Civitas Blog

Who remebers the following Labour aims to reform Councils.Along with all their other failed promises. They pledged to moderise all local councils
and bring in new anti - slease bodies, to counter Tory claims of Town Hall corruption. Education Secretary David Blunkett and local Government Minister Hilary Armstrong are unveiling a series of pledes for Labour Councils.
Each authority will promise to consult local people about it's priorities. Can anybody tell me how many council's they rooted out, because they never set foot near Warrington Borough Council despite my many requests for investigations and with hard evidence.
Law abiding citizen Mr Raymond Ashley.Still waiting 2008?

Hi Dearieme,

I'm fairly certain that, except for the Church Schools which were self funding, here in the North East, it was largely a grass roots improvement. The working mens clubs and various institutes were a much different breed of animal than the drinking dens they have become nowadays. These were principally (but not exclusively) the Miners, who were housed in the mine owners accommodation on what would nowadays be called green field sites with nothing in the way of leisure or educational facilities. They set up their own institutes and clubs as most of the mine owners did not want pubs in the villages. They were originally set up to provide leisure AND education. Lectures were delivered on a vast range of subjects from work related (mathematics, engineering and science) to civic topics. I have a leaflet from my grandfathers papers dated spring 1898 which listed the coming seasons lectures and speakers - and as a rough estimate, about 1/3 were devoted to topics such as "Labour - the way forward", "Civic Administration, the duty of the Council Clerk" and suchlike topics. They also had libraries with books intended to provide self education and to improve the lot of the members.

In short they were a sort of night school cum leisure centre for the community which supported them and provided a standard which the younger generation could use as a yardstick. Nowadays the same argument can be used but the vast majority have degenerated into drinking dens and hang outs for the unemployed ...thus providing the inverse of what was originally intended.

It is against this background that many of the Labour party activists were introduced to civic duty, self education and self improvement.

I wouldn't disagree with your comment that the Conservatives were the first to introduce compulsory free education etc.

What I was trying to do was distinguish between the original Labour party activists who were largely working class, brought up with an attitude of "get off your backside and work for what you want" and the largely middle and upper class communists (e.g. Tony Benn - a prime example) whose attitude is "drag everything down to its lowest possible denominator".

Odd, that. I recall a semi-famous interview by Paxman of Blair when Paxman tried to get Blair to condemn the fat cats, extremes of wealth etc. (usual agenda).

Blair refused, and claimed his concern should be for those at the rougher end of the scale.

That's the trouble with politicians and journalists.

"The original Labour party campaigned and introduced legislation to allow a chance for ordinary people to enjoy those advantages enjoyed by the wealthy (access to education...)": Are you sure? Free state education goes back to the 19th century Tories, and the improved postwar deal to the 1944 Butler (i.e. Tory) Education Act. Labour's big contribution was its philistine wrecking of secondary schooling, surely?

What do you expect from "New" Labour? The original Labour party campaigned and introduced legislation to allow a chance for ordinary people to enjoy those advantages enjoyed by the wealthy (access to education, health care, a chance to improve their lot in life by work and study etc.).

New Labour seems to want to reduce everything to its lowest possible denominator by dragging everything down rather than raising standards and opportunities throughout.

A succinct and well written article IMHO.