The Irish Journalist


Sipping gin and tonic with the Tory toffs on Queen’s birthday


By Dara Bradley


The West of Ireland Branch of the NUJ broke with tradition and etiquette at this year’s Delegate Meeting in Southport – by


drinking in the local Conservative Club. It’s not the watering hole of choice for trade unionists but, whisper it, we actually enjoyed it. We hadn’t planned to, it just happened. And it


was the Queen’s birthday weekend, after all, so why not? I even got a Snapchat selfie with the Queen’s


portrait, which had pride of place on the wall inside the lounge area. It was touch and go whether we’d be allowed


in. Branch Chairman, Siobhan Holliman, Secretary, Judy Murphy and I (there as branch observer, deputising for Ann Healy IEC) approached tentatively. When we asked if we could have a drink, the


bar lady peeping out through a hatch, paused, looked us up and down three times for what seemed like an age before nodding, and insisting we sign in. So while most of our Comrades enjoyed pints


of plain in the local Weatherspoon’s, we sipped gin and tonics in the local Tory toffs’ meeting place. Her eyebrow was raised when she discovered


we were in town for a trade unionist conference but the welcome was hearty. Turns out she was a fan of newspapers; her


son was even a paper boy, and delivered the local weekly to homes across the town. The place was fairly empty. There were just


four old geezers, who would have been in their prime during Margaret Thatcher’s era, perched at the bar. Oh how times have changed. Four people with


thick Irish accents (Colm Ward of the IEC and Limerick Leader joined us later) sitting and chatting about trade union business in a very British institution like a Conservative club. It just wouldn’t have happened 10 or 15 years ago. The vibe at DM had changed, too. The mood at


my first and only other DM, in Newcastle, four years’ previous was pretty bleak. I accompanied the then West of Ireland Branch


Chair Bernie Ní Fhlatharta, and came away from it disillusioned with the union (there was so much infighting and bitter politicking, and it was in a


perilous financial situation) and with the industry (job l o s s e s a n d redundancies, closures and cuts were rife and nobody had quite figured out how to monetise news on the internet). T h i s DM wa s different. There was less rancour


between members. True, there was the usual factions clashing on certain motions but it was far more cordial than Newcastle. The union, financially, is in a far healthier state. The mood was more positive. A particular highlight was when Irish Secretary


Seamus Dooley bestowed Professor John Horgan with the highest honour the union can give, Member of Honour. A message from President Michael D Higgins was even read out, celebrating Professor Horgan. Another high point was the solidarity DM


showed to the workers at John Taylor ’s newspapers in Northern Ireland, who were due to strike the following week after Southport. Irish organiser Nicola Coleman gave a rousing


speech about the dispute over pay and conditions, which the union has since won. It wasn’t all good news, of course. Helen Goodman, a Labour Party Member of Parliament, gave a frightening statistic during her speech to DM: Since 2011, 150 newspapers have closed and 5,000-plus editorial roles lost. Goodman rightly argued that the loss of these newspapers, mostly local and regional, meant communities were losing the ability to hold local government to account, something that is central to a functioning democracy. Her solution was interesting. She wanted local newspapers to become “assets of community value”, and that the local community would be allowed to buy a title before it is sold or closed down. It’s worked for pubs, she said, why not the news industry. And as the West of Ireland branch found out at DM – it’s worked for the Conservative club!


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