1

The Mouse the Roared: the Communist Party and Labour Activists in
Sheffield, 1950-1975.

9,709 words including footnotes but excluding bibliography

Author affiliation: Faculty of History, University of Oxford

Author contact details:

Dr Harold Carter, 13 Manor Place, Oxford OX1 3UW

Telephone 07595 732 238

Email: [email protected].
2

Abstract

Local political conditions always shaped the rise of the Left alliances that became so important in

Labour politics in the 1970s and 1980s. Recent studies of Manchester, Salford and Sheffield have

recognised this. The present article uses new and less ‘official’ sources, including the archives of the

Communist Party, to broaden the picture and further reduce the perils of victors’ history. The rise of

the Left in Sheffield was much more acrimonious than has often been claimed. There was a sustained

Communist Party campaign to build influence in Sheffield’s Amalgamated Engineering Union. The

hierarchical nature of the union-dominated Labour Party in the city meant that by the early 1960s the

Communists had become essential partners for senior Labour councillors. The Communist Party had

long predicted, correctly, that the objective struggle over wages, housing and trades-union rights would

detach Labour’s key local supporters from its national leaders. The Party had spent twenty years

positioning itself so that it would be able to provide leadership when this happened. Its allies had by

the late 1960s reached key positions. By 1970, these factors came together, to enable the pursuit of a

new policy agenda, the exclusion of Labour traditionalists from elected office, and near-complete

control of the machine for selecting new councillors and MPs.

3

The Mouse the Roared: the Communist Party and Labour Activists in

Sheffield, 1950-1975.1

Contemporary accounts of the rise of what often came simply to be called the 1970s ‘Left’

(sometimes, the ‘Broad Left’ – but that designated a specific left faction) were principally

concerned to explain a national phenomenon. 2 Yet local Labour parties were not tabula rasa on

which a new generation could write at will. Recently, Fielding and Tanner have restored agency

to historical actors and asserted the importance of the local and the particular in shaping national

trends,3 while Payling has studied the tensions between leftist traditions in Sheffield. 4 These

studies represent a welcome turn to detail in a history in which narratives written in broad-brush

terms can sometimes mislead.

Fielding and Tanner, working mainly from party archives and retrospective interviews with

activists, show that the difference between events in Manchester and those in next-door Salford

can be explained by pre-existing political traditions. Salford's party was solidly left-wing from

the 1950s to the 1970s, and did not hesitate to criticize the national Labour leadership; there was

no internal revolution in the Salford Labour Party. Salford Labour Party also had some ties to the

Communist Party.5 By contrast, Manchester's political leaders were strongly associated with

1
This article has benefited from comments made at the Oxford University Modern History seminar and from
my colleagues, and from feedback on an earlier drafts made by anonymous reviewers. My thanks are due to
all of them.
2
For example, Patrick Seyd, The Rise and Fall of the Labour Left (Basingstoke, 1987): Hilary Wainwright,
Labour : A Tale of Two Parties (London, 1987): Michael Crick, Scargill and the Miners (Harmondsworth,
1985): Frank Watters, Being Frank : The Memoirs of Frank Watters (Barnsley, 1992): V. L. Allen, The
Militancy of British Miners (Shipley, 1981)
3
Steven Fielding and Duncan Tanner, "The 'Rise of the Left' Revisited: Labour Party Culture in Post War
Manchester and Salford.," Labour History Review 71, no. 3 (2006)
4
Daisy Payling, "‘Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire’: Grassroots Activism and Left-Wing Solidarity in
1980s Sheffield," Twentieth Century British History 25, no. 4 (2014)
5
Fielding and Tanner, "The 'Rise of the Left' Revisited: Labour Party Culture in Post War Manchester and
Salford.," pp.217-8, fn.117.
There is a little circumstantial evidence from other sources, but it is hard to say how much influence the
Party had. The Labour Party newspaper in Salford and Manchester, Labour’s Northern Voice, carried many
strongly pro-Soviet articles. Frank Allaun, Member of Parliament for Salford East from 1955 to 1983, was
sometimes critical of political repression in the USSR, but he had visited it enthusiastically in the 1930s, and
was a member of the Communist Party until 1944. He became a Sponsor of the World Peace Council
(generally thought to have been a Soviet front). He was an enthusiastic proponent of the culture – especially
4

support for the national Labour party; this left little scope for the expression of discontent. In

Manchester, therefore, the Left had to overthrow the established regime in order to bring a new

agenda to the fore.6 Payling presents a similarly nuanced picture of Sheffield in the 1980s; the

new agenda of race and gender equality found it much hard to gain political momentum in a

world still dominated by an older left-wing tradition, based around class identity and industrial

struggle.

The present article, like Payling’s, extends the story of the rise of the Left across the Pennines to

Sheffield. But it has a different emphasis. It stresses political struggles, not ideological

outcomes. It shows how earlier activists from inside and outside the Labour Party dug and

fertilised the soil in which the new ideological blooms of the 1970s and 1980s sought to take root.

It is based in the smoke filled rooms of the Trades Council and the Amalgamated Engineering

Union, not the more rarefied debates of the council chamber.7

The historiography of Sheffield has under-emphasised the existence of conflicts within the left.

The rise of the Broad Left has been described in the authoritative history of the city as 'an

evolutionary handover of power rather than...a bloody palace coup' 8 – a transition from the ‘well

run political machine’ of the 1950s and 1960s to 'an example of a radical, capable and popular

administration…' in the 1980s. This has become a generally accepted view. 9 The data presented

here suggest that the change of regime in Sheffield was much less tranquil than that. One of the

leading politicians in the city, the Labour M.P. Martin Flannery said, in 1981:

the films – of the German Democratic Republic, and a close associate and admirer of Konni Zilliacus. See
Labour Party Archive, People’s History Museum, Manchester (LP) - LP/GS/LS/32i to LS/40, 16/3/1949 -
Correspondence relating to the decision of the Labour Party to expel Lester Hutchinson as a Communist, and
the strong opposition of the West Salford Divisional Labour Party to this move.
6
Ibid. pp.222-227
7
It also echoes, at local level and for an earlier period, Seifert and Sibley’s recent account of the importance
of the Communists in shaping Labour’s national agenda in the turbulent years of the 1960s and 1970s.
Roger V. Seifert and Tom Sibley, Revolutionary Communist at Work: A Political Biography of Bert
Ramelson (London, 2012)
8
Patrick Seyd, "The Political Management of Decline 1973-1993," in The History of the City of Sheffield,
1843-1993, ed. Clyde Binfield (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993). pp.156-7
9
Seyd, The Rise and Fall of the Labour Left p.157. See also Wainwright, Labour : A Tale of Two Parties
p.108
5

the city has moved very much more towards a socialist direction… what
most people don't understand is that it did so in struggle. There was no
gradualism about it.10

The role of the Communist Party in Sheffield was substantial, though it has received little

attention. Mr Flannery’s own family was emblematic of the ties between the Communists and the

Labour Left; he joined the Communist Party in 1945, and was married to Blanche Flannery

(another Party member, who was selected as early as 1954 for ‘very special personal attention’ by

her tutors at a Party school). While Mr Flannery became a Labour member of Parliament, leaving

the Communist Party after 1956, she remained a Communist until the collapse of the Party, and

played a prominent role in the Sheffield Trades Council in the late 1960s and 1970s.11

The principal reason for the differences between this article and other accounts of Sheffield is that

it uses different sources. First, it has made use of ‘grey’ material held in local archives and of a

large number of local newspaper reports. The voices heard in local newspapers are not

representative. But local newspapers tend to report a wide variety of views, and to reprint - more

or less verbatim - comments made by local councillors and local residents. Work based

principally on party and official records can end up as ‘victors’ history’. Newspaper sources help

us to hear more clearly the voices of those who lost the struggle against the rising left.

Secondly, this article has made use of unpublished speeches made by leading Sheffield

Communist Bill Moore at the funerals of leading Sheffield Communist activists; 12 of tape-recoded

interviews with the prominent Communist organiser Bert Ramelson; 13 and of some tape-recorded

readings of Engineering Union minutes from the 19650s and 1960s made by Sheffield activist Bill

Moore (the original documents are unavailable). 14 Most importantly, it makes use of the

Communist Party’s archive to cover the period from 1945 to 1966, and especially of Bert

10
Guardian 6/1/1981
11
Communist Party Archive, People’s History Museum, Manchester (CP) - CP/CENT/PERS/2/06.
12
Bill Moore, ‘Old Comrades’ – manuscript in the possession of the author. I am especially grateful to Bill
Moore’s son and daughter, who have read drafts of this paper and have made corrections of fact, as well as
providing me with much unpublished material. Opinions expressed in this article should not however be
taken as expressing their views, and any remaining errors of fact and interpretation are my own.
13
Imperial War Museum [IWM], Sound Archive (Catalogue numbers 6653,6657, 6705 and 6706)
14
The recordings are held in Sheffield Local Studies Library; only some have been transferred to CD. The
remainder are not yet accessible, as a matter of library policy, to avoid the risk of damage to the original
tapes.
6

Ramelson’s papers in that archive. 15 These give an unusually rich picture of Communist activity

in Sheffield up to 1966.

Ramelson was intellectually outstanding, brave, charismatic, and tough-minded. He was much

more than just a local party official. His parents emigrated from the USSR to Canada in 1922. He

graduated from the University of Alberta with a First Class degree in law in 1934. In 1936, he

moved to Palestine and worked on a kibbutz; disillusioned, he made his way (via Canada) to

Spain to join the International Brigade, and became a member of the Communist Party. He was

the chief spokesman of the Canadian International Brigade troops who travelled home via

Liverpool in 1939, but instead of doing so himself, he moved to Leeds. Within a few months he

married local Communist Party activist Marian Jessop - already a member of the British

Communist Party Central Committee, and a graduate of Moscow's Lenin School, 16 and was

elected to the District Committee of the Party. He resisted call-up for a year, making use of his

Canadian citizenship to do so, but joined the British army after the German attack on the Soviet

Union.17 After being captured at Tobruck he escaped from a prisoner of war camp; he then

became a junior army officer in India (where he risked official anger by involvement in Indian

nationalist causes). After he was demobilised, he was offered the job as full-time Party organiser.

Although nominally only a junior CPGB official, he was one of only three British representatives

to meet Khruschev in July 1956, soon after the latter’s secret speech. 18 In 1966 he became the

Party’s national Industrial Organiser, and a key figure in shaping resistance to the Wilson

15
See also Seifert and Sibley, Revolutionary Communist at Work: A Political Biography of Bert Ramelson
16
For Marian’s background, see: Francis Beckett, Enemy Within : The Rise and Fall of the British
Communist Party (London, 1995), 152-153; John Callaghan, Cold War, Crisis and Conflict: The Cpgb
1951-68 (London, 2003), 315: Alan Campbell et al., "The International Lenin School: A Response to Cohen
and Morgan," Twentieth Century Brit History 15, no. 1 (2004): 74
It is not clear why, with no British ties, Ramelson decided to do this. However, it seems likely that he would
have sought Party advice – see Stephen Koch, Double Lives : Stalin, Willi Munzenberg and the Seduction of
the Intellectuals, Revised and updated edition ed. (New York, 2004). He consulted Communist contacts in
London before going to Leeds. Seifert and Sibley, Revolutionary Communist at Work: A Political Biography
of Bert Ramelson pp.32-3
See also: CP/IND/RAM/01/01 Letter from Yorkshire District Committee,14/3/1946; CP/IND/RAM/01/01
Why you should vote Communist.
17
Ramelson explains his own support for the Pact in the IWM interviews. For Marian’s support for the
Nazi-Soviet pact, see CP/IND/RAM/01/04 28/9/1989 Communist Archivist to Ramelson.
18
The others at the meeting were two high functionaries of the British Party - Harry Pollitt and John Gollan.
Callaghan, Cold War, Crisis and Conflict: The Cpgb 1951-68 p.41
7

government’s labour reforms. In the 1970s, he was highly influential in promoting a new agenda

within the Labour Party at a national level.19

His ties with the Soviet Union were personal as well as political. His older sister Rosa was a

Party intellectual (though one who had also suffered in Party purges, and whose husband had been

killed in a purge in the 1930s), and two other older sisters were Party members. All three lived in

Moscow.20 Marian wrote in May 1959 that:

even the air smells different and cleaner in a socialist land … Bert and I are
very excited [that] we are going for a month... Excited that it is Moscow, a
city that I love, and even more I shall meet the family for the first time… His
favourite sister Rosa and I have been writing to each other for years – she is
an old Bolshevik – and both his other sisters are Party members too. So it is
a double attraction…21

Communists in Sheffield – the historiography

Communist influence on the Sheffield Trades Council was significant in the pre-war era.22

Yorkshire was a priority because of its industrial importance: local activists were supported by

Moscow-trained graduates of the International Lenin School, several of whom remained

prominent in the local labour movement even after the war. 23 The role of the Communist Party in

Sheffield after 1945 has not been entirely neglected. Callaghan says that the Sheffield, Salford

19
Seifert and Sibley, Revolutionary Communist at Work: A Political Biography of Bert Ramelson pp.216-
258
20
Ramelson discusses his sisters at length in IWM 6653. He was a talented linguist, speaking Italian,
Spanish, Yiddish and German as well as Russian. See also: CP/IND/RAM/05/03 letter from Ramelson
15/08/1969; CP/IND/RAM/01/01 Birthday telegram (in Russian) from Rosa Naia Volodia 11/3/1969;
CP/IND/RAM/01/01 Formal letter of birthday greeting on embossed Soviet official paper (crest unidentified)
from Igor Biryukov 21/3/1969; CP/IND/RAM/01/01 Typed letter in Russian 18/02/1971;
CP/IND/RAM/01/04 Letter from ‘Nadga’ to Joan Ramelson (Bert’s second wife), 2/05/1990. (I am grateful
to Tom Clark for his translations.) For the purges, see ibid. pp.60-61
21
CP/IND/RAM/01/01 Marian Ramelson to ‘Johnny’ [Gollan], 20/5/1959.
22
D Backwith, "The Death of Municipal Socialism: The Politics of Council Housing in Sheffield & Bristol,
1919-1939" (Ph.D, Bristol, 1995) pp.195,207; Andrew Thorpe, "The Consolidation of a Labour Stronghold
1926-1951," in The History of the City of Sheffield, 1843-1993, ed. Clyde Binfield (Sheffield: Sheffield
Academic Press, 1993). pp.85,112: Sidney Pollard, A History of Labour in Sheffield (Liverpool, 1959) p.265
23
Kevin Morgan and Gidon Cohen, "Stalin's Sausage Machine. British Students at the International Lenin
School, 1926–37," Twentieth Century British History 13, no. 4 (2002) p.348 : Bill Moore, ‘Old Comrades’.
8

and Manchester Trades Councils were all ‘dominated’ by the Party until the 1950s. 24 Wainwright

has stressed its important role as the guardian of Left opinion in Sheffield in the 1960s. 25 Seifert

and Sibley speak of it having a major role in the Sheffield engineering industry in the 1960s (but

give few details).26 Allender’s interviewees suggested that the Party was highly influential as late

as the 1970s and 1980s.27 However, the evidence is mostly anecdotal.

Despite this, the most authoritative works on the post-war city give the role of the Communists

little weight. Thorpe and Hampton have shown that the Party was only spasmodically influential

in formal political bodies.28 The Party has no role at all in Seyd’s account of post-1973 politics in

Sheffield, or in his more general account of the rise of the Broad Left 29 - a work that is highly

regarded and has been described described by Fielding and Tanner as 'one of the few reflective

and archivally researched essays' on the topic. 30 Seyd also had extensive personal experience of

events in Sheffield,31 and it seems absurd to question his observations.

There are however two grounds on which it may be possible to do so. The first is a matter of

dates. By 1973, the Party was starting its national decline (Figure 1), and its role in Sheffield was

largely subsumed in the co-operation of the Broad Left. Without archival evidence, the

24
Callaghan, Cold War, Crisis and Conflict: The Cpgb 1951-68 pp.234-50: John Callaghan, "The Plan to
Capture the British Labour Party and Its Paradoxical Results, 1947–91," Journal of Contemporary History
40, no. 4 (2005) p.711
25
Wainwright, Labour : A Tale of Two Parties p.107; James Eaden and David Renton, The Communist
Party of Great Britain since 1920 (Basingstoke, 2002) p.131
26
Seifert and Sibley, Revolutionary Communist at Work: A Political Biography of Bert Ramelson , pp.68-70
27
Paul Allender, What's Wrong with Labour? A Critical History of the Labour Party in the Twentieth
Century (London, 2001) pp.69-70
28
William Hampton, "Optimism and Growth 1951-1973," in The History of the City of Sheffield, 1843-1993,
ed. Clyde Binfield (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993). Thorpe, "The Consolidation of a Labour
Stronghold 1926-1951."
Thorpe discusses the impact of the Communist Party in the Trades Council in pre-war Sheffield in the
History. But in electoral politics after the war, which was the principal focus of Hampton's work, the
Communists were insignificant.
29
Seyd, "The Political Management of Decline 1973-1993." His major book on the rise of the left mentions it
only briefly, and even then not in relation to Sheffield- see Seyd, The Rise and Fall of the Labour Left, p.157
30
Fielding and Tanner, "The 'Rise of the Left' Revisited: Labour Party Culture in Post War Manchester and

Salford.," 228

31
Seyd, "The Political Management of Decline 1973-1993." Seyd was David Blunkett’s politics tutor, and
as author of a column in the local Labour Party newsletter – for example see Sheffield Forward, Vol. 61, No
9, Oct.1980 – written from the standpoint of the rising Left.
9

widespread newspaper allegations about Communist influence in Sheffield in the 1950s and

1960s could not be substantiated, and were regarded by many as simply right-wing smears. 32 It is

not surprising that such allegations should have been ignored by responsible historians.

Figure 133

There is however perhaps a second reason. The Communist Party in the UK often sought to cover

its tracks. At the Lenin School, ‘conspiracy’ was a specific school objective. 34 As late as 1943

the existence of secret members of the CPGB was official policy. 35 In the 1950s, very substantial

cash sums (amounting to over £100,000 a year; equivalent to around £2 million in modern prices)

32
The Communist archive was deposited at the National Museum of Labour History in 1994, while Seyd’s
accounts were published in 1987 and 1993; it was this understandable that the role of the Party received little
attention in either of his works.
33
Harold Carter and Gabriel Silkstone-Carter, "Regional Membership Figures for the Communist Party of
Great Britain, from 1945 to 1989.," Communist History Network Newsletter, no. Spring (2008)
34
Morgan and Cohen, "Stalin's Sausage Machine. British Students at the International Lenin School, 1926–
37," , Campbell et al., "The International Lenin School: A Response to Cohen and Morgan,"
35
Beckett, Enemy Within : The Rise and Fall of the British Communist Party pp.104-5
10

were covertly received from the Soviet Embassy, and subsidies continued to flow throughout the

1960s, though the existence of these payments was denied until the Party itself was dissolved. 36

Communist activities in the trades unions, in particular, were also often kept secret. Kevin

Morgan has commented:

Perhaps this is one of those cases where, the more potentially explosive the
subject matter, the less likely it is to be committed to paper. 37

- while Morgan describes the Executive minutes of the national Party as being ‘normally as

laconic and unrevealing as any revolutionary conspirator could have wished’. 38 Given intensive

MI5 surveillance, this secrecy made sense. 39 At the same time, counter-propaganda from the

right of British politics mixed fact with speculation, in a series of studies that sought to discredit

the CPGB, and left-wing Labour MPs in general. So although there is often circumstantial

evidence suggesting Communist Party activity, there is almost never enough proof. What is

more, the history of the CPGB remains a fiercely contested and highly emotional field.40

This contamination of the data has had two consequences – the first being a blossoming of

conspiracy theories, and the second a retreat by many serious historians concerned at the risk of

giving credibility to such wild-eyed speculation. By contrast, there is a growing interest in the

social history of the party, the world-views of its members, and their local struggles, where it is

possible to do solid archival research.

This paper sits halfway between these two positions. It does see Sheffield’s Communists as

conspiratorial. Although their intention to work within the mainstream Labour movement was an

overt objective, like many politicians they sought to mislead outsiders about their tactics. On the

other hand, this paper is located firmly within the second tradition – which emphasizes agency,

36
Ibid. p.147. Values adjusted by reference to the Retail Price Index.
37
Kevin Morgan, "The Archives of the British Communist Party: A Historical Overview*," Twentieth
Century British History 7, no. 3 (1996) p.413
38
Ibid. p.410.
39
John Callaghan and Mark Phythian, "State Surveillance of the Cpgb Leadership: 1920s-1950s," Labour
History Review 69, no. 1 (2004)
40
See, for example, John McIlroy and Alan Campbell, "Histories of the British Communist Party: A User's
Guide," Labour History Review 68, no. 1 (2003): Harriet Jones, "The Historiography of the Communist Party
of Great Britain" (Centre for Contemporary British History, Published, 2003 2002 ).: Worley Matthew,
"Echoes from the Dustbin of History: A Reply to Alan Campbell and John Mcilroy," Labour History
Review 69, no. 3 (2004), p. 367
11

contingency, and pragmatism, rather than an all-powerful hidden hand. The Party faced tensions

between the need to represent the short-term interests of workers, and the desire to pursue a

longer-term political agenda.41

The Engineering Union & the Labour Party in Sheffield, 1945- 1965

Why was Sheffield a place where the Communists could gain any influence at all? The city’s

leaders - often nominally left wing - had hitherto progressed through civic respectability and

Methodist preaching to well-deserved roles as aldermen, magistrates and knights of the shire. It

seemed an unlikely place to develop an enthusiasm for revolutionary change – especially given

the extreme hostility of Labour’s national leadership towards the Communists. 42 A part of the

answer lies in the institutional underpinnings of a long period of Labour rule, and a part in the

strategy of the Communists themselves.

Unusually in the post-war world, Sheffield retained a unified Trades and Labour Council. In

consequence, the affairs of the Labour Party were primarily influenced by the leaders of local

trade unions.43 25% of the Sheffield population (and 43% of males) were trades unionists. By

contrast, there were very low levels of individual membership of political parties, and the press

was excluded from Council meetings.44 Thus, it was possible for a relatively few people to have a

substantial impact. There was a great overlap of personnel between leaders of the key

institutions. The elite was also largely stable in its membership. In 1956, over half of Sheffield

councillors had served for at least ten years, and over 80% for at least 4 years. By 1967 only one

41
Nina Fishman, The British Communist Party and the Trade Unions, 1933-45 (Aldershot, 1995) Chapters 6
& 7.
John McIlroy, "Notes on the Communist Party and Industrial Politics," in The High Tide of British Trade
Unionism, ed. John McIlroy, Nina Fishman, and Alan Campbell (Monmouth: Merline Press, 2007). pp.221-2
42
See for example: LP/GS/COM/36 27/2/1948: ‘The Labour Party and the Communist Party’:
LP/GS/COM/37 6/3/1946, letter from RG Howard & official reply: Eric Shaw, Discipline and Discord in the
Labour Party : The Politics of Managerial Control in the Labour Party, 1951-87 (Manchester, 1988)
passim.
43
Sidney Pollard, "Labour," in The History of the City of Sheffield, 1843-1993: Volume Ii: Society, ed.
Clyde Binfield (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993). pp.275-6: Thorpe, "The Consolidation of a
Labour Stronghold 1926-1951." p.109
44
William Hampton, Democracy and Community : A Study of Politics in Sheffield (London, 1970) pp.149-50
LP/329/LAB/A7. Labour Party Yorkshire Regional Council Annual Reports 1942-76: David Blunkett and
Alex MacCormick, On a Clear Day (London, 2002) pp.85-6: Sheffield Local Studies Library (ShLSL)
Labour.1965#19
12

councillor was under thirty-five years of age; nearly two thirds were over fifty-five. 45 Ron

Ironmonger (David Blunkett’s mentor) - elected as Labour leader in May 1966 - was younger

than many councillors;46 but even he had been on the Council since 1945, and was ‘an old-school

leader’, initially holding down a full-time job on night-shifts, and replying to Council

correspondence in longhand.47 New councillors were encouraged not to speak at Council

meetings for several years. There was a strong political consensus, which extended (despite

occasional clashes) even to the local press.48

This secure command of power made it un-alarming for Labour’s local leaders to seek allies on

the left. A Yorkshire Labour Party internal document in November 1950 reported:

[Communist] influence is restricted to small localities and is not general… 49

The Communists shared this assessment of their weakness. 50 They also had to be constantly

vigilant about the possibility of action against them. 51 The Party’s objective thus became to gain

control of key institutions within the labour movement while keeping its head down. In Sheffield

in particular, this involved building up its influence in the Amalgamated Engineering Union

(AEU). Even in that industry, the Communists had few members (only 274 in the whole of the

Yorkshire District in 1958, 273 in 1960, and 334 in 1962).52 But by adopting a strategy of

industrial cadres, the Party was able to achieve ‘undoubted influence’. 53 The union had frequent

direct elections to major roles (often on less than 7% turnout), and a system of indirect elections

to other posts with an electorate consisting only of shop stewards. 54 In 1955-6, unopposed, the

45
Hampton, Democracy and Community : A Study of Politics in Sheffield pp.90,186,189
46
Hampton, "Optimism and Growth 1951-1973." p.143
47
ShLSL ‘Ironmonger’ fiche, Sh.Star - c.1967 & c.Jan.1970
48
Allender, What's Wrong with Labour? A Critical History of the Labour Party in the Twentieth Century
p.69
49
LP/GS/YORKRLP/17 Regional Secretary to Morgan Phillips, 27/11/1950
50
CP/CENT/PERS/3/02 Hannington to Harry [Pollitt], 31/8/1951
51
CP/IND/RAM/06/02 Ramelson(?) to Peter [Kerrigan], 6/11/1952
52
CP/CENT/ORG/19/01 Yorkshire – (handwritten) analysis of membership returns for 1958, and idem 1960
CP/IND/RAM/06/01 ‘Political report to 11th Congress//Yorkshire District Communist Party’
53
CP/IND/RAM/06/01 'Political report to 10th Congress, Yorkshire District,' 10
54
Sh.Star, 5/2/1958; Iris News, 1956-1967, passim.
13

Communists secured four leading positions, and many shop-steward and committee roles. 55 By

1956:

Communists occupied all significant offices, and controlled the [District

Committee]…56

In 1957, the Party won 18 out of 25 seats on the District Committee of the Union (for which the

electorate was the 618 shop stewards, of whom only 150 actually voted). 57 As Ramelson put it, in

a confidential report in 1958:

Positions in which the electorate are the stewards have not only been held by
us, but new ones have been won...58

By 1958 it was alleged that Ramelson was issuing detailed weekly instructions on the

management of the Union’s affairs.59 In an attempt to stop Communist progress, local Communist

George Caborn was suspended from his union activities for twelve months in 1959-1960 by the

union’s national leadership - but won the District Presidency, none the less.60

This activity took place behind a façade of dissimulation.61 A prominent local Communist leader,

Howard Hill, said that the accusation of Communist influence was a ‘complete fabrication’ and

that

The Communists… had nothing to do with the AEU.62

55
CP/IND/RAM/06/01 Mar.1955 ‘Political report to 8th [Yorkshire] Congress’, D7, D12.
56
Richard Stevens, ‘Cold War politics: Communism and Anti-Communism in the Trade Unions’ in Alan
Campbell, Nina Fishman, and John McIlroy, British Trade Unions and Industrial Politics: Vol 1 - the Post-
War Compromise, 1945-64 2vols., Studies in Labour History (Aldershot, 1999) pp.179-80. See also
Callaghan, Cold War, Crisis and Conflict: The Cpgb 1951-68 pp.234-50
57
Sh.Star 16/12/57 and 24/12/57, cited by Callaghan, Cold War, Crisis and Conflict: The Cpgb 1951-68
p.238 fn 34
58
CP/IND/RAM/05/01 ‘Yorkshire Report to the Political Committee’, Nov.1958.
59
CP/IND/RAM/06/02 c.1958. Daily Telegraph, undated
60
CP/IND/RAM/06/01 'Political report to 10th Congress, Yorkshire District,' Section IV, 5; Steven P.
Bond, "New Frontiers - Old Horizons: Historical Aspects of the Conflict between Labour and Capital in the
British Engineering Industry, with Special Reference to Sheffield, 1916-1972" (M.Phil, University of
Sheffield, 1980) pp.161-5
CP/IND/RAM/06/01 'Political report to 11th Congress//Yorkshire District Communist Party,' 31/3/1962, 3-
4
61
CP/IND/RAM/05/01 ‘Yorkshire Report to the Political Committee’, Nov.1958.
62
CP/IND/RAM/06/02 Unsourced clipping
14

The 1961 national Congress of the Communist Party adopted the policy of supporting Left Labour

candidates in union elections, rather than running open Communists. 63 Hill urged even greater

secrecy:

No written material to be issued excepting the bare details of meetings.64

Faced with this domination, local Labour Party leaders who were members of the AEU pursued a

balancing act, combining rhetorical opposition to the Communists with day-to-day collaboration. 65

Councillor Ironmonger, then chief Labour whip, was a case in point. In January 1958 he led a

group of eleven campaigners in the AEU in an attempt to ‘reduce Communist influence’. 66 But

despite his speeches against them, he was backed by the Communists later that year. 67 By 1961,

of twenty-four members of the AEU District Committee in Sheffield, eighteen were Communist

Party members or allies of the party. Ironmonger’s own union branch was a Communist

stronghold.68 Without them, he had no political future.

Co-operation became seen as increasingly normal. In May 1964, George Caborn backed down

from competition for the National Executive of the AEU, and backed a Labour Party member.

The following year, Communist Harold Ullyatt was elected as District Secretary of the union -

with no Labour opposition.69 The year after that, Ironmonger himself, and four of his senior

Labour colleagues,70 actually nominated Caborn for National Organiser - in opposition to a

Labour Party candidate.71 Vernon Thornes, Secretary of the Sheffield Labour Party responded to

Labour criticism of their action by saying:

It is strictly an AEU affair and nothing to do with the Labour Party72

63
Eaden and Renton, The Communist Party of Great Britain since 1920 p.131
64
Callaghan, Cold War, Crisis and Conflict: The Cpgb 1951-68 p.250, citing CP/CENT/IND/12/8
65
Sh.Telegraph, 30/1/1961: Sh.Telegraph, Oct.1963, quoted in IRIS News, Oct.1963 (This was an anti-
communist newsletter, but normally with accurate election reports.)
66
Sh.Star, 18 January 1958; CP/IND/RAM/06/02, clipping
67
IRIS News, Jul.1958, Sept.1958.
68
IRIS News, Oct.1961
69
IRIS News, May 1965
70
Councillors Moseley, Thwaites, Sturrock and Goodenough
71
ShLSL 'AUEW microfiche' Sh.Telegraph c.1965: IRIS News, Oct. Nov. & Dec. 1965
72
IRIS News, Dec.1965
15

Cooperation between Communists and some Labour politicians in Sheffield was not a matter of

specialisation, with Labour politicians happy to reply on hard-working Communists to do the leg-

work in the unions, and Communists leaving politics up to the Labour Party. Following the

policy they had set out in British Road to Socialism, the Communists used their institutional

influence to advance a political agenda.

Beyond Economism

Although the core of the Communist Party’s presence in the city in the 1950s and early 1960s was

its institutional influence, it sought to build coalitions around popular issues. 73 The leading role of

the Communist Party in such campaigns was often downplayed, though the Party took on

additional full-time staff to support them.74 By the mid-1950s, there were two key themes: the co-

ordination of ‘peace’ movement activity,75 and pressure for better and cheaper public services.76

Left-Labour activists needed little urging to collaborate in pursuit of ‘peace’. 77 What was

distinctive about the Communist approach was that ‘peace’ bodies were also used as a means to

an end.78 The Communist Party in Yorkshire was strongly pro-Soviet, and some of the Labour

activists closest to the AEU in Sheffield shared this enthusiasm. 79 There was a constant round of

fraternal visits to and from the USSR, which extended far beyond the bounds of CP

membership.80 In January 1962, the official Trades and Labour Council newspaper Sheffield

Forward devoted a whole page to articles eulogising Soviet life. In February it featured a page on

the benefits of automation in Soviet steel mills. In May, Vernon Thornes (an important ally of
73
CP/IND/RAM/06/01 Political report to 10th Congress, Yorkshire District Communist Party, Section IV
pp.10-14, CP/IND/RAM/06/02, 'Yorkshire District Report,' Jan.1955
74
The Communists employed a much higher ratio of staff to members than any other British political party.
Callaghan, Cold War, Crisis and Conflict: The Cpgb 1951-68 p.15
75
CP/IND/RAM/06/01 ‘Political report to 8th Congress’ - Mar.1955, D4.
76
CP/IND/RAM/06/02 'Yorkshire District Report,' Jan.1955
77
For example, LP/GS/COM/89 undated press release by Morgan Philips: GS/PROS/89 28/7/1959 –
correspondence with Bob Edwards MP.
78
For a discussion of this at a national level, see: Darren G. Lilleker, Against the Cold War (London, 2004)
passim. Locally, CP/IND/RAM/05/01 ‘Yorkshire Report to the Political Committee’, Nov.1958
79
Beckett, Enemy Within : The Rise and Fall of the British Communist Party pp.169,175-8: Crick, Scargill
and the Miners pp.20-3
In 1958, Yorkshire miners refused to join in the widespread condemnation of the Soviet invasion of
Hungary. CP/IND/RAM/06/01, 'Political report to 9th Congress', p.6.
80
CP/IND/RAM/06/02 Report to Sheffield & Rotherham Area Conference, 24/2/1963
16

Ron Ironmonger) used futuristic illustrations from ‘Soviet News’ in an article calling for planned

investment in monorails. In December 1963, an editorial praised the USSR for its constant

reductions in the length of the working week. In July 1965, it simply reproduced a whole page

from Soviet Weekly.

By July 1968, Sheffield Forward was already publishing regular features calling for the

abandonment of consensus politics, a ‘vast’ extension of public ownership, opposition to the

Common Market, collaboration with socialist countries, and an end to attempts to reform the

trades unions.81 Although (like the CBGB itself) it was unequivocal in its condemnation of the

Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, the habit of admiration of the Soviet Union was hard to shed.

Just three years after the invasion of Czechoslovakia, the Trades and Labour Council arranged

exchange-visits with Donetsk; cash flows relating to these visits accounted for just under 13% of

its ‘industrial’ (i.e. supposedly ‘non-political’) expenditure in the year. 82

George Caborn played a leading role in the Anglo-Bulgarian Friendship Society. 83 In 1974, he

reported in a local newspaper:

The role of the Bulgarian Trade Union is a positive one, to have the major
control on how its factory output will be met, and what incentives will be
paid...This is real democracy in action... In a fortnight, we could only see a
little of Bulgaria, but what we did see was good. This is not to say that we
found utopia. We are fully aware of the revelations of the 22nd Congress of
the CPSU, the uprising in Czechoslovakia... No system on this planet is
perfect… but some are a lot better than others. We bring this message back
from Bulgaria. We have seen Socialism. And it works.84

This article provoked an angry response in a letter from Labour Councillor Jack Green. Green was

deselected as a Labour councillor the following year. 85

A similar visit was carried out by AUEW members as late as October 1980, and concluded that
86
‘the socialist system in Bulgaria seems to be developing very successfully.’ Ties with the
81
Sheffield Forward, Jul.1968, Sept.1970, Nov/Dec.1970.
82
ShLSL Box 331.88.S Trades and Labour Council Annual Year Book, 1972-3, p.9
83
Dr Michael Fitzpatrick, Spiked Online, 30/7/2002.
The Society for Friendship with Bulgaria had been proscribed by the NEC of the Labour Party in 1953
(LP/GS/PROS/69, GS/PROS/70)
84
George Caborn, Sh.Telegraph, 5/7/1974
85
Sh.Telegraph 9/7/1974: Sh.Star 25/10/1975: Sh.Star 11/3/1976.
86
Sheffield Forward, Vol. 61, No 10. Nov/Dec.1980.
17

Soviet block were strengthened; Soviet Weekly bought an entire page of space in the Trades

Council newspaper to put forward the Soviet ‘Proposals to strengthen peace,’ while that

newspaper pointed out:

Sheffield’s labour movement has for some years now enjoyed an unofficial
twinning with Bulgaria. Many of the shop stewards committees in the city
have twin factories in Bulgaria… There are now hundreds of Sheffield trade
unionists who have visited Bulgaria and have some fond tales to tell of the
country’s hospitality, or the high esteem in which trade unionists are held by
the people. As one is often told, ‘nothing is too good for the workers in
Bulgaria.’87

Caborn’s retirement made little short-term difference to the political views of the Engineers, since

his successor in Sheffield, Derek Simpson (later to become joint General Secretary of Britain’s

largest union, Unite) was also a member of the Communist Party, and the AUEW in Sheffield

continued to promote ties with the central committee of Soviet trades unions.88

Moving into the mainstream.

This patient campaigning created a base for the Communist Party in Sheffield’s largest union, and

goodwill amongst some key Labour Party officials. This would not have been enough to form a

foundation for further advance, had Labour’s national rule gone smoothly. However, as the

credibility of the post-war social democratic settlement started to crumble (in Sheffield as

elsewhere), the emerging Left alliance started to seem attractive to a wider range of political

activists.

In 1967, despite heavy Labour losses in the local government elections in Sheffield, the Trades

and Labour Council had invited Prime-Minister Harold Wilson to the city. 89 Bewilderment was

widespread, and The Star reported Brightside MP Richard Winterbottom’s speech at the dinner in

these terms:

He said it was not always possible for the critics, and particularly for those
inside the party, to see where it was going. But the way ahead was very
clear and emphatic to the leaders. It was difficult to explain, and perhaps
also difficult to understand, but those who had faith that believed that to be

87
ShLSL.331.88.SF(k)
88
Sh.Star 16/2/1982
89
Sheffield Forward, Mar.1968
18

so. It was the faith which reflected itself in the ballot boxes that was so
essential to the party's future.90

This plea for justification-by-faith - in the absence of satisfactory justification by works - showed

the depths of despair to which events had driven party members.

One key destabilizing force (as elsewhere in the UK) was the changing role of council housing.

As slum clearance started to dominate the housing programme, the chances of skilled workers

getting access to council houses from the general housing waiting list became remote. Thus,

earning good wages in a city where houses were cheap, they started to buy their own homes.

From the early 1970s, these pressures were compounded by emerging physical and social

problems in the new estates. In the post-war era council housing had been a key issue in building

support for Labour amongst working class families; now, its attractions started to wane. Even

more fraught was the issue of rent levels. 91 In 1966, the City Treasurer recommended adoption of

a rent rebate scheme; the rents of the older houses were to increase, while the rents of newer

dwellings were to come down.92 This asked established council tenants to cross-subsidize those

who were being re-housed from the slums, and who were often poorer than the established tenants

– impeccably redistributive in intent, but a red rag to a bull for those who already had homes. 93

There was no obvious focus for their protests, within a hierarchical and authoritarian local Labour

party machine. By contrast, the rent issue had been identified by the Communist Party as a key

means of building support.94 Tenants’ movements sprang up in the late 1960s, and the Communist

Party attempted (with some success) to take over their leadership. 95

Above all, however, the old political settlement broke down because of national pressure for

Trades Union reforms. Early tensions arose over the Wilson Government’s wage-freeze. 96 The

council’s policy of wage restraint provoked a clash between council leaders and party. At a

90
Sh.Star 3/11/1967
91
Miles Glendinning, Stefan Muthesius, and Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art., Tower Block :
Modern Public Housing in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland (New Haven, 1994) p.198:
Sheffield Forward, Vol. 262, No.5, Jan.1967
92
Hampton, Democracy and Community : A Study of Politics in Sheffield p.264
93
Len Youle, ‘Proposed New Rent Structure’, Sheffield Forward, Jan.1967: ShLSL ‘Ironmonger’
microfiche, 1/10/1984
94
CP/IND/RAM/06/02 'Yorkshire District Report,' Jan.1955, p.6
95
Hampton, Democracy and Community : A Study of Politics in Sheffield p.269: Sh.Telegraph 16/12/1967
96
ShLSL ‘Shardlow’ microfiche, undated
19

senior level the local political establishment was made up of precisely those elements that were

most under threat from national policies.97 In July 1968, Ironmonger commented:

Is it any wonder that members are confused and disillusioned? ... Labour …
was formed as the political voice of the trade union movement and the
working class generally? 98

The 1968 Conference report of the Trades Council President repudiated Harold Wilson, Roy

Jenkins and George Brown, and called for a radical socialist programme of high taxes,

confiscation of the overseas assets of British residents, directed investment, and tight import

controls.99 In the spring of 1969, the Trades and Labour Council fiercely opposed Labour’s

White Paper In Place of Strife.100

Trades Councils played an important role in building Communist Party influence, because they

were not subject to such tight control as constituency Labour Parties. 101 A central goal of

Sheffield’s Communists was thus the removal of the rules that prevented their participation in the

102
city’s Trades and Labour Council. From 1968, these long-standing efforts started to bear

fruit.103 Inter-party co-operation was actively supported by George Caborn’s son, Richard, who

was a rising figure in Labour Party politics. 104 In June 1968, the Engineering Union sought a

meeting with the city’s Labour MPs. George Caborn commented:

We hope to play a more prominent part within the [Labour] Party in

Sheffield, and we hope that trades unions generally will do the same.105

The Union then used its financial muscle to increase pressure on the Trades and Labour Council:

Of about 20,000 Sheffield members of the engineering section, only about

1,900 individuals are affiliated to the Council. ‘The District Committee have
said that when the Council lift its ban on Communist delegates they will

97
Article by ‘John Ball’, Sheffield Forward, Vol. 262, No 8. Apr.1967: Sh.Telegraph 22/7/1968
98
Sheffield Forward, Jul.1968
99
Sheffield Forward, Nov.1968
100
ShLSL Trades and Labour Council microfiche. From internal evidence, 30/4/1969
101
CP/IND/RAM/05/01 ‘Yorkshire Report to the Political Committee’, Nov.1958, p.7
102
CP/IND/RAM/06/02 Ramelson(?) to Peter [Kerrigan], 6/11/1952
103
Sh.Telegraph 18/1/1968; Sh.Star 9/1/1968, 20/8/1968
104
Minister of State for the Regions, Regeneration and Planning from 1997 to 1999, Minister for Trade from
1999 to 2001, and Minister for Sport from 2001.
105
Sh.Telegraph 24/6/1970
20

reconsider [their level of affiliation]…’ said the [Trades] Council secretary,

Mr. Vernon Thornes…106

By June 1969, Thornes had explicitly thrown his weight behind the campaign to abolish the

ban.107 When the change was approved, by 94 votes to 15, Richard Caborn said, approvingly:

There is tremendous unity now being formed on the shop floor and
Communists are working alongside Labour party members and non-political
workers.108

In 1971, in what a local journalist described as a ‘significant shift to the left’, both sitting vice-

presidents of the Trades and Labour Council lost their posts, replaced by Martin Flanner and by

another left-activist, while Richard Caborn was elected to its Executive Committee. 109 Eight new

branches of the AUEW affiliated to the Labour Party in 1970, a further twenty in 1971, and nine

more in 1972. From being a small contributor to the political funds of the Trades and Labour

Council in the late 1960s, the AUEW became by far the largest donor by 1972 (Figure 2).110

106
Sh.Star 16/1/1968, Sh.Telegraph 25/2/1968
107
Sh.Star 17/6/1969
108
ShLSL 'Trades and Labour Council microfiche,' from internal evidence c.1970
109
ShLSL Box 331.88.S Trades and Labour Council, Annual Year Book, 1971-72; ShLSL Trades and
Labour Council microfiche, c.1/12/1971
110
ShLSL Box 331.88.S Trades and Labour Council, Trades Council, Annual Year Books, 1968-1972
21

Figure 2

U n io n s c o n tr ib u tin g m o r e th a n £ 3 5 to th e S h e ffie ld T r a d e s a n d L a b o u r
C o u n c il p o litic a l fu n d s in a n y y e a r b e tw e e n 1 9 6 8 a n d 1 9 7 2 .
C o n tr ib u tio n in £
700

600

500

400

300

200

100

0
1968 1969 1970 1971 1972

E n g in e e rs T ra n sp o rt & G e n e ra l
G e n e ra l & M u n ic ip a l E le c tr ic ia n s & P lu m b e r s
Iro n & S te e l T r a d e s A s s o c ia tio n S h o p W o rk e rs
N a tio n a l U n io n P u b lic E m p l. R a ilw a y m e n
M in e w o rk e r s

Source: Sheffield Trades & Council Year Book, 1968-1972:

GMWU contribution in 1970 estimated by interpolation.

In February 1971 the Sheffield Morning Telegraph reported (approvingly) that:

There is no doubt that the relationship between the Labour group, the
borough Labour Party and the trades unions [Communists are now admitted
to the trades council meetings, to make them fully representative] has been
successful and productive over the past three years.111

111
ShLSL ‘Labour microfiche,' Sh.Telegraph, c.5/2/1971
22

The growing co-operation between the Communist Party and the Labour left was not

accompanied by an upsurge in popular support; sales of The Morning Star only exceeded the

registered Party membership of 700 by a total of three copies. 112 Membership of the Communist

Party fell sharply in Yorkshire in the 1970s, as it did elsewhere. 113 But in a Sheffield Labour party

with power concentrated at the apex of the structure, popular support was less important than

institutional influence.

The influence of the new coalition in Sheffield was threatened by national Labour Party proposals

to reorganise the city Party. Sheffield Trades and Labour Council declared its opposition to these

proposals, while Richard Caborn said that his union was unlikely to stay affiliated to the Labour

Party if they went ahead. 114 Despite this, they were pushed through. 115 However the city’s new

Labour Party and new Trades Council set about reversing its effect. They continued to publish a

joint Annual Report, and to employ jointly-funded staff; they both elected the same President. 116

The Left also rapidly seized control of the newly-created District Labour Party, mainly by

affiliating unions to constituency parties117 and, in 1975, by seeking to affiliate the Trades Council

en-bloc to the new District Labour Party.118

The process of building up control by affiliating Engineering Union branches to the Labour Party

continued into the early 1980s, despite the sharp decline in the city’s engineering work force, as

the union encouraged the formation of workplace-based branches to become component parts of

constituency Labour Parties.119 This upsurge in the Labour Party's 'institutional' membership in

112
Eaden and Renton, The Communist Party of Great Britain since 1920 pp.160-1
113
Carter and Silkstone-Carter, "Regional Membership Figures for the Communist Party of Great Britain,
from 1945 to 1989.,"
114
Sh.Star 1/12/1971
115
At the dinner to mark the winding-up of the old body a Guest of Honour was the former president of the
Trades and Labour Council, Charles Darvill (elected to the job in 1936, but expelled from the Labour Party
in 1940 after the Trades Council had welcomed Soviet invasion of Poland). For his past, see Thorpe, "The
Consolidation of a Labour Stronghold 1926-1951." p.105; for the dinner, Sh.Telegraph, 29/12/1973.
116
ShLSL ‘Labour microfiche,' c.1972: Sh.Telegraph 10/12/1975, 28/1/1976 ; Allender, What's Wrong with
Labour? A Critical History of the Labour Party in the Twentieth Century p.69: ShLSL Box 331.88.S
Trades Council and Labour Party Annual Year Books, 1975-1981: Sh.Star 6/3/1974
117
Seyd, "The Political Management of Decline 1973-1993." p.158
118
Sh.Telegraph 10/12/1975
119
ShLSL ‘Labour microfiche,' Article by Geoff Smith. c.25/10/1980: Sh.Telegraph 17/11/1980, 26/2/1981:
Sh.Star 15/11/1980. ShLSL ‘Labour microfiche,' 26/5/1982.
23

Sheffield was George Caborn’s swan song. In 1981, he retired, and was awarded the Freedom of

the City. After his death in 1982, a Sheffield street and a Bulgarian factory work brigade were

both named after him.120 The newspaper of the Trades Council reported:

the unique relationship between the trade union movement and local
councillors owes much to the undying work of George Caborn.121

Consolidating Control

There was no single bloody ‘coup’ in Sheffield. Instead, there was a ten-year purge, which

steadily removed councillors and officials opposed to the Left. This cleared the ground for the

apparently smooth ascent of David Blunkett’s administration.

Caborn’s first move was to press local councillors to support extra-legal action. The 1972

Housing Finance Act sought to compel councils to charge ‘fair’ rents. 122 He wrote to his union’s

sponsored members of the City Council, threatening them with loss of union support (and thus, in

effect, with de-selection) unless they voted to disobey it. 123 Many of the sponsored councillors

were prominent local politicians - including the Council’s Leader, the Chief Whip, and several

committee chairmen and vice-chairs. The Union also sponsored at least five other councillors,

including Roger Barton (later to be the city’s MEP),124 Bill Michie (elected to Parliament in

1983), and Sam Wall.125 Alderman John Pate was one of those threatened. He said:

A vote against implementing this Act is a dangerous one … For councils or

anyone else to choose to obey certain laws and disobey others will lead to
anarchy and dictatorship.126

120
ShLSL Box 380.SQ Caborn Obituary, in Quality of Sheffield, Vol 29: ShLSL Box 042.S.9 City of
Sheffield Honorary Freedom of the City 27/1/1982: TU Link (newsletter of the British Bulgarian TU
Association), No 8, 1982
121
Sheffield Forward, Vol. 62, No 5. Oct.1981.
122
John Hayes, "The Association of London Housing Estates and the 'Fair Rent' Issue," The London Journal
14, no. 1 (1989) p.59; Sh.Telegraph 5/2/1971
123
ShLSL 'Housing microfiche,' c.1972
124
Allender, What's Wrong with Labour? A Critical History of the Labour Party in the Twentieth Century
p.68
125
Sh.Telegraph 23/8/1972
126
Sh.Telegraph 23/8/1972
24

But the role of aldermen was being abolished, and its holders had to engage in a scramble for re-

nomination to the City Council.127 Several senior figures chose to step down. 128 Those of the old

guard who continued to serve were increasingly moved sideways into roles that were ‘dignified’

rather than ‘efficient’.129 Ironmonger retired from the City in 1973, saying that he had

‘succumbed to advice’ that he could ‘make a more important contribution’ to the new County, of

which he became leader.130

At the same time, George Caborn became increasing prominent in the group of individuals that

decided policy for the city. The 1970s saw a series of bitter strikes by the Council’s white-collar

staff, as their wages came under pressure from inflation. In February 1974, they took industrial

action that left 600 council manual workers with unpaid wages. 131 In May, supervisors in the

Sheffield cleansing department came out on strike, 132 and by the end of the month only 20 out of

110 dust carts were operating.133 Thus in early June,

police were called to break up a mini-riot on the Town Hall steps as crowds
of people scrambled for plastic refuse sacks being distributed by council
officials.134

By the end of the dispute, Sheffield ‘resembled a huge rubbish dump’ and 15,000 tons of rubbish

had piled up in the streets. 135 Later that month, it was reported that housing visitors were also

contemplating strike action;136 simultaneously, NALGO launched a campaign for a 20% increase

in local government workers’ pay. 137 By October 1974, open warfare had broken out between the

council and NALGO (whose local officers were said to be close to Trotskyite groups, though they

127
Sh.Star 17/11/1972: Sh.Telegraph 20/11/1972, 22/11/1972
128
Sh.Telegraph 17/11/1972
129
Sh.Telegraph 12/5/1973: Sh.Star 11/3/1976 (remarks by Michie), 5/5/1978
130
Sh.Star 26/9/1972
131
Sh.Star 16/2/1974: Sh.Telegraph 19/2/1974
132
Sh.Telegraph 1/5/1974
133
Sh.Telegraph 30/5/1974
134
Sh.Telegraph 8/6/1974
135
Peter Goodman, Sheffield in the Seventies (Derby, 2002) pp.66,74-6
136
Sh.Telegraph 15/6/1974: Sh.Star 5/6/1974
137
Sh.Star 6/7/1974
25

denied these claims).138 NALGO accused George Caborn himself of acting like the worst sort of

employer:

[NALGO leader Norman Cole] claims that ‘slanderous’ allegations from his
personal record have been leaked to outside interests ... Mr. Cole says that
some of the arguments against him appeared to come from the Town Hall
personnel records. The arguments - put forward by the city’s engineering
workers’ union leader Mr. George Caborn - concerned Mr. Cole’s work and
attendance performance at the Town Hall. ... Mr. Caborn ... denied he had
been given any information from council files. ‘I have never seen these
records in all my life,’ he said.139

The new allies controlled the Labour Party machine; they did not yet have a comparable control

over elected representatives. Their first major move in this field, in 1974, was the de-selection of

Eddie Griffiths MP, in the Brightside parliamentary constituency. Griffiths had a record of

support for incomes policies, was unsympathetic to extra-parliamentary action, and as a worker-

director of British Steel had not supported the workers’ occupation of a local steelworks. He was

de-selected a few weeks before the (second) General Election of 1974. 140 Roy Thwaites (who had

nominated George Caborn to office, and was an AUEW-sponsored councillor) and the young

David Blunkett (a protégé of Ron Ironmonger) were two of the rising stars short-listed to replace

him.141

Many of the new generation of activists came from the Brightside constituency party. They were a

new sort of politician for Sheffield - Blunkett a lecturer, Clive Betts a Cambridge graduate

working for the county, Peter Price a technician at the university, Bill Michie a laboratory

assistant, and Alan Billings, a vicar. Blunkett, Betts and Michie went on to become Labour

MPs.142

The successful candidate for Griffiths’s seat, Joan Maynard (a personal friend of Bert Ramelson),

represented a markedly different set of political values from her predecessor: 143
138
Sh.Star, 16/8/1974
139
Sh.Telegraph 2/10/1974
140
Times 20/10/1995 (obituary)
141
Sh.Telegraph 17/9/1974
142
Michie is described by Seyd as ‘a skilled engineer’ and 'shop-steward' - Seyd, "The Political Management
of Decline 1973-1993," 157.. However, the local newspaper described him as a laboratory assistant;
Sh.Star 26/4/1978.
143
CP/IND/RAM/01/04 Maynard to Ramelson, 30/3/1987, 29/10/1987. See also Seifert and Sibley,
Revolutionary Communist at Work: A Political Biography of Bert Ramelson , pp.57-8
26

A Marxist, she ..was prepared to put her name to causes that MPs at the time
would rather have nothing to do with, such as the campaign for withdrawal
from Northern Ireland... [A]t the Labour Party conference in 1982 she
received a standing ovation… after she made an impassioned speech on class
war…144

Six rebel Labour Party members were expelled for supporting Griffiths. But habits of discipline

died hard; one of the expelled councillors said he was ‘delighted’ with the decision only to

exclude him for six months.145

De-selections then gathered pace - a process marked by frequent accusations of irregularity, and

occasional accusations of fraud.146 Often, these disputes were settled by procedural rulings made

by one or another of the activists who now controlled the administrative machinery of the Party.

Decisions seldom went against the Left. For example, in October 1975 the sitting councillor for

Firth Park ward, Mrs. Valerie Potts, was replaced as a candidate by Left activist (and future MP)

Clive Betts. Mrs. Potts said that there had been an organised campaign to take over the ward

party, and John Maling – a British Steel shop steward, and former anti-Communist leader of the

tenants’ movement - supported her, saying that the Party had been taken over by 'a group of neo-

Marxists, careerists, and their relations and friends.' 147 Betts – and Councillor Peter Price

(chairman of the constituency party) - rejected these accusations, while Vernon Thornes (by now

Secretary of the Trades and Labour Council – which retained its name in the popular press) said

that he was ‘confident that the election took place according to Labour party rules’.148

At the same time, both leading members of the pro-Common Market group in Sheffield were also

de-selected, and later resigned from the Party. 149 One of them specifically challenged a planned

exhibition in Sheffield's Russian twin-town:

If the Council are going to spend £10,000 of ratepayers' money simply to

demonstrate the ruling party's affinity to the Communist friends, then I
object...150
144
Scotsman 30/3/1998
145
ShLSL ‘Labour microfiche' Dec.1974
146
Sh.Telegraph 20/11/72, 22/11/72, 16/12/1972
147
Sh.Star 31/3/1976: Times 13/4/1976
148
ShLSL ‘Labour microfiche,' Sh.Star, c.Oct.1975
149
Seyd, "The Political Management of Decline 1973-1993," 155.: ShLSL ‘Labour microfiche,' Sh.Star
c.Nov.1975, 10/12/1975
150
Sh.Star 10/12/1975
27

He also alleged the party was being taken over by Marxists, and a local newspaper agreed.151 But

as usual, the leaders of the local Party denied that there was any organised campaign. 152

The battle for nomination to a council seat between the former election-agent of the ousted MP

Eddie Griffiths and Roger Barton, the election-agent of Joan Maynard, provoked an especially

vicious dispute. There were accusations of forged letters, and a councillor ended up in hospital

with a heart attack.153 The right-winger won the selection and Barton lost; but the victory was

then overturned, on procedural grounds, by the left-controlled District Labour Party Executive.

The letters of complaint, on the basis of which the nomination was overturned, were sent to the

District Labour Party under mysterious circumstances; two of the alleged complainants denied

having written them - or indeed ever having seen them. 154 Until the early 1980s there were

repeated accusations of procedural irregularities at other selection meetings.155

Overall, from 1970 to 1979, 78 new Labour councillors were elected to the City Council; by 1980

62% of the Labour group, and 69% of the Labour group executive, had been elected in the

previous ten years.156 In 1979, the change-over in the leadership was accelerated once again by

boundary changes in the city; the longest established sitting members had to re-apply for their old

seats. The Star explained:

All Sheffield Labour councillors who been on the City Council for more
than 10 years are being vetted to see whether they should be allowed to
continue ...157

Even well-established figures such as Bill Owen faced challenges. In 1980, he retired after twenty

years as President of the City Labour Party and was replaced by Richard Caborn. 158 Two years

later, he also came under threat as leader of the Trades Council; as always, sources stressed that

151
Sh.Star 23/10/1975,31/10/1975, 4/11/1975
152
Sh.Star 11/3/1976
153
Sh.Star 12/1/1976
154
ShLSL ‘Labour microfiche,' Sh.Star, c.12/1/1976, c.16/2/1976
155
Sh.Star 17/11/1980, 29/11/1980, 10/12/1980, 26/5/1982, 10/10/1982: Seyd, The Rise and Fall of the
Labour Left p.158
156
Ibid. p.144
157
Sh.Star 1/11/1979
158
Sheffield Forward, Vol. 61, No 2. Feb.1980
28

this was ‘not a left-right issue’, but Blanche Flannery, a Communist Party member although her

husband had by now long been a Labour MP, emerged as his leading challenger.159

At the level of parliamentary representation, Richard Caborn defeated sitting MP Fred Mulley,

and Bill Michie defeated sitting MP Frank Hooley. 160 The last of the City’s Old Labour MPs only

survived on humiliating terms.161 The control of the Left over the institutions of the Labour Party

in Sheffield was complete.

Conclusion

The rise of the Broad Left in Sheffield was shaped by local factors that affected the outcome of

national trends. In Sheffield, language was as often used to conceal objectives as to build a new

consensus. Furthermore, because of the top-down nature of the city’s political life, constructing

compelling ‘narratives’ mattered less than seizing control of the levers of institutional power.

The Communist Party had long predicted that the objective struggle over wages, housing and

trades-union rights would detach Labour’s most powerful local supporters from its national

leaders. The Party had spent twenty years positioning itself in Sheffield so that it would be able

to provide leadership when this happened. Its allies had by the late 1960s reached key positions

in the Labour Party, and had chipped away many of the barriers that prevented the overt

participation of Communists in shaping the future of the city. By 1970, these factors came

together, to change the nature of the city’s politics for the next twenty years. It was not just that

the Communists and their allies had a good story to tell; much more importantly, they correctly

understood the problems that Labour faced, and were highly skilled in building from a bridgehead

in the engineering union into a position of considerable influence in the city’s labour movement.

This effective organisation did much to clear the way for the smooth ascent of the Broad Left in

the city in the next decade.

It was the supreme irony facing the Communist Party that, just at the point at which its strategy

seemed closest to success, its own membership (worn down by age, and riven by faction) started

159
Sh.Star 24/1/1983, 23/2/1983
160
Sh.Telegraph 1/2/1982: Sh.Star 25/3/1982: Times, 16/3/1995: ShLSL ‘Labour microfiche,' 26/5/1982:
D. J. Alflat, Independent 25/3/1995: Tam Dalyell, Independent, 13/4/1994
161
Sh.Telegraph 1/2/1982
29

to go into sharp decline. But, none the less, its political heirs carried forward key parts of its

message – anti-capitalism, British withdrawal from Ireland, unilateral disarmament, and the

promotion of close relations with the USSR. Even posthumously, the mouse continued to roar.
30

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