'It might be permissible in the political world when one's political opponent is an influential member of the opposing party and a professional politician to resort to mud-slinging and abuse--a principle with which I do not agree. But when this is done by prominent members of the Labour Party to another member of the Labour Party who is an ordinary miner, who has the confidence of his fellow men in the trade union world, then it is beneath contempt.
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'I can only say that I will continue to defend the miners' interests even though I have the opposition of professional classes in the Labour Party.' Hubert Tunney, The Northern Echo, 3/11/33
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The first thing that strikes the reader about the foregoing article is the bitterness of this very public dispute between Hubert Tunney, the Chairman of Thornley Miners’ Lodge and E F Peart, the Chairman of Thornley Labour Party and the new Secretary of the Seaham Division Labour Party.. By 1933 their working relationship would seem to be virtually impossible.
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The gist of the problem seems to be the creation of several small Labour Party groupings with the Thorney Area by Peart and his supporters, in violation of National Labour Party guidelines, in a bid to fix the candidature for the forthcoming 1934 Durham Council Elections. In short, the intention being to deny Tunney the chance of standing.
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Louis Martin is Peart's preferred choice over Hubert Tunney and Peart seems to be in the process of engineering that result by his manipulation of a number of small, newly-created party groups which together can out vote the Miners' Lodge choice of Hubert Tunney:
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'If the Thornley Lodge resolution had been carried, it would have meant that the anomaly of four small sections paying eight shillings affiliation and having four votes and a Miners' Lodge paying £10 and having three votes would have been removed. But this, of course, would have defeated the object of the creation of these small sections, which was that the tail should wag the dog...'
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Peart also seems to be in the business of character assassination by labeling Tunney as overly ambitious and power-hungry. Tunney's response sums up the Peart’s own political ambitions since coming to Thornley in 1929:
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'I have no desire to enter into a mud-slinging contest with the Chairman of the Area Party. Mr Peart is reported as having stated at the Thornley meeting on Tuesday that one of the curses of present-day politics was that ambitious people were anxious to hold as many positions as possible and that it was imperative that work on local government bodies should be shared out so that no single individual should have so many irons in the fire that it was impossible to give full attention to the needs of the various jobs.
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'Well, Mr Peart is secretary of Seaham Division Labour Party, chairman of Thornley Local Labour Party, chairman of the County Council Area Labour Party, a member of the County Federation of Labour Parties, chairman of the governors of Wellfield School, whose meetings are held during school hours, and a member of Easington District Education Sub-Committee and this year he attended a teachers' conference in Wales.
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'All my work is trade union work, and the trade unions select their representatives from the district councils and the parish councils and I am honoured by the county to serve on the Executive Committee of the Durham Miners' Association and the Durham County Mining Federation Board. I am firmly convinced that all this trouble has been created to influence the position and the ballot for the Treasureship of the Durham Miners’ Association, for which I am a candidate.’'
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Another significant phrase here is
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' ........chairman of the governors of Wellfield School, whose meetings are held during school hours....'
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Meetings held in school hours, of course, made it impossible for anyone with a blue collar job to attend and serve as a governor. The professional classes in action!
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The timing of all this bad publicity is important, too. Having already cheated Tunney out of standing in the 1934 DCC election, Peart’s intention here seems to have been to further the cause of Will Lawther in his bid to become a DMA Agent by generating all of this bad publicty at Tunney’s expense.
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Lawther, then a Wheatley Hill checkwieghman and a close confederate of Peart, had also been a candidate for the 1934 DCC seat, standing, it seems, as a spoiler, to further divide the vote against Tunney. Amazingly, Lawther was originally proposed by the Women’s Section of the Thornley Labour Party, and this just months after the Thornley Pit Head baths, which Hubert Tunney had almost single-handedly steered to fruition, had opened. Mrs Peart was in charge of the Women’s Section....
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NEXT: a November 1933 newspaper article on the DMA election for Treasurer discussing all eight candidates, including Hubert Tunney and Will Lawther..
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HUBERT TUNNEY 1890-1974 INDEX PAGE
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