Another voice
A policy for the North-East
Auberon Waugh
As it happened, I was in Newcastle on Friday night, addressing an angry crowd of Sheffield steelworkers and Durham min ers, when we heard news of the national steel strike planned for 2 January. They were furious, as usual, to meet someone whom they insist on identifying as a major shareholder in British Steel and the National Coal Board — no use assuring them I have no shares in anything, and if I had money to invest I certainly would not put it in British industry: if I chose to give my money to charity there are worthier objects around than these angry, pam pered remnants of the British working class. If their fury abated for a moment when I assured them I thought it very sensible for the steelworkers to go on strike, it returned in even noisier, nastier form when I added that I hoped they stayed on strike for good, as it seemed the most useful thing they could do, under the circumstances.
For several years now I have been making periodic forays into the North to taunt the 'workers' there. It would be nice to be able to pretend that my purpose was to convince them of the error of their ways: that there would be plenty of work in the North-East if anybody thought they would be prepared to do it properly; that it is only their particular mixture of stupidity, ignorance and bloodymindedness which makes them unemployable. One tells them these things often enough — or at any rate I do — but nothing will shake their massive conviction that the world owes them a living.
But there is a slightly more serious purpose to these raids, even if the sporting element is paramount. All commentators on the social scene, all political writers, politicians and administrators, I feel, should make periodic visits to these dismal places to remind themselves not only of the immovable stupidity of the North-East but also of its envy and hatred. This hatred embraces everyone who is richer, cleverer, happier or more successful than they are — roughly speaking, the whole of the civilised world — and concentrates generally on the educated classes of southern England, but its particular focus at the moment is on people who work in the media. Newspaper and television men — regardless of how left-wing' they are, or 'compassionate', or desperately concerned and even vasectomised — are blamed for failing to point out, at the time of last winter's strikes, that many, if not most, of the strikers were faced with a genuine reduction in their standards of living. Consequently, the media are to blame for all their present discontents and future uncertainties.
It may be, as Mr Christopher Booker has poetically suggested, that their hatred of the media is to be compared with Caliban's rage at seeing his reflection in the mirror: they can't bear the sight of their own horrible faces. A more prosaic explanation may lie in the immovable obstacle of their own stupidity. They are unshakably convinced that they have an absolute right to the improved living standards of the past 15 years, and congenitally unable to open their minds to the proposition that if these living standards are to be maintained, let alone improved, they will have to change their attitudes to work.
A corollary of this massive stupidity is that they are unable to see that the unions, and the working practices enforced by them, are almost entirely responsible for the industrial collapse of the North-East. Among the speakers at the seminar organised by Tyne-Tees Television was 80-year-old Lord Blyton, the former Durham miner who is now one of the best-loved characters in the House of Lords. He was cheered to the echo when he said he remembered miners being cudgelled to death by the police — a regular feature of the good old days, apparently — and said it was only the power of the unions which prevented it happening today. Another speaker had us all blowing into our handkerchiefs when he revealed that his father had died in a mining accident during the last war, and his mother received only £200 compensation. But these damp handkerchiefs were waved in the air when the speaker said that nowadays she would receive £30,000 — thanks to the unions.
These sluggish, conditioned miners are simply not open to the suggestion that unions have had very little to do with workers' prosperity: it is a requirement of mass-production technology that workers have plenty of spending power. Having no interest in foreign affairs, they are probably not aware that workers in every other country in Europe are doing better than ours are without our stifling union apparatus. Having no very accurate perceptions of English history, they are probably incapable of understanding how the working class has almost invariably acted to stifle its own advancement; that if the unions had been governing this country for the past 220 years, Arkwright's Spinning Jenny would still be on the drawing-board.
The temptation is to leave the North East brooding resentfully about its Uncle Wilfred who broke his leg at work back in 1907 and that, indeed, would seem the best policy. But events can be brought to a head now, and it will be interesting to see whether Mrs Thatcher has the courage to do it. For years I have argued that Labour should be left to reap the whirlwind, but it now seems obvious that no likely Labour government would be able — even if it had the will — to contain the localised nearrevolutionary situation which is going to develop when British industry faces its moment of truth, whereas Mrs Thatcher just might be able to keep her nerve when riots break out in Newcastle, Liverpool, Leeds and Rotherham. We may be sure that, like everything done in Britain nowadays, these riots will be pretty halfbaked affairs, and certainly not to be compared with the Luddite riots of 1813 and 1816. Nor would I judge that Britain is anywhere like so near a revolutionary situation now as it was in 1816, or even in 1913-1914. Although nobody who has ever been north of the Trent can seriously believe Conservative claims that 'the country as a whole' wants to see the unions taken down a peg, I should judge there is sufficient animosity against them in the Conservative South to enable a Conservative government to pursue a vigorous policy of repression against rioters, especially in the North. It is only by combining a policy of vigorous repression with returning prosperity that these popular agitations can be contained, as Lord Liverpool showed in 1816 — and grievances are infinitely less urgent now than they were then. Perhaps such a policy would bring the North to its senses, as Lord Liverpool brought it to its senses in 1813 and 1816 to produce the greatest era of prosperity it has ever known. The alternative is to leave it rotting quietly away as a great, damp sponge on the national economY. Cries for an independent socialist republic of the North-East came from a few 'workers' present, but I fear even their stupidity would baulk at the consequences of such a splendid idea, although I promised I would send them Christmas food parcels. Of course Mrs Thatcher will do nothing. But I saw one hopeful thing in Newcastle. At the station on Saturday morning there was a youth band, about 40 strong, playing golden oldies: Isle of Capri, Fran: kie and Johnny etc. They weren't at ali bad.. Throughout my harangue on th.e night before I had been urging the steelli workers to visit the local library and catc up on their reading in the long d. ay.s leisure ahead; but even as I said it, I realised it was a forlorn hope. Even if theye approved of reading, they across disturbing and unwelcome 'cleave But a humane government might contri a to teach everyone there the use ot musical instrument. . might .coms
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