Political commentary

Tatchell v. 'real' Labour

Colin Welch

Bermondsey surely is a complicated by- election, with almost more candidates than voters; two of them called Hughes, one Liberal, one Tory, both 31, dark and personable; three Labour candidates, one Tatchellite, blessed by hand and Foot, one 'Real' Labour like real ale, one independent Labour, four Labour if you count Nat Lab, whatever that may be; not to mention Lady Birdwood ('life in the old girl yet'), a `monster raving loony' (the screaming and presumably ageing Lord Sutch), two sorts of Communist, one revolutionary (Fran Eden, also personable), a National Fronter and so forth. It makes your head spin.

The language too is something awful, the only bit of dockland to survive. Mr O'Grady (`Real' Lab) and his so-to-speak godfather Mr Mellish are in the local man- ner particularly outspoken. Mr Mellish calls Mr Tatchell a 'shocking liar', an 'ignorant pig', who talks variously 'crap', 'guff and `tosh', and his buddies on the new and fear- ful Southwark Council 'a shower of bloody rubbish'.Campaign photos show Mr Mellish's lugubrious storm-eroded features looming over Mr O'Grady's shoulder, like an old-fashioned comedy duo or ventrilo- quist with dummy. One half anticipates well-loved jokes — 'We've got no money, but the borough treasurer's got piles' or, `That's not Tatchell's sister — he just walks like that.'

Of course Mr Tatchell's alleged homo- sexuality or concern for that aberration is an issue round here, for all that we can think of a good many MPs, Tories too for that matter, who were homosexuals, who may never exactly have 'come out' but who were quite incapable of staying wholly in, and were nonetheless often greatly lov- ed. If he ever came out, Mr Tatchell has now apparently gone in — a fact which does not endear him to Gay Libbers, who regard him as a sort of Judas and may yet make trouble for him, Perhaps he wasn't at the Gay Olympics: but they would have preferred him to look disappointed rather than indignant. And, yes, there are gays in Bermondsey ...

What with all the music-hall uproar and confusion, it is sometimes hard to discern the great issues which Mr Tatchell would so much prefer to discuss. Of these the greatest is perhaps the struggle between two Labour parties, one half dead, the other powerful to be born.

It is hard to feel no sympathy for Messrs Mellish and O'Grady. They were, so to speak, to the manor born. Now the disrespectful brokers are at the door, and soon it may be the last day in the old home. They are genuinely proud of the Bermond- sey they have made, one as ex-MP, one as council ex-leader; not proud of the fine Georgian churches and ships' captains' houses, of the homely pubs and pitiful derelict terraces, some once grand, others at least once cosy and decent, which survive forlorn amidst the glum chaos of urban decay and 'renewal', testifying to a life which existed before Hitler, Labour and developers together destroyed it. The 'real' Labourites have also learnt to disown the huge vandalised, graffito-infested, often liftless tower blocks which Mr Tatchell hates, as do we all, and for which he bitterly blames them. 'Not our fault,' says Mr O'Grady: 'it was the GLC that built them.'

Perhaps: but they were undoubtedly built by that paternalistic 'real' Labour philosophy which Messrs Mellish and O'Grady are doomed to embody, which in- fected all parties for a time but theirs most of all, which built six storeys where it didn't built 24, which in haste produced millions of 'housing units' and never a home, which has reduced not only Bermondsey to barren dull uniformity and featureless ugliness. (I bet they weren't ashamed of the tower blocks at the time!) It was this philosophy which inspired Mr Mellish and Mr O'Grady to 'get things done', to help their people, to serve the local community, to obtain for it housing, jobs and 'leisure facilities', and this, I fan- cy, not invariably by the purest and most scrupulously principled socialist methods. I can understand Mr Tatchell's distaste for such people even from my own very dif- ferent point of view.

It would be absurd to regard as obviously corrupt a man like Mr O'Grady who lives in a pre-war council flat (central heating only now going in) and drives a car which makes even my old Escort look luxurious. But I bet he achieved much by hobnobbing, arm- twisting, ear-bashing, back-scratching, by

favours, influence and I' ve-got-a-pal- who—'; and all this Mr Tatchell despises. 'I built these' (or sometimes 'we'), Mr O'Grady proudly cries as we pass blocks of flats; Mr Tatchell is ungrateful, unimpress- ed. No gardener by the look of him, Mr Tatchell wants council houses with gardens. Well, quite a lot have recently been built, some almost pretty; but Mr Tatchell sees them not.

If I acquit Mr O'Grady of corruption, Mr Tatchell ceaselessly acquits himself. He will be an MP of a new sort, he declares. He denounces the House of Commons as 'a cosy club', other MPs for being 'only in it for themselves'. He damns Labour MPs who make a comfortable career out of it, and fail to fulfil their promises of a better life for working-class people. He abhors MPs with second jobs — barristers, com- pany directors and the like. He will be a 'total' politician. He will not move to fashionable Chelsea or Pimlico, but will go on living in his Bermondsey council flat, or `dump' as he calls it (why live there, if hous- ing is so short?). He will take only that part (£8,000 or so?) of his parliamentary salary which approximates to a skilled wage, the rest going to local socialist funds.

All this sounds less impressive when we remember Bertrand de Jouvenel's wise words: `To be completely acquitted of egoism by the generality, rulers need only affect a studied austerity and a strict economy. As if the real pleasures of authority were not quite other!'

To be sure all politics in places like Ber- mondsey must be corrupted in a way by the facts of poverty and dependence. None of the candidates in my presence strayed far from what he could get or do for his clients. Mr Mellish and Mr O'Grady muse on their `reputation for service'. The Tory promises to chuck plenty of money about, but wisely' of course, and hints that he might get favours for Bermondsey from 'contacts' with Ministers. Not very edifying: but Mr Tatchell's sort of corruption is really far more all-pervasive, total and menacing.

On the surface it makes no sense to stop people buying homes if they want to or to raise rates (by 30 per cent, 40 or 140 — estimates differ) to such a level that all private employers flee the district, destroy- ing hundreds, thousands of precious jobs. This is nonsense to Mellish and O'Grady, but not to Tatchell. It makes perfect sense: but only if you want everybody to be equal- ly and uniformly dependent on you as universal provider of housing, jobs and everything else that makes life possible. Total dependence means total oppression. Furthermore, the ruin of Bermondsey, as of the rest of Britain, makes perfect sense If you are a catastrophist, believing that things must get spectacularly worse before Utopia can be be built on the cleared site. You can't make an omelette without break- ing eggs; but, as Mr O'Grady might retort (and this is why I prefer him), you can break eggs without making an omelette.

Mr Tatchell can counter charges of OP" pressive intent by promising to be Pal" ticularly 'accountable', to consult 'local groups'. He has named them by

implica

tion: groups of fanatics for feminism, gay rights, race equality, conservation and ecology, disarmament, the third world and socialism, fanatics for the most part as monstrously one-sided as himself. He is not likely to consult that majority which, even if he is (as I expect he will be) first past thiti post, will not have supported him. He will not consult the Campaign for Ordinary People (COP), whose address and tele- phone number are indeed so hard to finch