministers, Boothroyd was scathing in one speech in the House of Lords about Boris Johnson saying:

“Never in my parliamentary experience have I witnessed such a collapse of the people’s trust in a government that promised so much and so quickly and is now groping for desperate solutions to problems it said would not arise”.

Betty Boothroyd

Afterthoughts

Betty Boothroyd died peacefully recently, aged 93 in a hospital in Cambridge but her legacy will never be forgotten. She was a formidable, female force who broke gender boundaries to achieve her goals in life. I once briefly met Betty when I was at work, working on the gate line at High Street underground station in my early days at London Underground in 2002. She asked me for directions as she was there to do a book signing for her autobiography. I was struck by her presence and warmth, the twinkle in her eye and her infectious smile. Never married and a woman who decided not to have any children, Betty was popular, brash and loud-spoken. A lady who was not to be messed with but loved by those that crossed her path in life.