Political thoughts

I have always been interested in national and local politics and on occasions been very active. This is my political autobiography.

As a teenager at school was not very interested in politics. My German mother told me her experience of having to get out of Nazi Germany and my protestant Irish father read a lot about the history of Northern Ireland. There were quite a lot of books on political history in the house. However, at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wakefiled, my form master for 3 years running when I was 10 to 12 years old was Nigel Barnet. He became the MP for Greenwich and I wonder whether he influenced my values. However, I can not remember politics being mentioned on any occasion by him. Unfortunately, he died prematurely but did some great work in the background as an MP.
I became a member of the Humanist Society which I regarded as an anti-religious political movement. I read their regular publication for members and I also had the “Soviet Weekly” delivered. Was this simply me as a teenager trying out a bit of rebellious behaviour and attention seeking? My parents were long standing conservative voters and indeed my father only voted labour once and that was in the landslide general election of 1945. I thought their voting conservative was a class thing and inconsistent with their values. My father was one of the few, if not the only doctor to support the creation of the National Health Service.
Two of their patients, when they lived in Airedale, were Walter and Enid `Harrison. They moved to Wakefield and Walter eventually became the MP for Wakefield and a labour whip. My parents took me to visit the House of Commons just after Walter had been elected. We met him and he told my father which hook to hang his overcoat on. Immediately my father had hung his coat up a man in a very elaborate uniform came up to us and informed us that the coat hook that had been used was for the sole use of ambassadors. That was the first of several occasions I heard prime Minister’s questions. Walter came to my father’s funeral and sent the only flowers that were at my mother’s funeral. What a great bloke. Why he never got an honour I shall never understand.
At University in London in the 60s I was again not involved in politics. I can not remember what I voted in the first general election that I was allowed to vote. Is this because I have repressed it from my mind because I actually voted conservative! David Frost and the satire of the time had a great influence on me. Indeed at the time of writing this (2007) I have relistened to Peter Cook’s imitating Harold Macmillan reading out the letter from “the old aged pensioner from Fyfe”. It makes me laugh out loud every time I hear it. As a medical student in London I went to debates and heard one in which David Frost took part and another in which Julian Amery featured (he had the plumiest accent I had ever heard).
During an election campaign went to a Hustings in Marylebone town hall where Mr Quinton Hogg (Lord Hailsham) made a speech. He started to answer a question with “We in the conservative party do not think……” and was cut off in his prime by chanting “We do not think. We do not think. We do not think.” Many years later, he visited Nostell Priory where Kath was the manager and I have a great photograph of them chatting together. I think the student unions were pretty left wing at the time and Jack Straw was the President of the National Union of Students.
The first letter I wrote to a politician was to Lady Sear, the Liberal peer. I had heard her on the television talking about the unfairness of the student grant situation. I married my first wife when she was still a medical student and this resulted in her being regarded from the grand giving point, as living at home. Her grant was drastically cut. Baroness Sear did not reply to my letter to the House of Lords. I thought this was very bad and I wrote to her at her home address and pointed this out. She wrote back to me by hand apologising and answering my points to my satisfaction. I really do believe that letting politicians know one’s view may have some influence but I have tried not to overdo this. The only politician not to reply to me was David Owen when I wrote to him very upset that he would not join the Liberal Democrat Party despite a vote in favour of merging. Most undemocratic of him. However I am still a great fan of his. Many years later when I was working in Castleford I wrote something about the NHS to our MP Geoffrey (now Lord) Lofthouse. He phoned me up and told me he was writing to the then mister of health, Harriet Harman. He said “ What do you think of this? Dear ‘Arriet ……” Despite the dropping of the aitch, which amused me and which I also do, it was great of him to go to all that trouble. He was a superb constituency MP.
I became a GP in Cheltenham in 1973. Cheltenham had another excellent constituency MP, the Conservative, Charles Irving. I first got involved in a bit of local politics when a new friend, Bill Bullingham, invited us round for dinner. One of the objectives of this invitation was to get me arguing with a Councillor Dudley Aldridge. Bill was heavily involved with the local Conservative party. Bill eventually became the mayor of Cheltenham. Another prominent conservative councillor was a fellow GP, Clive Froggart. He was personally involved at the highest government levels in developing GP Fundholding. He even had talks with Mrs Thatcher. Again Bill invited me to dinner so I would start arguing and I did.
I have given Bill a couple of signed books. The first was Harold Wilson’s autobiography. I bought two copies of the book and stamped addressed packages. My covering letter explained about Bill and his Conservatism and that I was a member of the Labour Party. The books were duly returned and signed. In the one to Bill, Mr Wilson had written: “To Mr Bill Bullingham” and in mine he wrote” To Richard Sloan with the writer’s best wishes” The second was one I gave to Bill at his 40th birthday party held at the house of Lords. It was book signed by David Owen. I was a member of the Council for Social Democracy and attended the Party Conferences of the SDP. I bought a book written by David Owen and gave it to a colleague who was on the “front bench”. He passed it along to David Owen with a note from me requesting him to sign it. Bill had a friend who was Lord Mulloy. In order to be able to book a dinner party in the House of Lords one had to do this through a peer. Lord Mulloy was an expert in groundnuts and the Gambia. After the meal he drove us back to our hotel in his merc and we had a nightcap. I paid for this. Cash for questions? Bill gave me a book signed by Edward Heath. Indeed, I have quite a collection of signed books. Last week (October 2007) David Owen returned another `book I had asked him to sign – “The Hubris Syndrome”. It had a very nice message in it.
After I left Cheltenham Kath and I went to work in Castleford in 1978. I joined the Labour Party but was not an active member.

When the SDP was founded in 1981, Kath and I immediately joined. We were very active indeed. We met some great people through the SDP. One of my GP colleagues, Lutfe Kamal, was already a councillor for the Wakefield Metropolitan District Council and changed parties from Labour to the SDP. Alan Mills was another sitting councillor who defected. The ex MP for Goole, Edmund Marshall became a member. Terry Walsh from Wakefield was our chairman of the Wakefield Area Party and I was eventually the secretary. John Little, painter and decorator and second cousin to Gordon Brown, still paints our house 25 years later. Colin Strange (a distant relation of Basil Faulty) was great fun. Geoff Driver was an engineer who later became a vicar. Then there was a smashing local gang we got together for our ward of Ferry Fryston. Tommy Burns, Maud and Martin Raftery, Maureen Wood, Terence Guile, Edna Neil, Margaret Corfield, Joan Ella and others I am sure I have missed. We decided that I should stand for the council. This was a fascinating experience as I had no hope in hell of getting on. We had a major fund raising effort in our garden with 7 bar-b-qs on the go and stuff for sale. There were two seats up in the ward where we lived – Castleford Ferry Fryston Ward 11. Joan Ella, who also worked for the NHS, was to stand with me. She was born and brought up in the ward and I was brought up there. Alan was fighting his seat in Pontefract South and Lutfe’s was not up for election. We were part of the Wakefield Metropolitan District Council which had a population of well over 300000. Our ward had 11000 residents and over 5000 houses. If elected, this would only be for one year and then there would be another election. If elected that time it was for a 4 year term. There were three sitting labour councillors who had never been seriously challenged.
It was not too difficult to get nominated by a number of people living in the ward. We had to learn about the rules and law surrounding local elections so we did not get in to trouble. There were leaflets to be printed, folded and put in to 5000 letterboxes. Joan and I worked very well together but we thought we had no hope of getting elected. Kath was fantastic. Leafleting was a major and tiring exercise. One was so tired after leafleting a block of houses that one could not remember which ones had been done. There are letter boxes and letter boxes. Letter boxes that try to cut your fingers off, letter boxes with brushes, letter boxes with accompanying dogs, low letter boxes, high letter boxes etc.
Door knocking (canvassing) I found stressful. There could be quite unexpected responses. Middle class households turned out to be staunch labour supporters and coal miners tended to support the SDP.
For Election Day, we got hold of a loudspeaker and fixed it to a car. Joan and I took it in turns to speak into it as we went round the ward. We did not have enough manpower to give people lifts to the polling stations like the labour party did. We did not, like it, have enough people to man each polling station. We managed to get a bit to eat in the evening and then go to the count. What an experience that was! As I have mentioned, we felt it was impossible to win. No one had ever won a seat from labour in that ward. We had to go to the front, at the end of the count, to the returning officer and decide together about spoilt papers with our labour opponents. We were generous as we thought we had no chance. We gave them a few votes from the spoiled papers. Poor Joan had lost but she was great in defeat. I had won by 4 votes. The labour party demanded a recount. There had never been a recount ever. After the recount I was on by7 about 4 votes. They demanded another recount and after I won by 3 voted they conceded. Fantastically exciting. We were over the moon. I was the only SDP person to win a seat in the whole patch. Alan lost and Kamal got defeated the following year.
The next day we went to London and stayed at our friend, Gill’s, before going away on holiday. She was working on the election for the BBC at the time. Neither she nor we knew any details of the election because we had been so immersed in our own part of it. What brought me down to earth was when I told a taxi driver that I had been elected he was not the slightest bit interested. I last met Joan Ella a couple of months ago. She was out shopping with her mother and sister in Castleford. We greeted warmly as usual. We have met a few times as our paths crossed because of our both working for the NHS. I feel honoured to know such a great person as Joan.
In 1984 was the miners strike and it lasted a year. I can not remember whether I was elected before or after that. I experienced the 1970’s miners strike in the 70s when I was in London. Mr Heath’s 3 day week with power cuts. I realised that I would never be out of a job if I stuck to medicine. The surgeries in General Practice continued in candlelight.
The 1984 strike started amicably with great family cohesion and community spirit. I had to occasionally cross a picket line when doing home visits. I knew most of the blokes on the picket line. I always slowed down, wound my widow down and said the same thing – “I only want to get some coal out of that pit”. The reply was always “Go on. Help your self” There was a painted sign at the trop of the picket hut that read “Thatcher has one. McGreggor is one”.



I took them a bottle of whiskey one night. Our house and the surgery is about half a mile from that picket line and the mine. Towards the end of the strike things got nasty. Men from outside of the area manned the picket line. One night we were awoken by the sound of serious fighting – a riot. There was more noise that night than during the Second World War, I gather. I don’t think anyone was seriously injured.
There were some different medical problems that we saw during the strike. One man lost significant weight because he could not eat properly because of a dental problem and could not afford to see a dentist. We saw a lot more children. This was because the men were at home and did not realise what their wives were coping with when they were at work. The men would insist their child with a minor illness be seen by a doctor. There was a lot of stress and some men “threw on the sick”. I have never seen any statistics about this. Most GPs I knew gave out medical certificated readily to striking miners. These were proud men “salt of the earth”, as Harold MacMillan described them
One weekend during the strike we had Gill and Wendy, Kath’s former flat mates from London, stay with us for the weekend. Wendy has a particularly loud voice and a definite southern accent. They wanted to go for a drink at a working man’s club. One of our neighbours, Martin Raftery, a retired miner, took us. I warned Wendy and Gill not to mention Mrs Thatcher in the club. After a while there, Wendy turned round to a group of men on the next table and said in her loud voice “Richard has told us not to mention Mrs Thatcher. Why’s that?”. Well, you never heard such foul language!
After the strike was lost, the local pit in Fryston closed. Men who had gone back to work early were “blacklegs” and were never spoken to again. Some left the town. I was please that the pit closed because it was a horrific place that caused horrific illnesses and accidents.
In 2007, Castleford is thriving. This is because of the fantastic efforts over the last 10 years by the Labour Government and the Labour Metropolitan District Council.
This brings me back to describe what it was like to be a metropolitan district councillor.
There were only two of us out of about 65 who were in the SDP. There were about 4 Liberals and 6 Conservatives and a couple of independents. Lutfe Kamal was the leader of the SDP Councillors. We had to share out the committees between the two of us. Thank goodness he was good at financial matters as the budget was huge and complicated. The leader of the council at that time was Sir Jack Smart and the mayor Colin Croxall. Two of my school friends were councillors – Frank Ward and Peter Box. Peter is the excellent leader for the past few years. We could always annoy Sir Jack by taunting him that he obtained his knighthood from Mrs Thatcher. He received his knighthood partly because he was chairman or leader of the Association of Metropolitan Councils. Despite our political differences he became a patron of the Castleford Choral Society and we had a mutual respect for one another. I posted a stop watch to Colin Croxall, the mayor. This was because he always cut our speaking down in council and gave his fellow labour members extra time to make a speech. He sent it back to me. The thing that amused me about the mayor was that if he wanted to go to the lavatory in the middle of a council meeting we all had to stand up and he was led out by the macebearer. He was often cheered when he returned. On the whole, Labour members were not very friendly and the SDP were regarded as like blacklegs. The only one to teat me civilly from the start was Roy Widdowson. He ended up leader but then left the labour party. I was pleased to work recently in our Primary Care Trust where Roy was the chairman of the board. Indeed he and his wife along with Alan and Bron Mills asked us to join then for an evening meal in a mason’s lodge some years ago. The chairman of the finance committee was Bill O’Brian later to become MP for Normanton, now Ed Ball’s constituency, soon to disappear because of boundary changes. I used to have nightmares about Bill O’Brian. He was a real politician. He occasionally made a statement in council about what I had said and I hadn’t said a word about that particular area. What he said often ended up in the press. I could not be bothered to deny it. Again, political enemies end up behaving civilly to one another. I have met Bill of late on three occasions. The first was at our silver wedding anniversary celebration at Wentbridge House Hotel when he was at another function and he was very friendly. The second was recently (2007 is the year of writing this) when he came to a Castleford Choral Society Concert at St Joseph’s church, Pontefract and again he was very friendly. The third might have been before the latter other two and this was the Labour party Christmas do at the civic centre when Gordon Brown was the guest of honour. Kath and I went with George and Jean, who are longstanding friends from round here. I think George is somewhat right wing. He had a couple of questions written on a piece of paper to remind him what he wanted to say if he met Gordon Brown. He did meet him and put the questions to him. The point of this, though, is that George knew that Bill O’Brien had been somewhat rotten to me when I was on the council. When Bill walked in to this Christmas do, George jumped up and approached hi. He chastised Bill and told him I was a “pillar of society” and that it was bad of Bill to be rude about me. Since then all has been fine with Bill O’Brian. He really should have been given an honour like Geoff Lofthouse for giving up his seat for Ed Balls. More deservedly, Roy Widdowson should have been given an honour. Peter Box will probably get one.
What was it like being a metropolitan district councillor? At first I was totally out of my depth at first. I felt on top of the job only after 9 months and 3 months before I lost the local election. I held a council surgery each week in a school in the ward and enjoyed articulating people’s worries by letter to the chief officers of the various departments. I occasionally wrote to the MP, Geoff Lofthouse about issues. I organised the odd petition. I had regular weekly meetings with the local press. I regularly got my thoughts into the Pontefract and Castleford Express and occasionally the Yorkshire Post. I dug up some dirt where I could but I did not like this activity. I spoke in council. I was on the subcommittee that had to decide on a new dustbin for everyone. We sat in a splendid committee room round a huge oak table. Half a dozen dustbins were brought in and put in front of us on the table. In order to see ones fellow committee members one had to peer round the left or right side of a dustbin. One memorable afternoon was when I went with two or three others (including David Hinchliffe, the future MP for Wakefield and chairman of the government health committee) on an inspection of the kitchens at the building that was the home of the finance department. We were all in a rather poky car when the mayor, Colin Croxall, passed us in his official limousine and wearing his mayoral robes. I remember David winding down the window, blowing a raspberry and raising two fingers as we were passed.
What did I do in the patch? The proudest achievement was to obtain fenced front gardens for a street that was open plan and where the residents were experiencing significant vandalism and taunting from youths who could easily get to their front doors and sitting room windows. What I realised after 6 months on the council was the technique for getting an idea through. This was to wangle it so the Labour Party had the impression they thought of it itself. As long as it got the press coverage all was OK. I got an increased vote in the local elections the next year but lost. Sir Jack Smart and the MP, now Lord Lofthouse, and the whole of the Labour machine campaigned and door knocked in our ward. Even though I lost I got more votes than are obtained now. I was relieved to be knocked off. After the count, one of the local Labour councillors gave a short speech. He said that he had not even received a leaflet from us. We had put in 5000 leaflets 4 weeks running and the morning of the vote got up at 5 am to deliver a few hundred “good morning” leaflets. That really got me and my fellow candidate, John Little (a relation of Gordon Brown!!) furious. We went back to our house and got rather inebriated. We realise we had thousands of un-delivered leaflets. Out we went again to find the councillor’s house and stuff the leaflets through his letterbox. Fortunately we could not find the house.
Sir Jack Smart and Lord Lofthouse have been very friendly with me ever since the mid-eighties when all this was going on. Recently Sir Jack published a book and signed a copy for me to give to Kath for Christmas. I have signed books by Harold Wilson, Edward Heath, David Owen and Roy Jenkins.
For my 50th birthday we were in London. Geoffrey Lofthouse was then deputy speaker and our MP. Kath had arranged, unbeknown to me, a trip round the houses of parliament having contacted Geoff. We were on the tube the day before the secret visitation. I suddenly had an idea! I suggested to Kath that I phoned Geoff on my mobile and fixed up listening to PMQs. Oh dear. She had to tell me. The good thing, though, was it was obvious that I really wanted to do this and that Kath had arranged a fantastic birthday present that I would really appreciate. We were showed round by Geoff’s London secretary who was fantastic. He told us all the gossip. He told us about Betty Boothroyd’s gin and tonics. He took us on to the roof where Urquart shoved someone off! He took us to the government front benched and I asked if I could sit on them. This is strictly not allowed. We went all over the place. While we were in the chamber, Geoff came in and said hello. Before we went in for the PMQs, we stood in the lobby and watched the speaker coming in. Betty Boothroyd positively strutted in, she was so proud to do that job. PMQs was great. We had been allocated seats that were for the sole use of the speaker (Betty Boothroyd). There was an ambassador sitting next to us. A really great birthday present.
So to 1996 or 7 and New Labour. I was a member of the Labour party and as such was entitled to attend and vote on the selection of our prospective parliamentary candidate. Geoff Lofthouse had stood down and got a peerage later. He was not there. The meeting was held in a room in Castleford Grammar School. I can not remember the procedure but each candidate had to make a speech and had to answer the same questions. Hilary Benn was up for it as was Yvette Cooper, then about 27 tears of age. I was sitting behind my old friend Peter Box (leader of Wakefield Metropolitan District Council) and he was definitely gunning for Hilary Benn. I remember a woman from Batley starting her speech in a heavy Yorkshire accent “ Comrades”. I was sitting next to two ex-miners. The daftest thing to me was that one of the set questions was “have you ever stood for a political party other than the Labour Party?” That was to weed out a candidate that had been in the SDP whom party HQ had put on the shortlist. Yvette Cooper made a great speech and had the two ex-miners and me eating out of her hand. I think she was only 27 years old at the time. She won and, as I have reminded her, there was dancing in the streets that night. The dancing was quite near to a pub.
I have remained a member of the Labour party and registered my objection to the Iraq war by writing to my MP and spoiling a local election ballot paper one year.
I have not been an active member. Yvette opened the new surgery and I am proud to have a photo of me and her on her website.

http://www.yvettecooper.com/outandabout01b_dw.htm

(I’ve lost over 2 stones since that photo).

I read David Owen’s recent book “The Hubris Syndrome” and posted it to him to ask if he would sign it. He wrote me a very nice note. I collect signed books. I have one by Edward Heath and another by Harold Wilson as well as Roy Jenkins, Bill Keatinge, Liz Moulton and Ron Mullroy. Kath has Bob Wilson’s book signed as well as one by Terry Wogan. On this day of writing I watched a recording of PMQs and the Andrew Marr show. I am very interested indeed in politics and would like to get involved locally. However the ward meetings are on a Wednesday night which is the Castleford Choral Society’s rehearsal evening. I have sung with them approaching 30 years and am the Patrons’ secretary. Yvette Cooper, Ed Balls and Lord Lofthouse are all generous patrons and Bill O’Brian has been to one of our concerts last year.