Liberalism and trade unionism in my working life

I spent the vast majority of my working life as an active trade unionist for IRSF, PTC & PCS trade unions. I recall being asked to join my trade union (IRSF) the day after I started work for the Inland Revenue in 1975, indeed my employer back in those more enlightened days actually encouraged their staff to join a trade union.

Yes, I know, that’s hard to believe but back then governments were committed to industrial relations and there was a format for such relations between management and unions called the Whitley System which defined how it worked. As far as I could tell the Whitley System worked across the whole Civil Service, although from what I’ve been told and indeed my own experiences it worked best in the Inland Revenue.

Within 3 years I was a member of the trade union side of an office Whitley Committee and then moved on to be an Office Secretary for my union. Maybe readers unaware of such a post would more likely know of the similar but more well-known term Shop Steward. Then it was on to becoming a member of the local Branch Committee (Bootle Taxes) and after a few years learning the ropes I found myself as Branch Secretary, a post I held for 22 years!

My trade union involvement pretty much paralleled my involvement in party politics as I joined the old Liberal Party in 1980. To me there’s no problem being a Liberal and a trade unionist although I recall others, mainly socialists, wondering out loud how I could be both. Those same trade unionists soon realised that I was of the left and more progressive and radical than most Labour Party members.

I did not realise it at the time but I was developing into a Social Liberal of the left. Not authoritarian and controlling like many socialists but holding similar policy views to some socialists. I’ve never wanted to join the Labour Party because it is often too right wing for me and especially so under Starmer!

My first union (The Inland Revenue Staff Federation) was a small trade specific union which celebrated its 100th anniversary whilst I was an Office Secretary for it. These photos of the first day cover issued to celebrate its birthday have always been important to me:-

 

I was far from enthusiastic when my hundred plus year old union merged to create PTC and then again to become PCS. I got it that the aim was to create a more effective and efficient trade union for the whole Civil Service and indeed the wider public sector but, for me, it was at the expense of a larger union being more remote and in some ways less knowledgeable about specific issues in particular work places. I guess this was my Liberalism showing through.

I retired as a union officer 5 or 6 years before I retired from what had then become HMRC as thankfully younger blood had come along to try to take trade unionism forward. But I retired feeling somewhat sad as step by step governments of the day had turned against what I will call proper industrial relations and the once universally accepted and valued Whitley System.

Over a period of 40 years I had experienced the continual erosion of good industrial relations to the point where ‘us and them’ was seen to be the way ‘forward’ by governments with confrontation seemingly being their only objective. Where had the respect gone? Where had valuing staff and unions gone? What good had come and will become from confrontation?

Despite my latter years as a trade unionist at times being a little depressing I valued my time working for union members in my branch and regionally. I learned negotiating skills and how to fight for those with little or nothing; not a dissimilar experience to being a Lib Dem local councillor!

 

Should you meet your heroes?

It’s often said that you should not meet your heroes as it will be disappointing.

I suppose I have 3 significant heroes of which I’ve met two of them. They are politician Shirley Williams, sportsman Derek Randall and musician Isaac Hayes. I met Williams and Randall but not Hayes, although I was yards away from him at two concerts when he toured the UK in November 1978. Hayes is, of course, now dead so I’m not going to meet him but I’m presently reading a biography of his life which comes rather too close to me knowing about his wider life and relationships. But let’s start with Williams.

 

Shirley, pictured above with our daughter Jen and myself, was pretty much everything I’d expected of her from seeing her on TV. I met her on quite a number of occasions over a period of say 15 years or so as a MP for Crosby, as a Baroness and as a hugely influential political speaker and activist for progressive politics. By nature she was bright, welcoming, intelligent, politically radical and progressive, plus she had that gift few politicians have to be able to engage with ordinary folk without being patronising or superior. The late Charles Kennedy had that gift too although I only met him the once. So Shirley was indeed very much the person I looked up to when I got to know her and like with Kennedy the political loss has been significant not least because so very few of our present day politicians come anywhere near close to them.

 

Derek, when I met him, was as eccentric as many of us who saw him on the cricket field for Nottinghamshire and England in the 1970s/1980s might have expected. I met him just the once and it was very much unexpected. I’d turned up at Trent Bridge cricket ground to pick up a copy of his 1992 autobiography ‘RAGS’ from the Notts shop. Being asked whether I’d like a signed copy the answer was, of course, yes, but the copy handed to me wasn’t signed. On querying things the chap in the shop smiled and said ‘go through those doors and onto the ground where Derek is presently teaching youngsters to bat and he’ll sign it’. I could not quite believe what I was hearing but did as advised and was met by Derek who said ‘Eh up lad, how’s ya dooin’ and then he took the book from me and signed it. We had a brief chat and he said how delighted he was that I’d come to see him. He was delighted, I was all but speechless! What a nice chap and what a cricketing entertainer.

 

And now I come to Isaac my musical hero since around 1970ish. I have pretty much everything he recorded and I still listen to his unique soul music regularly. I’d been introduced to Hayes by my life-long friend Andrew Beattie who sadly died in 1999. Indeed, Andrew was a huge influence over me in terms of music, politics and my becoming an atheist. I never met Hayes but did see him in concert twice, in Manchester’s now long-gone Free Trade Hall and at Liverpool’s Empire, both during his 1978 tour of the UK. I’d heard bits about his lifestyle, his womanising and how he surrounded himself with shall we say colourful characters, but it was not until the 2022 biography of him was published that I really got to understand his life, influences etc. I must admit some of it is shocking and frankly disturbing but then again I’m white and English whereas he was black and from Memphis in the deep south of the US. I suppose I’ve found out what I’d always suspected i.e. that this musical genius was a very colourful and eccentric chap whose lifestyle I found uncomfortable to read about. So still a hero? Yes, in musical terms and also in terms of his charitable work but otherwise, well as my old Mum used to say ‘if you can’t say anything good, say nothing at all’.

 

So, 3 heroes and only one disappointed me and that disappointment has little to do with his music. Having said that his experiences must have influenced his soul output for good and bad yet he still hits all the right notes for me musically.

I think we should meet our heroes but we should be prepared to see their real life rather than the rose-tinted one we’ve created from seeing them on TV, social media etc.

 

Chester the Chocolate Labrador

Last Saturday was a sad day for friends of Chester the Chocolate Labrador as this lovely dog’s innings came to a close.

Chester lived with Roy and Beth Connell in Ainsdale but was a regular visitor to our house where he stayed for a few days now and again when his ‘family’ were away on short holidays. Those visits were a delight for Sheila and I.

 

I took Chester on a bus and a train, something he’d not done before but he loved it as he’d quickly make friends with anyone he came across. And, of course, as everyone likes to make a fuss of a Labrador he was never short of people wanting to make that fuss of him.

 

On walks around Lydiate and Maghull he soon worked out where daughter Jen lived and always wanted to go in for more fuss. On one occasion Jen was having a new carpet put down whilst we were looking after Chester and she was at work. The carpet fitter was a Lab’ owner so the pair of them were rolling around on the floor play-fighting and the carpet fitting had to wait.

 

We don’t have a dog, although I had one as a child, but to be able to spend time with Chester was a really enjoyable experience.

Roy, Beth, Sheila, Jen and I will miss Chester as will many other people who got to knew him.

 

The link between taxation & government spending, or the lack of it in some minds

To balance the UK books and to keep the money markets happy government spending must be funded by taxation and borrowing. When the money markets think it’s not balanced we end up in a Trussenomics mess, indeed a catastrophic mess.

The latest Tory wheeze is to cut Inheritance Tax, a tax cut that only benefits a very small percentage of the taxpaying public. The vast majority of us will never encounter it and maybe as little as 5% of us will actually pay IT. Yet this proposed tax cut is sold by Tories and their tame right-wing press so as to give the impression that it will benefit the many when it will only benefit the few.

Some of those supporting the cut, but not benefiting from it at all, fall for this political stunt. It would be more honest of the supporters of this move to say ‘put up my personal taxes instead because I don’t think Inheritance tax is fair’. I’d have more respect for them if they did because they seem to be living in a world where you can have something for nothing and decent public services whilst cutting taxes for the most wealthy.

Wrong-footing Labour

Of course, the proposed cut is also meant to wrong-foot Labour who don’t like to be seen as opposing a tax cuts so are muted in response despite such cuts putting them a worse financial mess if and when they do get control of the public finances.

Politicians have always tried to give the impression that taxes can be cut without any effect on public services and that’s one very big reason why our public services are in such an appalling state. For me Blair started the modern tax cuts/no tax rises with no consequences rot but he did so when the economy was booming so tax revenues remained high as we were doing reasonably well. But the grey man Starmer is in one hell of a hole because our economy is doing badly presently so tax revenues are not buoyant and we are borrowing to support public services and potentially even more tax cuts for the few!

It’s likely that the Tories are running the economy into the buffers, as they know they’ll lose the next election, so want it to be in a poor state thereby putting Labour in an impossible position. That’s why, in turn, Labour is backing off the very few pledges they have previously made and look more Tory by the day.

Electoral Reform

The Tory thinking will be ‘we know we’re going to take a hammering but when Labour fails to turn things around we’ll be back in business as voters will blame Starmer, Reeves and Streeting etc. for not sorting things out or seriously addressing problems such as the NHS and Social Care crisis’.

Trouble is Labour do know what’s going on but their leadership steadfastly refuses to support the only reasonable solution to having another slash and burn Tory government in 5 or 10 years’ time, electoral reform.

Decent public services

We’ll only ever have decent public services if they are funded properly, the workers in vital public services such as the NHS and Social Care are paid wages consistent with retaining them and we all accept that if we want something for nothing the consequence will be poor public services. All sounds very logical until some of us listen to lying politicians telling us we can have something for nothing and enough of us are fooled again!

The BBC

Another analogy, which follows the something for nothing line, is the TV License fee. Many who oppose it also complain that the BBC’s output is poor. A friend of mine point blank refuses to pay the License Fee and has done for years but continually complains about how bad BBC programmes are. It’s as though he does not see, or want to see, that without his contribution and that of others like him it all adds up to less money hence the poorer output! Yes, by all means suggest other ways of funding the BBC but don’t complain its output is poor when it is underfunded; that’s just daft.*

No such thing as something for nothing

The bottom line is the something for nothing line is simply nonsense, yet look at the Scandinavian countries that generally seem to get it right. Yes, their taxes are high (and so are their wages) but in the main they have high quality public services.

 

* I do have issues with the BBC’s news and current affairs output which, like the rest of its output, is clearly affected by an ever diminishing budget. But my issues are about its use of political balance which at times is bizarre. It’s as though they allow one extremist air time to say whatever nonsense they like but then try to get another opposing extremist to say just the opposite! How is that good news and current affairs output?

 

 

My review of 2023

Like any year 2023 has had its ups and downs.

I lost a friend in Tony Fenton and lovely next door neighbour George but despite being sad at these losses I like to look at the good things too.

Sheila and I had 3 lovely holidays in Derbyshire, Northumberland and West Yorkshire and I had 3 days down in Nottinghamshire watching cricket at Trent Bridge, meeting some fellow railway/local history enthusiasts (David and Geoff) in the town of my birth – Kirkby-In-Ashfield - and visiting Meccano expert and collector Jim Gamble.

I finally hung up my hat as a local councillor after 38 consecutive years. 30 years on Maghull Town Council (1 as Town Mayor), 20 on Lydiate Parish Council and 16 on Sefton Borough Council (7 as Council Leader) and at 65 it seemed about the right time to stand down. I enjoyed the vast majority of my years as a local councillor but your time is never really your own if you are to do the job properly so being able to concentrate on other things now has felt good. I also hung up my hat as a school governor at Maghull High School this year.

I met some great people through politics – Andrew, Roy, Robbie, Cliff, Peter, Anthony H, Shirley Williams, Maisie, Sheila N, Geoff, Nigel A, Iain BB, John P David R, David T, John D & Charles Kennedy all come to mind and there have been many others too. To have my long-service recognised by my political party in 2023 was a very pleasant surprise. A big thank you to those who nominated me for the award.

 

I’m now heavily involved in the Frank Hornby Trust and as a volunteer curator of Maghull’s Frank Hornby Heritage Centre which is a very rewarding pastime indeed. Hornby, of Meccano, Hornby Trains and Dinky Toys fame, lived for much of his adult life in Maghull and having lived in Maghull myself from 1968 to 2011 I’m delighted to be a part of celebrating the Town’s most famous resident.

Cycling is almost an everyday activity for me now and I’ve just come back from my last ride of 2023 and it was nice one in sunshine too. Keith a lifelong-friend is a fellow cyclist and through this activity I’ve also met Amby who has become a good friend. I share this activity with brother-in-law Ian and my old chum Roy although I’ve not cycled much with either of them in 2023.

As a Lydiate volunteer litter picker I’ve also just done my usual monthly litter pick of a local footpath; the last of 2023.

Assisting Lydiate in Flower and Maghull in Bloom (including a couple of hours in December playing Santa outside Morrisions in Maghull) is also a great pastime of mine which I share with Sheila in terms of Maghull in Bloom.

I've also enjoyed my time assisting Sefton Council for Voluntary Service with their local heritage projects

Our daughter Jen had a piece of her maritime historical work exhibited in London in September and I was rather privileged to be her ‘plus one’ at the celebration event. Proud Dad and all that, of course.

 

So for me 2023 has seen a couple of sad losses but many memorable things too. How Sheila has put up with me all these years never ceases to amaze me.

All the very best for 2024.