By Professor John Robertson

Today, on the 58th anniversary of the Aberfan Disaster when 144 died in a mining tip landslide, Richie Venton of the Scottish Socialist Party has written:

Starmer last week declared to the assembled profiteers at his Investment Conference that the Labour government will “rip up red tape” to “unleash growth”. As I’ve written elsewhere, so-called ‘red tape’ is better than red bandages. But in the South Wales pit village of ABERFAN, the man-made disaster didn’t mean injuries, but mass death.

In writing the above, Venton directs us to his 2016 extensive account of the disaster which includes an exposure of the Labour Party’s complicity in a cover-up, to protect establishment figures and to enable their managed decline of the coal industry, including this section, of particular interest to me as a regular critic of the current right-wing Scottish Labour group:

COLLABORATION IN PIT CLOSURES 

Robens [Chair of the National Coal Board] was an archetypal Old Labour power broker and operator. He was firmly on the right-wing of the Labour Party, siding with Hugh Gaitskell against left-winger Nye Bevan, for example. But he maintained points of contact on the left and in the unions in order to wield all the more power, especially as NCB chief. This was particularly so in his collaboration with the national leader of the NUM, Welshman Will Paynter, Communist Party member and veteran of the Spanish Civil War!

Paynter helped Robens wind down the coal industry without mass strikes in opposition. So much so that during Robens’ 10-year tenure at the head of the NCB, the coal industry collapsed from 698 pits employing 583,000 miners to 292 pits with only 283,000 miners. 

Government documents since released under the 30 year rule confirm Wilson’s Labour government kept Robens as head of the NCB, even despite Aberfan, because they believed he was the only man who could manage the decline of the coal industry without provoking mass industrial action. They started the process of dismantling one of the UK’s main industries; a decimation of communities completed in the 1980s by Thatcher’s Tories, after they’d wielded every arm of the state to defeat the miners’ heroic opposition. 

CORPORATE MANSLAUGHTER 

The collaboration and cover-up between the NCB boss and Wilson’s Labour government was made possible by two key factors: the failure by a gullible and obedient press to expose their dirty work, and the complete absence of Corporate Manslaughter legislation. 

This was the UK’s first televised disaster, yet where were the exposés and investigations? The mainstream media – including the newfangled BBC TV – mostly just swallowed the spin of the authorities and did a terrible disservice to the victims and their families.

The absence of a law that holds company chief executives personally responsible for deaths due to the negligence they’ve presided over is a huge gap in health and safety law – which continues to let culpable bosses off the hook, even now, 50 years on from Aberfan. No such law and sanction exists against negligent capitalist bosses, despite the issue being first raised in 1965 – because corporate lobbying of governments has blocked it being introduced. This encourages a culture of neglect, of ‘blurring the edges’ on workplace safety, in pursuit of profit. 

I urge you to read and reflect on the full post by Richie Venton, at: https://richieventon.blogspot.com/2016/10/on-friday-21st-october-1966-240.html

You can find out more about Richie’s long and impressive career as a Scottish trade unionist and political activist at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richie_Venton

You can read more about the Scottish Socialist Party and their sensible democratic socialist policies at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Socialist_Party

If like me, you are attracted to the above and perhaps disaffected by current trends in the SNP, you might consider joining at: https://membership.scottishsocialistparty.org/join_us/