[1993]

No one needs to be reminded of the government decision of 25 January 1984 to ban national trade unions at GCHQ, the Sigint centre at Cheltenham. It has become an entrenched part of British political and trade union mythology; the sight of First Division civil servants marching in Cheltenham with the National Union of Mineworkers in the annual rally of protest sums up its lasting effects. Re-unionisation is well established as Labour's policy in opposition and will happen sometime; national unions were all set to offer attractive packages of cut-price membership after the expected Labour victory in 1992. The fact that Cheltenham is a marginal seat now gives the situation extra spin. Politics apart, the affair has a bearing on a raft of issues: trade union structures; patterns of public sector management; control of intelligence agencies; judicial review; the place of ‘national security’ in law and constitutional practice. In all these contexts a proper account of the affair is badly needed.

The short and readable book A Conflict of Loyalties by Lanning and Norton-Taylor – well produced as the first venture of a Cheltenham-based workers’ cooperative – might seem to provide it, but the authors’ backgrounds give fair warning that it is no dispassionate study. Lanning as a full-time trade union official was, and is, deeply involved in the action against the union ban; Norton-Taylor of The Guardian is a former Freedom of Information Journalist of the Year, and a long-term thorn in the side of the intelligence establishment. They have produced a campaigning account of a campaign. Indeed, with their penchant for military chapter titles like ‘the battle’ and ‘the war’, it reads rather like an old-style military history of one of the less successful episodes of Empire. Our soldiers die heroically for Queen and Country against overwhelming odds. But the cruel and treacherous fuzzy-wuzzies on the other side remain shadowy creatures. One hardly gets to understand why they attacked – and won.

One-sided campaign history of this sort is still useful, and the account here of union reactions and tactics has the virtues of first-hand recollection. The most informative chapter is on the negotiations of February and March 1984, particularly on the unions’ ‘no-strike’ offer and its rejection by the government.