In 1990 Alf Morris lead a team of five to Australia to return to them the Charter of their Federation in 1901, and it gave me a chance to meet for the first time, family members who had settled in Australia after the first World War. My father was one of twelve siblings, and five of his brothers had emigrated to Australia in 1922/3, three to Sydney and two to Melbourne. My cousin, known as Berry, had been born on the ship the Berryman before they landed down under, and was named after the ship. He became a taxi driver, and later ran a retirement home. He was the split-image of my father, so it was without difficulty I recognised him when he came to our hotel on the Friday evening of our arrival. With Alf’s consent, I left my colleagues to join Berry and the family for their Friday night supper. I had corresponded with Berry ever since I became involved in local and then national government, and was staggered and delighted when on arriving at his home I found welcoming signs surrounded with all my past election literature. Entering the house, I was even more delighted to find around fourteen or more members of my extended family gathering for a traditional Jewish Friday night supper. To say the red carpet had been rolled out would be a master of understatement, and the scene was that which would have been replicated around the world by Jewish families for whom the eve of Sabbath was something special and to be treasured. Much as I enjoyed meeting the Prime Minister Bob Hawke, the Speaker, and many other distinguished Parliamentarians, it was that family gathering that remains my overriding memory of that trip. With Rowing being my great interest outside politics, our trip to Canberra gave me the opportunity to see how the creation of an Institute for Sport could make an impact for good both on raising standards, and encouraging participation. I brought back copious papers and information on the set-up and handed them to Robert Atkins, the then Minister of Sport. Sadly nothing appeared to happen until after 1992 when John Major proposed the creation of a similar Institute for England. One of the Australian Parliamentarians came to the UK on the return visit, just at the time of Mrs Thatchers final speech to the House, following her decision not to stand in the second round of voting for the leadership. He and his colleagues sat in the gallery to hear that speech, and when we met up afterwards, his profuse admiration for Mrs T’s speech was such that I could not help but agree with the sentiment “What on earth have we done!”
With peace having been established between Israel and Egypt in 1977, a great step forward for peace in the Middle East, it sadly resulted in the assassination of Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat, by those for whom peace was not, and is not, an option, Sally and I planned a holiday in Egypt. A friend – not a constituent - who had family in Egypt and Jordan insisted that if we were going there, his family would be offended if we did not allow them to offer us some hospitality. We also met up with old friends from the World of Rowing and spent a couple of days with an International Umpire Fayaz Yakan and his wife. They lived in a small block of ten flats, where the tenants had collectively agreed to look after the building for their own quality and standard of living. It appeared then, that once a rent was agreed, that was it forever, and understandably properties simply were never maintained by their owners. We suffered in the UK for that approach to housing for far too long after WW11.
We had obtained diplomatic passport stamps and duly had a wonderful week in Egypt and then flew to Amman to join the rest of his family. The head of the family ran one of the largest shipping and transport companies in the Middle East, but it turned out that they were either born in Palestine, or were the sons and daughters of the old matriarch who left there in 1948. He remembered sitting on guard as a local Palestinian, employed by the British Authorities, in a small pillbox down on the Red Sea, at what is now the great resort of Elat. One of the company directors who helped us to tour around, pointed out that he was the only true Jordanian in the business; the family many still technically Palestinian. This was highlighted when he pointed out that historically the West had bequeathed King Abdulla land rather than a Kingdom, for pre-48 the town of Amman had probably no more than 60,000 inhabitants, and with a total population of Jordan no more than 100,000. Now that Amman had 1.2 million, and the total population of 3.2 million, the majority were clearly of Palestinian origin. Those who had settled post 1948 but prior to 1967 were given full Jordanian citizenship, but those who came later only have laissez passé documents and are not citizens. Sadly the granting of citizenship is not common throughout Middle Eastern countries, leaving families of two or more generations, settled for sixty years or more still being treated as refugees, and so keeping the Palestinian/Israeli issue as a running sore.
On arrival at the airport in Amman I presented what turned out to be a newly issued passport for me, but Sally still had an old one with an Israeli stamp in it. At passport control they commented politely but firmly that she had been to the enemy, and I said I’d been there too, but they were happy since my passport did not have the unacceptable Israeli stamp in it. However they were most helpful, and on signing a piece of paper guaranteeing that we would go to the embassy and get a fresh passport for Sally, and bring it back to the airport, they would stamp it and grant access. On arrival at the embassy the ambassador, Mr Tony Reeve, came to see us and told us not to worry and he sent a driver back to the airport to get the new passport stamped. He then invited us to join them that evening at a reception for the Anglo Jordanian Association and a buffet supper.
It gave us the chance to meet a number of current and retired ministers of the Jordanian Government, including a few sitting members of their Parliament including two holding seats from Nablus and Jennin on the West Bank. They were currently discussing the form and timing of a new Parliament, the Maglis, for just the East Bank which we now recognise as Jordan, without members from the West Bank who then had seats in the Jordanian Maglis. It did highlight the view held by some, that since “Transjordan” had covered both sides of the River Jordan, what was the legitimacy of the Palestinian State. I agree that time has moved on, and the rights of Palestinians to have a country of their own are beyond dispute, but you cannot totally ignore the historical background to many of these issues. However there was a clear conviction expressed that the UK could and should play a unique role as a friend and catalyst in the search for peace. Back home, with time to ponder on what we had seen and heard, I came to the sad conclusion, that notwithstanding the clear desire of so many to find an honourable and peaceful solution to the Israel/Palestine issue, there were just too many that would object to a Jordanian/Israel peace, and certainly a peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Within months, the first intifada – rebellion – broke out in December 1987, highlighting my worst fears.
When the first gulf war broke out in 1991, four back benchers were sent to Israel to underpin the view of the Government and Opposition, that Israel, unless extremely provoked, should avoid being drawn in, and thereby split the Arab world that supported our campaign to throw Saddam out of Kuwait. It was a most ecumenical foursome of two Jews, one Ashkenazi and one Sephardi, two Christians, one Catholic and one Protestant. The team were Stuart Bell, Michael Brown, Greville Janner and me. The scuds were falling on Israel, though whilst causing considerable damage, thankfully only killed four people. There was also the fear of gas, and everyone carried a gas mask. When they were issued to us, I showed my age by being the only one who had tried similar masks as a youngster before WW11. Their ministers were well aware of the risks should they be so provoked, and fortunately they held their hand, and the war was brought to a satisfactory conclusion. Only later did the feeling grow, that perhaps a further 24 hours, might have seen Saddam so weakened that the second gulf war might well have been avoided.
Not all of these “freebees” were overseas, and one of my most fascinating defence trips was to the submarine base in Scotland, and a trip on one of our giant Conqueror class nuclear submarines. We entered deep water and were asked if one of us would like to take the control for a few moments. It was an opportunity not to be missed, and having dipped a few degrees and
back up again, that was it after perhaps half a minute. On getting home and recounting the trip to Sally and the boys, I was brought down to earth by our youngest exclaiming horror at the thought of me, even for a few seconds at the controls of a submarine, for after all as he pointed out, I couldn’t even use the soda stream properly.
I suppose the defining period of my time in the House, was the miner’s strike of 1984/5. Whilst the previous Labour government had closed many pits, the Heath Government had been defeated by the miners on this issue in 1974. Again in 1981 the Thatcher government had to give way to NUM demands, but plans were laid to ensure that they could never again hold an elected Government and the Country hostage. When the crunch came in March 1984, stocks were high and the summer was in front of us. In breach of the NUM rules, Arthur Scargill effectively called a national strike without a ballot. The Nottinghamshire miners voted by 20,000 to 7,000 not to strike, and faced massive intimidation from those who wished to ignore that vote, plus the physical pressure from the Yorkshire miners who “invaded” the County to try to force the strike onto unwilling Nottingham miners. As a result the Nottinghamshire miners created the Union of Democratic Miners, under Roy Lynch, and far from being scabs, they were simply following the right of any group of workers, to vote to strike or not as they choose, and not to have a strike forced upon them, in this case by a Union Leader with a political agenda rather than the interests of his members.
Very early one Monday morning during the first few weeks of the strike, I watched a news clip on TV showing the Labour member for Gorton, Gerald Kaufman, brandishing a very thick file of what he claimed was evidence of agent provocateur activity, and not trouble caused by striking miners. I rang the Chief Constable’s office and was granted a meeting, to which two other senior offices attended, and I was able to take back to the Home Office a tape absolutely disputing Kaufman’s claims. That day during a debate on the strike, Kaufman slammed the file on the dispatch box, to support his case. He refused to give way to me, perhaps because he knew I came from Nottinghamshire, and realised I would have challenged his theatrics, for to this day I believe that most, of not all, the pages in that thick file were just plain paper.
I travelled by car to Westminster each Monday morning, returning either on the Thursday evening, or Friday afternoon after the morning session in the House. I always stopped to check with the police who as a result of outside flying pickets, manned the roundabout on the M1, and to check the size of the coal store at the Radcliffe on Soar power station. There were many incidents of intimidation, and one that highlighted how vicious it became, was when a miner left his home to go to work, he was met on the doorstep by strikers who said. “Going into work; are the wife and family still at home?” Faced with that silent threat, the miner turned back into his house. Another was where the local union convenor had held a ballot, and having established that the vast majority voted not to strike supported his members who returned to work. For his refusal to ignore the wishes of his members, his car and home were covered in paint by strikers who clearly were not interested in the wishes of the majority. The bitterness between NUM and UDM members lasted for years after the strike ended, and even now there are those who were NUM supporters, who will have nothing to do with a UDM member. I do not claim that we handled the question of pit closures as well as we might, but that many had to close was inevitable. It was claimed that our deep mines produced cheap coal, but in truth we could buy coal from overseas at a fraction of the cost, and that the insistence on the use of British coal simply meant that the cost of generating electricity, was prohibitively high and was undermining British Industry as well as costing the domestic consumer much more than it should. It was also true that unpopular open cast coal could be produced at about a third of the cost from deep mines. At the time the average deep mined coal was roughly around £45 per tonne, opencast at £15 per tonne, yet some mines were being kept open costing over £100 per tonne. It could not go on like that, and had the NUM been prepared to face up to the economic truth and how it adversely affected the whole country, the wind-down could have been managed with much greater sympathy and far less human misery. However right or justified our attitude to the mines, politically in the East Midlands it was a disaster, and followed by the Poll Tax, our County of Nottinghamshire lost six of the seats it had held in 1983.
Whilst no-one could take pleasure from the obvious pain and hardship to many hundreds of people, there were incidences causing amusement. At junction 24 the centre of the roundabout was covered in dense undergrowth, and the police had noted a young lad regularly crossing the carriageway and disappearing into the cover. After a couple of weeks their curiosity got the better of them, and they found the lad had been growing cannabis under cover of the trees! The pickets who had managed to get through to the power station, foolishly picketed the front entrance not realising that the coal came by rail to the rear of the power station.
The Poll Tax was the final nail in any political hopes of survival that I might have had. It wasn’t the concept that was wrong, for it was reasonable to ask that everyone who relied on, or used local services, should at least pay something towards those services. No Party at the time believed the old rating system could be sustained, and it militated against home owners improving their properties, for fear of being up-rated. I represented families in a pair of semi-detached homes, one of which had been up-rated in the mid seventies, and the adjacent home which made their improvements after that re-evaluation. These two identical homes found themselves paying very different rates. To compound the injustice, the higher rated home was occupied by a single old lady, whilst the lower rated home was occupied by a family of four.
Sadly I can only assume that the designers of the Poll Tax, - woops,sorry, the Community Charge - had never had any practical experience of Local Government, and were naïve to assume that the majority of Local Authorities, which were Labour controlled at that time, would not use every device to wreck the scheme. I had 22,000 Council properties in my constituency, and they had been accustomed to paying their rent along with their water rates, general rates, and in some cases their heating costs, on a fortnightly basis. For each member of a household to be faced with a booklet with ten vouchers equivalent to ten monthly payments, or two vouchers if they were going to pay in two half year instalments, or just one if they were to pay in one lump sum, was never going to work. It also meant that the other costs would require a separate method of collection from the head of the household.
A small delegation of members with years of experience of local government finance, met with the Minister on the basis that we approved the principle, but were certain that the planned method of implementation was bound to fail. There was a rule that if an individual had not used the “monthly” vouchers after the first three months of the year, they would have to pay in two six monthly instalments. Given that some authorities delayed sending out the books of vouchers, the subsequent queues of “Can’t pay, won’t pay” outside the magistrates courts was the inevitable consequence of not having thought through the practicalities of the collection of the tax. Added to the administrative problems, the attitude of those Authorities who had perhaps three years to go before they faced re-election, could boost the individual charge in that first year, giving them a war chest to spend on favoured topics and to fight the next election, was ignored. In Nottinghamshire’s case the individual charge was boosted by over £100 per person, raising revenue they did not need, and in so doing brought odium solely down on our government who took the full blame for the tax that was more than double the original estimation.
That debacle led to the challenge to Mrs Thatcher’s leadership. There had been a stalking horse the year before, but the Poll Tax and the European issue brought the situation to a head, and for me it became the worst two weeks of my Parliamentary career. My head told me that Mrs T should have retired with all honour after ten years in office, but I knew I owed her my chance to be a Member of Parliament. So my heart was
with her, but when Geoffrey Howe made his famous resignation speech, one we were given to understand his good lady had taken years to write, and Geoffrey five minutes to a read, an election was inevitable. It was also clear that if Michael Heseltine didn’t throw his hat in the ring, he never would.
We had never rejected a Prime Minister whilst in office, and I felt I should consult my members and we sent out some 700 letters seeking their views. I was pressured by some to make my view clear, but I took the view that it would have been insulting to members, to seek their view whilst at the same time telling them that I would vote this way or that, regardless of their opinions. The local BBC journalist tried hard to make me announce my view, but in the end accepted that I would wait until I’d gathered my member’s views. She did indicate that I would get a call from the BBC on the Monday morning, before I left to drive to Westminster. I took the call, and happily did not recognise my interrogator. After a few questions were batted away, the voice said “surely you’ve nailed your colours to the mast.” I agreed and said they were blue. End of interview. Only then did I realise I’d been talking to John Humphries, which was perhaps just as well. This was the same weekend of the first part of the TV series of Michael Dobbs’ House of Cards. On arriving at the House, the chief whip Tim Renton, came across the member’s lobby and congratulating me on how I’d handled the interview. In the light of the TV programme I could only reply “You may say that, I could not possibly comment!”
With John Major becoming prime Minister, David Waddington went to the Lords as leader of their House and as Lord privy Seal. Although the press had tipped me for some advancement, it was not to be, and David asked that I join him again as his PPS to seek to improve links between the two chambers. It also meant I remained with Lord Ferrers, who was delighted since he’d never had a PPS before. Attending at the bar of their Lordship’s House for nearly two years, made me appreciate just what an excellent contribution it made to improving legislation. There was never an attempt to challenge the primacy of the Commons, and in practice, whatever amendments they made, unless the Commons agreed to those amendments, the view of the Lower House prevailed. It may not be logical, but it works, and I do fear that fiddling about with a full or part elected Upper Chamber, will have unintended consequences we will live to regret. I certainly doubt that many, if any, of the specialists that from time to time when appropriate to their skills, offer their advice from those red benches, will bother to seek election to an elected Upper House, and that expertise will be lost to our country.
Rowing Against the Tide - A career in sport and politics Page 16
