Joe prefers Tories
Socialist Press1981 1981-04-09Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 11 →
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"I must say sometimes it is better to talk to Tory Ministers than to Tony Benn.
Formley So said miners' leader Joe Labour Gormley last week.
He was praising the "sense" now being seen by the government on the question of pit closures in the wake of the strike wave which Gormley himself so strongly opposed.
Addressing the conference of the Electrical Power Engineers' Association, Gormley declared that-as if persuaded by his rhetoric rather than the prospects of an all out miners' strike, the Tories:
"Tealised it was important to listen to what we had say. I felt they were listening. I felt it was just as easy to talk to those Tory Ministers as to some of my own colleagues in the previously."
"Left wing?"
Does this speak volumes on the "left wing" Thatcher government or on the extreme right wing Wilson and Callaghan governments previously?
Certainly with Gormley so appreciative of the Tory leaders' appreciation of him, it is easy to see why he and so many of his fellow TUC bureaucrats remain SO opposed to action to force them out of office.
After all-if these nice Tory Ministers were brought down, perhaps Gormley might wind up actually talking to Tony Benn instead!