Shelagh Delaney is interviewed by an alien in 1959

The latest Backlisted podcast is a great edition on Shelagh Delaney and her 1958 play A Taste of Honey. It was her first play, written and produced before she was 20. It was then filmed in 1962 with Rita Tushingham, Dora Bryan and Murray Melvin.

As the Backlisted blurb asks:

How did a Salford teenager change the face of British theatre? Nearly 70 years on, why do the play's themes and characters continue to resonate in the 21st century? And what did Shelagh Delaney do for an encore (and why do so few people know about it)? This show will open your eyes.

The show certainly reminds us that the modern world did not start with the Beatles. Take the interview above from 1959, which you can hear in it.

Delaney comes over as a thoroughly contemporary figure, while the interviewer sounds like an alien. Where did he learn to pronounce the world "play" like that? 

It would be comforting to think his assumptions that Delaney must had help to write the play and faint derision for her "native Lancashire" are equally strange to us now, but I'm afraid I often hear echoes of such views.

I can't recommend this edition of Backlisted highly enough. Listen out for an anecdote about an exchange between Dirk Bogarde and Murray Melvin during the filming of HMS Defiant. 

And let's end this post with a piece of A Taste of Honey trivia from 2003:

Earlier in the day Home Office Minister and Salford MP, Hazel Blears, revealed that she appears in kitchen sink classic, A Taste of Honey, shown at the Festival. "They filmed it at the bottom of our road" she recalled "And I was in one scene wearing bunches and a little kilt. My brother sang `The Big Ship Sails On The Ally Ally O'..."

A Taste of Honey and well-scrubbed urchins

Embed from Getty Images

Back in 2008 I quoted Hazel Blears' memories of appearing in A Taste of Honey as a little girl:

"The director wanted a couple of street urchins in the film and saw me and my brother playing in the street, asked me mum if we could be in the film and, being the proud working-class woman that she is, she made absolutely sure we had our Sunday best clothes on and were all scrubbed up.

This evening Talking Pictures TV screened a tribute to the wonderful Dora Bryan. In it, Rita Tushingham told the same story of street urchins turning up for the filming in their Sunday best.

Farewell to Dora Bryan

Dora Bryan has died at the age of 91. She had a long life, made difficult later on by illness. As the BBC tribute suggests, she specialised in scene-stealing cameos rather than great roles.

We have already seen her as Rose, the tart with the heart of gold, in The Fallen Idol. So here she is as the mother at the start of A Taste of Honey. She also took part in cinema's greatest train chase in Great St Trinian's Train Robbery.

Trivia fans may be pleased to learn that one of the children singing the song is Hazel Blears' brother.

John Cryer in The Railway Children

At one time this blog was greatly exercised by the appearance of future Labour MPs in films.

There was Hazel Blears in A Taste of Honey (though that photo is not a still from the film) and Stephen Pound in Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush.

Now Amber Elliott on Total Politics has come up with another example. A very young John Cryer, now MP for Leyton and Wanstead, appeared in The Railway Children - and she has a photo to prove it.

John's father Bob Cryer, himself a Labour MP, was a great supporter of the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway - the preserved line where the film was shot.

When discussing this enthusiasm of mine in my New Statesman column I added:

I have also been told that Glenda Jackson, an obscure backbencher who was briefly a transport minister, appeared in a film once. It sounds unlikely to me.

And if you are interested in future (or past) Liberal MPs in films, see this post.

House Points: Antisocial Labour

Today's House Points from Liberal Democrat News.

True to form

When Labour popularised the idea of "antisocial behaviour" in the years before 1997, Liberals worried that we would see the police concerning themselves low-level nuisance behaviour by children and teenagers.

Because whenever the concept was invoked by Labour politicians they bundled these nuisances together with elements of obvious criminality like vandalism and aggressive begging.

It hasn’t turned out like that. When a senior Leicestershire police officer addressed the inquest into the deaths of Fiona Pilkington and her daughter in September he said: "I'm not sure if people know but low-level anti-social behaviour is mainly the responsibility of the council."

It looks as though Labour’s championing the concept of “anti social behaviour” has resulted in actions that were once seen as criminal is now taken more lightly. Chalk another one up to Tony Blair.

The death of Fiona Pilkington (who killed herself and her daughter after years of harassment) was in the mind of all MPs on Monday when a debate on antisocial behaviour. There was just one problem. The Pilkingtons lived in Barwell in Leicestershire. And Barwell is in the constituency of David Tredinnick.

We last saw him two weeks ago speaking on remote healing and Chinese astrology. He began appropriately enough this time, but he went on. And on. And on. He was pulled up twice by the deputy speaker but didn’t get the message until, as he was discussing Leicestershire long alley skittles, he was heckled from his own side. “Come on. There are six other people who want to speak,” growled Brooks Newmark.

A few brief points from the debate.

Chris Huhne complained that the ministry of justice is not implementing nationally a successful Liverpool community justice experiment. But I wonder if he is right. Local schemes often succeed because of remarkable individuals and unique conditions. They cannot always be reduced to bullet points on a set of PowerPoint slides.

Hazel Blears, we can exclusively reveal, is still alive. She is as partisan as ever and still paints Salford as a communitarian Shangri-La.

The Conservatives’ shadow home affairs minister is James Brokenshire. Is a broken shire part of David Cameron’s “broken Britain”?

And does Brooks Newmark have a sheepskin coat and a moustache? With a name like that he certainly ought to.

Daily Telegraph puts Shahid Malik in the frame - and exposes Hazel Blears

Tomorrow's Daily Telegraph turns its attention to the justice minister Shahid Malik.

As with all these expenses reports, it is hard to judge its truth or fairness until their had been wider debate. But one fact strikes me.

The Telegraph says:

Since being elected in 2005, Mr Malik has claimed the maximum amount allowable for a second home, amounting to £66,827 over three years. Last year, he claimed £23,083 from the taxpayer for his London town house, equivalent to £443 per week. The Telegraph can disclose that the “main home” for which Mr Malik pays out of his own pocket - a three-bedroom house in his constituency of Dewsbury, West Yorks - has been secured at a discounted rent of less than £100 per week from a local landlord who was fined for letting an “uninhabitable” house.

What did Hazel Blears say the other day while waving that £13,000 cheque in our faces?

Challenged over why she "flipped" the designation of her second home, Blears said she was "forced" to name her constituency address as her second home by Commons officials: "The only reason that my Salford home was designated my second home was at the insistence of the fees office, who said that when you become a minister you live in London."

But it is clear from Shahid Malik's case that ministers can have their main residence outside London if they choose. So it looks as though Hazel was not telling the truth.

Has Hazel Blears signed away her political career?

Until I saw her flourishing that cheque on the news yesterday, I had some sympathy for Hazel Blears. Like Iain Dale, I suspected that No. 10 was encouraging the press to go after her to deflect attention from other ministers who had made embarrassing expense claims.

Now I sincerely hope her career is over.

As Craig Murray says:

the sight of a "Public servant" who can at the drop of a hat dash off a current account cheque for over £13,000 is deeply unedifying. For more than half her constituents, that cheque was for more than a year's income after tax and national insurance. It was nearly three years of the state pension.

Her actions yesterday treated the voters with contempt. I look forward to her sacking in Gordon Brown's forthcoming reshuffle.

Something else. In a report in this morning's Guardian says:

Challenged over why she "flipped" the designation of her second home, Blears said she was "forced" to name her constituency address as her second home by Commons officials: "The only reason that my Salford home was designated my second home was at the insistence of the fees office, who said that when you become a minister you live in London."

This cannot possibly be true. Whips office minister Baroness Thornton, for instance, claims that her main residence is the bungalow occupied by her mother in Yorkshire. (Later. And Shahid Malik is another example.)

How much simpler things must have seen when Blears was a little girl.

Hazel Blears slams Gordon Brown shock

Could it be that the cabinet is working up the collective courage to dump Gordon Brown?

In an article in tomorrow's Observer Hazel Blears has an obvious dig at the prime minister:

I'm not against new media. YouTube if you want to. But it's no substitute for knocking on doors or setting up a stall in the town centre.

And her analysis of this government's weakness is spot on:

All too often we announce new strategies or five-year plans, or launch new documents – often with colossal price tags attached – that are received by the public with incredulity at best and, at worst, with hostility.

But isn't that precisely what Labourism involves?

Hazel Blears and Stephen Pound: Film stars

The latest Calder's Comfort Farm can be found on the New Statesman website:

I have been told that Glenda Jackson, an obscure backbencher who was briefly a transport minister, appeared in a film once. It sounds unlikely to me.

Hazel Blears in "A Taste of Honey"?

This blog loves British films and trivial facts. And one of its favourite trivial facts is that Hazel Blears appeared in A Taste of Honey as a little girl.

At the time of Labour's deputy leadership election she reminisced to the Daily Mail:

"The director wanted a couple of street urchins in the film and saw me and my brother playing in the street, asked me mum if we could be in the film and, being the proud working-class woman that she is, she made absolutely sure we had our Sunday best clothes on and were all scrubbed up.

"So, if you ever see A Taste Of Honey, right at the beginning, then you'll see two of the best-dressed urchins that you're ever likely to see.

"You can see me in the opening credits. I'm wearing a tartan skirt and am bouncing a ball.

I have not seen the film, but this interview suggests that this photograph from Britmovie shows a five-year-old Hazel Blears with the film's star Rita Tushingham.

And then there's Stephen Pound in Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush...

Hazel Blears shows Philip Eden was right

The other day I quoted the wise words of Philip Eden:

We should guard against those who argue from the particular to the general, suggesting that, for instance, because it was the wettest month on record at one site in Sheffield, we could then call it Britain's wettest month on record.

If events are too easily labelled as "a new record" or "unprecedented", then the people we pay to keep our infrastructure running have a ready-made excuse for failure ... "It's never happened before so how could we be expected to plan for it?"

As Eden said on the radio a few days before the piece was published, there are many more measurements being taken and collated these days so there are bound to be more records set.

Nor is this a new observation. One of David Nobbs's Reginald Perrin books from the 1970s says at one point something like: "Today was the first day since 1927 that a weather record had not been set".

None of this stopped Hazel Blears falling back on this spurious defence in the Commons yesterday. When John Redwood asked why more than half the flood defences maintained by the Environment Agency in an unsatisfactory condition last year, Blears replied:

As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the events of the past couple of weeks have in everybody’s terms been unprecedented. It is inevitable that whatever the defences we had put in place some would be breached in such circumstances.

As Eden said, "a ready-made excuse for failure".

Andrew Marr disappoints trivia fans

I am watching the second part of Andrew Marr's A History of Modern Britain. Within a few minutes he has shown Anthony Eden and his wife departing for a cruise aboard the RMS Rangitata after he had resigned as prime minister over Suez and a clip from the film of Shelagh Delaney's play A Taste of Honey.

All very interesting.

BUT...

• He did not mention that the steward who looked after the Edens aboard the Rangitata was John Prescott;
• The clip from A Taste of Honey did not feature the young Hazel Blears.

This has to go down as a terrible missed opportunity.

Hazel Blears: A nation holds its breath

An overexcited BBC reports:

Labour chairman Hazel Blears will announce "soon" whether she intends to stand for the party's deputy leadership, the BBC has learned.

I love that "the BBC has learned" to make it sound like an exclusive.

What did the BBC imagine Blears would do? Wait until after the contest? Forget to make an announcement at all?

So on message it hurts

Today's House Points column from Liberal Democrat News.

Waste not

I fear for Hazel Blears. The other day she admitted to doubts about the government’s anti-terrorist legislation: “In my deepest, darkest moments I do struggle with some of this.” When one of Stalin’s henchmen caught himself thinking like that, it was not long before he arrived at a Politburo meeting to find there was no chair for him.

It would be sad to see Hazel Blears exiled, if only for her place in cinema history. She can be seen, in kilt skirt and bunches, in the kitchen sink classic A Taste of Honey. Her brother sings “The Big Ship Sails On The Ally Ally O” – as children did in those days.

But if Blears is sent to the New Labour equivalent of Siberia, they will still have Andy Burnham. He is so on message it hurts.

After the government’s Lords defeat on Monday, he claimed it would be “foolish in the extreme” to reveal how much the identity card scheme would cost. There was no need: KPMG had approved it. And besides: “We can’t just put all the figures out in the public domain because that may lead us not to get the best deal for the taxpayer.”

The people’s representative cannot be shown figures the accountants have seen. And the way to ensure efficient government is to hide it from public scrutiny. You can see why Burnham will never be sent to Siberia.

Meanwhile, the public has to make do with rubbish like the Cabinet Office publication Transformational Government Enabled by Technology. The title is bad, but it’s worse if you open it:

“Government will create an holistic approach to identity management, based on a suite of identity management solutions that enable the public and private sectors to manage risk and provide cost-effective services….”

New Labour used to know better. In the Lords on Monday, Andrew Phillips quoted what Tony Blair said in 1995 when Michael Howard tried to introduce a similar scheme:

“Instead of wasting hundreds of millions of pounds on compulsory ID cards as the Tory Right demands, let that money provide thousands more police officers on the beat in our local communities.”

Mr Blair was right in 1995, and he would be even more right today when the waste runs into billions.

Hazel Blears movie star

From the BBC's Manchester pages:

Earlier in the day Home Office Minister and Salford MP, Hazel Blears, revealed that she appears in kitchen sink classic, A Taste of Honey, shown at the Festival. "They filmed it at the bottom of our road" she recalled "And I was in one scene wearing bunches and a little kilt. My brother sang `The Big Ship Sails On The Ally Ally O'..."

A scene in which the young Blears pressed Harold Macmillan to give police the power to hold terrorist suspects without charge for 90 days was left on the cutting room floor.

The teacher, the sheep and the elephant

Here is today's House Points column from Liberal Democrat News. The first sentence was dropped in the printed version for reasons of space.

Losing our liberties

This is how we lose our liberties in Britain.

At half past three on Monday the Commons settled down to debate the timetable motion on the Prevention of Terrorism Bill – the measure that will bring in house arrest. The motion allowed six hours of debate for the bill and the more than 160 amendments that had been put down.

A rushed programme? No, insisted the junior home office minister Hazel Blears, with the gratingly enthusiastic tone of a primary school teacher, merely a swift one.

It was worse than that. Earlier in the day the Charles Clarke had written to David Davis, his Conservative opposite number, saying the government would introduce amendments when the bill reached the Lords. In other words, the Commons was being asked to spend that six hours discussing clauses the government had already decide to drop.

It was even worse than that. Clarke’s letter had become vital to the day’s proceedings, but few MPs had copies. They asked for a suspension so they could get them. They asked how it could be within the rules to debate something that was not on the order paper. But the farce went on.

At first Hazel Blears was almost alone on the government front bench. Next to her sat David Lammy. This cannot have reassured her. Lammy was involved in December’s shambles over the Mental Capacity Bill, which also involved a letter being given more weight than what was printed on the order paper.

Behind her sat Kali Mountford, one of the home office bag-carriers. Perhaps it is appropriate that the MP for Colne Valley should resemble a sheep so closely. For centuries the wealth of the West Riding rested on the sort of fleece she wears around her head.

From the sheep to the elephant. Charles Clarke and his magnificent ears arrived, and together they spent an hour and a half at the dispatch box. He took dozens of interventions, maintaining throughout a wholly spurious distinction between deprivation of liberty and restriction of liberty.

Sometimes he even got in a sly whack with his trunk: “I’ve had decades of my life being patronised by lawyers and I don’t appreciate it.”

So between them a primary teacher, a sheep and an elephant took us a day nearer to house arrest in Britain.