BACK TO THE FUTURE

RMTnews :: february 2006 :: www.rmt.org.uk 26 Edwards Duthie Solicitors has a special affinity with trade unions, their members and officials. We have advised union members and their families for some 22 years, to the point where we now serve some 40,000 members across 230 branches nationwide. We have a dedicated team which serves RMT members, their families and friends. Unlike our competitors, we offer a full range of legal services, many of which are free or heavily discounted for union members : ●PERSONAL INJURY CLAIMS ●SPECIALIST CLINICAL NEGLIGENCE TEAM ●EXPERT ADVICE ON ALL ASPECTS OF EMPLOYMENT LAW ●24 HOUR CRIMINAL ADVICE AND REPRESENTATION ●FREE WILLS SERVICE FOR MEMBERS ●10% DISCOUNT ON RESIDENTIAL CONVEYANCING ●LAW SOCIETY SPECIALISTS IN FAMILY AND MATRIMONIAL ADVICE ●FREE HALF HOUR INTERVIEW IN ALL AREAS OF LAW Our approach is both proactive and hands on. Our lawyers go to see members and officials at the workplace, at home, at union premises or wherever discussion can best be accommodated nationwide. We are here to provide a service and, unlike our competitors, we do not consider that we can do that from a remote standpoint. RING NOW FOR ADVICE & ASSISTANCE ON 0208 514 9000 email: allinfo@edwardsduthie.com In partnership with the O ne Hundred years ago James Keir Hardie toured Britain with a mission. ‘The Liberals’ he said – the party working people voted for overwhelmingly at the time – ‘don’t give a monkeys about us. What we need is a party of our own.’ And he went on, with the help of the railway workers union and others, to establish the Labour Party. A century later the same imperative applies. Only this time we must replace the Liberal references with New Labour. How ironic then that last year millions of working people across Britain abandoned Labour for being too right wing and voted Liberal Democrat instead. That experience would have perplexed Keir Hardie completely. It has certainly provoked some understandable self examination on the left. Last month RMT hosted a conference to discuss the crisis in working class political representation in England and I spoke on behalf of the Scottish Socialist Party. The crisis reminded me of advice I was given as a young socialist growing up in the central belt of Scotland - ‘If you scratch a Liberal you’ll usually find a Tory underneath’. I remember thinking how especially true this was after the Bermondsey by-election of 1983. I read the shameful leaflets put out by Simon Hughes the Liberal candidate with equal measures of disgust and disbelief. I’d never seen an election campaign like it, not even from the Tories. That episode came to mind last month and I am sure I wasn’t the only one. I bumped into a Liberal Democrat Member of the Scottish Parliament and, with my tongue firmly in my cheek, asked if she thought their leadership contest was going well. “No it isn’t” she replied. “Charles Kennedy’s resignation was damaging, then one candidate pulled out over allegations about his personal life, and another admitted he lied the week before about his own sexuality. “So much for the contest being about ‘presenting their different visions of Liberalism’’. Bermondsey was a safe Labour seat lost in one of the most reactionary and homophobic elections ever seen. And to top it all the chief homophobe, Liberal candidate Simon Hughes, was also gay. That episode represents surely one of the most hideous political campaigns of the post-war period and it set in train a series of events which led to Labour leader Michael Foot’s 1983 general election defeat. Simon Hughes has since apologised for his conduct but the fact remains he benefited from those lies and here he was lying again. If he is supposed to be the ‘left Liberal’ candidate in their leadership election, then all I can say is god help us from ‘Ming the Merciless’. Frankly, I couldn’t care less who becomes the next Liberal Democrat leader. But when they sweep up millions of votes to the left of Labour - as they did at the 2005 General Election – RMT is entirely right to urge a full and conclusive debate on how working people in England get the political voice they need. There is a real danger that Liberal Democrats and others will lead them up the garden path unless an answer is found quickly. Colin Fox MSP BACK TO THE FUTURE