Bulletin Summer 2019 place in most newspapers. Their role as ‘industrial’ correspondent was to cover Contents: Labour Heritage AGM (Labour ‘industrial relations’ in industry rather than correspondents and London Labour), Morgan the general state of business; and as Jones book launch, Letters from the Chiswick ‘labour correspondents’ their role was to Times 1920, Acton Employment Committee, cover the political role of trade unions Socialist Fellowship and Socialist Outlook, within the wider labour movement, as Southall Resists 40, Barnhill Estate (Hayes), Book review: Struggle for Power in the Labour opposed to the Westminster lobby Party correspondents who covered the Labour Party in Parliament. At their peak, there Labour Heritage AGM were more labour correspondents for some newspapers than political correspondents. Many went on to prominent roles as The AGM of Labour Heritage was held on political correspondents, columnists and Saturday 15th June at Conway Hall. There press officers, including in the case of were two speakers, Steve Schifferes and Bernard Ingham, who started as a labour Michael Tichelar. correspondent for the Guardian newspaper, as Mrs Thatcher’s press The Lost Tribe: the Rise and Fall of the secretary. Labour Correspondent The labour correspondents gave a direct By Steve Schifferes (former economics channel for the trade union movement to correspondent for BBC News Online communicate its message to the wider and Director of Financial Journalism public in the mainstream press. MA, City University) Correspondents developed close personal relationships with many union leaders, The labour or industrial correspondent was which were cemented at a private dinner a major part of the UK media scene for and cricket match at the end of each TUC many years. In their heyday in the 1960s conference. Although strikes were often and 1970s, they had a high-profile role that the focus of coverage, such issues as reflected the increasing power of the trade redundancies, pay and conditions, and unions and their close relationship to the fairer distribution of wages got far more Labour Party’s policy-making process. coverage than before. But following the miners’ strike in 1984, the union reforms introduced by Mrs The initial creation of the new role of Thatcher, and the weakening of trade labour correspondent was facilitated by union influence in the Labour Party under trade unions, in particular by Ernest Bevin, Tony Blair, they largely disappeared from the general secretary of the Transport and the newspapers. General Workers Union, who had long worried about the lack of a labour voice The labour correspondent occupied an since the General Strike of 1926. When he unusual and sometimes uncomfortable 1 became the Minister of Labour in 1940 Geoffrey Goodman even attempted to under the Coalition government, and mediate a deal between the Coal Board believing that good labour relations were and the National Union of Mineworkers the key to increased output in wartime, he (NUM). But under NUM leader Arthur suggested the creation of a labour Scargill, the miners’ union rejected a close correspondents lobby based in the Ministry relationship with most labour of Labour with exclusive access to labour- correspondents, which made it more related matters in government. The initial difficult for it to win public support. membership was 15, but by the 1960s there were more than one hundred correspondents. Why did the mainstream press, especially the right-wing press expand its coverage of the labour movement? The basic reason was a recognition that national economic and political developments where increasingly influenced by the actions of As the size of the trade unions declined, the trade union movement. In fact it was and the number of strikes dropped even the Financial Times who had the most more dramatically, fewer and fewer labour correspondents, including several newspapers kept their labour who were based in regions were trade correspondents on. It seems unlikely that, union activity was strong, such as the car despite the growing difficulties faced by industry in the West Midlands. For the workers, with wage freezes in the public popular press, such as the Daily Mail and sector and a further decline in the the Daily Express, there was also the fact manufacturing sector, we will see their that the majority of their readers were return any time soon. trade union members. When the owner of the Daily Express, Lord Beaverbrook, Labour in London: 1939 to the present: questioned why the paper had appointed a from a ‘Municipal Social Democracy’ to labour correspondent, he relented after a ‘Post-Industrial City.’ hearing that the majority of his readership were either trade union members or had Michael Tichelar, Visiting Fellow at the family members who were. Most of the University of West of England labour correspondents were initially told by their editors to cover the trade unions as How are we to account for the way objectively as possible, ignoring the Londoners voted after the Second World general political orientation of their paper. War? It cannot be denied that social class, however understood, played a key role in The ‘Winter of Discontent’ in 1979, and the growth of the Labour Party in London, the Miners’ Strike in 1984, turned out to certainly in the period 1929 to the late be the swansong of the labour 1960s, when the politics of the capital can correspondent. While they had an be best characterised in terms of a enhanced role in explaining union actions ‘municipal social democracy’. It formed in a broadly sympathetic way, increasingly part of a general European political the right-wing press began to emphasize in settlement based on egalitarian principles its political coverage the risks to the of social justice, achieved through the political order posed by the militant trade framework of liberal democracy and a unions. As the Miners’Strike loomed, the mixed economy. But after 1945 social Daily Mirror’s labour correspondent class cannot by itself account for the voting behaviour of about a third of the 2 British electorate which did not, according women before 1939 as the evidence to electoral sociologists, ‘vote in suggests that a high proportion of them agreement with its objective class’ position voted Conservative during the interwar in the social structure. Other social factors, period. It was not until after 1960 that the or combinations of characteristics (such as gender gap started to narrow, particularly age, race and sex), together with subjective noticeable amongst the professional and assessments of social class and managerial classes. The proportion of involvement in politics, need to be taken women from the manual working class into account. Also, voting Labour during voting Labour fluctuated between 63% and this period was not influenced to any 48% in the period from 1963 to 1992. significant extent by an explicit socialist ideology. Rather historians have seen support for Labour as based on a defensive and homogeneous working-class culture. For example, the historian John Marriott argued that support for the Labour Party in East London before 1939 was ‘derived from a vague, passive, un-theorised, instinctive identification with the Party, rather than from active ascription to its ideals.’ Women clerks at the Royal Mail But Labour’s electoral success in London was also dependent on its fluctuating How far did the culture of ‘labourism’ appeal to sections of the middle-classes in survive after 1945 and was it replaced by a some of the expanding suburbs in inner different type of political culture and and outer London. It has been argued that values reflecting changes in the socio- before 1914 the party in London ‘could not economic nature of London? While Party become a purely proletarian party because members almost certainly regarded the it had to rely on an alliance of artisans, success of 1945 as the first step towards a manual workers and middle-class socialist society, the slow decline in the reformers. Printers, dockers, transport Labour vote in both national and local workers, black-coated workers and Fabian elections, combined with a continuing socialists were the major constituency of drop in Party membership after the high Labour’s vote.’ This tradition carried on point of recorded membership in 1951, after 1918 and can be seen in the vote for represented a severe disappointment. It Labour in 1929, after 1935 and much more tended to reinforce their negative view so in 1945. Middle-class allegiance to about the apathy and alleged backwardness Labour was probably different to that of of the working-class electorate. The record the manual working-class, based on a of the Attlee government may also have closer identification with specific policy ‘locked Labour into a particular kind of issues and perhaps a more progressive political identity’, based on austerity, outlook, reflecting a metropolitan identity rationing and nationalisation. The Party or sensibility, with support coming from then failed to adapt to the new economic public sector and white-collar employees and social conditions of affluence after as the welfare state expanded after 1945. 1951. For some voters and historians alike, Studies of the British electorate show the the Labour Party was perceived as only professional and managerial classes took a representing the interests of male trade much greater interest in politics than the unionists as producers, and as a result manual working class. Labour also had could not relate to the discontent or needs less success in attracting the votes of 3 of voters as consumers in an age of ethnic minorities (35% of the population is increasing living standards. non-white, 54% of which votes Labour). It By the 1970s, a combination of class de- has been estimated that a quarter of the alignment, the loss of manufacturing jobs membership of Momentum, the left-wing and the migration of many working-class pressure group supporting Jeremy Corbyn, voters to the suburbs and new towns, some lives in London.