The
Parliamentary Leper, Peter Griffiths
By
David Hamilton
American
philosopher George Santayana famously said that those who do not learn from
history are destined to repeat its mistakes.
October the 26th 2005
was the 40th anniversary
of a unique event in England –a bomb attack on an MP’s home. The lesson to
be learnt is that de-humanising a politician, because he does not follow the
orthodoxy, could have fatal consequences.
A
time bomb was left outside the home of Smethwick MP Peter Griffiths.
It was a battery and clock placed on a meter cover, connected by wires
through the letterbox to a detonator and an explosive substance. The explosion
splintered part of the front door, blew the dining room door off its hinges,
broke the hinges on an upstairs door, blew off the loft entrance, smashed some
windows and drove splinters into the walls and stair banisters in the hall.
The police thought it the work of experts.
It was the culmination of a bitter dispute between Smethwick
Conservatives and Socialists. For eighteen months the dispute had been featured
all over the world with de-humanising comments about Griffiths. The
assassination of Pym Fortuyn in Holland shows what can happen by creating a
dangerous climate.
Griffiths
had been Member of Parliament for Smethwick (now Warley) for just a year.
He was leader of the Conservative group on the council and won the
election of 15th October 1964 against a national swing to Labour,
which was led by Harold Wilson, turning Walker’s 3,544 majority into 1,774 for
the Conservatives. The defeated MP, Patrick Gordon Walker, was Foreign Secretary
designate and a personal friend of Wilson. Alderman Griffiths was local-born and headmaster of a nearby
primary school, Fir Tree Lane. Walker lived in Hampstead! Griffiths lost his
seat in March 1966 to Andrew Faulds: Labour, who lived in Stratford
–upon-Avon!
Careless
reporting helped create a dangerous climate in which Griffiths ceased to be seen
as human and became labelled a “racialist”, something to be reviled. Paul
Foot, usually an excellent journalist, could not overcome his prejudice against
Griffiths to give him a fair examination but did note Walker’s hypocrisy and
commented,
”The
racial bitterness stirred up…could well last for a generation.
For this Patrick Gordon Walker must take his share of the
responsibility.” Foot also quoted
a Birmingham MP,
“look
at Patrick. He never left the
subject alone.”(1)
Walker
had issued different election leaflets for each ethnic group. Remarkably, while
he was preaching against race discrimination, Smethwick Labour club operated a
colour bar! It was believed that the Socialists were after the “coloured
vote.” Griffiths told the Birmingham Evening Mail, on 24th
September 1964,
“The
Socialists are attempting to obtain the coloured vote because they think it will
hold Smethwick for them.”
Many
current attitudes were pre-figured in this election. The recent suggestion by Trevor Philips, head of the
Commission for Racial Equality, has suggested young black boys need schooling
separately. This is similar to a
suggestion by Griffiths of February 1964, when in response to complaints from
white parents he proposed to hold special classes for Indian children, who could
not speak English, for three hours a day. They were to be taught by their own teachers in English,
maths and science and then rejoined the others for games and crafts.
He was accused of trying to start Apartheid in local schools!
Michael
Howard’s election call for health checks were also foreshadowed by Griffiths
when he responded to a question in the local paper, the Smethwick Telephone,
“Immigration should be limited to those of sound health who have jobs and
living accommodation arranged before they enter.” This was prescient as there
was an outbreak of typhoid in Smethwick in April 1965.
Dr. John Briant, the Deputy Medical Officer of Health, said “Smethwick
had contained one outbreak but another might occur if people were let into the
country without health checks.”
There
was an offensive slogan in use before and during the 1964 election,” If you
want a N***** for a neighbour, vote Labour”. Harold Wilson attributed this to
Griffiths on national Television, when being interviewed by Robin Day on
Panorama of 9th March. Wilson,
replying to a question, said that he understood that this comment was made by
the Conservative candidate in Smethwick. Griffiths denied he, or any member of
the Conservative party, had used this slogan but did refuse to condemn its use,
saying it was an expression of frustration felt by local people. He explained
that the only person who had heard it was Walker, who claimed it was in use in
the Municipal elections of 1963! Labour
spokesman defended Wilson, saying that he said no more than had appeared in the
morning’s Times. Griffiths threatened to sue Wilson but then declined.
After
the Election, new Prime Minister Wilson broke from his address on the Queen’s
speech to insult Griffiths by calling him a “Parliamentary Leper”, who would
be shunned by everyone in the House. This breached the convention that new
members be protected until after their Maiden speech! Harold Gurden, Birmingham
Conservative MP (Selly Oak), told the Times 25/1/1965, “He had not met
Griffiths but would be his friend in the House.”
On
October the 5th just two weeks before polling Griffiths was denounced
for his campaign in the Birmingham Post and the Times Midland correspondent
wrote,
”It
is abhorrent to all Conservatives candidates and officials of stature to whom I
have talked.” He headed his
column of the 12th, “Vile –it’s all in Black and White.”
As the election result was announced on October the 16th
Socialists made Nazi salutes. Walker, the embittered loser griped,
”I
feel the result tonight will give Smethwick a bad name.”
The Bishop of Southward called the electorate “unchristian” and the
Bishop of Chelmsford was also critical. Local people supporting a local-born
candidate in a democratic election over a local issue are a model of Democratic
practice. These un-elected Bishops
lived far away and were imposing their a priori ideology on the situation, not
drawing inferences from the facts or observation.
The
Marshall Street plan was an attempt by the Conservative council to buy the
remaining houses in the street to sell to white people as 40% were occupied by
coloureds. Martin Luther King
himself had addressed members of Parliament in December 1964 on his way to Oslo
to collect his Noble Peace Prize. He had warned of the creation of “Little
Harlems” (2) Conservative group leaders had taken the decision after meeting a
delegation of worried housewives. Housing
Committee chairman E. Gould remarked,
”This
is not colour prejudice. We
understand that over thirty houses in Marshall Street are occupied by coloured
people and we think they should not be allowed to occupy more than half the
houses in any street.” Griffiths agreed and told the Times of 7th
December, 1964,
”Coloured
people can only be integrated if they live alongside white people.”
Later
a delegation of housewives visited Richard Crossman, Minister of Housing for
support, who, with his PPS Bob Mellish, treated them harshly and upset the
ladies. A request for funding was sent but turned down.
Crossman a leading left-wing intellectual was proud of having opposed the
1961 Commonwealth Immigration Bill, as a “shameful piece of legislation, but
wrote in his Diary,
“Ever
since the Smethwick election it has been quite clear that immigration can be the
greatest potential vote winner for the Labour party if we are seen to be
permitting a flood of immigrants to come and blight the central areas of our
cities.”(3) Mellish had said
“Smethwick’s name stinks and “Smethwick is well regarded in Alabama,”
but later in May 1976, with an influx of Malawi Asians into his own Bermondsey
constituency, Mellish, then Labours’ chief whip, told the Commons,
“With
53 million of us we cannot go on without strict immigration control.”
The
BBC took Malcolm X the American Black Power leader to Marshall Street in
February 1965 to film for their current affairs programme “Tonight”.
He told the world’s media,
“I
have come here because I am disturbed by reports that coloured people in
Smethwick are being badly treated. I
have heard they are being treated as the Jews under Hitler.
I would not wait for the Fascist element in Smethwick to erect gas
ovens.” The BBC denied having taken him there but Smethwick’s mayor C.V.
Williams checked and said,
“I
was most amazed at the finesse displayed when I spoke of him being brought in a
BBC car. I was told the car was not
a BBC car but it was owned by one of the directors.” Griffiths was outraged by the visitations of extremists and
wrote to the “Smegs” Telephone,
“The
visit of Malcolm X was an affront to decent people and a direct provocation.
That he should have been brought to Marshall Street by the BBC, which is
supposed to be a responsible public corporation, makes matters worse. I say to
all extremists Right and Left, black or white, get out and stay out.” A
blazing wooden cross had been left against a door in Pink Passage, with KKK
painted on the pavement. The front
room was a store for an Indian shopkeeper. Earlier a Labour Councillor described
the council as being like “Peter Griffiths’ Reichstag.”
In
January 1965 Griffiths told a debate at Sutton young Conservatives that a
Government scheme for voluntary repatriation should be set up “…for those
who found difficulty in settling here and wished to go home.
Many, particularly the unskilled were in debt…and were sometimes
exploited by their own people. Voluntary
repatriation should be considered as an alternative to allowing them to stay in
difficult conditions.”
The
way to understand this piece of history is not through the prejudices of
outsiders, but through someone who supported Griffiths’ campaign. Alan Vernon,
23-years old, had fostered a young coloured child. Mr. Vernon told the Times of
15th February 1965, June, “I do not think the campaign was
conducted on racialist lines. I feel that immigration should be restricted.
He had also fostered a young coloured child eighteen months earlier and
supported the Marshall Street plan.
This
shows how reality differs from Ideology.
DMH
1
Foot, Paul 1965. Immigration
and Race in British Politics (Penguin)
2
Griffiths, Peter 1966. A
Question of Colour(Leslie Frewin)
3
Crossman Richard1975. Diaries of a Cabinet Minister. Vol.1