A Question of Leadership Leadership

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Review by Tony Richardson and Donna Pickles ENDE IT IS amazing that this programme ever got onto television.

Even in its present censored form and even though shown only in the ATV Midlands Region, it was dynamite.

Originally scheduled to be shown nationally last August, (most of it was filmed in May 1980) it was advertised in the TV Times but then cancelled on the day it was due to be shown.

Editing It has taken a year of editing (polite word for censorship) and had a studio session with Bill Sirs added before it got this showing.

The programme format itself does not seem particularly sensational. A national trade union official, Sandy OF John FILM MAKER Ken Loach held a news conference last week to highlight the process.

of censorship "by nods and winks" which brought delays, alterations and a restricted audience for the film 'A Question of Leadership' The film was made for ATV but designed for national network showing.

Eventually after a year of delays, cuts and the insertion of a studio session dominated by steel union LUll chief Bill Sirs, it was shown only in the Midlands region.

The changes were imposed as a result of an intervention by ATV, who Adverti Following its fusion last month with the International Communist League, the Workers Socialist League is to hold a major rally and festival in Birmingham on Saturday October 10. The activities will include exhibitions and workshops designed to deal with all the varied aspects of the work of the WSL - in industrial and labour movement Feather (ISTC) and a couple of local officials are brought together with a number of activists in the steel strike, both from the steel industry and from their supporters in. the docks, car industry and the mines.

This discussion takes place shortly after the steel strike and is about the experiences of the strike.

This all seems fairly straightforward: but can any reader tell us when this has ever happened before?

True, this was the first national steel strike since 1926, and the longest-runn ing national strike since then, But what about the firemen's strike, the engineers' the lorry drivers' or the public sector workers'? These strikes have also affecdecided that the programme failed to match up to the laughable) guidelines on "fairness and impartiality"

laid down by the IBA.

But of course the "fairness and impartiality"

sought by IBA bosses has nothing to do with ensuring an accurate depiction of the views of the working class.

As Loach pointed out to the Guardian:

*9 think there's nervousness in TV about ordinary people showing articulate political views.

They like working class people to be complaining about unemployment or bad housing, they like social distress, but they don't like numbers being added up and struggles, work amongst women and youth, and the building of the Trotskyist International Liaison Committee.

The festival begins at 11 am at Digbeth Civic Hall, Birmingham. There will be a social in the evening. Transport is available from most areas of the country, and further details are available from the Workers Socialist League, PO Box 135, London N1 ODD. ted millions of workers, yet not one of them has ever been debated by rank and file activists on television.

Add to all this the attitude of director Ken Loach and co-producer Barry Hines and you not only have an exceptional idea but a programme done in a sympathetic manner, in a way that the workers aren't put down.

To illustrate the point let me say that the programme is in two distinct sections.

Studio The main part was filmed last May: but the additional session saw two of the original participants (Alan Thornett and Bernard Connolly) brought together in a studio across the table from Bill Sirs and George Wright of the Welsh TUC, Ken Loach conclusions drawn."

Among the conclusions that were drawn by workers in the original 1½ days of filming, but which found no that was shown, was the need to open the books of the steel industry and other sections of the British economy. But despite the heavy editing Loach's film stands as a unique expression of the voice of rank and file workers. And his vocal of censorship exposure should be applauded.

Steelworkers, trade unionists and socialists in South Wales and other areas should demand loud and long that their regional ITV stations broadcast the programme, and commission similar discussions on matters of concern the labour movement.

This latter section was forced on the director in order to make the whole programme acceptable. It was done in the "normal" manner - with an interviewer who allowed Sirs the great proportion of the time and allowed him to continuously interrupt Connolly.

Feeling As they had done before both Connolly and Thornett criticised Sirs and the TUC leadership. But in the changed conditions the feeling seemed to have gone out of Connolly's words. He was no longer arguing in front of fellow workers.

Even coverage like this latter section is rare enough: it comes over as a debate between a reformist and a revolutionary perspective, Sirs says that the only way to stop job losses "is to remove the government" But then he claims that the trade union movement is not willing to do this.

He declares that when his union went to the other unions in the TUC Steel Industry Committee and put down a resolution for strike action in defence of jobs, it was opposed by all the other Throughout his contribution Sirs continously argued *about wages. purely and that the steel strike was simply ...I could not get my own people to go on strike for jobs".

Clearer

Against this Connolly argued that the jobs fight was behind the steel strike and Alan Thornett showed the political content of the LIC strike and underlined how the trade union leaders are not willing to use the possibilities such as the steel strike to mobilise mass action that could bring down the government.

Everything was much clearer in the first section because of the way it was directed.

Here there was no interviewer, all were on equal terms. It was filmed in a school away from the idation of the studios.

The viewer is completely absorbed as though part of the discussion; perhaps discussion is the wrong word. You feel you are part of a struggle-almost as though in the middle of a strike.

What has happened means something to all these people. It is one of the great moments in their lives that they are arguing about. The results of the strike have affected everything that has taken place since and the activists instinctively feel this.

As the discussion emphasized the steel dispute was just the "tip of the iceberg"

the working class is engaged in a fight against capitalist control and workers employed by Thatcher's government had common ground to overthrow the Tories.

However, this was not taken advantage of by the TUC leadership. Sixteen a half months later the anger at this capitula tion was brought back to the surface by the ATY programme.

Action

If there had been mass action taken by the labour movement in the winter of 1980 would we be in the mess we are in now?

The activists are aware that it left them lumbered with a Tory government which still threatens their jobs and living standards.

They are angry because they realise with the steel strike there was the possiblity of driving this government out of office. This feeling is brilliantly brought out when Feather is explaining how he was surprised by the strike taking place.

The Camera stays on Bernard Connolly as he takes his jacket off and rolls COr COLD up his sleeves, preparing answer him. This is no academic discussion.

Many of the workers in the programme had never been "political. But they showed that they had learnt much from the strike. One section was on the role of the police. Enid Beaver from Yorkshire described one particular beating up of a picket which was filmed by a TV crew but the film never screened.

Women Another part mentioned the role of women in the strike. Ray Davies from Canth Wales brought out the activities of wives on DULLI TY GAVO ULU the picket line (though not enough was brought out about the activities of women steelworkers like Enid Beaver).

What dominated the programme was the hostili y of the activists to the u nion bureaucracy.

This was something that particularly connected workers who watched.

Comments in the car factory I work at were al favourable - such as "They really had a go at them.

For once workers were really able to find something on TV they could identify with:

Pergamon strikers too said that this described exactly their problem. And even during the BL Combine Committee meeting favourable comment was made about the programme.

The most positive aspect of the programme was the way it showed the form of Way Il the trade union leadership's betrayal. The leadership's role was put on the dissecting table by the working class.

The main way the steel strike was betrayed was its isolation consciously created by the trade union leadership.

Denis Kelly from the Liverpool Docks described how a national dock strike was called at a delegate meeting and as they were leaving the meeting they heard the steel strike was called off. Why, he demands of Feather, did they run to settle the moment of the docks strike decision?

Alan Thornett went through the developments in similar case to BBC With SE Was job losses and a low wage offer and well after the review date. A ballot was held in February - in the middle of the steel strike - and a 2-1 strike vote carried.

This strike decision was not acted upon by the trade union leadership in any way until April 8 - the day the steel strikers went back!

This is particularly powerful at the end of the programme. In between the credits, statements are made by some of the participants. Thornett says that the greatest betrayal of the strike was that the union leaders sat on the 2-1 strike vote by Leyland workers and refused to implement it.

-Cover Welsh TUC | General Secretary George Wright on the other hand tried to cover up the role of the TUC General Council in opposing the call for a Welsh, general strike., Wright in fact claimed they had had a general strike on January 28. Yet at the beginning of the strike they had called for an all general strike from that date-only to cave in under heavy opposition from Len Murray and the General Council.

Colours

The TUC official leadership were shown in their true colours when faced with direct confrontations from their members. It was a very different picture from the supposedly militant leadership figures portrayed during individual TV interview during the dispute.

One weakness was cutting out in the edited version of the programme of a discussion on the "viabil ity" argument and the trans tional demands for the steel industry which stan opposed to this position.

Nevertheless, A Questio of Leadership is exceptiona in its method, its content activists versus bureaucra and its particular subject the steel strike.

The results of struggle could have been th end of the Tories. Instea Leyland workers, railway men and others now have t contemplate going struggle on their own aga and in conditions where million are unemployed one million more than at time of the steel strike.