6 August 1982 The- real. mafia man vu lga r-minde dvand very much the he would not seek re-election) the Ber- Bob Mellish ha-sretired from the ", supporter of whoever is his boss at the mondsey Labour Party selected their sesre- Labour Party amid a blaze of . moment'. Mellish was an eager placeman, tary Peter Tatchell as the prospective- can- accusations of 'mafia tactics' and 'hit and has wanted 'desperately to be a Cabinet didate.' Mellish effectively 'blackmailed- Minister responsible for London and for Michael FOQt into. a public repudiation of lists' levelled at the London and housing. His political campaigning -and Tatchell. Although the meeting was secret BermondseyLabour Parties. personal platform has spanned a narrow at the time, the particulars are nQWknown. DUNCAN CAMPBELLreports ON Mt field, from orthodox catholic politics and Mellish threatened that he would resign' Mellish's career. sympathy for the Iberian dictatorships to forthwith if Tatchell were endorsed as can- persistent racialist attitudes-to immigrants didate by the Labour National Executive, HAD HE NOT RESIGNED from the and appeals to free East Enders like and would then campaign against him. Labour Party on Monday, Bob Mellish gangster Charlie Richardson and 'Scarface'. FOQt eventually _agreed to Mellish's de- faced certain expulsion this Friday at the Parsons (a well known robber in the mands leading to. the enormous and hands of West Lewisha:m Labour Party, 1950s). He has been associated; to his em- damaging public row last November. ' where he lives. This was because of his barrassment, .with three corrupt _ busi- Two. weeks ago, in another private meet- campaign against official. party candidates nessmen - Oliver Cutts.,a south London ing with FOQt, Mellish issued the same in the local government by-elections in property developer; T. Dan Smith" the threat, If Tatchell were .adopted and en- Bermondsey this May. After a career of 36 former Newcastle-based 'public relations' dorsed-the second time round, saidMel- years as MP for Rotherhithe and then Ber- expert notorious from the Poulson and his lish, he would immediately apply for the mondsey, he claims that a local 'mafia' own COrniption trials; and Sir Eric Miller, Chiltern Hundreds (ie resign). He would controls the London and Bermondsey chairman of the Peachey Property Cor- then back another candidate, whose label Labour Parties. More truthfully, the party poration, who committed suicide. would read 'the real Labour Party candi- mafia was one he once controlled but From "one of them - Oliver Cutts .: date'. Mellish's behaviour has, says a which no longer responds to .his wishes. Mellish accepted several gifts and favours knowledgeable MP, been 'utter blackmail'. Aggrieved, he is now bent on doing as to himself and his family, including £4,000 Previously, Mellish had been able. to much damage as he can. _ to assist him purchase a house in Catford, bully Labour 'Party members at all levels With the aid of block votes from the south Londonvin 1962. He then recom- into. delivering what he wanted. This time Transport and General Workers' Union mended Cutts for an honour, and Cutts got - after backing othe~andidates against (where he started his career as a union an MBE, of which he was later stripped Labour - he had shot his bolt, and FQQt office boy and clerk in 1929), and his own after receiving a heavy jail sentence for said SQ. On previous occasions, Foot had lobby groups and, voting slates, - Mellish criminal activities. been ready, despite present party policy, to. held the chair of the London Labour Party Mellish's principal achievement, when .offer Mellish a peerage to. stop him kicking for 21 years. In that job, he practised ail he held government office as parliamen- over the traces. But by July 1982, this was- the abuses which he now, accuses Ber- tary secretary to the Ministry of Housing', no.longer on offer. ' .. mondsey Labour Party of adopting. was to. promote heavily the industrialised Last week, Mellish was negotiating with Never genuinely a socialist or a demo- 'building of tower blocks and 'housing the SDP to see if, when Tatchell was en- crat, Mellish has over the years assiduously schemes, in place of earlier slums and.older dorsed as the Labour candidate, they cultivated the image of a tough-talking housing. The industrialised methods' ~ would give Mellish's proposed indepen- golden-hearted dockland MP with his roots then largely untested -.: have proved to be dent candidate. a clear run. Apparently firmly amongst the Bermondsey dock a disaster, and many such estates are now they would. But the constituency is Liberal workers. In fact he neither worked as a being pulled down after only r12 or 14 territory in the Alliance's carve-up, and the docker or ever lived in Bermondsey. From years. These tower blocks, Mellish now Liberals do not at present appear willing to the more comfortable middle distance of admits, were an 'appalling blunder'. strike such a deal. Lewisham he was promoted to an orga- Last autumn (after Mellish declared that Two local names have already been sug- niser in the T&G docks branch. WheQ the gested as the Mellish candidate against incumbent MP left Bermondsey for a job Labour Liaison '69 -,"- Peter Tatchell in a future Bermondsey by- with the National Coal Board in 1946, the election. One is John O'Grady, the right- vacant seat was in the gift of his union, as FOR A GO-;'iiLLD RiGIOlu..L E:b:.:.:unvz CO.~ r : T!:l.c Socialist "'lli::1.)1co »t ?art;." xce ivre ee , CO-O;>0::'3tors ar.c wing Southwark councillor. The other is Trades Unionists r-ccceaend e support for T he fo1lowiB!$ »camces by its block vote the union controlled the for the Regional Executive C::ommittoe of the Greator Londcn , Michael Ward (not the present GLC coun- Regional Council of the Labour Party o.t che Conference .ec be local Rotherhithe party (and provided a hel&. at....Camden-Tow lia11 on 22 and 23 ?obruarJ 1969 ,.. cillor of the same name), 'a former Labour majority of its members). The same vote , MP for Peterborough, who lived in Ber- CHAIR1'1Al'i" R: J. MELLISH M.P· also kept him in the chair of the London mondsey until 18 months ago. Between (later; Greater London) Labour Party, to- Part-of the criticism of the.Labour left by right wirig- '1964 and 1970, Mr Ward was T. Dan gether with a group of union appointees on ers like Mellish has been t~at they organise 'slates' of' candidates TO vote for ,in elecrions. supporting Smith's representative in London, and was the right of the party. It would be difficult some factional' view. This document. circulated by an employee and later a director of a Smith to, describe the, combination of the well right-wingers in advance of the 1969 Greater London company, Fleetlress Services, which was orchestrated, dominating union votes and Labour Party elections shows how the Mellish convicted in 1970 of bribing a member of Mellish's brusque, _bullying authoritaria- machine secretly operated. Under the' somewhat ironic banner of the 'Socialist Alliance for a go-ahead Wandsworth Borough Council. nism as anything much less than 'mafia' regional executive', .this slate of 20 names of' very Mellish himself has a secure future as the tactics. The factions through which Mellish right·wing candidates was secretly circulated TO deputy chairman -of the Docklands Urban ran the Loridon Labour Party only began sympathetic delegates. The TWO principal offices Development Corporation, the planning to break up in the mid-1970s; when Mr were TO go land did go) t~ Bob Mellish and TO Be~ Fry, who as a TGWU national official, orchestrated and development authority of the new Bert Fry, ii T &0 'organiser who had ar- SUPPORT for Mellish and his group from the TGWU. Tory 'enterprise zone' in dockland. ranged much of Mellish's support, retired. GMWU and NUPE - then all right wing. The slate Mellish's chief talent - his authoritaria- did NOT cover-union appointees TO the Party's council, MELLI~HHELD minor government nism - was employed by Harold Wilson, since, as FryNOW admi(s. 'we [he and Mellish) would get together with the trade unions and arrange that posts under Attlee ..He readily lent himself who appointed him Chief Whip between ue. who was elected)". Slates have more-recently to. a campaign by MI5 and A'ttlee to. attack 1969 and' 1976. Richard Crossman, for been used by both sides in elections. but the first left_ the 1949 dock- strike as communist- whom he worked earlier as a parliamentary wing slate, for a 'Charter" group did NOT appear until inspired. Mellish was among four dockland secretary, recalled him as domineering, six years later. Mellish has subsequently accusedthe left of inventing SUchtactics. ' , MPs who. passed details of alleged commu- and 'a bit crude, a bit slippery, and a bit nist influence in the docksto MI5. Attlee trustees Cutts himself, Bob Mellish, Tory MP Sir Hamilton Kerr, and five athletes. Cutts, a sports enthusiast, saw these moves as part of his road ,to the top. He further trie4 to help the Mellish family by arrang- ing a job with his solicitor's legal firm for' the MP's third son, Michael, when he fin- ished a law degree at Cambridge. The soli- citor changed the name of his firm to Mel- lish and Harkavy of Mayfair - even though there was some time to go before Michael Mellish could join the firm, and then only as an articled clerk. When, at the end of 1962, Mellish recommended Cutts for an honour, Cutts was bitterly disap- pointed when this turned out to be only an MBE, and not a knighthood; Cutts became the first person to be stripped of the honour in 1968" after he was convicted on a string of charges of mali- cious damage, perjury and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.