Review – Comrades in Conscience by Cyril Pearce (2001)

I couldn’t help but pick up this book when I saw. The book covers Huddersfield, where I lived for a few years, during World War One. In particular it deals with working class resistance to the war.
It is a well researched book, examining not only academic reports but examining both the local and national press reports (including the Huddersfield weekly workers paper simply called ‘The Worker’). Indeed it is able to discuss academic work and put forward his own views without boring the casual reader (which is something I which I could say for many other books).
Pearce starts by giving the background to the opposition to the war, covering the state of the two working class parties (the Independent Labour Party (ILP) and the British Socialist Party (BSP)) in Huddersfield as well as the remnants of radical Liberalism and also other organisations in Huddersfield (such as Adult Schools, Socialist Sunday Schools, Huddersfield Trade Council, the local press etc.)
At the time the workers parties were in a bit of disarray but, ironically, the war fused them together and saw them organising jointly against the war, in particular, through the Trades Council. Such a no-go area for pro-war views was Huddersfield that it was labelled ‘a hotbed of pacifism’ (of course people were still recruited for the war from Huddersfield, just fewer than some other areas).
Pearce details the different stages of the war, the governments initiatives to supply themselves with troops for the front and the various tactics used by the workers parties and their sometime radical Liberal allies. In particular he focuses on conscientious objectors (COs and hence the title), not only refuting other academics work in this area, but explaining how support for working class COs was mobilised and how although leaders of the working class parties becoming imprisoned for their resistance for the war affected them, they were able to gather more support and replace them.

There are some problems with the book however. Firstly, it is £15 which I think is a bit steep for a book whose actual content covers only 210 pages (it has over a hundred pages of appendixes and notes however). Secondly, it ends rather abruptly at about mid 1917, although it does mention a few events after much more detail of the after effects of their struggle would have been interesting. And thirdly, for me the book lacks much analysis of the tactics of the various parties and organisations – it is more concerned with presenting the facts of how successful the tactics are, perhaps this a task for another writer though.
Despite these criticisms, the book is a very good read about a topic that contains lessons for all socialists and is worth reading if only to acquaint oneself with the history of this period in England.

Huddersfield - Victory! Campaign saves nursery

I decided to publish this article from this weeks issue of the Socialist becuase, if you have being reading my blog you may remember i blogged about my involvement with this group and stuff (articles are scattered throughout but A Different Kind of Stall was the first and there were various other posts on the local elections which covered the campaign too).

LOCAL PARENTS, their children and staff at Tiddlywinks Nursery in Huddersfield are celebrating a victory in reversing Kirklees council's decision to close it down. Back in February, the Director of Children's Services announced her intention to close the workplace nursery without consulting or discussing with parents or staff.

Mike Forster
Given just three weeks to launch a counter-offensive before the recommendation was endorsed, campaigners had, within a week, held a meeting of 50 angry staff and parents pledged to fight the council and organised a lobby of the town hall.

Such was the campaigners' determination, a huge wave of opposition to these plans swept through Huddersfield with huge press coverage, thousands of signatures being collected and children, staff and parents besieging the Tory council boss in his own council chamber. This forced the council to concede a review of their decision with officers instructed to look more closely at their recommendation.

The campaign group knew they would need further massive pressure to force any concession. Two town centre demos were held. The media took up the story of women fighting hard to save their nurseries.

All these parents go out to work for a living and desperately need good quality, affordable nursery care for their kids. The council is in effect saying that they will have to settle for private sector provision if they want nursery places. Huddersfield people understood that this was another form of backdoor privatisation and clearly said, enough is enough.

One local parent, Mel Mills stood in May's elections as an independent candidate on the Save Our Services ticket to highlight the nursery's plight and to maintain the campaign's momentum. She secured over 5% of the vote in a hectic three-week campaign, beating the Green Party candidate!

Tiddlywinks Nursery is in Huddersfield's Ashbrow Ward where there is higher than average unemployment and poor housing. As Mel commented, working parents will not be able to go out to work if their local nursery is closed, thereby exacerbating already high levels of deprivation.

Predictably, the review produced nothing new. The council officers still insisted the nursery should close. The council leader had to present the review's findings to an angry crowd of around 100 parents, staff and children. He asked for a response within five weeks. The campaign then produced a forty-page rebuttal of every single argument of the council.

Parents had also demanded that the Scrutiny and Overview Committee examine in more detail the officers' recommendation. That meant yet more uncomfortable headlines for the council as parents, staff and the UNISON union tore into these proposals.

Clearly the council were looking for a way out. And intense lobbying of all the party bosses on the council, made them decide to back down. The Children's Services director still wants to see the nursery shut, but she was overruled by politicians who did not want to be labelled as the council that shuts working parents' nurseries.

Last week, the council leader called an emergency press conference to announce that Tiddlywinks was saved. The campaign is disappointed, however, that two other nurseries will still be shut, leaving only one workplace nursery for the whole town. A rearguard action is still being waged to at least try and save one more.

However this is a significant victory. A Tory council has been forced to back down by an intense and determined campaign, helped by Socialist Party members in Unison and by our local councillor, Jackie Grunsell, who was the main voice of opposition on the council.

Mel told the socialist: "I am absolutely delighted that our nursery is staying open. This will send a clear message to people in Ashbrow that we can save local services. It will help people understand our campaign. It makes it even more important that I stand again in the elections again next year because they won't stop here.

"They are already talking about school closures, but they will not ride roughshod over us. I am sad that two nurseries are set to close, but we haven't given up the ghost yet and I intend to see this through to the end."

Campaigners will attend this week's cabinet meeting to try and force another concession, but whatever happens, they can be proud of what they have achieved.

A Different Kind of Stall

Most people in the SP are away at conference this weekend, I had something else on, but before I went away to do that , I helped run our usual saturday stall in Huddersfield. After about a year or so of on and off campaigning on the NHS, new local issues are coming to the fore, the plans to build two academies in Kirklees, the sacked unique care workers (see www.socialistparty.org.uk for articles in the Socialist about this),but we covered today the council's budget proposal which includes scrapping three well used children's nurseries in Fartown, and replacing the services with private ones. So on thursday, instead of concentrating on the Stop the War rally in Huddersfield, like the SWP and co, some SP members were at a public meeting in Fartown against these proposals to which 200 parents and workers attended (even the local useless labour councillors came to try to hijack the meeting).
Anyway, what has this to do with anything. Well, I was half-asleep when we actually got round to setting the stall up, and I thought it was going to be one of those stalls that's just dull really. It was hard work, we were there for half an hour before a union member and two parents turned up to help, and it was really slow. But as soon as they came, took some petitions and leaflets, I suddenly found myself, invigorated by the fact that it wasn't just the two of us Socialist party members there, there were five of us all campaigning against these closures.
I'm not sure what feeling exactly i'm trying to get across to you, but being part of a bigger movement on the build feels good, campaigning with fighting trade unionists feels good, not having to be the most optimistic person on a stall feels great.
I think the message is that other comrades should invite other campaigners to do activities together, sure you might not sell as many papers or whatever, or perhaps get so many contacts for your given party, but you are building a mass movement against cuts, privatisation and capitalism and in the long run that's got to be worth something.