Orgreave: the evidence is out but the truth was always known

Earlier this week a BBC Inside Out programme claimed that police officers were told what to write in their statements, following clashes at the Orgreave coke works. Labour is now calling for an inquiry into claims that South Yorkshire Police manipulated evidence during the miners' strike in 1984. The shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper told the Commons the issue needed to be investigated.

The news reminded me of one particular day during that strike. One that has stayed with me ever since. During the strike I was branch secretary of NALGO at Westminster City Council. They were heady days. The now disgraced Shirley Porter was leader of the council. Just across the water. Ken Livingstone was running the GLC. 

Like many trade union branches we twinned with an NUM branch during the strike as a focus for our fundraising efforts to support striking miners and their families. In the summer of 1984 we twinned with Carcroft NUM near Doncaster in what is now Ed Miliband’s constituency.

The rest of this blog is an article, ‘They want us there today’, written by Tim Taylor (a NALGO fellow branch officer) and me following a visit to Yorkshire to forge relations with our twin NUM branch. It was published in Westminster NALGO’s branch magazine, State of the Union, in September 1984. And it describes what happened when we found ourselves on a mass picket at Gascoigne Wood near Selby the day after the first Yorkshire miner had returned to work.

Inside Out reminded me of the day and the article. For anyone who was there at the time, the revelations about allegedly falsified police accounts will come as no surprise at all. The real story of what happened has been there all along in the accounts of those who took part in the strike. And those like me who bore witness to it. 

‘They want us there today’ by Tim Taylor and Chris Creegan, State of the Union, Westminster NALGO, September 1984

The report that follows is an account of what happened when we were taken to a mass picket during our visit to a mining community in South Yorkshire. We wanted to view for ourselves the actions of miners and police on the picket lines so much talked about in the news. Quotes are from miners we met on the day.

We were staying with a miner’s family in the Brodsworth area just outside Doncaster. Having reported along with local striking miners to the welfare we were driven to Gascoigne Wood colliery near Selby where the previous day the first Yorkshire miner to break the strike had returned to work. ‘They want us there today’, commented our driver as we asked whether the police were likely to prevent us from reaching the colliery. On arrival we were met by hundreds of miners keen to indicate that support for the strike was still strong.

‘It’s as much a display of solidarity as anything else and God, we need that now.’

We were instructed to move towards the pit gates and joined maybe 2000 other pickets in a field adjacent to the colliery road, which was occupied by a line of police several thousand strong.

‘This pit has been democratically closed by those who work there. There’s all this talk of the ‘right to work’ but you don’t get this lot down (the police) when MacGregor shuts a pit, to defend our right to work.’ 

As we stood in anticipation, local union officials moved through the crowd urging pickets to remain calm. 

‘This isn’t exactly what I’d call fun. We’ve been beaten and punched and kicked and it’s bloody cold.’ 

The situation did remain peaceful until police ‘thoughtlessly’ rushed two vans towards the pit gates. Pickets thinking (wrongly) that this was the man’s return to work, surged forward in an attempt to block the road. As scuffles broke out and truncheons were drawn, police were heard to say ‘take your pickets now’. 

‘This bloke going in today, I don’t blame him. We’ve all suffered and for some I suppose it just gets too much. But he’s still a scab and he’s letting everyone down – himself, his community, his kids…’ 

The situation soon calmed and by about 11.00am miners began to drift off, anxious to avoid further clashes but satisfied that their presence had been felt. ‘Coming in? With you lot here? You must be joking’ said a superintendent as we walked away. 

Pickets were soon reflecting on the morning’s events. Many of the older pickets were critical of others’ hot headed response to the police. They were conscious of having been used and sure of what the press would have to say.

‘Mindless hooligans’, ‘mindless horror’, ‘mindless violence’ said the Express. They all got it wrong. We saw the police charge first and pickets act only in defence. Maybe they had been right – they had wanted us there that day.

Abuse, power and gender: what needs to change after Savile

I love the BBC. I can’t imagine my cultural life without it. I don’t know whether this is the worst crisis at the BBC for 50 years. But I’m pretty sure that’s not the question. Or at any rate the only question.

And it worries me a great deal that at a moment when we have an opportunity to focus on the issue of abuse, a self referential media has decided that the media itself, in the form of the BBC in this instance, is the big story. If we need reminding of the way power relations can be reinforced by elites, we need look no further than the current discourse.

But there are some other things about power that we need to remember and here are two. First it’s gendered. And second it’s about culture. And that reminds me of two articles from the world of sociology and social policy, both as it happens written by men. Academics are sometimes (rightly) criticised for living in ivory towers. But they can sometimes help us think about big issues and ideas and enable us to look at problems through a different lens. Men are rightly criticised for colluding with gendered power relations, but sometimes they have something to say about them too.

Where gendered power is concerned I’m reminded of a ground breaking article, Naming Men as Men, published in the academic journal, Gender, Work and Organisation in 1994. The authors, David Collinson and Jeff Hearn, discussed the way in which men and masculinities are frequently central to organisational analysis, yet rarely the focus of interrogation. Rather they remain taken for granted and hidden. Is this ringing any bells? Collinson and Hearn went on to argue that to understand gendered power, we need to examine the management of organisations in much more detail.

And they highlighted five masculinities which are routinely embedded in managerial discourses and practices: authoritarianism, paternalism, entrepreneurialism, informalism and careerism. I don’t know whether these accurately describe masculinities at the BBC or for that matter across the media. But I’d hazard a guess that they aren’t too far removed from either the culture that allowed abuse or indeed the culture that’s mishandling the fall out now. I’d certainly draw on Collinson and Hearn’s framework if I wanted to take a closer look.

Where organisational culture is concerned I’m reminded of a piece by Ken Young about the implementation of equality policies. Young argues persuasively about the importance of understanding the appreciative context within organisations. He referred to that context as the constellation of images, beliefs and values at work in organisations. And he suggested that when thinking about the implementation of policy it was as important as formal policy frameworks and procedures. Since there’s already talk of whether we need more legal powers to prevent abuse (we might) it’s worth remembering that any amount of regulation won’t work if values and behaviours don’t change. And when it comes to abuse, that’s first and foremost about male values and behaviours.

I absolutely agree with those who have argued that the tragic and shocking story of abuse that has given rise to the current crisis at the BBC must not be drowned out by the story of that crisis. But since everyone is talking about it and because it’s real, let’s please make sure we focus on what actually needs to change in organisations like the BBC if we’re to stop powerful men abusing again.

Why coming out is still an everyday experience

Today is Coming Out day. And it’s still relevant.

Commenting during last year’s Irish presidential election campaign on the sea change in attitudes to sexuality in Ireland, the writer Colm Toibin memorably said that recently he’d forgotten he was gay because he was too busy doing something else.  I know what he meant.

The change in attitudes in Britain that’s taken place in the last thirty years has indeed been remarkable. In 1983, when NatCen’s landmark British Social Attitudes survey was carried out, 62 per cent thought homosexuality was always or mostly wrong. By 2010 that trend had more or less reversed: 39 per cent said that homosexuality was never wrong, while ten per cent said it was rarely wrong. And as survey after survey shows that trend continues.

For those of us who came out many years ago, who’ve become comfortable in our own skin with the support of family, friends and colleagues, Colm Toibin’s experience will resonate a great deal. But it’s all too easy to forget how traumatic coming out was and can be. And it would be tempting to assume that attitudinal change has some how rendered coming out easier or even a thing of the past.

But we still live in a society where the presumption is heterosexuality. And even in socially liberal circles that presumption is still pretty deep rooted. Being lesbian or gay may not be as shocking as it once was, but it can still be mildly disconcerting or disappointing to even the most progressive people. The presumption of heterosexuality, ‘heterosexism’ in an institutional context, means that being lesbian, gay or bisexual is still a declaration of difference. It means being the other.

Being the other means that being lesbian, gay or bisexual is at best a negotiated experience.  It might not require a grand strategy, but it will still involve everyday tactical decisions. Who to tell, what to say, will anyone be offended, will it change someone’s perception of me? And so on. And coming out never stops. Wherever you go, whatever you do, that negotiation continues, however benign, a feature of normal daily life.

So if you’re at work and you’re in a relationship, do you play the pronouns game to conceal the gender of your partner? Conversely, if you’re not in a relationship, how do you come out without the prop of a partner to introduce your sexuality into everyday conversation? Research that I was involved in for the European Social Fund as recently as 2006 revealed that coming out could be a radically different experience for people working in the same building: one person talking about being in a ‘comfort zone’ and another talking about having to wear ‘an emotional suit of armour’ everyday.

For young people coming out for the first time at school or college coming out can still be a hugely traumatic and lonely experience. Yes attitudes have changed. Yes role models are more plentiful. But when the chips are down, it’s something you’ve got to do for yourself and it takes courage. For people in countries where attitudes have still to change, we know it can still be a matter of life and death.

So if you’re straight what can you do? Time and time again research participants have said to me over the years that one of the things that can make a real difference is when straight people take responsibility for creating an environment where coming out is less of an ordeal. That means not presuming and not stereotyping. It means thinking about what you say and not assuming you know everything about the people around you. It means that no matter what your private assumptions are they should remain private.

And by the way that doesn’t mean treading on eggshells. It’s not political correctness gone mad. It’s just common sense and common courtesy. Too much to ask? If attitudes have changed as much as the surveys tell us it shouldn’t be.

And you might just make someone’s coming out journey a whole lot easier.

A Great North Run for the David Cairns Foundation

On Sunday 16 September I’m running the Great North Run for the David Cairns Foundation. David, who died of Acute Pancreatitis in 2011, was MP for Inverclyde. He was a huge inspiration to me and many others.  

 

The David Cairns Foundation was set up to remember his life and work. The Trustees of the Foundation aim to support the causes that David supported in his parliamentary career in the hope that the hard work that David put in on behalf of his constituents, his causes and for the country is continued.

The Foundation is currently supporting three charitable causes that David was associated with. The Ardgowan Hospice in his Inverclyde Constituency was established in 1981 to enhance the lives of local people affected by cancer and other serious life limiting illnesses.

In David’s role as the Chair of the All Party Group on HIV /AIDS he met David Kato, a Ugandan man who was to be beaten to death for his sexuality. To highlight such cases the Foundation is supporting the work of SMUG (Sexual Minorities Uganda).

Finally, as a living memorial to David, the Foundation, in partnership with the Notre Dame High School, has established an annual David Cairns Public Speaking Prize. Each year the two winning pupils will be recorded on a special trophy and have the opportunity to visit the Palace of Westminster, tour the Commons and Lords and watch Prime Ministers Questions from the gallery.

You can support my run by making a donation to the Foundation here. If you do make a donation I’d like to take the opportunity to thank you personally so please do drop me an email to chriscreegan61@gmail.com
 

Many thanks.

London 2012: Our British summer of discovery

London 2012 was a summer of discovery. And like so many watching the Paralympics closing ceremony tonight I’ve been reflecting on what we learnt.

I haven’t got the last word and I don’t want it. This is a conversation that’s just started. So here’s my starter for ten, with a bit of help from Ade Adepitan who summed it up so beautifully in response to Clare Balding as the show came to a close.

·         We learnt to be a glass half full. Optimism makes all the difference.

·         We learnt to show our feelings. There’s nothing like a good cry.

·         We learnt to have a sense of humour. There’s nothing like a good laugh.

·         We learnt that equality isn’t a fringe issue. It’s a birthright.

·         We learnt that being proud of Britain is okay It’s about patriotism not nationalism.

·         We learnt that sport doesn’t discriminate. So we shouldn’t.

·         We learnt that the BBC and Channel 4 are both great. They're both British.

·         We learnt more about our place in the 21^st century world. Not empire but inspire.

·         We learnt that sport gives us hope. And hope gives us belief.

·         And with belief anything is possible (thanks Ade)

And as Bonnie Greer reminded us recently, if we’ve learnt anything about the audacity of hope, surely it’s that we are the hope.

So let’s make sure London 2012 really does inspire a generation. Join the conversation. It starts now. I'm going to.

#positivetwitterday: Talking up Britishness for a day

I must admit that when I first heard about British Future I was sceptical. But over the last few months I’ve been gradually won over. Here’s a think tank with a clear progressive agenda, but one that refuses to be beholden to traditional boundaries. A think tank that’s begun to do something that successive late 20^th century politicians tried to do and largely failed; create a real debate about what constitutes Britishness at the beginning of the 21^st century. And today it’s asking us to take part in #positivetwitterday. To celebrate the Olympic and Paralympic spirit and be positive and civil for a day. And where better to start than with Britishness itself.

John Major’s much derided 1992 attempt at defining Britishness evoked the image of “cycling home from evensong, sipping warm beer on the village green while watching cricket.” At some level it was quite endearing, but it didn’t bear much scrutiny. Conjuring up a sense of whiteness and Englishness, it was absurdly nostalgic, narrow and exclusive. In 2006 Gordon Brown, in a speech to the Fabian Society, described British patriotism as “encompassing progressive ideas of liberty, fairness and responsibility.” In some respects this was much broader, and certainly laudable as an aspiration. But somehow it didn’t resonate. It felt theoretical, detached and bolted on.

The Major and Brown attempts at defining Britishness are some of the most memorable and explicit by British politicians in recent times. At other moments politicians have evoked a sense of Britishness in their responses to events. Thatcher’s post victory speech following the Falklands war spoke of the “real spirit of Britain”, of Britain having “found herself again.” In a far more subtle way, Blair’s “People’s Princess” speech immediately after the death of Diana appealed to a Britain in a state of shock and grief at her death. Earlier this year Blair was described by one commentator as the man “who more than any, tried to recreate a fuzzy sense of Britishness, post-Diana, all touchy-feely and shorn of any of ..harsh realities.”

These are just snippets of course and there have been many other attempts by politicians during recent years to capture a sense of British identity and Britishness. Some of these have been more successful, more appealing and more inclusive than others.  But none has really succeeded in creating a lasting and relevant sense of a new lived Britishness, genuinely and purposively representative of the Britain we’re in today.

British Future, it seems, has been designed to avoid those pitfalls. It’s clearly non partisan, but doesn’t shy away from challenging politics. It’s prepared to engage with and celebrate the past, while being firmly rooted in the present and committed to the future. And it is unashamedly open about diversity, and in particular wants us to talk about the one thing that so many politicians both court and fear: (im)migration, the issue behind one of the most embarrassing moments of the 2010 election, the Mrs Duffy moment. And specifically one of its aims is to create greater understanding of the positive impact of migration.

#positivetwitterday is on one level a chance for fun. It’s an opportunity to use social media to create a national conversation which celebrates the moment. It’s an antidote to those who are attached to a traditional British pessimism. It says there’s value in positivity for its own sake because it can make us feel better.

But it’s more than that. This is civic #postivetwitterday. So it’s about engendering a sense of belonging, of connectivity between individuals and the collective, however and where that’s expressed. That could be a geographic community or a community of interest or within in the overlapping spaces that bring them together. If the findings of NatCen Social Research's landmark British Social Attitudes Survey in recent years are anything to go by, that’s something we could all do with.

And so it’s challenging us to be part of a conversation which helps us create our own sense of Britishness, a Britishness which isn’t afraid to shy away from difficulty, but has a reason to believe; in opportunity and in the future. And that’s why I’m no longer a British Future sceptic. I get why it matters. I don’t know where it’s going but that’s what’s great about it. It’s serendipitous, spontaneous and audacious. It’s a kind of adventure.

It’s challenging us to recognise that there’s something precious within our grasp, to recognise as Sunder Katwala pointed out in his recent blog on Danny Boyle’s opening ceremony, that Britishness has actually been staring us in the face all the time: it is Britain that makes us British.

And if we stop for a moment and take the opportunity to talk about it and celebrate it, we might learn something about it and ourselves which won’t just be for fun. It will help us create new ways of working and thinking together, of creating opportunities to be prosperous materially, emotionally and more. Unlike Major’s Britishness, it’s capable of being diverse and inclusive. Unlike Brown’s, it’s more rooted and practical.

British Future’s Britishness is us. In Britain. Today.

Cardinal O’Brien: time to practice what you preach

So Keith Patrick O’Brien isn’t talking to Alex Salmond, or at least not formally, because the First Minister intends to press ahead with plans to legalise equal marriage and the Cardinal doesn’t like not being listened to. Well I’m glad he knows what that feels like. As a gay Catholic I certainly do.

This is another manifestation of a rift which I referred to in my recent blog following the Archbishop of Glasgow’s outrageous remarks on the death of the late David Cairns, subsequently reinforced by the Catholic media office spokesperson Peter Kearney’s assertion that being gay leads to early death. Those remarks were so offensive and hurtful to David’s partner and family that I’d prefer not to mention them, let alone draw attention to them. But it’s necessary to because they expose the deep rooted prejudice and ignorance which lie at the heart of the Catholic establishment’s opposition to equal marriage. And that’s why it’s hard to take what Keith Patrick O’Brien and Peter Kearney say with anything other than a pinch of salt.

The Catholic establishment is snubbing Salmond because it’s upset that it isn’t being listened to. It also advances the very weak argument that apparently two thirds of those who responded to the Scottish Government’s recent consultation were opposed to gay marriage. This sounds like a petulant child that can’t get its own way and gets its friends to join in the shouting. The thing about petulant children is that they have to grow up. They have to accept that ‘I want never gets’. The world doesn’t come to you just because you stamp your feet. Welcome to modern democratic life Cardinal O’Brien.

As any of us with any experience knows, sometimes consultation goes your way and sometimes it doesn't. It might actually be more helpful to focus on the consensus which does exist. There were very few respondents who considered that religious bodies or celebrants should be required to undertake ceremonies which they were not comfortable with. And although approaching the basic proposals from very different starting points, many respondents were united in their insistence that Scotland must remain a country in which freedom of religious conscience is treated with the utmost respect.

But just to be clear, public consultation isn’t a referendum or a vote. Rather it’s an opportunity for public input on matters of policy. It’s more qualitative than quantitative, because its real value is to understand the range of perspectives held by the public, both individually and expressed through collective institutions, and the arguments which inform those perspectives. Its value in quantitative terms is negligible because it’s not designed to be representative. And it isn’t designed to be binding. However, the unavoidable truth is that research shows that attitudes in Scotland are changing: the Scottish Social Attitudes survey shows that support for same sex marriage increased from 41% in 2002 to 61% in 2010.

My interest in this debate is on the record. I’m a gay Catholic who strongly supports gay marriage. I didn’t, however, respond to the Scottish Government’s consultation. Sometimes, perhaps not surprisingly, consultation will attract a higher proportion of opponents than supporters because, entirely reasonably, such opportunities to make voices heard are exploited by those who wish to lobby decision makers. I had a choice about whether to respond to the consultation. I chose not to, not because I didn’t have a point of view or because I didn’t care, but because in truth I had a lot of other things on. And perhaps more importantly, on the basis of what I’d heard, I trusted the Scottish Government to do the right thing.

But there’s a contradiction at play here. I didn’t respond to the Catholic church’s consultation on gay marriage either because there hasn’t been any. Ordinary Catholics haven’t been asked for their views. They’ve simply been asked to shore up the establishment’s perspective. On one level I won’t lose too much sleep about this because had we been asked for our views I suspect I’d have been in a minority. But nonetheless the plain fact is, and the church establishment knows it, that there’s no shortage of opposition, or at least ambivalence, to their point of view amongst Catholics. Some of it is from gay Catholics like me, some from straight supporters of gay marriage, and some simply from those who think the church could make better use of its influence in a Scotland facing real social problems like poverty. Fair play to the Church of Scotland on this one. At least it’s openly debated this issue in the full glare of media scrutiny.

There are some obvious lessons for the Catholic establishment in all of this. First, not talking to people just because you disagree with them isn’t very grown up. Second, participating in consultation in a modern democracy can’t guarantee that things will go your way. Third, if you really believe in the value of consultation and open debate, then let’s have some in the church itself. Fourth, it’s time to stop running away with the idea that Catholics have only one point of view on this issue. And finally, if you do want anyone to take you remotely seriously on the issue of gay marriage, ditch the bigotry.