Tolpuddle – a stream of random thoughts

Thanks to Rob for sending me this short personal account of Tolpuddle. “It’s a long, long way to Tolpuddle from Tamworth- especially battling holiday traffic, driving rain, and sluggish service at our one stop-off at a Little Chef. But we made it after a 6 hour drive and I enjoyed watching Lisa put up…

Liam

July 20, 2009

3–5 minutes

Thanks to Rob for sending me this short personal account of Tolpuddle.

“It’s a long, long way to Tolpuddle from Tamworth- especially battling holiday traffic, driving rain, and sluggish service at our one stop-off at a Little Chef.

But we made it after a 6 hour drive and I enjoyed watching Lisa put up the tent in the dark whilst I looked after an over-tired toddler.

Still, I managed to get to the bar before closing and hooked up with the comrades from Southwark Respect- which is always a pleasure. I then proceeded to bump into them, along with other comrades old and new, throughout the weekend.

Had a few interesting conversations and discussions on the hoof – some enlightening, some amusing, some confusing. Swapped some anecdotes, bought some papers. Bought lots of papers actually and filled a bag with assorted leaflets.

Lots of interesting stalls in the Martyrs Marquee. Having just a couple of tables for each group is a great leveller. If used as a snapshot of the state of the left its clear that the largest group in Britain is the SPGB followed by its own expellees in the originally named SPGB but coming up fast is the Workers Fight / Internationalist Communist Union group- you know the Lutte Ouvriere co-thinkers (some of them co-thought to the extent that they also had strong French accents).

There was a small Labour Party stall outside but, having no politics- or at least none they weren’t ashamed of- they contented themselves with running a raffle instead.

Prize for dullest headline on a paper goes to the Socialist Party for ‘Jobs not dole’ – so that would be ‘jobs not no jobs’ then?

Gave away some copies of the Respect freebie tabloid and sold a couple of copies of Socialist Resistance too.

(Note to self: next year we really need to have a proper stall with books, back issues and other goodies.)

(Note to national committee: lets avoid a clash with a national meeting next time shall we?)

Weather report: Sunny and bright with a few showers. I got a sunburnt face which looks weird with my white eyebrows.

Saturday afternoon was a freebie hunt. Byron got a plastic Slinky ™ and three juggling balls from the NASUWT, some snazzy RMT sunglasses, lots of balloons and a small Cuban flag.

The RMT have the best t-shirts by far (but they weren’t free) – I liked the one with a picture of a rattlesnake saying “Will strike if provoked”

The more moderate NUT contented themselves with handing out apples and packets of lettuce and coriander seeds- a patient vegetarian could live for free!

Balloons, squashy pillar boxes and that stuff you smear on your lips from the CWU.

Prize for the most silly hat: Jay from Bristle. Sorry mate, we love you to bits but I have asked my relatives to take me to a Swiss clinic if I ever wear one like that.

Sunday afternoon got very busy as coaches started arriving for the march and rally. There were literally hundreds of union, party and campaign banners- including quite a few from the Communist Party and various Labour Party branches. Lots of brass bands and pipe bands and socialist choirs too.

Mr Benn was star-turn. I am told he did the same speech, almost word for word, as last year. And the year before. But it’s a winning formula, so why change it? He did get a big cheer for dissing the Afghan war and he remains massively popular.

Impossible to gauge the overall numbers – suffice it to say ‘several thousand’ – certainly too many for the rally field and for the main street. Perhaps the Tolpuddle festival is outgrowing the little village of Tolpuddle and they might consider re-locating it to somewhere more accessible like the West Midlands for a change. Either that or demolish some of those picturesque cottages to build a bigger site…

Tolpuddle is a showcase of the British labour movement at its best – its lively and family friendly and the age profile is much younger than I had expected or been led to believe, the live entertainment is good, beer reasonably priced, the showers are hot (and free) and the toilets clean and, most importantly, it is highly political without being too down-your-throat,

It was our first time- I’m sure it won’t be our last.

Now we have twenty minutes for questions and contributions from the floor…”

Rob Marsden,

Tamworth

14 responses to “Tolpuddle – a stream of random thoughts”

Jay Woolrich

July 20, 2009 at 4:00 pm

Liam, I’m really disappointed to find you publishing such a sectarian article. There is nothing wrong with my hat. Rob’s from “oop north” and has only ever seen men wearing flat caps. Anyway, if he thought my Tolpuddle hat was eccentric, he should have seen me at Ascot…..

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Doug

July 20, 2009 at 4:07 pm

Amongst all the positives about Tolpuddle there’s one problem. it’s organised by the SW TUC, hence you get that tit Billy Bragg invited every year but, worse than that, it gives the opportunity for trade union bureacrats and sell out merchants to parade their phoney radical credentials. Brendan Barber ffs! Why not invite some serious militants (from all levels of trade unions) to really make it a confidence booster for all activists.

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Adamski

July 20, 2009 at 7:10 pm

A good point by Doug, I personally think that this kind of historical remembrance of our history is something the left should prioritise more. Especially with a push to celebrate St George’s Day and various crap like Armed Forces Day, the left could provide an alternative popular festivals that celebrate solidarity and history from below and also let people have a real good time. In France and other countries the left can actually pull of these kinda peoples festivals. I guess the nearest Britain has come is the Rock against Racism carnivals.

Let’s have more commemorations, we already have Tolpuddle, Durham MIners Gala, Levellers Day etc with more radical left input.

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Darren

July 21, 2009 at 1:56 am

Mmm,

first the SPGB scores the highest vote in Liam’s election poll

http://liammacuaid.wordpress.com/2009/05/28/in-the-european-elections-i-would-vote-for/

and now his Northern correspondent cites them as the most visible presence amongst the left at Tolpuddle.

Maybe the extreme left of the Second International is finally making a comeback? Any breaking news on Wes Anderson making a Daniel De Leon biopic?

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ajohnstone

July 21, 2009 at 4:24 am

“Maybe the extreme left of the Second International is finally making a comeback?”

tsk tsk , tut tut , you should know that the SPGB having sent observers to a 2nd International conference refused to affiliate and recognised those who were members to be largely reformist capitulators and what happened , come 1914 , the SPGB nearly all hastened to join the national chauvinism of the war ( only the Bolsheviks and i think the Bulgarians refused to align with their ruling class if i recollect )

And of course we didn’t let Daniel DeLeon escape from our often scathing critique of the SLP and the phantasm of industrial unionism

But , hey , we been right about most things !!

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ajohnstone

July 21, 2009 at 4:27 am

that should read “the SPGB *saw that * nearly all” just to avoid any confusion over the typo

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Jay Woolrich

July 21, 2009 at 8:44 am

Millinery issues aside (as opposed to millenarian ones), I have to say Tolpuddle was brilliant (again) and I’d highly recommend it to anyone who hasn’t been to it. On the point about it being organised and run by the TU bureaucracy, I’d say that’s a positive advantage: as it’s a mainstream event it provides the left with access to a much larger and more diverse audience than it would otherwise get. And the organisation of it is liberal enough to enable all and sundry to have stalls, leaflet and sell papers etc. etc. I think it’s also important to remember what the Tolpuddle event is for – it’s a commemoration of the birth of trade unionism…so it is completely appropriate for the trade unions to organise it! As for Billy Bragg, his songs have provided the soundtrack for a generation of tone-deaf middle-aged militants (myself included), so who better to round off the day’s festivities?

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andy newman

July 22, 2009 at 11:18 am

This is a bit of an odd report in some ways.

I have been going for years and years now, and I have never noticed anyone at all from the SPGB.

What is noticeable about Tolpuddle is that until the Sunday there are almost no paper sellers from the left groups, and even on the Sunday they have a very tiny profile; so to concentrate on them rather misses the point.

The political group with the highest profile is undoubtedly the labour party, followed by the communist party; but the overwhelmingly important thing to note is the most of the trade unionists there are both i) quite political; and ii) politically non-aligned.

The disconnection with the labour party has not been replaced with anything else – becasue the essential social-democratic envelope of trade union politics remains.

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RobM

July 22, 2009 at 11:35 am

Well, Andy, entering the Martyrs Marquee (back entrance) on both saturday and sunday, immediately to the left was the SPGB Socialist Standard stall. next to this was a stall carrying literature from an ex-SPGBer and next to that was a stall from the other SPGB (Soc Studies I think). Three times more stalls than the LP!
I wasn’t making anything more than a humorous quip about this though- no grand political point.

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Doug

July 22, 2009 at 3:14 pm

Andy

The Far Left tends to avoid Tolpuddle for the reasons i’ve given because the official speakers are uninspiring bureacrats who’ve spent their lives preventing real trade union struggles, so pitching up at the tolpuddle celebrations is rank hypocrisy and pretty uninspiring. . As for Bragg, how anyone can still consider him some Leftist icon is beyond me. He crossed the line when he campaigned for Oona King in Bethnal Green and Bow in 2005 i.e. he’s a pro-imperialist scumbag droning on and on about the Left (re) caliming the flag of St George. Mark Perryman with a guitar, Jesus..

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Andy Newman

July 22, 2009 at 7:00 pm

but Rob

The Save the Orang Otan society had a stall as well, all that means is that they asked SW TUC, and paid the fee.

No significance can be drawn from how many stalls there are – I expect you noticed that by 4:00 pm on Sunday afternoon a lot of people were wearing “Vote Labour” stickers, a rather more relevent point than how many stalls SPGB suports had.

Doug – given that there are some 10000 trade union activists there on th Sunday, your purism at refusing to go because you might hear Brendan Barber is silly isn’t it?

Does your contempt for the “uninspiring bureauacrats” extend to those in GMB who decalred the recent Lindsey dispute official despite there being no ballot; or the UNITE officials who bust a gut to get Rob Williams reinstated at Linmaer? Or to the POA officers who have challeged the culture of racism in the prison service and led an illegal national one day strike two years ago?

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Penny

July 22, 2009 at 9:04 pm

Blimey – the far left are a bunch of miserablists who need to get out more! I went to Tolpuddle on Sunday and it was lovely. It didn’t rain. The banners were fabulous, and made me wonder why we don’t see them on more demos. I won a can of beer on the Tolpuddle nursery tombola, and I enjoyed seeing the Transglobal Underground sitar player funking it up in front of the Cerne Abbas Agricultural workers banner. And Billy Bragg was a great way to round off the day – I doubt if many people there see him as a leftist icon – he just plays some good tunes with vaguely agreeable politics. It’s brilliant that the Trade Unions are organising a celebration of the birth of Trade Unions, and if you can bear to mingle in a cheery way with people you don’t agree with exactly then get yourself along next year.

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Darren

July 23, 2009 at 1:43 pm

“I have been going for years and years now, and I have never noticed anyone at all from the SPGB.”

Andy,

the SPGB – and the Socialist Studies expellees – have had stalls at Tolpuddle for years so your observation is a little strange, tbh.

cheers

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Will Brown

July 23, 2009 at 8:10 pm

I’d never been to Tolpuddle till this year despite living in Bristol. I was very moved by the way it was led by a couple of women with teenage girls who were direct descendants of one of the original martyrs. I was disgusted to see people like Dawn PrimaroloMP and Doug NaysmithMP on the march – Iraq War supporters and members of a government who’ve refused to withdraw anti union legislation. But still the march is a tremendous testimony to the survival of the trade unions. But unfortunately no naked saunas unlike buddhafield which i’d driven from.

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