Kenneth Williams and Jimmy Reid - Parkinson 1973

or when a union does something like jeopardizing the work of their fellow man few stop trains people can't get to their work and their penny they can't get working so in doing what you want for yourself you're jeopardizing your fellow man aren't you why can't you act in concert with your fellow men why do you have to do something which in dangers the likelihood of your fellow men when that statue represents exactly that helping because it might hinder because it might be that the fellow that one fellow could take two workers at one fellow is a lot worse off than the other worker they're not all equal are they I mean if they were all equal their bid no problem precisely but it comes down to a question of morality you don't you just work for another pound when I took my job at three pound ten a week is seven in small parts I come at the army forty seven that's what I got thought he said are three plant a know became addicted when t five Bob all in and the rest is over the facts you know and picture shop round the bend excitedly but I saved and because I wanted to do the job and wanted to do it well I got on I got another rep fortnightly and after that monthly rep you know and I got a bit better I did seven years in the provinces before I came to London and I think you're prepared to do that kind of thing you're doing it what are you doing it for you don't sound won another pound all the time you're saying I want to do the work better yes morality and I was brought up with it but don't do a job just for what you get you do the job because but you want to do it well oh but Kenneth can I say I think that's crap [Applause] evening well that was a clip from a recent show when I got rather emotional about something said by Kenneth Williams and I wasn't the only one to get hot under the collar a lot of you wrote in many in support of mr. Williams and some against he was raising a lot of issues that are relevant to all of us mr. Williams asked for a greater time to put forward his views and what better week than this week with all of us affected by gas strikes hospital strikes rail strikes only possibility of a general strike we're going to talk about this and other matters tonight but without a politician or a pundit inside in the audience some of the ordinary men and women who wrote to us about what Kenneth Williams said and with me also Kenneth Williams of course to expand his views and Jimmy Reed who is more than likely to disagree with some of them if at all I think what I'd like to do gentlemen first of all is to establish the sort of backgrounds that you come from because I think one of the misconceptions people might have about you Kenneth is that you came from some kind of privileged background yes well I didn't actually than many of the British public would think that are not many of them because it's been set in so many newspaper articles and I've said it myself on television but my father was a van boy on the LMS no I'm said that again and again he used to call the cut in the yell of a Miss that's right and my mother took in washing and she always does Martha thought about at Jet Set wheeler washing to hotel in Piccadilly and she said I never forget that I she had a wheel in a little little trolley all our laundry and still never got the day the wheel came off the axle broke and it broke nearly you Russian and rewrote in them days was those women are sold them flowers with their lovely hats on their huge hat they sold these flowers under Lee Ross the statue and she said one of them said don't worry girl and she pulled out her enormous had a great steer hat pin and stuck it through the X or form another and the wheel did work again and she was able to take her laundry on and all was sadly my mum that's why I remember actually what they did I'm in my father because of his funny story about they know the title of the company I don't know my things I'm a mother did from the funny story she told me about her work was it enlarged from the Kenneth was it was a large family my mother my sister in the self yes it was in fact a very cylinder what we call under privileged background wasn't it they lived in one room off the Caledonian Road yeah respectable we call that a privileged years did you did you furnish tangible buccola did you feel yourself in any way I'm the privileged manure child in its in sense of seeing other people having their conditions than I had and feeling that I really should have them too I suppose as a child and that did occur once or twice with with children at school who a better dress than I was I did feel occasionally and twinges of Envy about it and I did say as much to my father on one occasion and he did say something to me about will instructed you know by the Bible not to covet their neighbor's Goods and Toby was wrong to think like that and so I thought oh yes it is wrong to think like that and proceeded to adjust my thinking but my father told me during my lifetime was very very important to me it gave me a lot of Maxim's to be buddy also told never to bring I said don't ever make friends with anyone you can't bring to this home which was I thought very good advice I mean I didn't think was good at the time but I do think it was very good now and if I made it but basically what you said there of course is interesting because because of the background the environment you came from it gave you an ambition to get away from it oh no no I didn't know if I went back there to live long afterwards long afterwards I made many many good friends there so have gotten there and so um I mean the only way it offends me still would be said to be aesthetically obviously aesthetically the buildings are as lovely in that part of the world as say they are in world so the City of Westminster some per lose of Kensington or matter them aesthetically yes they could be said to be offensive I suppose but in terms of people that live there and the qualities of those people they're as good as anywhere else in London but you don't live there no I don't live there now I left there and I moved back there in 70 and now I've moved again fine but that's nothing to do with the environment it was trying to create a soundproof place where I can learn lines all right fine Jimmy musta brought the cast of your play with you I think Jimmy can I ask you the same question too I mean you obviously didn't come from a from a privileged background which was a large family well it was to start with we had seven in the family five sisters and brother myself three of my sisters died in infancy and the doctors could put many things on the death certificate but I think this usually appeared social conditions and one of the factors which has made me so concerned of a changing society as they even this day the way the sociologists break a society up into social categories the bottom two social categories the incidence of infant mortality is 50% higher than the top two social categories and so I come from a family of seven but only four of us lived into chanted three died as infants and as I say no one will persuade me otherwise then the real cause of the death was the social circumstances in the clay seireitei and there was this the kind of thing that shaped you with the political animal that you became yes yes to some extent you know some of the most vicious anti working class elements are people who have made it from the working-class South Africa and some of the worst dealers in apatite's business black men I've always felt that we shouldn't want to emancipate the working class one by one starting with yourself if you've got talents and abilities or capacities they should be at the service of the people from which you come so that's why in fact you've never left the area that's why in fact there's been a deliberate decision in my part that I want to advance living standards lies along with the people that I revere and indeed love above all else and as the the working people from which I I come now Kenneth can I talk to you before because before you were an actor you did many jobs didn't you yeah what were they I mean what some what do you do I was an apprentice I was apprenticed Russell yes little graphic yes and then of course that career wasn't wrapped about the army yes which involved a personal choice which I really wasn't any happy about at all because I mean I didn't bought have a Christian faith and I thought well the idea of holding guns and killing people is important to me quite a part in fact I'm not really born for that kind of thing and I don't know I don't look good with guns you're not a mean some people can hold them indoors you know in the kind of tough and it really isn't my forte if we have to accept this as part of one's limitations don't we and I reminded you last week and so I didn't really like that now I was my father again if I don't really want to try the are mean he said look this country is facing a tyrant I mean man put in those words but he said Hitler was were evil man and the situation became such in Europe where the only thing to do was to fight hmm and I believed what he said of truth I thought he was in a better position than I to judge I was only 18 he was considered a wiser than I was he'd been through another war which he thought was fought for good reasons to at that time but he certainly thought this was even a better reason and so I did join the army and I spent three years of my life in the Army which of course was an awful thing for me to do you must remember Italy entailed not only conscience ie I didn't believe in killing and I was being put into a machine that would exactly that killing but it also which involved in our infringement on my freedom and it also involved a way of life which I've never which I've never faced I mean I didn't never undressed him in public at all and I didn't like him I did not like taking my flow you may think it's funny no I didn't like take my clothes off in front of a lot of people I don't like it and in bad it rooms I have just I used to arrange the shirt you know to cover the dick and they shout at sugars in Bannack rooms it was about 70 men as well as myself they check guard sure sure Willy God and accuse you of a lack of manhood because you didn't share it so eventually I got exhibitionistic and started going yeah can I pull you back to the main point of our discussion which is not about your army experiences I was going to ask you did you in fact at any time did you ever join a union no I never consciously joined the Union before I was in the Fiat in there no I mean I was made to join in the draftsmen set up by the head drops and they said you have to sign this the Society of the little egg artisan engravers you've got to sign that form because we all do it and I was there yeah and I was 14 with those pages I didn't really know what it was all about and I don't it certainly can be the small print so I joined it because it was good for us all and I did it and I respect to their draftsman too another instance of recognizing limitations Michael yes I recognize that he was a better man that I was drawing maps and so deserved a higher salary so we established it in fact you didn't instinctively go to a you know want to join the unit for help can I ask you one final question killed when you were at this time you were still living at at at home still in this area that you described did you ever at any time have a sense of waste of the people around you for the society or in yes always lives always conscious I'm always conscious of that yes I was always conscious of the fact that around them was many things I mean you remember bitumen saying when you walk about look at things use your eyes you remember him saying that it's much more profound than observation and I think many people did realize and it is a very marvelous observation to have made that's essential one of course for a poet but it's also absolutely clickable to us as people and of course in my environment I saw waste yes and was conscious of it he launches the fact that the public library was not being taken advantage of by the people in my street conscious of the fact that art galleries weren't being taken advantage of conscious of the fact that further educational facilities were not being taken advantage of conscious of that there were men in that community who wanted to give something of themselves to others and only add three or four turn up to even hear them yeah so I was conscious of waste if you ask me about that yes but certainly never conscious of the of the trade union as something that might help to alleviate at least two never causes the trade union or something it might help to relieve that ways no the local authorities provided plenty of opportunities to channel the frustrations of people and they seem to me that a little taken advantage of yes well we'll get on to that I'm sure about whose fault that is Jimmy do you have anything to say before I replayed our little set-to last week about what Kenneth has been saying at all I mean you came from very very similar backgrounds in many ways and yet you've arrived at totally different conclusions about society I think we fit well I think that's I think well okay well we'll wait and see how it goes what - what was the point I was just going to say if but through seem to Kenneth there if you could even at this point feel that what the difference was yeah well you take this question of waste and I'm not talking here about sewage disposal but the waste of human potential which I consider a tragedy I do believe that in the society in which both you and I grew up to manhood there was tremendous human waste because you see coming from a working-class background you not only have an inherited economic disadvantage but you have an inherited cultural and intellectual poverty I'm knocking I'm not talking here of genetically but if the four or five of you in one room and they all talk about equal educational opportunities and you can trust that with the son of a solicitor living a well-off area you've a bright lad living with three sisters whether there's hardly even room to read apart from the fact that may not be boots about there hasn't been this example set by the appearance of reading and studying that apart even doing homework or of trying to find some sport well you can think things work for yourself you're a positive disadvantage as compared Leslie to the upper middle-class youngster who's got a room of his own almost from birth and one of the one of the problems I mean I I make a love music I'm sure I will died not really having fully appreciated some of the wonders of music some of the blinkers have come off my eyes during my life but there's a there's a wonderful world there for example and I'm starting out you know there's an an inbuilt disadvantage the sermon of the working class I blame for it there is society but it fine ok well then now let's let's revise revive that sequence from the show when I had the original disagreement with Kenneth if you can roll it now Roger and let's have a look and see what was said and we can take the debate on from there no one strike why can't be him why can't I mean unions really care they're really socialistic and say we care about a fellow man why can't they force what are they March about something like that is there now the pound yes prefer them selves but why not a few people somebody else who's really hard up but that's not the owners problem [Music] it's not it's not the union's fault yes yes what is the status you outside the tea you see and you look at that statue there's a statue outside the tea you see depicts a man helping doesn't it he's helping up another man who is on the ground yes and that statue symbolizes what the tu c stands for doesn't it of course right well when a union does something like jeopardizing the work of their fellow man few stop trains people can't get to their work and their penny they can't get working so in doing what you want for yourself you're jeopardizing your fellow man aren't you why don't you act in concert with your fellow men why do you have to do something which in dangers the livelihood of your fellow men when that statue represents exactly that helping because it might hinder it because it might be that the fellow that one fellow did take two workers at one fellow is a lot worse off than the other worker they're not all equal are they I mean if they were all equal their bid no problem precisely but it comes down to a question of morality you don't you just work for another pound when I took my job at three pound 10 a week I a seven in small parts I'm at the army 47 that's what I got forty said are three Pantoja being addicted with her 25 Bob all in and the rest is over the facts you know and picture shop round the bend but I saved and because I want you to do the job and wanted to do it well I got on I got another rep fortnightly and then after that I got monthly rep you know and I got a bit better I did seven years in the provinces before I came to London and I think you're prepared to do with that kind of thing you're doing it what are you doing it for you don't say I want another pound all the time you're saying I want to do the work better yes peering out of reality I was brought up with but don't do a job just for what you get you do the job because that you want to do it well oh but Kenneth can I say I think that's crap I'm sorry I really never been sucked [Applause] [Music] Trucy it's all very what are you saying that it's over all of us here in jobs that are creative where you can see if you go work you've got a talent you can get the top and you can get you know handsome living now you're not gonna tell me that you are gonna be compared to some of your sticking door handles in a car for 24 for 10 hours a day five days a week that he's not gonna get frustrated that he doesn't deserve next to quit if he wants one of course is work work ethic is money it's got to be he doesn't get a satisfaction on the job that we get I mean that's his inference is the managing in the door knobs on his job is monotonous and really absolutely what do you think doing something night off and I've done this play now the globe army up steady so lay down something to wonder what it means I'm saying anything you begin to think yourself don't you everybody does seem to think that our work is glamorous it's fabulous fabulous League Larry's not at all it's a simple business of self-discipline and going on night after night and doing it as well as you can and if I have to stick drawer knobs on and I've done it because I've stacked all of us are not painting me on walls when I haven't got the money to employ decorate I do it because I like doing and I want to do it well but the other difference is Kenneth the guy goes and strike is not earning your salary he's not earning four or five hundred feet away what about the period I didn't have any success than I spent what seven years in the provinces batting around that wasn't very success no of course not but there was always the do it because you backed your channel because your talent in an area where talent pays off in the end then you had a horizon you could see ahead what are you asking for world where every single job leads to something marvelous in yes well all jobs don't be like well precisely then that's the problem but nevertheless so therefore you must you must allow people their frustrations no you they must accept their limitations surely oh come on is be allowed that's a Superman argument it isn't a Voltaire said every man is taking his own bit of garden there was much wrong with altes philosophy was their names right well that's a revision of what was said last week Kenneth you said he wanted some time to expand on that it seemed to me that you raise two points there to be when was your attitude to all the unions and the other one was this thing about individual opportunity like to talk first of all perhaps just elaborate a wee bit not too long or much you think about the unions what you say well what I meant about a strike which involves the destruction misery and suffering to human beings was that I felt it was antisocial and the observation I was making was an ironic one ie an organization which calls itself socialistic I a trade union and I've always thought of trade unions as says realistic cat is out an act by depriving people of the means of getting to and from their work which is an actual fact antisocial now I was commenting on that and contrasting with the spirit of that statue outside the tea you see I don't think they had that statue put there for nothing I was saying the spirit of that is very contrary to the spirit evinced in causing a hardship and suffering to your fellow men in these strikes you see so I was observing a fact which I thought was an ironic truth now I could also observe an ironic truth when I say that I don't believe in laws that repress individuals on the other hand I would agree that a law like the one which says you shall forcibly make your children go to a school and if you don't there will be an inspector call and make you send them to school I would have to admit that that law is a good one duty what I mean but it's an irony also that the law involved here that of a parent not being able to choose to educate his child himself you see is an infringement of his Liberty that is an infringement of his Liberty you know that don't you let's I'm agreeing there that the law is in actual fact doing something which in curtailing his Liberty is doing something basically of wrong in my philosophy but I'm prepared to accede to it because I think that it will in the long run a result in lasting good but you were saying about the unions are basically what you said there was that you don't think that people should strike if they're going to disrupt in any way their fellow human beings you know that cause misery and suffering to human beings never seem to be as social now I did also say you know wait a minute I did also say in that same clip tonight that the Union should act in concert ie I am NOT denying their right to strike I'm not denying their I'm not denying that at all but I'm saying they can act in concert do you say give me the canal start together then nobody gets affected I see Jimmy yeah can I just have a brief comment on what can I say from you before I talk to you as well first of all honestly it's it's it's so wrong in my estimation because it puts the blame for workers let's say that are forced into circumstances where they have to take straight action it puts the blame of any inconvenience on the public on their shoulders and not on the shoulders of those that are denying them what they consider to be legitimate grievances or rights of demands let me give you an example we've got a strake in this country just now of ancillary hospital workers the first name the century for decades they've been told you can't go and strike your vocational interest and purpose as such that you can't go in straight okay then well was the mechanism in this society which stated to hospital workers you are providing a wonderful service to your fellow human beings and we will reward you accordingly they didn't they left them with miserable wages so that there are no alternative but to take some form of side action whilst trying to safeguard the interests of the patient anger directed towards the government and the establishment that has kept such sections of the community at a wage level well below the contribution they make to society you see what I'm seeing in other words Kenneth but if the real women go and strike and it causes me inconvenience I don't blame their a woman I see a dick much much strong some of these fellows have been 14 or 15 quid a week you'd alright be twenty four thousand point of each somebody Porthos don't kid yourself twenty four thousand per year big mass is telling them you can't have an extra couple of quid it's not in the national interest well he's one homie twenty four thousand per year I mean Security's reduce you can also you could make a point and I think you would accept this that the difference in wages between some onion and another is often the fault of that Union the Union that doesn't get the the wage the the comparable wage I mean I mean in my position there I mean it's a fact isn't it was in the trade union movement yeah well you're all brothers there vast difference yes so you can make an argument that it's the union's fault no no no well I thought okay well just let me make a point nurse if you don't means machine so I've listened to statements by Anthony Barbour unless he said even by right-wing labour politicians who stated that the responsibility for law peed what because there's a factor that are higher paid workers okay so no higher paid worker right so we're go to negotiate a possible wage increase with my employer and I know that we can get five point a week out of em so I say look well negotiate we get 5.0 Vica of a messy wait a minute stop there we don't want a five-point a week there's 2,000 of us that's 10,000 point a week well you please take that 10,000 pound up the road there to this other theorem where the workers are being lowered paid see what I mean after I picked the manager off the floor manger you know in revival did a bigger company than we are and in point of fact if you forego wages as a higher wage earner or work it doesn't go into the pockets of the Lord be it eggs into the pockets of your employer I mean there is no mechanism there's no device in this society whereby the wages at the higher paid workers for GU is translated into money theorems into the the wages of the Lord paid workers and I'll give you by definition our Lord paid worker is a work of the works in an industry that's e-either badly organized or be as relatively well organized but has no militancy over the years what you get as a worker depends on your organization and trade unions and by your militancy that's how this society rewards workers not apportioning some moral evaluation as to the contribution that you make is the function of the union simply to get monies isn't it a mugger government no it's not simply but your money all right then well why is it then that people have this attitude about you and I think quite correctly nowadays that whenever they hear about them this is what they're doing is going for money I mean it shouldn't the function of a union be a damn sight more idealistic than that and aren't you by just going after money joining those people that you would say the bosses the money men and joining their principles that you hate I mean aren't you part of the rat race do you make this point perfectly clear here there's tremendous ly wrong a and I think deliberately misleading economic arguments going about that the places are chasing wages well we could sure that a verse I can show the reverse and statistics you tonight know okay we're not going to do those things you know statistics rate alright sickness disease and I am conscious of the fact that workers anxious to maintain and advance their living standards within the society I would like I would like a society where there was an employee and employer relations I would like an end to industrial safe now if you want an end to industrial safe give us a classless society where there are no employers and employees and I knew that there'll be no conflict and then we'll look at the grass the gross national product and apportion it and evaluate each person's contribution to society and reward them accordingly then I believe in an incomes policy but not under the sir well meeting appoint you there's been they've been invited the trade union movement the invite is the word to have a one-day national strike right yeah what on earth good is that going to do Jimmy to anybody now let me make this point see we talk about powerful people in this society and you know if you read William Hickey in one of her prominent newspapers you would think that the powerful people are the captains of industry stockbrokers bankers you know and other people you see a horse shoes accessory our Royal Ascot oh all the important people it well I'm prepared to volunteer the services of the claimed workers will build boots luxury yachts will fill them full of food and all the rest of it and we'll send these powerful important people in British society during the Seas of the world for six or nine months and you know something we wouldn't notice their absence unless some society columnist drew our attention to it because it don't really matter but let the workers what the doctor is going seventeen is that they say they're having a holiday and Britain's in the brink of a national disaster because it's their Dockers it's the engineers it's a real women it's the workers are the really powerful people in a society and I think if the TU c-collar generals take one day at least there will be a demonstration to the workers of who's the real power in this line because we produce the wealth wealth isn't produced in any boardroom is produced in the factory floor and it will demonstrate that fact to the workers in the first instance and give them a renewed confidence and their power and in their ability to shape developments and their own destinies and I think that's the importance of this too you see decision well let's go to the audience now let's widen list a bit to some of those people who worked in there I want somebody who is opposed to what mr. Reid has just said would that be you there madam you are sorry mrs. King and what are you mrs. King I didn't happen yes Jimmy Reed alright Jimmy Reed says that he would like a classless society and yet these trade union leaders set themselves up on their stool they absolutely browbeat their members it seems to me in order to keep them where they should be which is at the bottom to their top and why is it that a person who joins the Union must necessarily be expected to be a mere sycophant to the union leaders and why when the man at the hospital the other day went in and saw the conditions that were in his hospital and he could no longer find them acceptable because he had seen them why was it that uni leaders came back to him and said no he was wrong he must still not do his job surely to goodness that is a class class society with the Lee Union leaders at the top absolutely distinct ating to their members at the bottom I think it's a very good point the idea of trade union leaders beating the rank and file into militant action is in my experience so far removed from reality and quantified and quantified in point of fact it's the rank and file that pressurize often trade union leaders for not an identifiable file a criticism of treating your leaders in general it's precisely that they are not sufficiently in contact with the members that pay their salaries and order if I on their behalf and less understanding of the realities of life for their members I am against freedom bureaucrats the queerest yes absolutely yeah absolutely it's one of the one of the sicknesses in the teaching in movement and that is personal career is it can I come down no there's a trade unionist there was saying rubbish Jimmy when you were yeah you are mr. mr. Michael Sunnis or missus Eric see what you are a trade unionist yeah you are yeah the shop steward yep yes you are right well you disagree with Jimmy about well let's go back to the one day political strike that my union had I won't mention the union that makes me a spokesman 98 percent of my people wanted nothing whatever to do with it but it was my union who went to conference and raised their hands and when they were travelling back on the train today the held we'd had our people but the we volunteered for a strike for a one-day strike another section of the same firm said we will black your product if you don't come out so I stood on a railway crossing at 6 o'clock one morning with the glorious triumphant union officials realizing that all my men had lost today's pay and that strike achieved what I knew it would achieve exactly nothing what do you want to say to Jimmy about that well Jimmy says that the officials don't dictate to their members yes a jolly well do yes and but the other thing that Jimmy says which I approve of very much is that we don't know the trade union leader and they are elected by a tremendously small percentage of trade unionism we don't know them and Impe has got to come to his town he's got to give his promises he breaks them later but he's got to come and give them her whichever party is in the trade union leader doesn't appear so there's a gentleman that done what mr. Reid was saying about in the oz build that there's this you know the unions are driving us the driving force behind the workers this isn't true because I come from the witness Ospital which is one of the biggest hospitals in the country and there's no union representative come even dentists on this strike this has come at the vote there was as about 600 people there not to vote for destroy there was seven against and there isn't a union man there and it's the big one of the biggest hospitals in a country if they can only fold one steward for the old of the hospital surely it must be the workers or behind for the playing preseason it's not the steward pushing because there's no military there's none metal of any time no just one no listen this is I don't need you to develop this into it as a Union bashing program or a pro-union problem whatever there was something else that's why do you have a little bit further I'm sure the unions will still come into it something that Kenneth said also in that in that little argument that we had killed which is about the opportunities available in Britain today you seem to be taking the point of view and I had a lot of reaction on this that no matter where you were in society that if you had it you get there and that there were people who got that gift and they go that's fine the other will let them stick yes yes well I think that what we've got all got to agree about is that there must be some general premise from which we start and obviously start an agreement otherwise there's no point we just sit here exchanging dogmatism and we get nowhere so let's all agree on something fundamental like say man's in alienable right to choice I think James would agree with that wouldn't you every man should in any decent healthy society have the ability to choose for himself what he wants to do what he wants to make his ends he should have the ability to choose what he should make his ends now when that same man tells me that wicked means justify those in I'm afraid I'm against him I am not ever on ever any occasion going to say that wicked means justify good ends if you tell me that in killing several people we're going to achieve what's going to be very good afterwards I'm gonna say to you it's not worth it because human life is sacred now I'm not interested in this end process which is going to arrive at some other date in this sense you see Christianity and communism are at one they all offer us paradise is somewhere else you know after the five-year plan is gonna be lovely after no it's gonna be lovely I want to know now and in the society I was born about living in the society I was brought up in now was available you guy grow the public library and read about English literature for free I heard the National Gallery see everything from a Van Dyck to any of the Impressionists for nothing I could go and read books I could go and see lovely pictures I've always been very interested in both I could hear lovely music for free lunchtime concerts organized by Seema and all those sorts of organizations they're still available to people too and so if we're talking about the quality of life and certainly I think it's the quality of life that makes an individual interesting then I think our society as we know it today gives us the opportunity to win to indulge ourselves in enjoying there is quality but I think it must also ensure that the man has does have the right to choose now if that man wants to choose as his ins say Christianity I think he's every right to pursue them and I think we must in our society knowledge his right to pursue those ends if in pursuing them he gets in the way of an awful lot of people and causes bloodshed and suffering then I don't think his means to that end can be a justified the society does enough that's less we just saying society is a very good one just prepared it with sound in the world well then all right there are some people in this audience who would disagree with you actually on that and I know one is mrs. Diana Pierce who wrote you a letter words don't Pierce there you are don't know you took Kenneth up on this very point didn't you you could you tell me at you your mother I've got three sons yes and well my eldest son is eight years of age he has shown to have a potential in mathematic our greatest dream for him is to go to a school not far from where we live which is a wonderful school and would help him fulfill his potential the uniform for this school alone would be in the region of six er pound we couldn't afford that just the uniform alone let alone exchange holidays to help further in the course of this education and even if we could manage to afford this money somehow I've two other sons also to bring up on the three no I mean how can we choose one of them hmm and what he was saying basically them was what was the basic disagreement you'll have with Kenneth you say we've got choice my three sons yes they have choice they can decide as on our level my husband is a factory worker their choice at the moment is whether to go into factory work as a father does or to start this fight in ordinary schools and if they're very very lucky they possibly can make it no matter what their potential is it's locking in all these cases yeah good point in the unit the missus mrs. Reed is it sorry would you agree that the freedom for you to talk the way you're talking now is perfectly valid in itself it is a valid freedom thank you and would you also agree that by your voicing the complaint you have now voiced there is a probability that your complaint will be heard by somebody who will react to it do you think that is a possibility I dearly hope so miss appears you are able to do it aren't you yes and so there is a validity in that freedom isn't there yes there is Thank You Kenneth can I make a point here about freedom of choice freedom of choice I mean all of us are free tomorrow to put our names down on a list to buy a Rolls Royce that's a freedom that applies to all of us only some of us can exercise that freedom of choice 99% of us can't when we come in London police when I come in London I'm free to stay Savoy but it's a freedom that an abstract freedom so far as I'm concerned because I it's not people have choices available to me and to the great majority of the does it revelation and people with it a little bit invalid listen Jess does feel saying go do this much go get freedom of the press in this country but an order I'll get the same freedom as Cermak sidqin the only thing is he's a multi-millionaire right there has a newspaper right so he can exercise that freedom of the press that's there and dictate editorials that are in line with his ideological thinking for me and for all of these people as an abstract freedom and I think we should when we talk about freedom we should get from abstractions to reality let me to this point you go not alone this pensioners door and they come down you see how you gonna know man this is terrible and incidentally let's face it there was an old woman and lover pill was found in a house choked to death because she was eating cardboard and in the same paper we had some other fellow nobody enterprises spent half a million ponen on an aeroplane half a billion pound but that three bedrooms in his aeroplane you go to the old each paints and you see where I'll look to pop all key then you're having a hard time of it you want to go a few quid yes I can't even get tobacco you're not into well no I hardly see meat you see haha don't worry you're free you'll follow policy I am free stabbed now I tell you let's dig liked each Shelly's mask of Anarchy but it talks about what is freedom freedom also is to have the freedom to bring up your children in such a way is to realize the full potential to be free from the fear of poverty to be free from the fear of war these are all these are freedoms which I find establishment politicians never talk about and the woman's quite rate the freedom of choice that you're talking about in a whole vast area as non-existent for the great majority of working-class people in this country is an abstraction well correct let's do David Hart I think where's David Hart because he wrote on there David David did you do I think there's that something that you basically agree with what you just said what Jim is saying is I I didn't actually write in and and I was invited ah now that that I say that because that changes the category I'm in yes and I'm interested for example in in this situation when we were warming up beforehand you said to us in fact somebody else to producer said it earlier - we've got no pundits here we've got no experts we've got you who are ordinary people now that category of ordinary people seems to make a cultural category which is again perpetuating an idea that that somehow were here but we're not ready to be taken seriously that we're not expected really to be responsible for what we're doing but we I'm not sure what it is there's a kind of fashionable thing now about listening to ordinary people politicians talk about the man in the street the mass of the people and I don't think of myself like that but there are enormous pressures you know not to be not to feel serious not to feel as if you matter yes yes but I think that's present in our the quality of our discussion - you very much idea that we're not series and we are being seen that we are here as ordinary people who are not in quite excited you not being it's a general it's a general category that one finds oneself in oh and the famous you should raise that point cuz lots of people have said again and again in this country or why doesn't he stick to his job you know make people laugh what rights he got to discuss this and that and the other and especially about sub you see there's nothing about all that kind of thing goes on well on that ground you might as well say that when you appoint a man a minister of say of Agriculture and Fisheries and this goes on be a socialist administration or a conservative one he may well never have done it he had car or fishing in his life but he does take the department over and very often you know in England has run it very efficiently there have been examples of it with plenty of ministers who have done that and you could call it less if here but it still works and works very well I seriously can I bring rods boysson in here who is the headmaster of a comprehensive school in London Rhodes you want to say something about what Jimmy was saying yes and also about the question of freedom of choice um be the lady we talked to before yes with with three children because it's a real problem to her I don't think well I would say for a beginning on this that we're probably as open societies that will we will ever achieve we will improve but we could go back I don't think you'll ever get a hundred percent effective educational system no more than you will get a hundred percent effective engine I mean in so far that the Prime Minister himself that uh that Harold Wilson that the head of the Civil Service all came from Arne Riise schools through the system I mean I believe Sir William Armstrong started in London in an intermediate school and before he transferred to a grammar schools they exist at that time sure that people come to the top and I was brought up in Lancashire the main the people who grew up with me of university professors and lecturers etc etc and we did Boston a Labour Minister Ball State six or seven years ago in Europe that we had a higher percentage of university intake from the working-class than any other country in the Western world and Jim Erie and I may fall out about this but I would say even probably east of the Iron Curtain from what figures of six or seven articles that I've come across from the percent is growing up there what we have to move to is as an open educational system as is possible now on this particular problem here people who have enough money have choice to buy outside the system to an extent so the people inside in many cases have no choice because they paid their right rates and taxes and there is not enough left after that to have the effective choice what we have to do and this it this boils down to Cannes Williams freedom as well and I'm a great believer in this freedom and the the self motivation of this is to organize a system whereby it by a parent power or choice of school or the giving of a voucher for choice of school that parents can't pressurize the system the way they want it I mean you're moving at the present time from this country from a bipartite system where look there's something like 25% past eleven plus and it was 10 percent inefficient and 90% efficient and then we're going to a system of comprehensive schools which are really neighborhood schools on the American pattern there were ghettos the the the the difference is just the same except can you afford to buy a house now in the good catchment area that comprehensive school that's sending people up to university not the other we moved we thought we were moving towards a more equal society it is quite possible that we shall be looking in 10 or 15 years time and saying it is probably hard to come back through our neighborhood schools unless you have vast Community Development and EPA within it the NIC was before and I don't think there is a millennium we have to move to this could I just make one pick Jimmy read up on one of the point please which worries me and I you know I would hope it worried him so that you could perhaps help me to get a solution for it and that is despite deprivation and many of us have come from similar backgrounds to the the two speakers today the amazing thing was that against that deprivation many people came through like German Reid and Ken Williams did themselves with different views of the present point of time we seem to stretch a more and more organized education that if it goes at 5:00 in the t-state till 21 almost all not to make it escalator and yet one wonders the amount of a real education that's coming at the end you were talking about music and I mean I'm not a great music there's other things like literature and theology which I enjoy reading set up of a similar nature but in the 19th century my own native Lancashire of which I ranked in the 1880s there was one period before Christmas the Sunday before Christmas when out of a town of thirteen thousand seven thousand seven the Messiah in the churches now I'm not saying they should all ring sing religious music but they sang it there was at that time seven cooperative movements in that town etc etcetera friendly societies now after structuring education to the extent we've got in supposed to increasing opportunity and it has as non society we have a situation now where there's no choirs in house London I don't live there now I'm in London obviously hi brain there are no brass bands in haslund and there are no cooperative societies it's like Marks and Spencers it's part of profit of retail and you know I think when we're moving forward to the future we have to move very carefully realizing that we've probably assault when societies we are likely to get and unless we are careful in what we are doing we may blow the whole thing up and go back again I think he I must take the gentleman up on a point I think that statistics show that the percentage of working class kids going into university has increased as a part of the overall university population and indeed it's revealing to try and show the advances made socially by the underprivileged of the working class that the statistics bear out that the percentage over forty or forty years as buying lives remained unchanged there are more working-class kids going to university but as the same percentage of a greater total now I'm not making that point on its own because I am a believe in comprehensive education but I do not believe that the theory of comprehensive education will work without accompanying social policies and I accept this fact that if you have a neighborhood school and an underprivileged working class ghetto and Glasgow or London they feel to attract teachers for a go off and many other things and therefore we can't try and think of education as something that can be divorced by other social developments and if you want my general opinion education I think it's true structure lies in a certain sense I would rather see the essence of comprehensive education as something that believes fundamentally that each human being has got some potential to be developed and that therefore the whole object of education should be to develop whatever latent talents each person has to the fool and order that they can can contribute it to society satisfaction of everyone I thank irony well I I feel this much that's the most cynical observation in the human can I see well how do you have for the fact that some people are born with brain damage well that if you do may be seen so is an argument for special remedial measures to try and that person born with brain damage is able to maximize his contribution to society and his fellow human beings and I will not accept any genetical argument based on the unfortunates happy to be born or any people born that haven't got genetic differences following the failure of the open letter saying calm grain listen I'm prepared to accept that there are genetic differences but one is suggests something you said are you going to tell me that they're the main determining factor and how a person reaches a certain status potential yes not a lot of job the open society I won't ask you a question if you had been born sissie at 50 years old 50 47 year I'm sorry your wife answer them if you don't disappoint me okay you're 47 at 47 years ago you'd been born into a primitive tribe in Borneo wooju genetic superiority have established you and a status of society we had a headmaster of a comprehensive school or a senior secondary high random of course not I might feel a bit left I might have been a tribal chief now let's see social circumstances have a large genetic potential and I mean and it's our job in society to bring it all right but I still think there will be difference is that some people can run yes exactly there are always will be differences and the brain is a physical function so you see we accept that we want the differences anyway let's all have differences it makes life wonderful the people are different [Music] yes I mean you can say something very personal on this car shot brain damage yes he's at a special school and he is being educated to the best of the National Health ability and we have been told by psychologists that one day Nicholas will pass the boundaries of normality whatever they are there are clinics throughout this world it's specialized in this and my dream of course is to date Nick to one of these just what to let him have a chance a game comes into our money sister after my our basic finances have been paid out we've got a five or a week left of paper holidays clothes Christmas birthdays education so where doesn't that come in we simply cannot take him I mean we can't realize this potential I mean we must cross our fingers and wait and hope you know in this it's wrong that can't be right can rich of course it's just being said there yeah but Jimmy out on the point that every human being has equal potential they haven't not every human being here nobody's here well but I'm so a back to the main corner I mean there's a situation where sudden I didn't say they had equal potential I say every human being has got potential and let's develop that potential to the maximum I mean it's absurd to see that everyone has equal potential well that's not true you've know that the brain of Einstein I've no debris no you have a very good lot of potential what a good thing we are different yes indeed probably the potential let's let's develop each person's yes well I live in a society which gave me many opportunities to develop it right in a society which I have it's easily draw and I actually love the idea of rich men writing about in roads Roy Smith cars I don't want one myself I like the idea of lazy I like like yeah I actually like the idea of ladies drifting about in mink but I don't want mink I don't even want to make jockstrap I real and I think the idea of someone that does want it is very nice and the same way I think the idea of a Solzhenitsyn writing his books is very nice nothing a government represses him is wrong but never mind about mink jockstraps and stuff like that I mean what about mrs. Pierce his kid I mean that's terribly important any society that doesn't help her the fullest is wrong locally wrong well then let me here you are let me justify that situation well I'm saying that we've all got in our society the chance of choice I am NOT saying we've got a perfect society I'm not saying that for a minute I don't think one exists in the world and I think when you find this utopia there'll be very little left to aspire mrs. Pierce can I have you again I want Nicholas to reach for the stars and possibly this never will be perhaps he'll only be a little boy who picks daisies but I want him to give you the very best daisy picker that there ever was you see this is really getting to the nub of the problem or the issue you see listen Kenneth what's life all about I mean if you die and somebody says this fellow had a house and money cattle 22 rooms we had a house in London and Nash terraces it had shooting estate in Scotland and he had color televisions and every damned room that he owned including a toilet and goodbye Joe Bloggs you have been a success and my opinion has been an abysmal failure but if somebody dies and they say on his death that he's advanced and improved the human condition even if it's a little bit that life's been more significant than all the mansions and all the wealth and all the success in their rat race that anyone might achieve yes when I see the mrs. Peter she shouldn't be it shouldn't be a question of going to the States for treatment for our son we should be fighting here in Britain because we are a rich country to have priorities that pay attention to children such as your child but your children they live in the future to my and my opinion that a person's attitude towards children is a giveaway to the humanity and if we've got a negative let the big fish eat the reef fish mentality let us all grovel and backstab and probably to the top then in my opinion they they may be a success by normal evaluations and normal standards but by any human standards of decency there are business human failures and I think I support can I can I put a point to you though now and this goes back to me I was saying to earlier when I was trying to get out to view what the purpose of unions were I don't think it takes a stretch of the imagination Jimmy to take mrs. Pierce's case to say that her husband's a member of the Union why isn't that Union doing something about her child [Music] it's a fair point no it's not really honestly mate what I'll tell you I'll tell you why it's not a fair point tell why it's not a fair point because unions shouldn't be charitable organizations they should be fighting for a living standard for the people of this country that doesn't require charity that they get things which are given by charity so-called or the people are given charity they feel good and my opinion the society that we should be striving for is one in which charity is unnecessary in the sense that it's thought of the day because it should be human rights it should be the right of each human being and the union's can't undertake that responsibility first of all you're taking on the responsibility of society you should be spending your money to change society and order that charities in that sense are unnecessary talking about the educational change that they need and the medical change and so why don't we have them talking about this because it is true that they're mostly talking about having more money and so on and more time off no I don't hear it I accept I mean I'm not clear as an apologist for the teaching in movement in Britain as Esther day what I am saying is that without the trade union movement the living standards and conditions of the ordinary working class family of this country will be far worse than they are today it's by no means perfect and many instances that more abundant in many instances there's a lack of creative thinking about whether three junior movements going what this attitude should be how it should be investing yes and the education of young trade unionists to make them better trade unionists and that would be more effective to genius I'm not here as an apologist for all the blemishes than the changing in movement I would like to improve the teaching movement by Al argue the fundamental case that they are a engine room for social progress and social advance in this country I defy anyone to tell me that that's not the case kula hello gentle never the center unions do educate people I left school when I was 14 I worked in the pit for 20 years pulling about on the cold face like an animal through the Union I got day release course from day release course I've got the University where I'm studying now only through a trade union not through the educational system or anything else I was a cast-off at 14 but there's an argument to be made you mean there's always trying to say when we were discussing Mister Twister that the unions ought to have a bigger base altogether that they ought to spread in tourism it might seem a wild idea but it's worth considering except they can't take the responsibility for these things they should be agitating and can't be an example they say the unions faces are higher on these pension systems and using our industrial power for hire all these pensions but you can't you can't expect the unions to pay for higher on these pensions it's just an actuarial and possibility for them to do that what they can do is use their industrial power not only for those workers who are employed at this moment of their certain bargaining counter but to use it also for the underprivileged for the old-age pensioners and all the rest of it because I'm after all the old expenses are suffering this country are working class all these pencils I think like I do have to go right now but the plant that makes this we obviously have equal ground we do have some equal ground and this is the most important thing in any energy society isn't it the areas on which one can find common agreement I think the Forester argument only Connect is a valid one don't you think it's important it's a virus so I think all this really arose out of it Germans comment on the desecration of our environment by terrible office blocks and things which have dehumanized many areas of society why I cited the instance of the killer a property developer yes what was of course with me so my point was that should not not have happened and I said moreover the office development permit which was brought into being by George Brown was deported far far too late you know him in the last two years yet government should be introduced part earlier in other words the priority should have been Holmes and this is what the discussion came out of because I did say people should march about that as an issue because a roof over your head seems to me to be a fundamental right and I think that anyone who cashes in on human need and I regard housing food and and common grounds education as a common need i think anyone who cashes in on that is little shortness control and there's a lot of that cashing in going on there is something of property all these things that have gone on you know it goes on the ordinary working man's caught in the same trap because I say to emmaus more for your house because you want if you want a better pun you won't get any less you ask more you don't need so he's caught in the same trap as me the ordinary little man who owns a house I mean not particularly well he is he's caught in a jacket because he must well he's gonna provide us if he wants another room for another child or whatever he wants yes and he wants to move the agent says to him we know this goes on ask more than you paid well I saw Alf gun that the other night that a few months ago actually he's a sickness in look at this the Tories have made me a wealthy property owner this house is worth ten thousand pounds so his son-in-law says but Souza host next door and saw the host next door and saw the host next door that and the mother ship son nor isn't this is why no she says that was bombed that's where the butcher part is valued I don't know if you saw that button so it's only a cash value a few houses enhanced and volumes worth ten thousand pounds if you want to buy a house for a the room it's got it cost you twelve or fourteen thousand pounds by definition the Lefferts it's only paper values are the real the real scandals are the property developer that's particular izing but in general we're agreed right that you should not cash in on your right so i think the priorities of government good government ensure that for a start you don't when you're not allowed to cash in on human need ie that property should not be allowed to take precedence over homes domestic homes for people can I give you a definition I think you may agree with there's a society should be run on the basis of social need and not [Applause] privatizing is a priority you would not agree or absolutely right so service is right and social food food should be at a price that if I could have Falls and get plenty of if they want clothing obviously yeah should not be prohibitive yes clothing is another human need then we come into an education because isn't the priorities aren't there's got to be a net priority yeah education now I have a lien is one of the few people that has said I mean I'm talking about people what I would call weighty academic status that obviously class rancher in schooling should be abolished and it's obvious that it should there was no child should stop start off with any kind of handicap and he is going to start off with a handicap no matter how much he knows if his accent doesn't fit família right yeah so that is another priority isn't it I think a reform education right I think you'll be joining a Charlotte that's great yes absolutely but he's a fundamental issues yeah why is he if the pivot I'm we've had a citrus illustration in this country and incidentally when Howard was came to office many many of my friends said when Howard was at him it was at last we're gonna see the end of the jobs for the boys and this planning crap that goes on for office blocks everywhere we're gonna see the end of that we're gonna see people placed as a priority one instead we see we saw office block gap all the time absolutely and if you had a law tomorrow passed to say just this that all property in London that was originally built for domestic usage should be returned to it you would no longer have homeless people in London now that is a fact because so much has been you served their domestic property in London which is been user CiCi's and if your answer that is old drive them out in your drive out of source of employment I say you weren't because they're officer before through the suburbs where there are masses of dormitory towns anyway but absolutely arguments in ever more profound things like opportunities and things and frustrations in people in this country which are undeniably there I mean never mind about office blocks and things like that there are more other more important things than that would mean duska disgusting here well James and I had to get our priorities and Weber send these our priorities James cream either they were didn't you I agree that they're certainly priorities I agree with all the priorities that you've established I've gotta make this point amend you the in job satisfaction there's what's happening Kenneth an industry whether you know or not in order to maximize the profit margins on capital investment they're most shift won't know more tiresome repetitive jobs shift workers almost by definition antisocial there's more injuries are cutting an endless you know this is part of the scene which a lot of sociologists deliberately in my opinion ignore there are real problems of the over centralization of economic decision-making and big and big and big and bigger monopolies big business combines the centralization of political decision-making and there's a whole structure being developed whereby the people feel that they are worth any of the real decision-making processes in our country right let me reply that you are adding to it in actual fact by referring to them in this way James because you're giving them a power they don't possess you're you're saying in using phrases like power of the Arts monopolies they're they are controlled by Sun burger let's get it in virtually so don't make him make them out to be monolithic and fabulous that you can't reach them you can reach them and the trade union movement in terms of the tea you see could keep round at the table the government the legislators and stick their night-in night-out if necessary they care enough and yes are compromised because compromise there must always be no talk to the coach what does that mean in detail I mean you talk about putting a knife in and probably what does it mean putting a what what what does it mean this how that's gonna happen I mean what what what do you want the to eat till you see to do we've listed our priorities yeah I know but you're not gonna get it from talking no let's see but do you know why these trade union and government talks just failed quite recently God because the priority of pensions was not on the agenda and the government refused to talk to the trade union leaders on the questions of pensions and that is one of the criteria why those discussions failed what would happen if they refused to finish the discussion and just sat there and sat there and sat there and said you'll have to remove as bodily we're gonna sit here until we do I'll get an answer do get a compromise because all of living is a compromise all of living is comprised of man and his wife will tell you they're living together happily is some sort of compromise it has to be for her to retain her individuality and for him to retain his all of life is a compromise on the basis of that there are eight million people living together at our old age pensioners who have to compromise who have to compromise with our society to try to live on the bare minimum pensions that his government allows it and the point that you made earlier in your program the other program about the trade unions only demanding wages safety is one of our demands pensions a my own hoon in the transport and general Workers Union of ladyness the pensions campaign we've had two national stoppages inviting our members to support us we have had two rallies in London where our cab section actually ferry pensioners from the stations from the bus depots to the house of commons to lobby so that they could put over their demands voluntary trade union members but all agreements eventually are made around a table aren't they no agreements are made with paving stones no I mean wasn't it we've got a we've got open means I do not I mean surely you agree about that certainly certainly we were at the end there's never enough W Jimmy gone I want to make a point here if Vic feather sat in a room with Ted Heath and just was content to talk to him some many instances compromises the is an outcome sometimes where the principles involved or something else there's got to be fought for beyond cook they compromise if there's a fundamental principle but if you sit around the table as you're talking perfectly in a protracted way as if that's going to move this government I think feathers will come out of the discussions at some stage rather with political hemorrhoids you will need to involve the industrial power of the working class to shift and change a government that's not prepared to budge otherwise she says to the unions no surrender I think the unions to say to to heath no surrender on earth a members a interests and more faith of you want a confrontation will have a confrontation but you've made the confrontation knows it's going to come in a can if I'm afraid well I'll take that or we might get nothing well I do think one of the good things that comes out of it all is that we do live in a society where we can say these things and the probability is and all education does begin somewhere with listening to somebody and imbibing something of their ideas I think jus quote surely wasn't it earlier on and as I said we are a product of everything we've ever loved and indeed that is true something brushes off on all of us and I do like life common our garden or what you will and I do get a thrill from it still and that'll teach me never to be rude to you again won't it no I don't mind you being rude I know what I'm born and mulignans no I don't mind that well that's it sir a thank you Jimmy Reed thank you thank you Kenneth Williams and the audience - thank you very much indeed until next week goodbye [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

Channel: George Fairbrother

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Length: 71min 13sec (4273 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 22 2020