THE RISE OF ANDREW CUNNINGHAM

A few years ago Andrew Cunningham was at the peak of his power and influence. He revelled in publicity. Journalists courted his favour and indulged his weakness for boasting.

One interviewed him in his ranch-style bungalow at Chester le Street, Co. Durham, surrounded by half an acre of neat gardens. 'If I had gone to sea,' said Cunningham, I would probably have been a captain of a large passenger liner Instead he had become a union leader-though he looked like an American business executive with his silky suits, carefully-groomed grey hair and thick expensive spectacles. He was an odd figure among his members in the General and Municipal Workers' Union, among the lowest-paid workers on Tyneside.

But in August 1972, the halcyon days ended abruptly. A court in Wakefield learned that union leader Cunningham, the chairman of Durham Police Authority and a leading member of Durham County Council, had enjoyed holidays in right-wing Portugal, paid for by an architect named Poulson-the very same Poulson who today is a celebrated bankrupt!

Poulson also threw in the way of Cunningham's wife, once a teacher, a lucrative job as a 'caretaker' or consultant for interior decorating at a salary of £1,500 annually!

Later three links were established between the union boss and the generous architect.

In 1965 Cunningham was chairman of Felling town Housing Committee when Poulson was awarded a design project worth £250,000.

While Cunningham was Northern Regional Organizer of the G&MWU, covering Durham, Cumberland,, Westmorland, Northumberland and north Yorkshire, Poulson won more important design projects for union buildings.

Finally, as chairman of Durham • Police Authority and chairman of the Police Architects Committee, Cunningham turned over a contract for designing alterations to Sunderland police headquarters from the Borough architects to Poulson.

The Poulson revelations caused a storm of protest in the north-east. The labour movement was : numbed with shock, especially as other leading Labour figures were dragged into the case. These included T. Dan Smith, once famed as 'Mr Newcastle', • an ex-city Labour councillor and ex-boss of the North East Development Committee. Smith ran a publicity firm which promoted Poulson's firm and paid Cunningham £1,000 a year as a consultant.

So many members of of the labour movement seemed be getting a mention Wakefield court that MP John Pardoe was to say in parliament: It is becoming difficult to believe that there are any members of the Labour Party in the north east of this country who have not at some time or other been in the pay of Mr Poulson.' Pardoe's accusations naturally caused great protest on both Labour and Tory benches. But suspicions are easily aroused. The Granada investigating team World ir Action' attempted to dispel rumours with a programme on the friends of Poulson. They stressed that all their information was based on court records. But the authorities suppressed the show. The publicity, they said, would be bad for the public interest. So the gossip continues. Men in public life, including Labour and Tory MPs, have been mentioned in private as involved in the Poulson scandal.

This odorous publicity is very damaging and Cunningham has been subject to more than most. But he has shown a remarkable capacity for weathering the storm.

When the crisis broke, eager local journalists traced Cunningham and his wife to a Swedish hotel. Had they heard about the Poulson case? What about the holidays? The payment to Freda?

Cunningham brushed questions aside-'That's a laugh was his laconic reply. Since then, as more facts have come to light, he has kept his remarks to a strict 'No comYet he has survived a determined attempt by opponents to kick him off the Police Authority. He is still on the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party-though he lost the support of the giant engineering union at the last election. He is also renominated for Durham County Council after an initial decision to drop his name from the list of Labour candidates.

The main seat of his influence remains the union with over 90,000 members in the Such numbers give power. Unions send delegates to ward and constituency committees of the Labour Party in proportion to their membership in the localities. Unions in big working-class centres can control committees and therefore the selection of councillors and MPs. Their financial contributions to the Party locally is also a factor.

This is by no means a bad principle. Ideally it would allow the working class at local level to shape the policies and actions of their Labour representatives.

But, of course, in most areas, especially strong working class areas, the bureaucracy has come to predominate. The officials pick their men and the men get elected (Last year • a Sunderland lecturer fought an urban council seat in South Ward Chester le Street, Cunningham's own town, in protest against G&MWU domination. The time G&MWÜ" officials, in- three seats were held by full cluding Dr John Cunningham, son of Andy and MP for Whitehaven-also in his father's regional area.)

So long as Cunningham has the backing of his union, he remains secure within the Labour movement. The union, for its part in rather extrahim, though ordinary circumstances.

They debated their chief's involvement in the Poulson case not at their headquarters in Newcastle, but, it is believed, at a remote aluminium smelter site on the bleak windswept north east coast.

The whole episode had a farcical touch. Press men waiting eagerly outside the union were surprised by a rush of officials who tumbled into cars and sped away through the busy city traffic. Later a communication was issued—once more Cunningham had landed on his feet. Cunningham's resilience is a characteristic of the G&MWU men. The full-time officials of this right-wing union are mostly career labour leaders. They pride themselves on their efficiency and their dress) and, like Cunningham, they say: 'If I have an addiction it is to method study and efficiency.' Cunningham began at 18 in Felling as an organizer of the Young Socialists. While he was a docker, engineering and chemical worker, he always had his sights fixed on office. He began to climb.

By 1958 the local Press were calling him 'Mr Felling' he had been three-times chairman of the council, was the chairman of Felling Labour Party and Trades Council and chairman of Gateshead East constituency Party, chairman of Durham Education Committee and chairman of the Wear and Tees River Board.

Cunningham only cut a local figure, but it was clear he was designed for bigger things. 'I think you can put it this way,' he told newsmen. I have always found myself in the right place at the right time.

His lack of socialist dogma was perhaps one reason for his rapid promotion. His understanding of the problems businessmen faced were well revealed by his attitudes over pollution—a key issue since he was chairman of the river 'You can't expect firms to change their methods of waste disposal overnight. It is a very expensive process,' he replied to people demanding pure rivers in the Sunderland area.

His attitudes to the working class, of course, were coloured with the G&MWU's great distaste for strike action.

'Our attitude to the unofficial direct action groups is bluntly but in committee that the unions can't countenance unofficial stoppage of work and that it pays in the end to make maximum use of conciliation machinery.' Cunningham himself did eventually face action from unofficial groups. In 1970 shop stewards from a Newcastle firm, who said their dispute had been ignored by the G&MWU, toured the shipyards contacting other members in a bid to get rid of Cunningham -but they failed.

In 1964 he became the Northern Regional Organizer of the union. He seemed set on a union career after having refused nomination as a candidate for a Labour seat.

Through the union he reached into the upper echelons of the Labour Party itself. In 1965 he got into the National Executive Committee and in 1967 became chairman of the Finance Committee-'I thrive on this kind of responsibility,' he said.

By this time Cunningham had shaken off Felling and moved to Chester le Street. He denied the shift was because Felling would be swallowed by the proposed Tyneside authority, therefore disqualifying him from the valued seat on Durham County Council. 'I feel I want to devote myself to bigger things, there is not much left for me in Felling,' he explained when he made the move in 1967.

This was true. He had been the 'mayor' several times and had monopolized the chair. manship of the housing conmittee for 14 years. During this period he came into contact with Poulson through council contracts. ana municipal workers Union has a Top right: Bankrupt architect John I various links with Cunningham. Cent Party Conference, 1972-Cunningha the platform but he lost votes in th Above: Cunningham, wife, car and The bigger things were just round the corner. By 1969 Cunningham had massed an amazing portfolio of positions in local and regional government and in public life.

He was: Regional Secretary of the G&MWU; an Alderman of Durham County Council and the ex-chairman; member of the Northern River Authority and the exchairman; chairman of Durham Police Authority; member of the Labour Party NEC and chairman of the Finance Committee; a director of the ill-fated Fairfields shipyard on Clydeside; member (under T. Dan Smith) of the North East Development Planning Council; chairman of the Tyneside Passenger Transport Authority and chairman of the Newcastle Airports Authority.

The last two jobs were particularly unusual. Both the airport and the buses employed G&MWU members. In case of a dispute, therefore, Cunningham would be both bess and union leader - the quintessence of corporatism. This did not seem to concern Cunningham, but it worried some of his members. The airTUC !! far lett). His base In the General Ilways been his source of strength. Poulson and his wife. Poulson had tre: The union leader at the Labour im (second from right) is still on e last national executive elections. home at Chester le Street, 1969. ports staff tried unsuccessfully to leave the G&MWU.

This was Cunningham at his peak. He lived in his big bungalow and rambled on about possible avenues in life he could have chosen (sea captain for example).

He was a controversial figure. He lashed his shipyard members for striking, as he saw it, unnecessarily. The world did not owe them a living, he reminded them.

In June 1971 he caused a storm when he suggested the police might have to use 'not constitutional or legal methods' in their fight against crime.

He was famous too. In March 1972 his wife launched the new Tyne ferry she named it the 'Freda Cunningham'. But the storm clouds were gathering.

At the height of his power, a journalist on the 'Newcastle Journal' asked him, 'What about the temptations of public life?' Cunningham replied: I think they are over-exaggerated.' Months later the Poulson case broke out in headlines across every paper in the land.

PAGE Press, Thursday 15,