25 years ago today: spooky, man
In a slightly eerie way, this story in the Liverpool Daily Post – about ‘debatable’ recruitment practices by the Liberal Democrat Council in Liverpool - is brought to my attention (ht: Luke Akehurst) 25 years ago to the day that ‘debatable’ recruitment practices put a large nail in the coffin of Militant in Liverpool.
This time around, it’s all about how the girlfriend of a Libdem City Councillor – a councillor who just happens to be the Libdem PPC against sitting Labour MP Jane Kennedy – somehow got a £30,000 a year job as ‘member services officer’, without anyone else being able to apply for the job.
Of course, the Liverpool Libdems deny the whole thing is anything other than a coincidence, and that’s their right.
Nevertheless, for the said Libdem supporter, whose last job was in a Libdem MP’s office, to take this unadvertised post, and for her (and her PPC boyfriend), not to think that people might get wind of it and think it all a bit odd, does seem a little naive, to say the least.
That is especially so, given the nature of the post at the heart of the political action, and presumably (and I do understand what member services officer jobs entail) as she would have at least some access to Labour councillor correspondence/emails etc.
Last time around, 25 years ago today, the ‘debatable’ recruitment process was all about the appointment of one Sampson Bond to the post of Principal Race Relations Adviser at the Council.
This was another job at the heart of the political action,given that this was just three years after the Brixton riots.
The passage below is from a contemperaneous account by a Black Caucus representative attending the shortlisting meeting on 01 October 1984, and reprinted in ‘The Racial Politics of Militant in Liverpool’ (pub. 1986).
‘With respect to the Principal Adviser, the one name that Councillor Hatton insisted on retaining was that of Mr Sampson Bond, a London building surveyor, who had not been on my personal proposed shortlist nor, as it transpired, on that of either of my two colleagues.
From the summary sheets that had been sent out to us, there was absolutely no indication whatsoever that Mr Bond had any basis for applying for the post. He was not working professionally in the field of race relations and had never done so; his only job had been as a building surveyor…he referred only vaguely to working to combat racism with black organisations.’
You probably know the rest. Sam Bond, a member of Militant, was duly appointed, Derek Hatton was besieged in his office by member of Toxteth’s black community, and eventually the post was re-advertised.
It was, in many ways, the beginning of the end for Militant in Liverpool, who lost much of the remaining trust they had in the city, especially in the Toxteth area.
As and when the Libdems in Liverpool pick up on the slightly spooky time connection between the two episodes, I wonder if they’ll begin to think their time is up, not just in Wavertree constituency, but across Liverpool, where solid Labour work by the like of this councillor mean that the Libdems are now close to losing the control they took in the wake of the Militant fall-out all those years ago.
I think they may.
Just as hubris halted Hatton, so may lunacy limit the Libdems in Liverpool (ah, I’ll be a Mirror headline write yet!)
And if they are not already just a little spooked, they should take a look at the name from the only comment left to date on the Daily Post website post about the story:
‘So the underhanded stuff goes on and on. It seems as though they’re both as bad as one another if the pres report is to be believed.’
The name’s BOND.
Hmmm. Whilst I can claim to be no expert on the situation, what “did” for Militant in Liverpool was probably more to do with a national leadership that didn’t mind attacking Labour councillors in national speeches and in the Press in order to pacify the Sun et al (more spooky coincidences?). Hatton was probably not very smart in the way he worked, but I think it’s important to put everything in context.
Yes, Dave. I’m happy to acknowledge that the Militant story is much more complex than I set out in this piece, which is just bit of fun, and that I would need to add this kind of caveat in the comments.
The national leadership certainly has to carry a portion of the blame, but I have no doubt both from quite a lot of reading and long pub conversations with people involved (and the Toxteth black activist generation that followed, (I lived in the Dingle, next to Toxteth, for a couple of years) that the highly exlusionary strategies adopted by the Liverpool militant leadership were a prime cause of its downfall; it simply did not have the local and industrial backing that some of the revisonist literature (most noatably Peter Taafe’s and Tony Mulhearn’s A city that dared to fight’) would have us believe, and while this episode was notable, there were others that showed up a whole ‘hubris’ side.
Incidentally, Derek Hatton now earns his crust as a talkshow radio host in the North West, and his self-aggrandisement makes me wince when I hear him.
While I’m not suggesting that the experience of the Left in Manchester is absolutely a model for the left now (and I’ve made many reference to this in my post-Marxism posts), I think the fact that Manchester Labour retain very solid control and still do things differently (and in some cases better and more openly) to many other Labour councils across the country is a very good point of comparison with what went wrong in Liverpool.
If you’d like to borrow some of my stuff on Liverpool – especially two very contrasting accounts by Militant and by the Liverpool Balck caucus, please do ask. I think the detailed narrative and eyewitness accounts tell us a lot more about how the left should act this time around at local level than a lot more of the better known literature.
Good post.
I liked Joe Anderson’s quip about the Lib Dems last year when their comedy council got into a massive financial crisis and various scandals: “It’s just like in the 1980s. No, actually, it’s worse. Say what you like about the Militant, at least they built some council houses.”
Dan
I thought Joe might like this, if you could email him a link (you know him, I seem to remember). he studiously ignores my emails (or has them read then binned by a Libdem member services officer!). I sense it’s the kind of bizarre coincidence story the Echo might go for. I’ll also ask @stevehanlon to push it his Echo journo friend’s way.
Liverpool City Council in the 1980s built council houses and took the fight to the then Tory government. At a time when the labour leaders belatedly seem to be remembering that their job is to stand up and fight for ordinary working people, we should not be too quick to judge (or slander by equating them with Liberals) those good socialists in Liverpool in the 1980s who fought the Tories in the face of opposition from Labour’s national leaders. The late Terry Fields, a proud socialist, trade unionist, Militant supporter, and MP for Liverpool Broadgreen who never drew more than the average workers wage, also stands as a beacon to those MPs today who have forgotten who they are paid to represent.
I think this is an awesome piece of work Paul, well done!
Andy
Thanks for this comment.
It is really interesting to see how the ‘case of Militant’ still arouses real passion at 25 years remove. I’ve always been struck by how much the experience of the mid 1980s still feels so close for Liverpool Labour/community activists, while for Manchester councillors who went through the 1980s victory of the New Urban Left it all seems so much more distant, even halcyon. While the contempoary accounts i refer to above are full of that passion and hatread for the opposition, it still comes though pretty strongly in Peter Kilfoyle’s book ‘Left Behind’ written some years later (I’m not suggesting that it’s any good).
I accept fully that Liverpool Militant had some very brave and committed socialists, and perhaps in my hastily written piece (more a bit of fun than anything) I should have made that clearer, perhaps by contrasting the fact that their ‘recruitment issues’ stemmed from political principles, whereas the Libdems problems stem from what looks like personal greed/stupidity.
Nor am I denying that there were real achievements, especially in housing as you suggest (though from a housing policy perspective I’d say that some of the decisions around the building of farflung estates like Netherley and Valley, within the city boundary but a long way from services etc., may have had long term negative impacts and a better choicem have been to wokr regionally to develop the new towns of Skelmersdale and Runcorn into fully fledged, properly service towns rather than the ‘incompletions’ that they remain to this day).
But for all the admirable bravery, I think history does tell us that they got things wrong, mostly because from the embattled position they found themelves in they weren’t able to open up local democracy enough to really build a force that could withstand both the Tories and their betrayal by the national Labour party. Yes, the national party deserve blame, but I think the Left has to be honest enough to look at its own mistakes as well.
That failure has resulted in, as I said, long term political control by the Libdems, ad Degsie doing talskshows, whereas in Manchester the deputy leaders of the Council, Jim Battle and Val Stevens, are ‘survivors’ of the 1980s battle for control. Again, I’m not trying to defend Manchester to the hilt, and there are real problems with the way the Graham Stringer administration moved to the ‘new entrepreneurialism’ in the mid 90s, but I think there are lessons in there about coalition building (though not with all the groups that they should have).
I’ll cover all of this in more detail in a forthcoming piece focused on ‘where next for local Labour parties’, if you’ll bear with me. I think the lesssons of the 1980s, successes and failures, are vital for 2010 and beyond.
Really enjoyed reading your reply Paul. Thanks for taking the time out to write it. The more debate we can have the better. Especially with the Tories too as we head towards the next election.
All the best mate
Andy