A Spectator's Brighton TUC Notebook

The most remarkable thing that strikes one at a Ttic conference is the complete difference between the judgement of delegates about the Whole affair and the judgement of the national Press on the same subject. The papers — and the radio and television programmes as well have been determined to convince us over the last few days that the real issue of the ollference lay between Jack Jones's support tor the social contract and Hugh Scanlon's oPPosition to it. Deep disunity was thus in the air. Yet, within an hour of arriving at Brighton I was told, first, that "there is too much bloody Unity around this place," and second, that "the toUgh line of the leaders of trade unions is just a hard shell around a pussy-footing attitude."

Allowing for the mixed metaphors — and the artists of trade union language have achieved a high perfection in that particular brand of literature — the heart of the matter appears to be that delegates are far more radical than their bosses. That is not to say that a TUC conference is not, socially, a most agreeable affair: there is a more profound natural c; °urtesY, and a more concerned political Lnteaigence about the average representative tO a TUC conference than one would find at Fither of the major party conferences. Thus, the brilliant and charming Neil Kinnock (Labour member for Bedwelty) recalled to me Bevan's remark regarding his regret that there were few s_erious Tories about and even fewer socialists. F or engaged political conversation, one must come to the TUC.

No segregation

All this is not to say that trade unionists are as socially advanced as the younger among them Would like to think. The conference was invited °,11 Monday afternoon to consider the abolition of the Women's Trade Union Conference, in order the better to further the truly socialist e'llise of equality between the sexes. The Motion was duly defeated. The TUC is not quite 'sstuffy on these matters as the Labour Party itself,„ but it is stuffy enough. It is very difficult, feven impossible, for trade unionists, male or 'eMale, to accept that the women of the Movement should take their chances on equal terrns with the men. The men prefer the continued existence of separate women's groups in order the better to keep clacking women out of their higher councils; and the

women seem to fear the serious competition that would be involved in competing with the adults on an equal footing, I recall an experienced political observer saying to me some time ago that a woman would be unacceptable as Employment Minister because the chaps would find it impossible either to respect her or to get on with her. Mrs Castle's career proved the truth of that assertion.

Leading ladies

There are, however, some further notes which ought to go on record about women at TUC conferences. It is normally said that Tories bring their women to party conferences because the women will not stay at home; that Labour delegates much more successfully manage the exclusion from the annual seaside get-together of their female possessions; but that trade union conferences are almost wholly bereft of ladies legally attached to the delegates. It is not so at Brighton this week. There is rather a large female contingent and — since I am interested in these things — I should like to note that its members are, by and large, attractive and well turned out as well.

A couple of years ago several female Labour friends of mine, not to mention the Prime Minister's wife, upbraided me for a comparative comment on the elegance of Tory and socialist ladies which came down very heavily in favour of the Tories. With pain I must now record that, while I still preserve my Tory allegiance in the matter, TUC women have at Brighton in 1974 outdistanced the women of the Labour Party. (I can scarcely count the Liberals, since most of their women are teenagers.)

Sound on the Market

However much the press may rail against the dominance, increasingly evident since the last general election, of the trade unions over the Labour Party, there was at least something about that dominance which gave heart to me, an anti-Marketeer. That was the unshakeable conviction of the vast majority of the delegates assembled at Brighton — and particularly the majority of the more politically powerful figures there — that there must be a clear and unambiguous national referendum on Britain's membership of the EEC.

The Sunday Times last weekend described that powerful and fascinating man, Jack Jones, as The Leader of the Labour Party". Almost more than anyone else at Brighton Jones is determined upon a referendum. The trade union plan, I gather, is to hold a special party conference between the conclusion of the renegotiation process and the referendum itself. The resolutions of such a conference would bind members of the Labour Party to support whatever line the movement as a whole took on the question of membership.

I do not myself see that it is necessary to be so strict. But it is ironic, at least, that at a time when the Tories are denouncing the trade union movement as being undemocratic, and unwilling to attend to the wishes of the people, that movement is the only solid body of major political weight which unequivocally requires consultation with the people before their future is decided. I find no tendency at Brighton to indulge in referenda on trivial subjects, but only on matters of serious Constitutional import.

Smoking-room story

One distinction that must be made when observing a TUC conference is a distinction of style. Trade union leaders are to be divided into czars and commissars. Roughly, the czars smoke the cigars at parties, and the commissars, when they smoke at all, cigarettes. It is by no means always the case that the czars head the big unions and the commissars the small. Leaders of smaller unions, striving to expand membership, frequently pursue a higher and faster life-style than the others, in order to show members what can be achieved by dedication and. skill. It is also true, however, that the duller and more obstructive and less imaginative union leaders smoke the biggest cigars. Thus, at the ASTMS party, Richard Briginshaw was smoking a very large brown weed.

All the best

Mention of the ASTMS party brings me, of course, to our contributor and friend, Mr Clive Jenkins, perhaps the most able, sure-footed and intelligent of the newer generation of union leaders. As I write, we do not yet know whether Clive will achieve his ambition of election to the TUC General Council. My own opinion is that the movement would be mad not to elect him. Meanwhile, it should be observed that the ASTMS gives the best of all trade union parties. I have only one question to ask about Clive Jenkins: what was Hugh Scanlon on about when abjectly apologising to Clive in the lobby of the Metropole Hotel on Monday evening?

P.C.