WEST DERBYSHIRE'S FLAME
Richard West returns
to a constituency whose last by-election he reported in 1962
Matlock BEFORE coming to see the West Der- byshire by-election, I fished out an article I had written about a by-election held in the same constituency in the early summer of 1962 (Time and Tide, 24 May 1962). In that year, the United States and the rest of the world were worried about the threat to peace from Castro's Cuba, and when Presi- dent Kennedy at last issued his ultimatum to Russia, he was condemned by all the British newspapers except the Sunday Ex- press and the New Statesman (whose acting editor at the time was Paul Johnson). The international crisis had split the Labour Party into the unilateralists and, on the other side, such leaders as George 'Incapa- bility' Brown, who held the neighbouring Be!per seat, and spent much time in West Derbyshire during the by-election cam- paign. Towards the end of one very good party, George insisted on driving me down to London — 'Don't worry, it's no trouble at all' — misreading the terror that must have appeared on my face. The by-election was caused when the sitting member took the job of Commissioner to Malta, but by the time it was called the government was in trouble; hence the headline over my article 'Tories' last chance'. There was a Liberal revival then as now, and their candidate here had announced: 'There is a smoulding flame in West Derbyshire. I want you to ignite it.' He was a rotten candidate, I said in my article, but 20 years later he was the Lord Mayor of London, so I dare say he is richer than I am. It seems from the article that I hoped the TorY would win, as he did. The Tory should win again, but I do not hope so. The constituency has a large number of dairy farmers who, so the Liberals say, are fed up with this Government, and may vote for the Liberal as they did at a recent by-election in Brecon and Radnor. To quote myself on West Derbyshire in 1962: 'The large number of dairy farmers have suffered recently from the low price of milk, or, to express it in the words of a Bakewell man I met, "The dairy farmer round here can't scratch his arse for bones." It was farmers like these who gave such a huge vote to the Liberal in Mont- gomeryshire.' (This Welsh seat had just been held by the Liberals at a by-election.) Tourism was than a local issue, and Mat- lock had started to advertise as 'The Switzerland of England'; but I noted 'surly gangs of teenagers dressed in the "ted clothes of ten years ago'. In 1984, a local businessman opened a cable car service from Matlock Bath station across to the Heights of Abraham, a feature which drew so many tourists that British Rail have nor been able to go ahead with their plan r.° close the line to Derby. Visitors by train are more popular than the motor-bikers who fill the gorge at Matlock Bath with din and the stench of petrol. However, the bikers are generally better behaved than the football supporters who stop here on the way back to Yorkshire and Lancashire, hoping to get a drink — in vain, for the pubs will not open to serve them. There are many quarries and disused lead mines in and around Matlock, as well as miscellaneous factories, so it is some- times called the industrial north. Labour Politicians and the 'progressive' Tories like to talk of the growing imbalance between North and South, so that only last week the ghastly Michael Heseltine went to Liver- pool to expound his 'caring capitalism', by which he means building 100-storey office blocks, financed by the taxpayers. But Derbyshire considers itself in the Mid- lands. Nor, I believe, did Sherlock Holmes ever accept a case further north than Matlock, which I assume to be the 'Mack- leton' in The Priory School, the tale of the vanished son of the Duke of Holdemesse, whose cheque for £5,000 was 'the most interesting object' that Holmes saw in 'the North'.
From geographical references in The Priory School, it seems that the 'Duke of Holdernesse' was one of the Dukes .of Devonshire, whose Chatsworth estate lies in West Derbyshire. Back in 1962 I wrote: 'Even Labour and Liberal workers admit that tenants on the Duke's estates are scarcely worth the trouble of canvassing. Nearby villages vote almost solidly Tory.' The Duke, who was then a junior minister !II Macmillan's government, has recently Joined the Social Democrats and contri- buted to the Liberal campaign; but he and the Duchess have been in Ireland on holiday, so we do not yet know if she is still backing the Tory. Anyway, dukes no longer attract the notice and the respect in British life that is given to really important people like televi- sion presenters, Trotskyist local govern- ment bosses, Chief Constables, pop stars and football managers. All are conspicuous 111 the West Derbyshire by-election cam- paign; indeed the election was caused by the former MP, Matthew Parris, resigning to be the presenter of ITV's Weekend World, a job held by another former Politician, Brian Walden. Obviously Mr Parris felt that by this change of occupation he would become not only richer but, in Dr Johnson's phrase, 'the interpreter of na- ture, and the legislator of mankind, and consider himself as presiding over the thoughts oughts and manners of future genera ti- ons; as a being superior to time and place'.
_ The Labour Party headquarters are decked with photographs of pop stars and television actors who have agreed to help the cause, alongside the most important man in the Midlands, Brian Clough, the manager of the Nottingham Football Club, _ ho is constantly on the television giving hiS views on anything from the immortality of the soul to the efficacy of South African Sanctions Politics in West Derbyshire have long revolved on disputes among Mr Par- ris, the television-presenter-elect, the for- mer Chief Constable, and the red-hot social- ist leader of Derbyshire County Council, David Bookbinder, commonly known as `Bookburnee because of his hatred for racist and sexist literature. The council has taken over and filled to overflowing the former Smedley's Hydro in Matlock, which looks down on the slightly less huge pre- mises of West Derbyshire District Council, also employing legions of meddlers and bureaucrats. The Bookbinder supporters talk of 'police harassment' of their hero's business, a sweet-stall in Derby. The foes of Bookbinder refer to the Smedley's Hydro as 'the Kremlin' and talk of dark plots which led to the Chief Constable's resignation. The 'Kremlin' recently ordered an increase in rates, so steep that the price of beer shot up in one of the pubs in Matlock Bath. When two of the oldest customers complained, they were barred and moved to the Princess Victoria, where they told me their story. The actual candidates in the by-election are dull compared with the television presenters, pop stars, Chief Constables, 'Kremlin' bosses and football managers. The Conservative, Patrick McLoughlin, who was a working miner during the pit strike, has been described by his party as 'classless', but most people would call him gormless. There is no point in the Tories having a miner MP if he is no match for the miner MPs on the Labour side. The Der- byshire miner MP, Dennis Skinner, known as 'the Beast of Bolsover', could eat Mr McLoughlin for breakfast. The Liberal candidate, Christopher Walmsley, is a rotund BBC talks producer. He does not, like Dickens's Fat Boy, try to make our flesh creep; this job is left to some of the Liberal staff, who are trying to launch a smear campaign against an opponent. This consists of innuendoes along the lines of a famous Daily Mirror front page: 'Stop All This Whispering About Princess Mar- garet'. By far the best candidate is the Labour man Bill Moore, who is thoughtful, eloquent and by all accounts good com- pany. He deserves to win, but may only succeed in taking votes from the Liberal, thus letting the Tories hold the seat.
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