By Dave Putson (Unite Community – Lewisham, Greenwich, Bexley)
Norman Dodds was a Labour Member of Parliament from 1945 until his death in 1965, and is best remembered for having beaten Margaret Thatcher twice when she first stood for Parliament, in the 1950 and 1951 general elections. The Labour Party has now decided to sell Norman Dodds House, the campaign centre named after him.
He bequeathed his home to the Labour Party to use as a base for campaigning for the Labour cause. It became the Labour Party campaign centre and headquarters building in Northumberland Heath in Bexley, South East London and was named “Norman Dodds House” in his honour.
The Labour Party decides to sell Norman Dodds House
Consequently it is a hugely sad event when you see that the current Labour Party organisation has placed this community hub and campaign centre up for sale, one year shy of its 60th year as such a venue. This action mirrors the very “Thatcherite” approach that Norman Dodds fought against. If ever there was an example of the Labour Party’s current malaise and its leadership’s lack of anything approaching the purpose and ethos of the previous regimes of Labour Party, then this is it! This is the clearest example of “knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing”!
Norman Dodds knew the value of community, probably due to his “Geordie” roots (unless being born in Gateshead disqualifies you as a Geordie?!). He joined the Labour Party in 1925, and so, next year, this would have been an ideal venue to celebrate a 100 year anniversary commemorating his contribution to the Labour Party. But no, the current crop of apolitical inductees into the Labour Party apparatus care not one jot for community, politics, people or even policy, for them its all about the money.
When Keir Starmer became Labour leader one of the first things he authorised was a Domesday book style audit of all of the Labour Party properties and so now, in the case of Norman Dodds House, we have one of the first sales under that programme. It will impact our local Labour campaigning centre, once a vibrant hub of activities, not just at election times but for many a ward meeting. These type of venues have dwindled because the “new broom” leadership do not believe in membership, so much as supporters. A member will have a say in what happens, and how, but a supporter is just a follower.
Local LP members wanted to commemorate the Norman Dodds legacy
I remember six months before the Covid lockdown one member, Michelle Uden, suggested that we should have a “Norman Dodds” memorial day, every year, and together with Councillor Nicola Taylor they set about starting the groundwork for this legacy action, uncovering huge swathes of memorabilia in the form of old campaigning leaflets and flyers, photos and placards. Sadly this was stopped dead by the lockdown, and as we all know nothing has been much the same since.
Many Labour Party members have been erroneously expelled, or suspended, many more simply walked away, under this current Labour Party leadership, including many expelled for alleged antisemitism, despite being Jewish, and so being subject to that old offensive trope “the wrong sort of Jew”. See our editorial on “Racism and Hypocrisy”.
Driving out members causes a reduction in Labour Party funds
With this massive removal of Labour Party members there is a lack of funds getting into the Labour Party. Starmer even tried cynically to monetise the Tory “Hester event” regardless of the Labour Party having suspended Diane Abbott from the parliamentary party. They are searching around for big corporate donors to fund the upcoming general election campaign. But where will the activists come from? So many have been ejected from Labour Party activity. And where will the focus be for general election campaign coordination in the areas given that they appear to be flogging off all and any assets they can, regardless?
The Labour Party as we knew it, and its egalitarian ethos, has gone. And Rachel Reeves MP now happily espouses and applauds former right wing MP’s and advocates for Thatcherite policies should Labour be elected to government later this year. Fully expecting 13,000,000 citizens to simply be unaware of what the new Labour Party stands for, and vote Labour believing that the badge cum logo represents forever, what it used to do, fairness, equality, human rights and internationalism.
Lack of respect for the history of this building
But simply the sale of a bequeathed legacy from a dead Labour MP, his former home, actually shows us, none of that counts for anything any more with Starmer’s Labour, its all and only about the money, the money and nothing but the money, so help us Thatcher…
And as if you needed any other metaphor for the difference between old Labour and the new Starmerite Labour, this legacy building has been allowed to become just a bit of an untidy mess. I sincerely hope Norman Dodds is not spinning in his grave for either the insult of the sale, contrary to his desire for an ongoing benefit to the Labour Party, or the lack of seeming regard to take care of an asset. All too sad indeed!!
