The woman's page candidate
Richard West Liverpool All the candidates in the Crosby byelection say there is little industry in the constituency; but even those few workers appear to be on strike — in true Liverpool fashion. And of course they blame the strikes on the management: 'Look at me! I've got four children. So do you think I want to come out? But you can't black-leg, even for children'. His friend was complaining long and loud that, since going back to work after a strike, he was losing three pounds a week in bonus money. He thought this a shocking injustice. Some of the men in this pub in Crosby work for the P & 0 shipping company, whose runs to Belfast are being closed this week by industrial disputes. Characteristically, the employees are now on strike against the closure. The P & 0 is one of the few private employers left in this wretched city.
The shipyards were closed 20 years ago by the hole-boring dispute between two unions over which of them drilled plate steel. Another inter-union dispute, in addition to resistance to new methods of work, virtually closed the docks and with them the Liverpool merchant fleet. Various governments over the last 20 years have tried to bribe business to Liverpool; but most of the firms that came have been beggared or driven away.
After the riots this summer in Toxteth, the Government sent up Michael Heseltine as a kind of Minister for Merseyside, just as an earlier Tory government sent up Lord Hailsham as Minister for Tyneside — another work-shy district of England. As far as I can remember, Mr Heseltine thought Liverpool needed more high-rise office blocks and a Leisure Centre, like the one planned for Consett in Co. Durham, the former steel works closed by its workers. The office blocks would be easy to obtain in Liverpool. Sir Richard Seifert and Harry Hyams, the people guilty of Centrepoint and the Sunday Times building in London, have long wanted to build 100-storey office blocks overlooking the idle relics of Liverpool south docks.
But what is the point of office blocks in a City where nobody does any work, or at least not any productive work? The main employers now are the bureaucracies of the various local government bodies set up by Heath's and Walker's reorganisations. The local government unions such as NALGO and NUPE have incidentally helped to decrease employment by wrecking Britain's apprentice system. Before the war, in this country, boys and girls beginning work received only a fraction of what their parents could earn. Even today, in most foreign countries, newcomers at work earn less than a third of the wages of trained workers. The local government unions here have fought for and obtained a standard wage regardless of years, with the result that employers now try to avoid hiring school-leavers. Hence the Liverpool young unemployed. Even while Heseltine was in Liverpool for his inquiries, NUPE called out Liverpool local government typists to strike for a minimum wage of £88 per week — even for barely literate teenage girls.
So what can be done about Liverpool's unemployed? One solution is offered by Vietnam which has shipped scores of thousands of unemployed to work in Russia and Eastern Europe. They are paid 40 per cent of the money they earn and the rest is given to Russia to pay off Vietnam's debt. Could Liverpool's unemployed be sent to work in the countries to which we owe money through agencies like the International Monetary Fund? But would these industrious countries want them? When the West Germans this summer offered jobs as hotel staff to 200 Liverpool unemployed, 60 of these did not turn up. Of those who did, half had to be sacked for dirtiness, laziness, drunkenness or brawling. The Liverpool unemployed will not even travel a few miles to work. When Margaret Thatcher suggested this, there was a scream of selfpitying anger from Liverpool. The Anglican Bishop and equally boobyish Catholic Archbishop issued an ecumenical statement denouncing Mrs Thatcher's suggestion.
The three principal candidates at the Crosby by-election have failed to confront the problem of Liverpool's unemployed. The Labour man is a left-winger and might have some sympathy with the Vietnamese solution; however I have not managed to meet him. The Conservative, John Butcher, who is fighting to keep an enormous majority, is a suspicious character. He not only does not regret the Heath-Walker destruction of ancient counties, but takes a pride in the fact that the previous Member pushed these wicked measures through Parliament. He is a member of ASTMAS, and says that anyone eligible should belong to a trade union. Tory trade unionists are as fishy as socialist businessmen.
The Social Democrat candidate, Shirley Williams, has at least studied the Liverpool problem. She has noted that nearby towns like St Helens do not suffer the Liverpool madness. If she has seen the reason for this, she will not admit it. Instead she says that the Government should subsidise the Belfast ferry. Like Wilson 20 years ago with his 'white heat of technology', she wants government money for countless government training schemes. But why are schoolleavers both ignorant and unemployable? It is largely the fault of Mrs Williams who wrecked secondary education on ideological grounds. She gets annoyed when her opponents concentrate on education. Why should they not? It is her claim to fame.
The Liberal leader David Steel was recently asked by the Guardian if he thought Mrs Williams 'the candidate of the Guardian woman's page."Yes, yes, yes, yes,' he replied. One cannot but agree. The pages are lively, literate and provocative; also silly and priggish. When Mrs Williams was trying to explain away her support for the strikers at Grunwick, I asked her if she believed or not in the right of a trade union to enforce a closed shop. She said she was against it but she believed that anyone who refused to join a trade union (except on religious grounds) should pay an amount equivalent to a union due, to a charity. People should not 'get away with' the benefit of a union if they did not pay.
That suggestion is Guardian woman's page both in its silliness and priggishness. It is silly because she cannot or will not see that unions are at best useless, at worst pernicious. It is priggish because it implies that not joining a union is some kind of offence against Guardian-SDP morals, like pinching the typist's bottom or buying South African oranges. She is sometimes called school-marmy but Shirley Williams's plan for making non-unionists pay money to charities reminds one more of a snooty, refined elderly barmaid pushing across the swear-box.
One veteran politician in Crosby is betting that Mrs Williams will win by more than 5,000 votes. This is Simon Mahon, who for 25 years was MP for the neighbouring seat of Bootle. He will not vote for her though. 'I'm 67', he told me `and I've worked for the Labour Party for 62 years. I'd never vote for the SDP. Some people say the SDP was formed in 1980 but it was formed in 1967 when David Steel and Roy Jenkins and David Owen got together to put through the abortion Bill. Also legislation on divorce and homosexuality. That's why I'd never vote for Shirley Williams although she's a Catholic herself, because she's an ally of David Steel.'
The Catholics make up a quarter of Crosby. I heard others beside Mr Mahon complaining about the abortion question. It is hard on Mrs Williams who, because of her Catholic beliefs, is stronger against abortion than are the other candidates. It means that she is not really a Guardian woman's page candidate. But I suspect that the abortion issue will not influence votes on the day.
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