The new old politics of the play This House

I will begin my account of the weekend with the visit to the small Garrick Theatre which is in the Charing Cross Road a little way before Leicester Square underground station to experience the National Theatre production of This House. I and my companion travelled from East Croydon to Victoria in a one stop train at Clapham Junction and then went for 24 bus which stop on the far right as one exits to the right side with buses coming from Pimlico. It was necessary to stand for the first past of journey along Victoria Street and Whitehall, alighting at Trafalgar Square and arriving at the theatre with the opportunity to take seats.  There was time for a coffee and we enjoyed ice creams in the interval. Three decades ago (1979) I purchased a small paperback £4.95 which provides a brief note on every London Theatre, it location and a seating together with transport and list of restaurants and hotels in central London.

There are 675 seats listed a Royal and Upper circle and where I have been able to confirm there was a top tier proving another 125 seats but closed for some years. I had acquired two end of row seats in row G of the stalls with a large pillar next which mean the seat behind was not sold but by the time of curtain up the theatre appeared full with in addition several members of the public/or guests filling the onstage House of Commons balcony which was shared with musicians.  The Theatre is included in the 10 one hour TV documentary programmes on West End Theatres fronted by Sir Donald Sinden and Directed by his son with first appeared on Sly Arts in 2013, the same year as I experienced the play on a relay from the National Theatre. There were to have been 40 programmes in total but sadly Sir Donald died in 2014. The programmes were available on Sky for a while and DVDs were issued with some still available and some costing nearly £50. I have been to the Garrick once before in 1979 to see the Noel Coward play The Vortex.

I have the programme notes for the National Theatre production but cannot locate the date when the relay was experienced. The revival of the play by James Graham is timely because most the Major and now May Government is small and because of some coincidences of issues. However, the focus is on the second Labour government of Harold Wilson 1974-1976 followed by Jim Callaghan of1976-1979 and the challenge faced in getting through Government legislation particularly after the new Tory Leader Margaret Thatcher removed the arrangement to Pair, enabling the balance of power to remain between government and opposition when Members are ill or required leave for family reasons as well as those absent on Government or on official business.

The situation arose because on the 27^th May 1976 the allegation was made that a Member who had been agreed would Pair voted and a Speaker’s Ruling was reversed by one vote. Michael Heseltine, Opposition Industry spokesman made the unprecedented act of removing the Speaker’s Mace which is required to be in place for the House of Commons to conduct its business and the House was suspended and Mr Heseltine persuaded to apologise or risk exclusion. Looking back over the list of such situations during the past century it is noteworthy incidents appear to be grouped at different periods although further research would be necessary to establish if there are any common features to these situations.

It is possible to draw several conclusions from this play which I suggest have resonance to the here and now. On one hand, it is an important aspect of representative democracy in the UK that elected members of Parliament show respect and behave in an honourable way and that Parliament has the power to govern itself in this respect.   However, it is also important that the institution does not become self-protective to the extent that it forget its function to present the interests of all the constituents collectively irrespective of any other consideration.  This is difficult and at times complicated to achieve and was expressed brilliantly by Chris Bryant recently in a BBC Question Time programme who explained the dilemma he is in because as a fervent supporter of Remaining a part of the European Economic Community he was faced with the situation that some 70% of his constituents had voted to Leave, so what is he to do when the House of Commons can vote on substance.

There are similar conflicts which arise within Political Parties and Political Parties when Government which occurred when first the second Wilson Government was  in a minority relying on the votes of Opposition parties and where compromises were required on a range of issues to ensure that the Government did not fall in a motion of no confidence so the loyalty of all Members in paramount and where in the real situation the Member of Parliament was for Coventry South West,  Audrey Wise (born in Newcastle upon Tyne as the daughter to a Labour Councillor (nee Brown). Audrey was arrested on the picket line in the Grunewald dispute in which Asian women workers attempt to gain union recognition and she repeatedly defied her party Whip on matters where she felt the Party was wrong as did not represent the interests of her constituents.

There is a parallel with the performance of the present Labour Party Leader Jeremey Corbyn who persistently voted against the government of his party during the leadership of Tony Blair but where the Government majority was such that his rebellions and that of other colleagues did not affect the ability of the government to pass legislation. The other issue of significance is what lengths will a Party go to keep in power and where the play and history has a different perspective on the passing of a non-confidence vote which led to a General Election and Margaret Thatcher gaining power in 1979 and which brought ten years of attack on local government which I experienced at first hand as a Social Services Chief Officer although this was mild compared to ruthless ideological hatred of  public service which the Cameron Clegg coalition and which was put into full throttle when Cameron gained a majority in 2015 and where despite the rhetoric of Theresa May.

In the play the Government had repeatedly relied on the willingness of the member for Batley and Morley, Sir Alfred Broughton, a Cambridge graduate and a qualified doctor who had served in in the medical Corp of the Royal Airforce during World War II and who had been a local authority Councillor for three years on demob. He was willing to be in the precincts of the House and be walked through despite being at death’s door, but the Prime Minister, but in in the play, the Chief Labour Whip decided against and the motion of no confidence with tied by 310 votes to 310 with the Speaker obliged to vote in favour of motion by tradition thus the government was defeated. The Liberals who had been in coalition with the Government voted with the Tory Party as did the Scottish Nationalists and the Ulster Unionist party who were willing to support government if they agreed to an oil pipeline however in truth Callaghan had decided enough was enough because his repeated inability to pass government measures and the compromises which were required.

The play is also true to the characters in the Whips office at the time Bob Mellish 13^th of 14 children, a Docker who became a Major in the Far East during World War II, fell out with left wingers in his constituency, became a Privy Councillor and was made a Life Peer; Walter Harrison the Member of Parliament for Wakefield who had been a member of the West Riding County Council and Council Alderman before entering Parliament in 1964. Walter became expert as knowing what was going on in government and Parliament   mentioning at one moment he used to drink in the same pub attended by the drivers of the Ministers Official cars.  

It was Harrison who refused the offer of the Tory Deputy Chief Whip Bernard Wetherill to Pair when the decision was taken not to bring Broughton to the Commons and which if the offer had been accepted would have ended Wetherill’s political career, but he went on to become Speaker in House of Commons between 1983 and 1992. He had been apprenticed at a tailor in the family firm which moved to Saville Row, becoming a Director, Managing Director, and Chairman and which led to several jokes in the play.

The Labour Chief Whip Michael Cocks went to Silocoates School, Wakefield and then graduated at Bristol University becoming a teacher locally before Member of Parliament for Bristol West. He also became a Life Peer following deselection and being replaced by Dawn Primarolo but he went onto to become a Vice Chairman of the BBC. He remained a member of the Privy Council. Ann Taylor became the first woman senior Whip in 1977, having been educated in Bolton which she served as a Member of Parliament for Bolton West, after graduating at the University of Bradford. She held the seat until defeated by a Tory and then selected and winning at Dewsbury until standing down in 2005 after a Parliamentary career which saw become the Leader of the House of Commons and a Chief Whip, Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, and then as Life Peer she became a Defence Minister in House of Lords after the Brown reshuffle. The other notable member in the Whips Office representing the Conservatives was Sir Humphrey Atkins, a gentleman Tory, who served in the Royal Navy for 8 years between 1940 and 1948 and who resigned from Government with Lord Carrington over the invasion of the Falklands by Margaret Thatcher. He served as Secretary of State in Northern Ireland and became a life peer and member of the Privy Council before his death in 1996.  The play is great entertainment and as the lecturer in politics sitting behind me mentioned to his companion at one point its historical accuracy is good and there is lesson foe present Tory administration with a narrow overall majority and a Party split over the issue of Brexit and on Austerity.

The defeat of millionaire Zac Goldsmith by the Liberal Democrats overturning the 2015 23000 majority demonstrates the collective public will can change although too much must not be read into this result which provided the opportunity for the 70% who voted to Remain in the constituency to give Prime Minister Mrs May a severe warning that if she goes for a hard Brexit she will be defeated at a General Election and face a Tory split. The constituency has been Lib Dem until Zac could bring the family wealth and opposition to the 3rd Heathrow runway to gain a 4000 majority in 2010. Zac fought a dreadful racist slanted campaign in the London Mayoral election.

I had an end of row seat six rows from the stage with two seats empty in the row until a few seconds before the curtain was to rise when Michael Gove, former Secretary of State for Education and then at Justice (and Lord Chancellor) and candidate for Tory Party Leader and Prime Minister and the only contender not to be offered a Ministerial position, (and I assume his wife), took the seats.

On Sunday morning I returned from breakfast in my hotel and switched on the Andrew Marr show to find Michael Gove being interviewed and then closing the show with Emily Thornbury before Jools Holland played the music. Then this evening on return from seeing a film at West India dock and discovering Waitrose super store at one end of the Canary Wharf shopping malls I returned to the hotel and switched on the news to find a review of past events at Birmingham schools and Muslim education issues and one Michael Gove was showing making a statement to Parliament. Thus, Michael confirms there is life after political death for some. I presume a public relations firm was involved but I may be presuming too much. Then today Wednesday 39^th he was one of the few Tory party backbenchers who not only attended the Scottish Nationalists engineered debate on the Iraq War but spoke on the issue of should there be a new investigation into whether Tony Blair deceived parliament. The motion was overwhelmingly defeated by a combined Conservative and Labour party vote.