Lost in Rochdale

(Or Gordon goes deaf in the mill towns: Did you say ‘Flocking?’)


In the summer of 1960 I decided that I would spend my week’s holiday hitch- hiking to Fort William in order to climb Ben Nevis. To cut a long story short I finished up bouncing around in the mill towns of Yorkshire and Lancashire before escaping with the help of a lorry driver who to my good fortune was heading for Glasgow. As a southern 16 year old those mill towns were a bit of a shock with the girls sitting out having their lunch break, all looking like Gracie Fields.
I have since learnt quite a bit about life in the mills, the hardships of the working people and especially the noise that caused many of them to go deaf due to the clatter of the machines. I now know that Rochdale has the proud claim to be the home of the Rochdale Pioneers who brought us the idea of the co-operative movement and it is this bundle of memories which makes Gordon Brown’s electioneering gaff all the more distressing. He is, as far as I am aware, of sound hearing, but he wasn’t listening to Gillian Duffy, and for some time hasn’t been listening to Labour’s traditional voters.

Of all the places to visit this surely was a Labour homeland, albeit having been represented by Cyril Smith for the Liberals for many years. This was a place where Labour’s record and plans for the future should have been articulated at their clearest with the help of the many faithful lifetime Labour voters who would find it unthinkable to vote for any other party. Gordon’s Black Wednesday was to bring none of this. Like Tony Blair before him he seems to have paid little attention to history and presumably thought that a succession of handshakes and small talk would suffice.

Unfortunately he was introduced to model traditional voter, Gillian Duffy, whose working class tradition of speaking out would normally have been a credit to any Labour constituency branch. Such is the shallowness of modern political life that this grandma was not heard but dismissed as a bigot even though as a person concerned for the future of her grandchildren she wanted to hear Labour’s plans. Whatever impression the film footage might have given, the now well known interlude of accusing anger, says much of Labour’s loss of vision and connection with its roots.

Gillian Duffy was a sure bet for a Labour vote but the signs of disconnection were already showing. The 10p tax controversy and the ridiculous purported correction which Gordon Brown claimed to have made and the whole fiasco of immigration and asylum seekers are the most obvious. Gordon Brown’s slogan, ‘British Jobs for British people’ if it had any meaning at all, was too late. The Labour Government rejected delaying open borders for those seeking work and, getting its estimates wrong, jumped in with both feet. It appears to have had no inkling of how working people would perceive this. Was it really all about having cheap strawberries for much of the year! Unfortunately not, it was about the arrival of a great deal of competent workers who would provide added competition and keeps wages down. Worse still, it was providing much needed skilled workers when the Labour Government since 1997 had undermined the value of acquiring practical skills and promoted the higher education route.

It has falsely raised the aspirations of many young people who in another age would have been the proud and natural recruits for the modern skilled workforce we need. While Polish plumbers were fully employed, many British youngsters were finding it extremely difficult to find a place on a plumbing course at their nearby college, while those who went to university had to take on part time work to supplement the crippling debt which crippling fees required. As a result the quality of their university experience has been reduced, aided and abetted by the dash to acquire funds by overvaluing researchers and regarding good teachers as unimportant. How many stories have you heard of lecturers who regard the teaching as a chore attracting no kudos, or of post-grad students teaching with poor communication skills?

Not surprisingly the cartel of older universities has managed to keep the impact of this muddled expansion to a minimum, and exploit research funding to great advantage. For a generation of Labour politicians who benefitted so much from free higher education this speaks of Jack and his ladder with more to come in further education with practical skills courses already being cut.

Whatever the complicated reasons for this influx of labour from the EU or elsewhere, it is clear from listening to the many debates and watching the faces of the audiences, that a large proportion of working people remain unconvinced when they see the lack of jobs, houses and investment in areas like Rochdale. If a party seeking re-election is unable to respond in a convincing manner, and does not appear to even listen to its thinking and articulate supporters, is it any wonder that some people exploit the job shortage/immigration ratio, imagined or not, for their own unpleasant political purposes. It should not be forgotten that many potential Labour voters will not all have the principles which prevent their sense of betrayal leading them to the extreme right. Mrs Duffy has chosen not to vote at all, whilst others might be thinking of ‘flocking’ elsewhere thanks to Labour’s failure to stay in touch with its roots. Let us hope that the Rochdale incident reminds people of what the Rochdale Pioneers represented and what New Labour never seemed to understand.

Postscript: The Daily Mail/Mail on Sunday won the exclusive interview rights with Mrs Duffy and it would seem that the editor was happy to print her story without embellishment. Presumably on the basis that its speaks for itself. The interview story was accompanied by an excellent piece by Rochdale girl Liz Kershaw.

See also: Michael Collins, author of “The Likes of Us: A biography of the White Working Class”

The co-operative movement and the Co-operative Party seem to have been hidden behind the aristocratic embrace of the Labour Party establishment for too long and it is ironic that suddenly the merits of companies like the John Lewis Partnership are now expressly referred to in the Labour Party Manifesto. It is ironic on several levels. A party which has had so much faith in British management and bankers now recognises that employees are very much third fiddle to Directors and shareholders. Would it have anything to do with the popularity of their products with MP’s when refurnishing their homes at the tax payer’s expense? Too little too late me thinks.

That said the John Lewis Partnership and the co-operative models are ideas whose time should have come years ago. Let’s hope they are not forgotten in the coming hard-times we are about to enter.