John McDonnell’s Ron Brown Moment
Let’s be frank. Twatting around with the House of Commons’ Mace is naff. It has been done before. Everybody knows what the consequences are, i.e.
- being suspended
- getting on TV
- making an apology; and
- then being allowed back into the House.
This is what will happen to John McDonnell, the MP for Hayes and Harlington, the Labour MP who chose to make a protest about the absence of a vote on a new runway for Heathrow, by indulging in a wee spot of Mace-fingering.
Andy Newman thinks that this is John McDonnell’s “Hesaltine (sic) Moment“. This is the incident he is referring to:
Michael Heseltine famously seized the mace after a particularly heated debate in 1976.
The evening of 27 May proved to be a particularly eventful one for the House of Commons.
The government was attempting to steer its Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill through the Commons.
The Bill was hotly contested, with Michael Heseltine leading the Conservative opposition. The vote on an amendment had been tied, and was lost on the Speaker’s vote. The vote on the main government motion – which one would have expected also to be tied – was in fact carried by the Labour Government.
At this, some of the Welsh Labour MPs began to sing ‘The Red Flag’. Heseltine, infuriated by the traditional Labour Party anthem, grabbed the mace and held it over his head.
He was restrained by Jim Prior, replaced the mace and left the Chamber. The Speaker suspended the sitting until the following day.
The next morning Michael Heseltine apologised unreservedly for his behaviour.
Heseltine was depicted, thereafter, as a kind of Tarzan figure, swinging the Mace around his head like a jungle man.
Veteran trot, Liam Macuaid is in high dudgeon:
On the last two occasions I’ve heard him speak John has said that we are entering a moment when direct action is going to become an even more important element of struggle. He seems to be leading by example. Well done!
Uh, right. This is how The Times saw John McDonnell’s re-enactment of that event:
The Great Heathrow Mace Protest took us by surprise. We watched, goggle-eyed, as John McDonnell marched down the aisle that separates the Labour benches, a walking exclamation mark of outrage over his Government’s decision to build a third runway at Heathrow. But when he reached the green carpet at the bar of the House, he looked, for just a moment, a bit lost.
He picked up the Mace. He did not grab it but lifted it gingerly, as if his real purposed might be to dust under it. For a few long tantalising seconds, the elaborate golden object rested on his palms, held out almost as an offering.
It looked wrong. Surely Mr McDonnell should be waving the thing about, brandishing it as Michael Heseltine had in 1976. That was a Tarzan moment. This, however, was a Mowgli moment.
There is another precedent that is relevant here. The last Mace-swinger was the late Labour MP, Ron Brown, who threw the Mace on the floor, damaging it. When it came time to apologise, Ron Brown varied the text of his agreed apology, describing it as “grovelling” and “rubbish”. I think I have a recording of the non-apology somewhere. Ron Brown sounds drunk
John McDonnell is a rather dapper character, and not the shabby figure that Ron Brown was. However, both have a fondness for extreme politics. Ron Brown:
“visited Colonel Gaddafi in Libya several times in the 1970s, and also tried to develop trade links between Scotland and Libya. He also made statements supporting the Communist regimes in Afghanistan, Albania and North Korea.”
John McDonnell is most famous for this incident:
At a gathering to commemorate the IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands, Mr McDonnell said: “It’s about time we started honouring those people involved in the armed struggle. It was the bombs and bullets and sacrifice made by the likes of Bobby Sands that brought Britain to the negotiating table. The peace we have now is due to the action of the IRA.”
Great times!
Comments
| 16 January 2009, 10:57 am |
More coverage of the Mace revolution on SU
http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=3390
Featuring a man who used to have his own runway at Heathrow.
| 16 January 2009, 11:01 am |
From 1989:
A member of Parliament accused of stealing jewelry and women’s underwear has been ordered to stand trial on charges of theft and criminal damage. A magistrates’ court at Hastings, in southern England, decided Thursday that Ron Brown, 49, a member of the Labor Party, should stand trial in a higher court.
Brown is charged with stealing a framed picture, a brooch, a pair of earrings, a watch and two pairs of women’s underwear belonging to his former [lover]…
| 16 January 2009, 11:01 am |
“swinging canard” – Tony S.
It is no canard. Effectively he ended his leadership ambitions right there but only found out twenty years later.
The third runway is forgone. Without it London and the UK will wither away as a force, economically and in other ways also. Look at the world air travel routes. The astonishing confluence of routes into London speaks volumes about the significance of air travel and business to the UK’s international place in the world. If you disagree then the UK will decline and will become the ’servants of another man’s system’. Frankfurt is poised to take on London in many areas and has expanded its airport. So have the Dutch and French.
If on the other hand you dislike the modern world and feel the only acceptable future lies in barter and washing clothes by bashing them on a rock, you will not be reading this either I assume and if you are, how comes?
| 16 January 2009, 11:06 am |
What happened in May 1976 was that the Labour whips allowed one of their number who had been ‘paired’ with a Conservative and should have been absent, but was nevertheless present in Parliament, to vote. This was against the rules. Heseltine said his protest was to hand the mace to the Government front bench as a symbolic way of saying that they had seized power away from Parliament.
In the event it damaged him by giving him a reputation for erratic behaviour. Ron Brown already had that; his non-apology which attempted to make fun of the words he had agreed to read made it significantly worse.
Whereas John McDonnell doesn’t seem to have worked out what he was doing.
| 16 January 2009, 11:23 am |
John McDonnell was just trying to save his seat in the next election. His constituents facing the demolition of their houses won’t want to elect a Labour man next time so he had to do something drastic to show his anti-Heathrow Runway Three status.
| 16 January 2009, 11:28 am |
Without it London and the UK will wither away as a force, economically and in other ways also
What rubbish. The same drivel was repeated by Thatcherites 25 years ago to justify unrestrained road building. It wasn’t true then. It isn’t true now.
| 16 January 2009, 11:28 am |
O-O-Order!
| 16 January 2009, 11:47 am |
I’m just disappointed that the mace doesn’t start crackling with unearthly power when you pick it up, and you can’t then slay demons with it. Or perhaps John McDonnell isn’t the chosen one?
| 16 January 2009, 11:59 am |
Or perhaps John McDonnell isn’t the chosen one?
Who knows? Labour didn’t bother with a leadership election.
| 16 January 2009, 12:13 pm |
I thought you might throw IRA quote in! You devil you David! :-)
Of course that quote means he has a “fondness for extreme politics”. What on earth else could it mean?
I remember, when McDonnell wrote a post on CiF about economic policy, David’s sole contribution to the thread was that quote.
Is it the be all or end of all argument (actually that reminds of a bit in The Office when Gareth Keenan tries to win an argument with Tim Canterbury…)
I note that nothing about the third runway (for or against), how the decision was reached, consequences etc., is mentioned. After all, that’s just to do with boring stuff like democracy and the environment.
Okay, as you were, back to the ritual Lefty bashing….
| 16 January 2009, 12:24 pm |
I understand that John feels passionately about the Heathrow expansion issue and has a duty to represent the interests of His constituents – but I think He should be carefull not to get a unwanted reputation of engaging in this type of gesture politics – John would be best advised to maintain His reputation as responsible , soft-spoken ; and thinking leader of The Working Class .
The danger is that Stunts can damage His chances of becoming the Leader of The Labour Party .
My Own Union ( The GMB ) is in favour of Heathrow Expansion & I believe that The Labour Movement should Support the Introduction of the thousands of jobs a third runway will lead to – and ensure that they are Unionised jobs .
| 16 January 2009, 12:36 pm |
McDonnell was angry that the Government was not allowing a proper Parliamentary debate and a vote on such an important decision and got carried away. But understandably so. I suppose handling the mace in this way is a contempt of parliament, but the contempt for parliament being displayed by the Government on this issue is a far greater scandle.
| 16 January 2009, 12:43 pm |
Ian, while I agree with you about McDonnell needing to be careful about safeguarding his reputation you have to balance the extra jobs against the thousands of people who will have their homes demolished, and the hundreds of thousands more who will be subject to extra noise and pollution, as well as our blowing a huge hole in our CO2 emissions targets.
| 16 January 2009, 12:59 pm |
lot of strangely grandiose capitalisation going on there
| 16 January 2009, 5:03 pm |
The third runway is forgone. Without it London and the UK will wither away as a force, economically and in other ways also. [...] If you disagree then the UK will decline and will become the ’servants of another man’s system’.
Come, Heathrow terminal 6,
Save us from apocalypse!!!
The danger is that Stunts can damage His chances of becoming the Leader of The Labour Party .
John McD isn’t going to become leader of the Labour Party, no matter how much you or I may want it. The Heathrow expansion guarantees that he isn’t even going to be an MP after next year – unless he can get himself selected for another seat pretty damn quick. But if he can build up a reputation for erratic, even comical stunts, then we could well have finally found someone other than Ken who would stand a cat in hell’s chance of beating Boris in 2012. I suggest when he returns to Parliament next week, the first thing he does is douse Geoff Hoon with a fire extinguisher.
| 16 January 2009, 5:23 pm |
I remember the days when a grand, 8 billion pound infrastructure project like an expansion of Heathrow would be seen by Lefties as just the ticket to stimulate the economy.
Do you people ever stop and take a look at yourself, to see how far you have strayed from the path you imagine you are on?
| 16 January 2009, 6:11 pm |
But there would be much better ways of using that £8bn to stimulate the economy through infrastructure projects. Look at the state our railways are in for a start.
| 16 January 2009, 9:09 pm |
I once met Ron Brown MP (Shoreditch and Finsbury) and brother of George. Few things annoyed him more than being confused with that fellow from Leith.
John McDonnell has many faults (no space to list ‘em) but on airports his opposition has been consistent for many years.
My concern is the shallow minded element amongst environmentalists and their high-profiling against airports. About half of carbon emmision reduction will need to come from buildings. Somehow I don’t see Greenpeace picketting the home of an old lady who can’t get her act together to fit loft insulation or draughtstrip the front door.
‘Tarzan’ hates people using his nickname and repeating the mace swinging canard, all the more reason of course for its repetition over the years by all and sundry.
I hope both sides receive a fair hearing from the media on the runway issue, so far though it doesn’t look good; Eddie Mair interviewed the Chairman of BAA last night and you might have thought the guy had trailed dog shit into the studio.