Business of the House

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Thursday 2nd March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I understand the genuine concern about the wide availability of sometimes deliberately misleading information on various websites. Inevitably, the international character of the web means that addressing the problem is not straightforward, but the Minister for Digital and Culture is convening a roundtable of a broad range of people from the news industry on 14 March and this topic will be under discussion.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I met Gerald Kaufman when I came into the House in 1979. He was part of a wonderful gang of people, including John Smith and Roy Hattersley, who were getting used to being in opposition, which we had to get used to because we were going to be in opposition for a very long time. We would all say that Gerald Kaufman was a great parliamentarian, but when I came into the House—when the wind-ups were taken much more seriously, and when debates were taken more seriously in terms of attendance—the one thing that could be guaranteed was that the House would be packed if Gerald Kaufman was at the Dispatch Box. He was the funniest, most incisive and most brilliant debater I ever saw in this House. I have seen some very good debaters in this House, but Gerald in his prime was peerless. People should remember that.

I look at where Gerald sat for so many years and remember him serving on the Liaison Committee with me as the Chair of a Select Committee. As he got older, the wonderful thing about Gerald was that he did not lose any of his brainpower in his later years. His body let him down, but his brain certainly did not.

As some will remember, last year was the centenary of the birth of Harold Wilson. Gerald gave me a tremendous amount of information about when he worked for Harold Wilson in No. 10, and I will tell the House about one little incident. Gerald was in No. 10 one night when the phone rang—it was Lyndon Baines Johnson, the President of the United States, asking to speak to Harold Wilson. Gerald took the phone call and passed it over to Harold Wilson. Lyndon Baines Johnson was begging Harold to send at least a token British force to Vietnam, and Gerald described how Harold listened patiently—he was a good friend of LBJ—and, at the end, said, “I’m sorry, LB. Not even a Scottish pipers band.”

I talked to Gerald about where the party had been, and some Labour Members will remember some of the uncomfortable things from when the Labour party was in trouble. No one has mentioned this, but Gerald was the brains behind Solidarity, the group within the Labour party that wanted to be very careful about a shift to the hard left. That work, with Hattersley, John Smith and a bunch of others, was very important to how the Labour party survived and thrived to win the election in 1997. Labour Members must pay tribute to the man who kept our ship moving towards a decent target.

When I first met Gerald, he had a great friend, Eric Varley. Many people do not remember Eric Varley because he died very young, but he and Gerald were close friends, and I think it right to mention Eric’s name in relation to that period of Gerald’s life when he was a very happy man.

I will tell the House one last story. No one ever wanted to cross Gerald about a film. I remember foolishly going into the Tea Room and being enthusiastic after seeing “Superman” for the first time. Gerald had also been to see it, and he gave a caustic review about everything that was wrong with American cinema at the time, with the plot and with the acting. He said, “But you liked it, Barry, so it couldn’t have been all bad.”

Gerald Kaufman has left a legacy. He did not have any children, but he has left a legacy both in this House, in the country and in his constituency. I used to tease him because Harold Wilson was born in Huddersfield and had to go to Lancashire to get a seat and, of course, Gerald was a real Leeds man who had to go to Manchester to get a seat.

Some people have talked about Gerald’s sense of style, and his wonderful suits pushed the boundaries in some ways. He remained faithful all his life to the same Leeds tailor and would specify the Huddersfield mill in which the cloth would be spun and woven. He was a man of great talent, great common sense and brilliant oratory. We owe him so much, not only as a party or as a House but as a country.

[Mr Lidington]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for this heartfelt tribute, and particularly for his reminder of the key political role that Gerald Kaufman played at that particular time in the Labour party’s history.

[Mr Sheerman]

And may we have a debate on films?

[Mr Lidington]

I will take careful note of that request.