ROUND Bermondsey? Well, 36 years.
then whose perfect?
tuents.
goes: 'By their friends, ye shall know them.' Is it true that Bob Mellish has always fought for the dockers in this area?
Oh yes. When he was first an up and coming MP under Amee bob Melist was very worried about the TCUS TrOS WO were trying to subvert the portworkers even joined othe MPs to work with M15 he knew that the intelligence service was devoted to the cause of the dockers - to defeat the 1949 dock strike. In 1951 he supported the Labour seven dockers on trial for government when striking for higher wages, Bob knew the strike was led by reds.
INC AI DOU CARAD 00g port of the dockers didn't Well most important he had the support of Ar thur Deakin who was the boss of the TGWU and Arthur's right hand man TGWU organiser Bert Fry. They promoted Bob from being an office boy into a full-time official for the TGWU docks section, where some unkind people Deakin's office Because Arthur and Bert for is dou wakers they did not bother holding an election for Mellish, they simply appointed him.
In 1946 when the parliamentary seat of Bermondsey and Rotherhithe Vadill his two mates made sure he got the TOWU VOLO assured him of a seat at Westminster.
Surely Mr Mellish was not just interested in South London, he was very in terested in affairs Dead right. He liked Franco and Salazer. These two men had got rid of all those people who wanted to mess around with Christian values. That is why he was for a time the deputy chairman of the Anglo Spanish group, to make Spanish fascism 1i01C acceptable to the British public. IS JOHN O'GRADY really the people's friend in The does have the qualified backing of the other people's friend, Bob Mellish who served the constituency for Of course there are a few malcontents who claim Mr Mellish could have done a better job than he did and that at times he got his priorties wrong - but Socialist Challenge staff writer BOB PENNINGTON took up the cudgels against the defamers and attackers of Mr Mellish, when he interviewed one of his constiWe are reprinting Bob's article, because we want to show that John O'Grady is the best candidate to carry on in the path of his sponsor. As the old saying In 1954 he even left his cloved bermonasey to go to Angola where he was Portugese fascism was doing a good 100 of keepine natives in order, as Mellish said he 'saw no signs of repression'.
For his honest and candid defence of catholic standards the Roman church made him a Knight of St Gregory.
He has done a lot for local people hasn't hel Too right. He gave his support to a call release of Charlie Richardson who is a home-grown south Londoner who made torture a profitable profession. In the fifties he lavoured the release of onc SCULLECC "scarface' was a hoodlum knew he was a local lac which is more than can say for all these im migrants.
Mellish is not like those dogmatic socialists of the Surely he believes in ECONONE all inat nationalisation?
Quite right. Bob has been prepared to befriend any person trying to the was a big mate of Olive CLUHUHL Cutts who made a fortune by developing property it DeptCutts used to trea Bob to a meal twice a week at the Savoy. He even put up £4,000 the Mellist family needed to buy their pad in Deptford When Bob's eldest son was 21. Cutts spent £280 on his birthday party, bu Cutts did not like the cake SO he destroyed the caterer's car - that's what I call having a loyal friend!
Eventually Mellish got Cutts an MBE. However the courts convicted Cutts of malicious damage, perjury and pervert the of justice, so a lovely friend. ship came to an end.
But surely Bob Mellish kept on trying to make the mixed economy worki Oh, he was not easily discouraged. "He was friend of T Dan Smith, the architect JOnn Poulson, and the Mie Eric tunately Mr Smith and Mr Poulson given tree board and lodgings by th Queen and Sir Eric ble his brains out before he too was taken to a state hotel. You see poor Bob was let down by his friends again.
Unlike those Heresson Mellish is not a sectarian, he will work with anyone Or me ComMon 0000 en Most definitely. In January 1962 he started a company Sunderland Tory MP called Paul Williams. For fee this company was willing to act a peacemakers. Again Bob's motives misunderstood, and WCIC the suspicious members of the ounacriana Labour Fart kicked up a fuss about him working • a die-hard Tory who later became chairman of the Monday Club, so Bob had to pull out.
Well you have admit that Bob Mellish had done a lot to house Londoners, that's something you can't deny. When here s pariamen. are right there.
secretary of housing he worked really hard to prothe building of tower blocks. But went wrong. Within 14 years a lot of these estates were being pulled down. However Bob is an honest man and he admitted that building these blocks was an appalling blunder'.
Who else would own up to the of millions of pounds of public money and to sticking people in homes that started to fall down around inhabitant's ears Well see the record of readers, can of Bob Mellish speaks for itself. Would you buy a second-hand Labour candidate this man?