Harriet Harman, the NCCL & Liberty, the times..

Published on the Labour Left website 25th February 2014 http://www.labourleft.co.uk/ Some thoughts..

In the 70s the NCCL was a libertarian organisation, in the best sense. It became a vehicle for free speech for everyone - and those who had been silenced by ‘The Establishment’ especially during and after the heady 60s welcomed this stance and the opportunies presented.

I remember some of the issues being tackled even though I was in my mid-late teens.  You might not be surprised to learn that I was interested in the changing times!  The BBC had treated us tothe daring spectacle of That Was the Day That Was - the first televised satirical challenge to 'The Establishment'.   We discovered we had an organisation, albeit appearing to be somewhat casual, that would formally attempt to challenge long held views and encourage free speech. I say casual as we must bear in mind that this was a whole new era.  There was no example to follow.  This was ground breaking stuff.

They were experimental times. Some were often shocked by what was happening around them -  I know my parents certainly were in the early days even the music and performance of the Rolling Stones in the late 60s early 70s was considered daring!  So when views were expressed that they did not agree with, but sometimes did, they felt confused.  Some issues appeared fair, some not so good and some they could not sign up to at all!

The NCCL evolved into Liberty, Shami Chakraborti being it’s present CEO.  We should be proud of the stance that this organisation has taken on many issues.  NCCL asked questions that previously hadn't seen the light of day.  I believe that without this organisation we would be a less tolerant society and although we would have probably have arrived at similar conclusions that we have, they would certainly have taken longer.   The gay community would have struggled far longer without it's assistance and courage.  I say courage because during those days courage was required to dare to be even a little bit different to the majority.   Many reading this will have little such understanding - merely accepting and enjoying the rights and freedoms they enjoy today.  Somewhat like the trade unions, those rights had to be fought for. NCCL was at the forefront of all that. It took risks, it was bold.   

Some examples of those times - in the US the rights of black people to travel on the same buses as white people were being challenged.  Civil rights = civil liberties.  We had our own problems in the UK - Enoch Powell had given his famous ‘rivers of blood’ speech. It disturbed many of us whilst similtaneously pleasing others. It had consequences - some immigrants feared for their lives.  Now we see vans telling immigrants to go home! Those were the early days of tackling inequaity as well as racism.  Bras were being burned and girls were reading Simone de Beauvoir - one of the first women authors to write about feminism.   Inequality between men and women still requires challenging.  I guess some issues are tough nuts to crack.. .. Old intolerances live on.

The contraceptive pill had become available and parents were no longer nervous of unwanted pregnancies but of  the sexual behaviour of their offspring, especially daughters.   CND - Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament marches had taken place on city streets across the UK.  Some agreed with them, some did not.  Abortion rights was another fight.  Increasingly our society was crying out for change at different levels within our lives.

Harriet Harman, Jack Dromey and Patricia Hewitt were young and intelligent.  Perhaps, like myself,  the first people within their families to go to University.   More new ground!  It must have been an exciting time to work at the NCCL. Questioning everything.  Don’t they all look young?

And a young newly qualified lawyer would certainly not have the voice nor the power to expel any organisation that had legally sought affiliation. Like many of us, questioning or not, she had a job to do and she had to get on with it !  Harriet Harman has made it quite clear that PIE had been pushed to the margins before she even went to the NCCL.  The campaign referred to took place in 1976.  Harriet Harman didn’t join NCCL until two years later.

In her interview Harriet Harman said that allegations by the Daily Mail are a smear. "They have accused me of being an apologist for child sex abuse, of supporting a vile paedophile organisation, of having a relaxed attitude to paedophilia and of watering down child pornography laws," she said. "These are horrific allegations and I strongly deny them all of them".  It is documented in several articles that Jack Dromey took on PIE in the late 70s when he was Chair of NCCL.  But it took five years for that organisation to finally expel them.  Were other forces at work ?  Did PIE have friends in high places - we are now aware of the Savile influence. Were they part of the same network ?   I doubt neither Harriet Harman nor Jack Dromey would have a clue. Like me they probably had no idea that such networks existed.  They were probably as naieve as the rest of us at that age and in those times.  We need some context here.

The Daily Mail says it is defiant.  It was defiant over Ed Miliband's father too !

Why bring this into the public domain now..   ?  I’ve seen this stuff before but it has never made the headlines.

‘This is the Leadership Britain Needs’; or Why We Picked the Right Miliband

Co-written with Bev Clack and published in the Huffington Post February 2014 At one point in his 2013 speech to Labour conference, Ed Miliband made the claim that his was the leadership that Britain needs.

At the time, this sounded a tad optimistic. After all, Miliband had struggled to find his footing as Labour leader, with some peaks and troughs as he sought to find his voice.

To say that the months since that conference last September have seen him take massive steps towards realising that claim would be an understatement. In the same speech, Ed focused on ‘the cost of living crisis,’ drawing attention to the struggles that accompany the experience of falling wages and rising prices. It is this crisis that continues to dominate the political agenda and which hasn’t gone away, despite Tory hopes that better economic forecasts would lead people to ignore their own struggling finances.

Drawing attention to the cost of living was only the start.

Ed’s speech on what a One Nation Economy would look like focused on the paucity of an old economic model that has failed. In place of trickle down economics, he mapped out an industrial policy fit for the 21st century. Forget a Labour government that just fiddles at the margins of things: this was a strategy for shaping a new economy and a responsive banking system.

Last week, in his Hugo Young lecture he turned his attention to public services. This did far more than set out an agenda for public sector reform: the focus was on a 21st century socialism that takes the humanity of each person seriously, and that through deferring power to local communities enables the humanising of state systems of support.

And now, in the wake of yet more devastating floods, Ed’s taking the lead on the environmental crisis we are facing. Not enough just to stare at floods or to offer measures that will cope with the current crisis but which fail to address the root causes of such events: Ed is showing how Labour will offer policies that address urgently the challenges of climate change.

If this isn’t the leadership Britain needs, what is? Does anyone seriously think David Miliband would have been as bold and creative in his direction of travel for the party? Come off it. Triangulation and the old arts of the Blairite dinosaurs are no longer relevant for shaping a Labour government of the future. Times have changed. Out of necessity we have moved on. This is what happens. If a political party is not to die on its feet, it has to respond to changing circumstances. And this is what Ed has done brilliantly through an agenda for root and branch change which addresses the challenges we face from the financial crisis, the ecological crisis and, importantly, the crisis of trust in politics.

So what about the next steps for his leadership?

It is wonderful to see Ed become the leader that not just Labour needs, but the leader that this country needs. And, as we’re sure Ed would agree, he – and Labour – need to go further.

Labour’s Education policies are still not good enough. While it would be harsh to call them ‘Gove-lite’, the emphasis remains on the bureaucracy of registering teachers and the blind belief in parent power. And while it is great to see Liam Byrne challenging the Government’s handling of Higher Education, his emphasis is still on education as a driver for the economy, rather than a good in and of itself. http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2014/feb/10/higher-education-immigration-unemployment-liam-byrne

Our education policies at present are too technical with too little vision about the difference education can make to the richness of people’s lives. Our children and young people deserve a creative strategy that will take them forward, not back to Victorian days which is where Michael Gove’s agenda is taking them. Decades ago we discovered that his preferred model didn’t work. Why repeat the failures of the past? We live in a fast moving world and therefore need an education model for today which will prepare our children and young people for tomorrow.

It is essential at this point to mention Tristram Hunt crossing that picket line of UCU, Unison and Unite members, who were striking for Fair Pay in Higher Education.  Hunt must understand that this dispute matters because it is about a fundamental unfairness in pay. When those at the top award themselves – as Vice Chancellors have done – with pay rises in the region of 8%, and expect the rest to show pay restraint by settling for 1%, that cannot be right. We know that the discrepancy between the wages of those at the top and those at the bottom are at their widest for a very long time. Hunt’s failure to engage with this particular dispute flies in the face of Ed’s commitment to take on inequality, as well as his commitment to tackling the lack of responsibility shown by those at the top.

For Hunt not to get how important a show of solidarity is in the wake of these commitments is, frankly, staggering.

Given that in two weeks time the party meets at a Special Conference in London on Party Reform, Hunt’s actions could not have come at a worse time. If Labour is to show its commitment to include union members in the decision making of the party, shadow ministers must show that they are on the side of rank and file trade unionists and that they share their struggle for better working conditions. This is perhaps the most elementary lesson of our socialism.

That Hunt doesn’t get these struggles raises the problem of accommodating what we might call the neo-liberal wing of the party: those who still believe in the old diktats of Blairism (where the private is good and the public bad; where bankers are to be courted and favours bestowed: a strategy that has resulted in Labour failing to challenge the vested interest of corporate business;

where the appeal to the aspirational middle class is made at the expense of all else).

Eventually, for Ed’s mission to change Britain to succeed, he will have to take on the money Lord Sainsbury has spent at promoting this old agenda. If this is not done, the voice of a small part of the party will continue to have a disproportionate influence on party policy which distorts the clarity of Ed’s agenda for change. Instead of concentrating on exclusivity, we need to concentrate on inclusivity - a Labour Party where all voices count, regardless of income or status.

As Ed takes Labour forward there will be other steps to take along the way.

The issue of how policy is made is vital. Ed has been extremely vocal in raising the issue of what makes for a more representative politics, promoting the need for diversity in our elected representatives that reflects the diverse nature of 21st century Britain. His comments on the need for gender parity in parliament reflect this concern. His style of leadership is particularly attractive to women: less macho, more consensual. His commitment to more women MPs is excellent.

But how many women are there in Ed’s circle of advisors? Certainly, too few of the key figures heading up our policy reviews are women. If the commitment to a more representative Labour party is to be real, this discrepancy must be addressed in order that our policies reflect the interests of a broad range of people, not just a few. This broadening out of the party base and, crucially, the hearing of all voices, will undoubtedly be part of the journey that Labour takes in the months ahead.

In making these critical comments, we are concerned only to push that Milibandite agenda forward. We believe that the path Ed has set out is a good one, and that it is one that will take him to Number 10 in 2015.

And that Government promises much, for with this kind of leadership, Ed’s government can rival 1945 in terms of its legacy.