Lord Bonkers' Diary: ‘The Defenestration of Ming Campbell’

The new issue of Liberator (no. 426) has been published. You can download it free-of-charge from the magazine's website.

And that means it's time to spend another week with Lord Bonkers. We begin with a visit to his famous charitable enterprise, the Home for Well-Behaved Orphans. An orchard doughty, incidentally, is rugged club whose name was inspired by Sue Doughty (or Orchard-Doughty), the Liberal Democrat MP for Guildford from 2001 to 2005.

Monday

A Well-Behaved if breathless Orphan arrives at the Hall. “Matron says it’s that Generic man off the television and he wants to paint over our murals and you’ve got to come,” is the burden of his message. Stopping only to summon a brace of stout gamekeepers with orchard doughties, I hurry to the Home.

The murals – some say they’re the work of our own Joshua Reynolds: others detect the hand of the Dutch Master van Mierlo – depict famous scenes from Liberal history for the edification of the young inmates. There’s ‘The Defenestration of Ming Campbell’, ‘The Confusion of Andrew Newton’ (he has travelled to Dunstable in search of Norman Scott, but found no trace of him there) and ‘Tony Greaves Pretending to Have Lost the Line to London to Avoid Endorsing David Steel’s Leadership’. 

I burst in to find Robert Jenrick holding a pail of whitewash in one hand and wielding a brush with the other. “You don’t want to make this place too attractive,” he counsels me, “or children will get themselves orphaned so they’re sent here.” I have him driven from the establishment, and for the first time understand why the Tories plumped for that Badenough woman instead.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.

What did political parties do on polling day before 1945?

I once heard a story about polling day in the Brecon and Radnor by-election of 1985, which saw a gain for the Liberal Alliance candidate Richard Livsey.

A hirsute Young Liberal was telling on the day at a remote rural polling station when an old farmer arrived and challenged him.

"What are you doing? I always take the numbers for the Liberals."

It turned out that he had for years been coming here on polling day for an hour or two, taking voters' numbers and then going home with them.

This was a folk memory of political organisation. All that remained of it was the notion that taking voters' polling-card numbers somehow helped the Liberals.

After a while I began to doubt this story, however much I wanted it to be true. Because the Wikipedia article on Get out the vote says:

The traditional GOTV method used in the UK is the Reading system, developed by the Reading Constituency Labour Party and its MP Ian Mikardo for the 1945 general election. Once canvassing was performed to identify likely Labour voters, these were compiled onto 'Reading pads' or 'Mikardo sheets' featuring the names and addresses of supporters and pasted onto a large table or plank of wood. On election day these lists, with identical copies underneath, were torn off and given to GOTV campaigners.

That was certainly polling day as I knew it in the Liberal Party before personal computers came along. To Liberals, of course, Reading pads were 'Shuttleworths' - the SDP called them 'Cowley pads".

But did party workers sit round and do nothing on polling day before 1945? It sounds very unlikely.

As Michael Steed and Tony Greaves are no longer with us, I asked Mark Pack what he knew about the history of polling day operations. He replied:

The pre-1939 Woodings election manuals have a section on polling day, including 'fetching up voters' with instructions on crossing out names from cards etc. to record which supporters have voted so far. Not sure when 'fetchers-up' became 'knockers-up'.

I now suspect Ian Mikardo's contribution to polling day was harnessing the power of carbon paper to come up with better stationery.

So the moral is you shouldn't believe everything your read on Wikipedia. As for myself, I shall go on believing that story about Brecon and Radnor.

Rutland shows how keyworkers were housed in 1951

I've been to the canal centre of Braunston in Northamptonshire today by bus. I tried it last summer at the height of the driver shortage and had to abandon the attempt when one service was cancelled. Earlier this week I looked at the timetables again and found that Braunston now enjoys an hourly service from Northampton, so off I went.

It's a lovely village and, as there is really of historic narrow boats this weekend, there was even more to photograph than usual on the canal. I have good memories of Braunston more than 50 years ago and some family snaps to go with them, so they will probably turn up here too.

And I found a tin tabernacle and connections with two of my favourite writers, so there will be plenty to blog about.

But for today, let's return to Oakham and two pairs of substantial semi-detached houses I came across last Friday. As the badge shows, they were provided to officers in the Rutland force.

You get the feeling that constables were expected to be fat and jolly with lots of children in those days. I met one of the last of that breed when I took part in a (very good humoured) demonstration against opencast coal mining in what is now Andrew Bridgen country at the end of the last century.

He accompanied us on our march (it was more of a ramble, to be honest) and his advice before we set off was: "If you start any trouble, just run. I'll never catch you."

And when a local councillor was invited to say "a few words", he treated us to a loud aside: "If she does say a few words, it'll be the first time."

Now that's what I call community policing, though it was exceeded by the PC (a friend of our victorious candidate) who took it upon himself to ring Tony Greaves with the result of a local by-election because he had decided we were all too drunk from celebrating.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: I have no memory of their Landslide from 1906

Lord Bonkers pays his tribute to another great Liberal and casts new light on the brewery that owns The Bonkers' Arms.

Tuesday

As if the blocked canal were not enough, the morning brings sad news. Lord Greaves, scion of the famous brewing family, is no more. History tells how in 1824 Jedidiah Greaves and Obadiah Smithson met, swore at one another, became the firmest of friends and resolved to go into business together brewing the finest beer in England. 

The house of Smithson and Greaves has done so ever since, notably in the shape of their famed Northern Bitter, which is always on tap at the Bonkers’ Arms. Yet there is more to the company than that as, unusually for brewers, both families have always been staunch Liberals. So they have regularly produced special brews to mark notable victories by our party. 

I have no memory of their Landslide from 1906, which suggests that it lived up to its billing, while the ale brewed to celebrate Mark Bonham-Carter’s victory at Torrington in 1955 is said to have been potent that many of his supporters were unable to find their way to the polls at the following year’s general election. 

To mark Lord Greaves' passing I give orders for black ribbon to be tied around the beer pumps at the Bonkers' Arms and for the darkest ink to be poured into the jar of pickled eggs.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.

Earlier this week...

• His spaceport on the outskirts of Thurso

Download the new Liberator now

The new Liberator can be downloaded free, gratis and for nothing from the magazine's website.

While you are there you can sign up for its email newsletter so you will know as soon as a new issue is posted.

Issue 406 includes tributes to Tony Greaves and articles on the Conservatives' importation of American voter-suppression tactics, British arms exports to Saudi Arabia and the 40th anniversary of the SDP's founding.

The magazine always carries a wide range of articles, but I usually turn first to Radical Bulletin, which has news and gossip about the Liberal Democrats you will find nowhere else. 

This time you can read about:

• a presentation made to various party committees by the Lib Dem director of strategy
• disgruntlement among MPs with the party's media operation
• what Tony Greaves said about Lembit Opik

In case that all sounds too good be true, there is also Lord Bonkers' Diary.

Farewell to Tony Greaves

Embed from Getty Images

There was sad news yesterday. We learnt that Tony Greaves - Baron Greaves of Pendle - had died suddenly at his home in Trawden.

Besides his service as a councillor and peer, Tony played two important roles in the development of the Liberal politics of his era.

As a Young Liberal he helped develop the ideas behind community politics - it was he who moved the motion at the 1970 Liberal Assembly that saw the party vote to adopt the approach. Our huge advances in local government over the next 40 years owed much to this approach.

Then Tony became the first staff member of the Association of Liberal Councillors. This was the group you joined if you were serious about getting elected in the late Seventies and early Eighties.

Like Tony, the ALC was deeply independent and relations between it and the Liberal Party leadership were often less than collegiate.

As I recall it, my first Liberal Assembly (Bournemouth in 1984) saw a rapprochement between the two organisations. The ALC (which became the ALDC after merger with the SDP) was to lose its whiff of brimstone while remaining indispensable to ambitious Liberal Democrat campaigners.

Tony himself was the original curmudgeon with a heart of gold and I have happy memories of him coming to my house in Market Harborough. He was also a dealer in political books and had come to buy some from me.

Tony Greaves on rebuilding the Lib Dems - and how we may disappear if we get it wrong

It's difficult to find anyone with more liberal blood running through their veins than Tony Greaves, says an interview in the Yorkshire Post.

The Lib Dem peer talks about his career in the Liberal Party and the Liberal Democrats and then gives his view on what the Lib Dems must do now to rebuild:

"The party's grassroots operation is nothing like it was 20-25 years ago.

"But it is still there in substantial factions, where it exists, and that is what is going to give the party the chance to rebuild.

"And if the party doesn't do it that way and throws it away, then I think the party will disappear."

Six of the Best 872

"He had a modest even self-effacing manner and invariably had a smile on his face and a chuckle in his greeting, but his Liberal commitment was deep and his impact on the party’s organisation and strength was significant indeed for over half a century." Tony Greaves pays tribute to Geoff Tordoff.

"Since journalists mostly get their sense of the political conversation from Twitter and it is dominated by younger and more fire-breathing types, political perceptions and depictions of the Democrats in the media have come to reflect their priorities." Michael Tomasky on the fight for the Democratic presidential nomination

Andew Lund visits Oslo, the city that banned cars: "The city is investing heavily in upgrades of its tram and bus network and is converting all its buses and ferries to electric power. Many residents comment that they’ve noticed an improvement in air quality, particularly during the colder winter months."

Nabanita Das watches the England vs India world cup game with the cricket fans of Leicester's Belgrave Road.

Kent Black interviews Ian Anderson about the 50-year history of Jethro Tull.

Ailish Sinclair takes us over the sea to Skye.

The new Liberator is out - become a subscriber

The new Liberator is with subscribers and carries a selection of tributes to Paddy Ashdown

You can find a couple of articles from it - one by Tony Greaves and another giving views of Brexit Britain from abroad - on the magazine's website.

I have contributed an article-length review of Jonathan Coe's Middle England and, of course, Lord Bonkers has sent in his latest diary.

If you turn to Radical Bulletin, the magazine's gossip and inside news section, you will read about the runners and riders to succeed Sal Brinton as party president.

Then there's Your Liberal Britain's decision to uncouple itself from the party and the attempts to thwart openness about what is discussed at Federal Board.

Can you afford to miss out on all this? Subscribe to Liberator.

Do the Liberal Democrats face "death by fudge"?

Despite what Lord Bonkers would have you believe, his diaries are not the only feature of Liberator.

The November 2017 issue, which has just arrived with subscribers.

In it, Paul Hindley argues that the Liberal Democrats face "death by fudge" if they do not soon offer some more radical and imaginative policies.

You can read Paul's article, and one by Tony Greaves, on Liberator's website. And a debate about them is developing on Lib Dem Voice.

Meanwhile, Liberator's Radical Bulletin feature gives you the inside track on Your Liberal Britain, the Ethnic Minority Liberal Democrats and the prospect of further trouble over the deselection of David Ward in Bradford East.

Why Liberal Democrat members should subscribe to Liberator

I have already posted Lord Bonkers' Diary from the current issue of Liberator and given you a taste of the party gossip to be found in Radical Bulletin.

But there is more to Liberator than that. As well as being the Liberal Democrats' Private Eye, it also aspires to be their New Statesman or Spectator.

You can download two articles from the new issue as pdfs.

There's Liz Barker's account of her attempts to address Tim Farron's line on gay sex. And there's Liberator's traditional questionnaire to party leadership contenders (even though there was only one contender this time).

Subscribers to the print magazine will also have read Tony Greaves, Michael Meadowcroft, Paul Hindley and others on Lib Dems' election result and Marianne Magnin on the French election.

The conclusion is clear. If you are a new (or old) Liberal Democrat you should subscribe to Liberator.

Ambitious Liberal Democrats circle our most promising seats

Back in September I blogged about Liberator's take on the row between Tony Greaves and Liberal Democrat Voice.

Members of the Lib Dem Voice queued up to comment, but it was all a bit gnomic and I am not sure we were much better informed when they had.

The good news is that peace has broken out and Tony Greaves is writing for Lib Dem Voice - on an almost daily basis.

I imagine him and the editorial team running through flower-filled meadows hand in hand.

The best gossip in the new Liberator concerns the people who have their eyes on some of the more promising seats for ambitious Lib Dems:

Richmond may soon be the scene of a by-election if Tory incumbent Zac Goldsmith is either elected mayor of London or sticks to his pledge to resign if a third Heathrow runway is permitted. 

With last May's candidate Robin Meltzer having decided not to stand again, flocks of Lib Dems are circling, some from as far afield as Guildford. 

Next door in Twickenham, which Vince Cable almost held, a similar effect can be seen.

And then there are Yeovil and Sheffield Hallam... But to find out who has their eyes on those you will have to buy the magazine.

You can subscribe to Liberator via its website.

More on Tony Greaves and Liberal Democrat Voice

Back in August I blogged about Liberal Democrat Voice's decision to ban Tony Greaves from its pages.

The new issue of Liberator casts more light on this episode:

Liberator understands that the original cause of the row was that Greaves wanted to criticise Ryan Coetzee, the party's strategy director in the two years up to the general election. 

This was rejected not because of the argument made ... but because Coetzee was a staff member and the site had decided that party employees should not be criticised no wonder how powerful. 

Whether Coetzee himself ever claimed this privilege is unknown. ... 

The dispute then snowballed. Greaves sent an angry response to this piece not being run. LDV demanded an apology, he refused and was banned and there matters rest.

Given the oblique way that Lib Dem Voice sometimes chooses to reply to its critics, I wonder whether this post was in part aimed at Tony. Who knows?

Lib Dem Voice's policy is a matter for Lib Dem voice, though perhaps this is one that should have been made clearer to readers.

And given that blog's large readership and semi-official standing, I question whether such a blanket ban is wise or will help our party find a way out of the deep hole in which it  now finds itself in.

You can subscribe to Liberator via its website.

Tony Greaves and Liberal Democrat Voice

Tony Greaves has an article in the new issue of Liberator. You can download a PDF of it from the magazine's website and it is worth doing so.

He writes:

The new members can be a lifeline but only if they are encouraged to come forward with their talents and interests, and if they can become active by which I mean rather more than as automatons in a virtual phone bank.

In the course of the article Tony lets slip that he has been banned from Liberal Democrat Voice.

If you want to know why, then you will have to turn to a rather odd post on that blog. It consists entirely of reproduced tweets from one of the editorial team, none of which mentions Liberator. Some of the many comments are more enlightening on the matter,

I don't know if Tony Greaves deserves better than that, but I feel the readers of this semi-official blog do. If you are going to ban another member of your party, it seems a good idea to explain why in a conventional post if you are going to explain it at all.

This post on Lib Dem Voice reminds me of the peer who was so outraged by something I had written about her views in a pamphlet that she wrote an article for the party newspaper attacking it. As she could not bring herself to mention my name of the title of the pamphlet, I suspect she and I were the only two readers who had any idea what she was on about.

Anyway, if you want to read Tony's views in future it looks as though you will have to subscribe to Liberator. On balance, if people are rude to us we are more likely to publish them.

Tony Greaves: "It really is appalling"

From the Burnley Citizen website this evening:

Pendle-based Lord Tony Greaves is the first major Lib Dem politician to break ranks with his party because of the initiatives and policies being introduced by the Conservative/Lib Dem pact.
He is particululary unhappy at policies in relation to education, health and cuts to local services.
Lord Greaves, who lives in Winewall, near Colne, has written a weekly column in the Lancashire Telegraph for more than six years.
However, he announced yesterday that he felt unable to continue the role, fearing the column would only develop into a vehicle for his rants against the political party he has represented for the past 40 years ...
Announcing his decision not to continue the column, he said: “I am frankly appalled by the stream of bad news that is coming out of the government. If I continue to write these columns they will inevitably consist of weekly attacks on my own party which I'd rather not do.”

Later. For the sake of clarity, I had better add that I posted this because I thought my readers would be interested to know what Tony has said, not because I agree with him.

Election Points: British politics turning American

My column from today's Liberal Democrat News. Had spaced permitted, I should have made a couple more points.

The first is that the centrality of televised debates to American Presidential debates is a more recent phenomenon than many imagine. The famous Kennedy/Nixon debate 1960 was the first, and the next one did not take place until 1976.

My second point would have been that an emphasis on getting voters to register at all will in many ways represent a return to 19th century British politics. Then, when the franchise was still limited, more than half the battle was getting your supporters on to the electoral role and getting your opponent's struck off.

The US style

I like cricket. I don’t like my beer too cold. I am thinking of buying a tweed jacket. In short, I am about as British as you can get. But even I am coming round to what has proved to be a very American style of general election.

At first, with the emphasis on the leaders’ wives, it did not look promising. For a while the front page of the Conservative campaign website consisted of a large picture of Samantha Cameron and not much else.

But things have got better. The first televised leaders’ debate, with Nick Clegg’s stellar performance, was a triumph for the Liberal Democrats, but it also made surprisingly good television.

Despite their legendary reputation, the American Presidential debates are often remarkably dull. You probably know the story about the elder George Bush being caught sneaking a look at his watch during one of his encounters with Bill Clinton.

Bush later said: “Was I glad when the damned thing was over? Yeah, and maybe that’s why I was looking at my watch — only 10 more minutes of this crap. Maybe if I’d have said that I’d have done better."

But our first debate was not like that. It was more fluid and thus more interesting to watch. If the broadcasting authorities and the politicians had relaxed a little and allowed a little audience reaction, it would have been even better.

Tony Greaves also has doubts about presidential politics, but he made an excellent point about the debates in a Guardian letter last week: “If we'd had them 50 years ago Jo Grimond might have become prime minister, and how much better this country might then have become.”

There is another way in which our politics is becoming more American: we are going to have to work to get some people on to the electoral register at all.

Someone claimed recently that there are 1.5m young people who have not registered to vote. You can criticise their lack of interest, but it may also be down to the rise of the surveillance state and a sense that the authorities know far too much about you already.

Now, if you will excuse me, I am going to have some hominy grits – whatever they are.

Tony Greaves and anger management

The leader of the Labour group on Pendle District Council suggests that Tony Greaves should sign up for an anger management course.

Typical New Labour therapism.

What Tony displays is righteous indignation. We could do with more of it.

A doomed attempt to silence Tony Greaves

From the Burnley Citizen:

Health chiefs considered taking legal action over allegations of bad management in Liberal Democrat election leaflets, it has been revealed.

Acting chief executive of East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust Gary Graham sent a letter to Pendle councillor Tony Greaves, branding the attacks "unacceptable" and "libellous".

But our Lord is not having any of it:

"This is clearly a clumsy attempt to shut us up and close down our campaign. But I am afraid that the weight of evidence is now so great that the case is overwhelming - they have to bring back a proper hospital to Burnley."

An appreciateive crowd sings:

He's Greaves, he's Greaves,
He's Tony, Tony Greaves.
He wears beard and sandals
And reveals NHS scandals,
He's Tony, Tony Greaves.

Tony Greaves on Labour jargon

Niles's Blog points us to Lord Greaves's contribution to a Lords debate on community engagement:

Having read the report we are debating today, I had a vision of someone saying to their husband or wife, “I’m just off down the neighbourhood hub for a bit of community empowerment. We have been quality assured by the national empowerment partnership, and tonight we are embedding our practitioner learning and capturing and sharing it through the national neighbourhood management network”.

As Niles says:

Language like this is everywhere and sad to say, all too often, it is there to cloud meaning not to illuminate it.