Fifty years ago Clay Cross Councillors refused to increase council house rents and were made bankrupt

Central government can effectively bankrupt local councillors if they don’t do its bidding.

 Big Issue North magazine 23-29 January 

But 50 years ago that didn’t stop elected members in Clay Cross from refusing to increase council house rents. Mark Metcalf looks back

 

All 11 councillors were ordered to pay £635 each to cover the extra rents they had failed to collect

 

 It is very rare when local councillors defy the law and central government and risk being hit with heavy fines and chucked out of office. Yet this is just what 11 councillors in a small Derbyshire village did from early 1972 onwards, resulting in them being surcharged 50 years ago this month. 

 This was to lead to them being made bankrupt, with bailiffs being sent in to take possession of their assets. They were barred from ever standing again for a councillor’s post. 

In many respects the situation at the time was similar to today, with poorer people being asked to pay for the economic crisis. 

 Under the 1972 Housing Finance Act (HFA), councils were instructed by Edward Heath’s government to increase tenant rents. Rebates for less well-off tenants were to be covered by the better-off ones and ratepayers who might themselves be struggling with their bills. Conversely, subsidies to owner-occupiers in the form of tax relief on mortgage interest repayments were generally higher than those to council tenants. 

 

The Conservatives had been trounced in local elections in 1971-72, losing nearly 3,000 councillors and control of most major cities. Much of the country’s public housing stock – which was almost double the 18 per cent figure of all housing today – was under Labour control. Official Labour Party policy was to oppose the HFA, under which rent paid would make a profit for councils. The plan was to increase rents over four years to £5 a week, trebling the £1.60 charged in the Derbyshire village of Clay Cross. 

 

For the HFA to work the government needed the assistance of Labour councils. Fearing being surcharged and barred from office, one by one they fell into line until Clay Cross Urban District Council (UDC), consisting of just 11 councillors, all Labour, remained alone in refusing to implement the rent rise. 

 

Locally born John Dunn joined the Labour Party as a teenager in the late 1960s. He became a miner in 1971 and worked underground for 19 years. “I backed the council when it sought to relieve some of the deprivation and hardship,” he says. “Councillors were miners, cleaners and building workers. 

 

“They’d introduced benefits such as pensioners’ free travel and built a swimming pool and community centres. When the education secretary Margaret Thatcher stopped free school milk, the UDC used a penny rate to continue to provide milk. Councillors created jobs by expanding its direct labour force. It paid a living wage. 

 

“But the real issue was, as in many deprived areas, housing. A fifth was slums. By 1970, the council, which had to buy them from Clay Cross Company, had demolished over 500 houses that lacked hot running water or inside toilets. New land was purchased and housing built. The council, chaired by Dennis Skinner until he became an MP in 1970, used the general rate fund to subsidise the programme rather than government loans.”

 

New homes had gardens and public spaces. Council rents remained affordable and Clay Cross councillors had resolved to keep them so by defying the HFA. They refused to increase rents by £1. 

 

This defiance continued a tradition started in 1921 by 30 councillors in Poplar, London, who were imprisoned for protesting at what they saw as an unfair rating system. In 1926, elected boards of guardians who administered poor relief in West Ham in London and Chester-le-Street were disqualified for paying more than they were entitled to.

 

On 18 January 1973 all 11 Clay Cross councillors were surcharged for an alleged deficit in the council’s housing revenue account and ordered to pay £635 each to cover the extra rents they had failed to collect. Councillor David Skinner, brother of Dennis, spoke for all, saying he would never pay a penny. A legal challenge to the decision was lost at the High Court in spring 1974. 

 

“Surcharges bankrupted the councillors and they were removed from office and barred from ever standing again,” says Dunn, aged 22 back then, married with a three-year-old daughter. He stepped forward to stand as a candidate in 1974 when the last ever UDC elections took place before Clay Cross became part of the new North East Derbyshire district.

 

“Bailiffs removed councillors' cars and they also took possessions away by entering people’s homes. By the time this happened there was a Labour government but it would not intervene to make sure the £7,000 owed was overlooked.

 

“We won ten of 11 seats on an 80 per cent turnout. The other was lost by two votes. We maintained the policy of asking tenants not to pay the proposed rent increase. The government had sent in the Housing Commissioner, who had to employ his own rent collectors.”

 

Dunn himself was then surcharged, not over the HFA but for breaking government pay restrictions by introducing a living wage for full-time housing wardens in sheltered accommodation. 

 

“Councillors were barred from office for five years and ordered to pay a combined £2,202. This was covered through donations.”

 

Dunn was elected to Derbyshire County Council in 1993, supporting firefighters in a pay dispute as chair of the fire authority and opposing cuts in council services before quitting in 2005 in protest at Tony Blair’s decision to send British troops to Iraq.

 

Central government funding to local authorities was sharply reduced in the austerity policies of 2010 onwards, forcing councils to make big cuts in services. Liverpool has lost £0.5 billion since 2010, Newcastle £410 million, with a further £63 million cut between now and 2026. Manchester is set to lose £96 million up to 2026, with social care likely to bear the brunt.

 

Dunn criticises central government for this but also wants councillors to refuse to implement the cuts. 

 

“Fifty years on I believe Clay Cross councillors were right. It was a bad law aimed at struggling social housing tenants. Anyone in the labour movement must stand against a bad law. By resisting such laws, the lives of ordinary people have been improved.”

 

Will there be any resistance? 

 

“Unlike previously, councillors today get paid. Many view this as a nice second income. Labour Party policy is to make cuts. Last year when six Liverpool Labour councillors decided not to vote against their own group’s budget cuts, they lost the Labour whip. At a time of great economic hardship for many they were right to not do the government’s dirty work. 

 

“If many councils combined to take a stand the government would face a very difficult problem and don’t forget – at Clay Cross we did achieve some success as the rent increase did not get collected.”

 

‘A THOUGHT PROVOKING MUSEUM’ THE RUSKIN MUSEUM, CONISTON

 

‘A THOUGHT PROVOKING MUSEUM’

THE RUSKIN MUSEUM, CONISTON

Landworker magazine of Unite the Union 

“I think it is a little gem because it covers so much from John Ruskin, Donald Campbell and the Bluebird  and Arthur Ransome  plus the history of Coniston that includes the copper mines,” said Margaret Davison of Hexham. 

Opened in Coniston Village by the friends of the writer, philosopher, art critic and social pundit John Ruskin a year after his death in 1900, the award-winning Ruskin Museum has been described as “the most thought-provoking in the Lakes” in The Rough Guide to the Lake District.

High praise indeed for the local people who own and manage the museum that is heavily reliant for funds on visitor admissions plus support from volunteers.

Photograph is copyright of Mark Harvey 

“I am very proud of our self-sufficiency,” explains Anne Hall OBE, who has chaired the museum’s management committee for 15 years. “The museum is built from traditional local slate but includes modern technology such as touch screens to tell some remarkable stories”.

                                              Photograph is copyright of Mark Metcalf 

Ruskin’s love of the Lake District landscape and communities drew him to spend the last 28 years of his life in Coniston. He was a gifted painter and the museum houses some of his beautiful watercolours and drawings plus geologically important minerals and crystals.  

As an art critic, Ruskin, who chose to be buried under the Yewdale Fells rather than in Westminster Abbey, believed in the idea of "truth to nature". He encouraged painters to closely observe the landscape so as to capture the natural world as truthfully as possible without romanticizing what they saw. He believed art could transform lives.

In the 1850s Ruskin began giving public lectures and after observing the malevolent impact of the Industrial Revolution on the atmosphere and the pollution of the environment and people’s souls, he taught drawing at the Working Men’s College in London.

He attacked the dehumanising power of capitalism for being based on “the negation of the soul” where human beings are turned into profit. He understood the Victorian desire to be rich was pursued to have power over others and contriving “that our neighbours have less”. He rubbished Adam Smith’s belief that self-interest ultimately benefits everyone. Ruskin’s book Unto the Last, published 1862, continued to be well read into the 20^th century and persuaded, amongst others, Gandhi to fight for social justice.

When he arrived in Coniston in 1872, Ruskin helped to further develop the  Coniston Mechanics’ Institute to provide education and amusement for working people.

He helped develop the Langdale linen industry viewing it amongst his finest achievements. Women with no previous experience of hand-spinning or weaving were taught both, proving that handmade linen could compete with mass-produced and that women could discover  fulfilling and creative work roles.

The Museum houses numerous examples of hand-spun, hand-woven linen, including embroidered items from nature, and some great Ruskin Lace examples that are big favourites of the museum director Tracey Hodson.

 

In the 1870s he addressed letters to England’s workmen urging them to form their own movement to take control of their own destiny.

By 1889 the London Dockers were following in the footsteps of the Matchgirls the previous year by forming their own union to successfully win a famous strike that paved the way for trade unions to flourish.

“Ruskin was talking about things over 150 years ago that are so relevant today such as a working wage, the environment and green issues, he was a remarkable man,” states Hall.

So too was Donald Campbell. And it was to discover more about the speed ace that Keith Stevens had persuaded his wife Christine to visit the Ruskin Museum whilst holidaying locally from Norfolk.

Campbell broke four World Water Speed records on Coniston before tragically losing his life in a 5^th attempt in January 1967. The Bluebird Wing that houses the engine from the boat in which Campbell died and which lay in the lake for 34 years is packed with memorabilia alongside the prototype Bluebird JetStar ski-boat that Campbell planned to manufacture.

What is missing is the iconic hydroplane Bluebird K7 and wreckage. This has been restored by Tyneside engineer Bill Smith who has hung on to it in a drive to show it in action at public events.

However, Campbell’s daughter Gina wants it restored to the scene of his death and housed at the Ruskin Museum, which was able to extend their premises by obtaining a national lottery grant on the basis this would happen. A Bring the Bluebird home campaign is currently seeking support.

                                           Photograph is copyright of Mark Harvey 

One boat that is on display is the sailing dinghy Mavis, the inspiration of the fictional Amazon featured in the Swallows and Amazons series of children’s adventure novels that were set in the Lake District by author Arthur Ransome who was educated in Windermere and is buried in Cumbria.

Alan Davison read “Arthur Ransome as a kid and I knew there was an association with Coniston and the story about the doctor (Dr Ernest Altounyan bought two dinghies with Ransome so that the pair could teach their children to sail on Coniston Water – ed) and his children and the boat was new to me and it was good”. 

 The couple are keen museum visitors and were clearly impressed by the Ruskin Museum with Margaret, a retired freelance journalist, stating: “It is a little gem because it covers so much from John Ruskin, Donald Campbell and the Bluebird  and Arthur Ransome  plus the history of Coniston including the local copper mines”.

Christine Stevens also enjoyed her visit.  “The museum is very nice. I prefer small museums as they have a more homely atmosphere, “ while Keith had discovered from the museum’s displays that “ as well as Campbell and Ruskin, Coniston has many other local heroes.”

Collectively they include all those numerous people who have comprised the local mountain rescue team, 75 years old this year and still turning out turning out in all-weather 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and all funded solely by donations.

Much earlier, Owen Glynne Jones (1867-1899) became the first climbing superstar as a result of being photographed by the Abraham Brothers whilst rock climbing in the Lake District before he died aged 32 when a spectacular human pyramid collapsed and he was thrown hundreds of feet.

Then there were the Coniston Tigers, a group of young men who in the 1930s escaped from depressed industrial towns to explore the fells whilst Alan Bennett Hargreaves was a leading rock climber in the Lake District and Wales.

Coniston farm labourer James Hewitson, who lived a stones throw from the museum,  died in 1963 but there is still an annual ceremony locally to the man who won the Victoria Cross after he led a daylight attack on a series of enemy crater posts in Givenchy, France on 26^th April 1918.

The museum is only a matter of yards from to the start of the

copper mines trail. It is a steady uphill one mile plus walk to the Upper Bonsor Mill mine and where workers battled the weather, noise and risk of serious injury and death to break down the valuable copper ore from its surrounding rock that was mined underground. (By the time the mine closed in 1897 the workings were over 375 metres under the Deep Level.)

Many copper mine workers were immigrants, particularly from Ireland, desperate to escape poverty and persecution in their own countries.

It is a story Krystyna Browning can relate to. She spent her early years at Lowther Park Penrith in a Polish Resettlement Camp that opened in 1947 and closed eight years later. “After WWII my dad came to Britain to escape persecution from the Russians whilst my mam had escaped from the Germans. They met when they came to Cumbria and I lived the first six years of my life in the camp”.

The family moved to Birmingham and in a long and varied life, Krystyna  at one time worked at the massive Bass Mitchell Brewers site and was a member of the TGWU, now UNITE.

Ten years ago, Krystyna and her husband moved to Cumbria and she started working part-time at the museum earlier this year. “I love the variety of people who come in to the museum. I am still  discovering a lot more about the items on display and the people featured. It is fascinating.”

 

 

 

 

 

KUCINICH: NEGOTIATE TO END UKRAINE WAR

 

KUCINICH: NEGOTIATE TO END UKRAINE WAR

Dennis Kucinich fears senior US politicians are failing to understand a new bipolar world.

Former US politician urges leaders to get round table

Believes conflict may be a forerunner to China clash

Dennis Kucinich, a former eight-term American congressman, who led the effort in the US against the war in Iraq and Libya, is urging his country to negotiate with Russia to end the war in Ukraine as quickly as possible.

Close to a year after Russia invaded Ukraine, there have been over 200,000 military casualties and an official total of 6,884 civilian deaths, a figure that seems certain to be much higher due to widespread indiscriminate bombing by Russian forces.

Around 6.6 million people have fled, with 3.5 million Ukrainian refugees living in Poland. Millions are also internally displaced. The war looks set to continue.

US military aid

Kucinich told Big Issue North: “It is a disaster. When this war ends – and they all do – then hundreds of billions of dollars will have been wasted and tens of thousands of innocent people will be dead or badly injured or unable to return home. Rebuilding costs will be astronomical.”

Ukraine is relying on western military aid, primarily from the US. Last week the White House announced a new $3.75 billion (£3.1 billion) military assistance package bringing total military support since the beginning of the Biden administration to $24.9 billion (£20.5 billion).

Kucinich was heartened when progressive Democrats signed a letter last October calling on President Joe Biden to pursue talks to end the war in Ukraine. The letter warned of global poverty and hunger stemming from Russia’s invasion and called on the US to seek “a rapid end to the conflict”. Biden himself had said a “negotiated settlement” would be necessary at some point.

‘Tectonic plates of history’

But in a fierce backlash, signatories were accused of potentially emboldening Vladimir Putin and the letter was quickly withdrawn. Kucinich maintains his support for the letter, telling Big Issue North: “It was the right thing to do as what the war mongers want to do is make billions from arms sales and tie down Russia in a long war that drains their resources.”

Kucinich feels great sorrow for Ukrainians, describing them as “caught between these tectonic plates of history”. Asked whether he felt President Zelensky can make any independent decisions, including negotiating with Russia, Kucinich was blunt, answering: “No.”

Kucinich, a candidate for the Democratic nomination for US president in 2004 and 2008, has spent a lifetime in politics. He was only 23 when he was elected in 1970 as a councillor in Cleveland City.

Timeless quest

Eight years later he became mayor and refused to sell the municipal electric company, resulting in the Mafia seeking to murder him.

Kucinich represented Ohio between 1997 and 2013, during which time his attempts to get the US government to create a Department of Peace proved unsuccessful.

Nevertheless, Kucinich, now aged 76, continues to campaign for peace in a country where around a sixth of all federal spending – $778 billion (£641 billion) in 2020 – and approximately half of discretionary spending is on the military. The US has over 600 overseas military bases.

“I grew up knowing hardship and won’t be pushed around,” said Kucinich, whose father was a truck driver and a member of the Teamsters union for 35 years. “If there is a stand to be taken, I will take it.

“The quest for economic and social justice is timeless and my commitment to it started before I was 20 years old. I stand up for the truth.”

Dangerously unstable

He feels Americans have been misled about the causes of military conflicts, including the Iraq war that began 20 years ago in March.

“I was the first in Congress to call for a vote on the war that started in 2003,” he said. “Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and had nothing to do with 9/11. They did not have the technology to attack the US.”

Both Iraq, where the US spent $3-$5 trillion (£2.4-£4.12 trillion), and Libya, scene of a Nato-led intervention in 2011, remain dangerously unstable.

 

Kucinich believes the Ukraine conflict is a forerunner to the US taking on China, which claims to have a foreign policy based on economic development rather than warfare but nevertheless now has the world’s largest navy. He has warned the White House of the dangers of seeming to provoke China by proclaiming Taiwan’s independence.

Kucinich fears that senior politicians in the US are failing to understand that the world is changing from a unipolar world led by the US into a bipolar one. He is convinced that more countries will seek to stop trading in dollars.

‘Underlying unity’

He said: “European animosity towards the US will intensify because being forced into adopting sanctions against Russia has led to energy prices rocketing and a lessening of business opportunities.

“US inflation will increase. Ordinary people already struggle to put food on the table and to afford healthcare. Welfare monies are diverted to fund weapons.”

He is more than ever convinced of the need for peace.

“We are in the 21st century. To keep killing each other makes no sense. Behind the claims of nationhood there is an underlying unity that connects all people wherever they live or their ethnicity. We have different ways of viewing the world, which we should solve using negotiations before we eliminate one another.”

MARK METCALF

Victoria Derbyshire to be joined by UNITE'S Martin McMulkin on Channel 5 tomorrow at 9pm to remember Ellen Strange

 

Channel 5 TV programme at 9pm on Wednesday 11^th January will see Unite activist Martin McMulkin join Victoria Derbyshire to REMEMBER ELLEN STRANGE: OPPOSE DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

 

Trailer:- https://fb.watch/hYhSyTmKb0/

Hopefully, (especially friends of mine as I have mentioned it enough!) you’ll know the story of Ellen Strange, who was murdered by her husband on Holcombe Moor over 250 years ago and ever since when local people have laid stones on the site in her memory – making it the oldest site in the world to commemorate a domestic violence victim.

 

I discovered all this as part of my work for Unite Education when I came across a booklet – Ellen Strange: a moorland murder mystery explained written many years ago in 1989 by John Simpson on behalf of the Helmshore Local History Society. John was good enough to give permission for it to be republished and Martin, persuaded the NW Unite region to find £2,000 to get it printed in 2015. This can be viewed at:  https://markwritecouk.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/ellen-strange-booklet.pdf

 

The funds also helped to pay for expenses for an Annual Commemoration walk (which following the monsoon like conditions we experienced on the first one in November is now on the second Sunday each July) up to the stones high on the hills and for refreshments at a local church – Emanuel Church Holcombe, who’ve been brilliant, on the return. https://www.burytimes.co.uk/news/20259650.ellen-strange-remembered-historic-site-holcombe/

 

This walk has been organised by a Commemoration Committee in which the role of Bolton’s Endeavour Project and Linda Charnock (especially), Carole Marsden and Michelle Daubeney has been key. We’ve had DV survivors on the walks and at the commemoration site the names of all DV victims in the previous year have been read out. It is very emotional.

 

We have also made three short films, the latest of which THE LIGHT THAT STILL BURNS directed by Adam Marseille is at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPMaOEroepU

 

Now on Wednesday 11^th January 2023 at 9pm on Channel 5 the Ellen Strange story will feature in

the No Place Like Home one hour programme made by Hungry Bear Media https://www.hungrybearmedia.co.uk

 

in which journalist and news broadcaster Victoria Derbyshire comes home to Greater Manchester. https://www.channel5.com/show/no-place-like-home

 

The trailer for the programme is at: - https://fb.watch/hYhSyTmKb0/

 

Mark Metcalf 07392 852561 metcalfmc@outlook.com @markmetcalf07

A member of the NUJ and Football Writers’ Association