{"id":26394,"date":"2017-09-15T17:28:22","date_gmt":"2017-09-15T17:28:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themint.kinsta.cloud\/?p=26394"},"modified":"2020-08-01T19:40:34","modified_gmt":"2020-08-01T19:40:34","slug":"scarred-with-episcopal-incomprehension-and-other-tales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/scarred-with-episcopal-incomprehension-and-other-tales\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Nicolson Interview: Scarred with episcopal incomprehension and other tales"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul Nicolson is a wine\u00a0merchant, a minister and a\u00a0lifetime battler for people who\u00a0struggle to fight for\u00a0themselves against the unjust\u00a0and powerful. He had some\u00a0stories for the The Mint.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Paul\u2019s family business sold Champagne. He went to public school and did his National Service with the GreenJackets \u2013 a\u201cvery posh\u201d regiment where he received a commission. \u201cWe thought we were much posher than any of theother regiments. And we looked down on the Guards,\u201d he declares.<\/p>\n

So some years later, how and why did Paul Nicolson befriend and work alongside the Labour party\u2019s then notorious left wing breakaway group Militant.<\/p>\n

Well naturally that would be when Paul and a bunch of his chums made national news for refusing to pay their Poll tax Militant\u2019s was the only offer of support they had .\u201cThey were the only people, literally the only people \u2013 not the Church, not the Conservative Party, not the Labour Party,\u201d says Paul with an apparently undiminished disappointment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t join them, but I worked with them. Like I do with anybody who works with, and for, the poor. That\u2019s my role,\u201d says Paul.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s a role he\u2019s filled for more than half a century. Along the way he has acquired a notoriety as a challenger of the powerful and defender of the powerless and he has many tales to tell of his exploits and he is eager to tell them. But he has a few \u201cpreludes\u201d he wanted to offer The Mint.<\/p>\n

For example, after completing his National Service: \u201cTwo glorious years doing absolutely nothing serious in the army, mostly in Germany,\u201d he returned to the family business selling Verve Clicquot Champagne. A stint in France\u00a0 followed then it was back to Hertfordshire to the family home where he became a warden at the Next was ordination. \u201cI finally found that I had to let the Church decide whether or not they wanted to ordain this strange wine merchant. And much to my astonishment, and the astonishment of all
\n\u00a0\u00a0my friends in the wine trade, they said yes. And I\u2019ve never ceased to be surprised. And I really mean that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paul was was one of the first to be ordained as a minister in secular employment otherwise know as a non- stipendiary minister. Meaning he had a job as well as dog collar. Some Bishops were not sure in 1967 about this new ministry in secular employment. That was settled by his theological college principal, the soon- to-be Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie. Runcie declared that \u201cPaul is scarred with episcopal\u00a0 incomprehension.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then it was off to chemical giant, ICI, where Paul worked as a personnel officer, \u201ccarrying the bags for the manwho negotiated with the trade unions.\u201d Paul was impressed by the trade unions at ICI: \u201cI built a very strong respect for both ICI and the trade unions: they\u2019d got it right, about the relationship between the two, and the roles of both ofthem,\u201d he tells The Mint.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then, things began to go a bit wrong,\u201d says Paul. Already we are not surprised to hear this.<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0\u201cI\u2019m scared stiff, currently, of the idea that we might have\u00a0no\u00a0European human rights\u00a0law\u00a0at all.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0\u201cI was very worried about the redundancy procedure; they were weeding out, \u2018the inadequate, the unsuitable, and thetechnologically obsolescent,\u2019 \u201d he says. This culling process was going on, Paul explains, ahead of the introduction of the then new Industrial Relations Act that was going to include provisions for unfair dismissal in tribunals. The company, Paul believes, was looking to avoid being called to account.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought that was terribly unfair. And I said so. And that, politically, wasn\u2019t very well-received. I found myself redundant.<\/p>\n

But, my notice ran out about two days after the law actually came into force, on unfair dismissals. So, with the help of the Labour Correspondent at The Times, I took ICI to an industrial tribunal.<\/p>\n

This was \u201cone of the first, if not the first\u201d of his battles with the mighty.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did it, not to get back at ICI, but simply because it was such an important piece of social legislation. I wanted to get the news out there that it existed,\u201d he says. According to Paul the court \u201cvery stupidly, very puzzlingly\u201d decided he was fairly dismissed so he couldn\u2019t have been \u00a0sacked.<\/p>\n

In a reflection of the time Paul ceased the battle because of gossip arising simply because he was in court. \u201cA very, very nice barrister, volunteered to take it to the High Court for me. But this was very big news; it was in the papers, certainly in the local papers, in Hertfordshire. And the headmaster of my children\u2019s school, had to stand up and say, \u2018Paul Nicholson is not a criminal.\u2019You know, it was getting very difficult for the families. I had to call a halt and say, Okay, we\u2019ll give this one a break.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo that came to an end. I didn\u2019t lose any money over it and I had prepared the way to take on more of a role on thetrade union side.\u201d However, there then came the introduction of the closed shop in the early 1970s obliging workers to join a trade union. So Paul took on the trade unions.<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0\u201cI\u00a0 had\u00a0 prepared the way\u00a0to take on more\u00a0of a role\u00a0on the trade\u00a0union side.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0\u201cThe closed shop, meant that the shop steward could go to the employer, and say, \u2018This man won\u2019t join the trade union.<\/p>\n

Please sack him.\u2019 And, of course, that was
\ncontrary to all one feels about justice and fairness. And I\u2019m totally in support of trade unions.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cBut by now I\u2019d got together with the general secretary of the staff association at Barclays Bank, and they wanted to start a federation of non-TUC trade unions. And so I was general secretary of that by now, and we got together all the non-TUC unions, either attached or formally, financing the exercise, and really opposing the closed shop.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the late \u201870s Paul got a call from a group of six men at Ferrybridge Power Station in West Yorkshire seeking his assistance. They had formed their own union only to be squeezed out by the established union which the six hadrefused to join.<\/p>\n

\u201cI asked Alan Pardoe, who\u2019s now a QC, to do the work of representing them. And we won the case in court, because the procedure was wrong. The men never got their jobs back but, the immense amount of publicity about the closed shop, and that case, meant that as soon as the Conservative Party got in, the closed shop was abolished. So I had a hand in ensuring the closed shop was abolished.\u201d<\/p>\n

So next up was Turville, where he became the parish priest in 1982. And in the same year went head-to-head with Buckinghamshire council over a school closure under austerity cuts.<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0\u201cWe were there with a wonderful\u00a0 collection of cleaners, and we did all the shouting.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This time it was unalloyed success. \u201cWe got wonderful support from John Mortimer, from Jeremy Paxman and from Paul Getty to buy the local school and turn it into a children\u2019s holiday centre and an infant\u2019s, nursery school for the children of the valley. So the holiday centre paid the rent on the building, and it\u2019s been running holidays for the children ever since.<\/p>\n

Paul\u2019s tales carry a thread of remarkable resilience. But next came the Poll tax and a close shave with insolvency where his fortitude was truly tested.<\/p>\n

Paul discovered that one of his parishoners \u2013 a man with legal custody of\u00a0 his hree small children, was profoundly in debt for unpaid poll tax. \u201cHis wife had pushed off. She was a drug addict, and she pushed off but he was a very sensible young man,\u201d says Paul.<\/p>\n

I went to court with him, and argued that he could not afford to pay the arrears. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty terrifying for people. They\u2019re at a committal hearing where they can be sent to prison. But the Magistrates have the discretion to let them off all or part of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis guy was on benefits, and had \u00a31,200 of tax which he couldn\u2019t pay. He\u2019d been living with his parents, and all of his children and the council came and said, \u2018You\u2019re overcrowded. We\u2019ll move you to Slough.\u2019Well, being very keen on his children\u2019s education, the man would come from Slough every day to get them to school. That cost so much in petrol that he couldn\u2019t pay the tax. When I explained all this to the magistrates, showed them his income, expenditure, and tax, they exercised their power to let him off all of his tax arrears.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile Paul was refusing to pay his own poll tax. \u201cThis was causing a wonderful stir in Henley-on-Thames,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Paul stoked the agitation by writing letters to the local newspaper on the obligation all Christians have to aid the poor. \u201cI was able to argue all that out in the correspondence columns of the Henley Standard, where I had support and opposition. I mean, the local paper told me they\u2019d never had so many letters before in their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paul joined a group of \u201csubversive academics\u201d who were refusing to pay their poll tax bill. Murdy, Paul says, had been involved with the first case in which someone was imprisoned for non payment of poll tax. And the decision was overturned by the European Court of Human Rights.<\/p>\n

Paul says he is concerned because it was the Conservative Party, that introduced poll tax enforcement: imprisonment for non-payment, without legal aid, or many other safeguards that criminals have. And as Brexit negotiations advance, he foresees the end of recourse to the European court. \u201cI\u2019m scared stiff, currently, of the idea that we might have no European law at all.<\/p>\n

Because the UK Parliament can pass any law it likes, providing it has a majority,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0\u201cWe knew there were just over a thousand unlawful\u00a0imprisonments.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Meanwhile\u00a0 Paul\u00a0 continues \u201ccampaigning like mad against the poll tax, working with anyone who would campaign against the poll tax.\u201d He becomes very animated at this point: \u201cI got a Parliamentary question asked. We knew there were just over a thousand unlawful imprisonments. But altogether there were over five thousand imprisonments; for non- payment of poll tax \u2013 that\u2019s in three years.<\/p>\n

So I asked the Parliamentary question: how many more were there than the thousand we knew about? And the answer came back, \u2018We don\u2019t keep a record of unlawful imprisonment for non payment of civil debts.\u2019\u201d Paul tells how he was subsequently phoned by the then Lord Chancellor\u2019s department, now the Ministry of Justice, and asked how he knew there was a thousand unlawful imprisonments. \u201cI said, well, I know the barrister. I\u2019m going to bring him to see you. I\u2019m going to bring Alan Murdy to see you as well.\u201d So Paul, Ian Wise and Alan Murdy met eight officials at the Ministry of Justice.<\/p>\n

And just prior to the meeting, Paul had learned that the bailiffs had given up dealing with vulnerable people. \u201cI\u2019d asked what procedure they used for vulnerable people. The bailiffs\u2019 association, said \u2018Oh no, they\u2019re all vulnerable. We\u2019ve given up doing anything about it.\u2019 So I said, well, send me your rules that you\u2019ve given up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paul explains how he pushed the then abandoned procedures in front of the Ministry of Justice officials, and said, \u201cLook. This is what they\u2019re not doing any more.\u201d He says the National Standards for Enforcement Agents, were subsequently amended to require bailiffs to return a case of vulnerable situation to the court, the council, or the predator.<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0\u201cRichard\u00a0Curtis very kindly gave us \u00a310,000,\u00a0 and it was his fee\u00a0for an episode\u00a0of the Vicar of Dibley.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0\u201cThey\u2019ve got rules for bailiffs, which are the same whichever debt they are enforcing. That\u2019s still there, and must\u2019ve been there for 20 years. The local authorities pay no attention \u2013unless it\u2019s drawn to their attention. The bailiffs are private companies and the first thing they want is their fees.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the subject of fees \u2013 there was the time when a celebrity donation of his fee put a spark in Paul\u2019s campaigning, this time\u00a0 for a living wage. Paul explains: \u201cMaking some inquiries, I found that the government has no researchavailable on what the minimum income for healthy living is: how much the food cost, the minimum amount of food, how much fuel, and so on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, back in his parish, of St Mary the Virgin, Turville, they were filming the Vicar of Dibley. And, we assume separately, David Sainsbury, had arrived in the parish, having called himself Lord Sainsbury of Turville.<\/p>\n

Paul contacted the Family Budget Union, to request it did some research into the cost of healthy living. \u201cThey were very excited, and I said, well, let me have a research proposal. And let me have a research proposal for a hundred thousand pounds, because this has got to be done properly; it is desperately important. And they \u00a0did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paul says he wrote to Lord Sainsbury and said, \u201cI\u2019m sorry to greet you with a block buster like this, but I\u2019m looking fora \u00a3100,000.\u201d He then sent Sainsbury the research proposal. Sainsbury\u2019s Gatsby Foundation trust, provided \u00a340,000 and it built up from there: Barclays gave \u00a310,000; Barnardo\u2019s, \u00a310,000; and \u201clast, and most important, the one that turned it on, was Richard Curtis; who very kindly gave us \u00a310,000, and it was his fee for an episode of the Vicar of Dibley.<\/p>\n

When the research was published in1999 by the Policy Press and Zacchaeus 2000 Trust, (which Paul founded) hetook it to Unison. \u201cI made a date with a man called Peter Morris. Who had spent 20 years campaigning for the National Minimum Wage. And the National Minimum Wage had just come in,\u201d says Paul and adds: \u201cI had this wonderful book, it was a major bit of work, which I handed to Peter, and Peter\u2019s immediate comment was, \u2018We\u2019ve now got the National Minimum Wage. The issue is now adequacy.\u2019\u201c The timing, as Paul says, was \u201castonishing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unison\u2019s Deborah Littman and Catherine Howarth, of London Citizens, took the research to GLA Economics. And between them, with campaigning from London Citizens and from Unison, they persuaded Ken Livingstone tointroduce the London Living Wage.<\/p>\n

He laments that the Treasury has not yet underpinned the Living Wage with the appropriate research into the minimum income for healthy living; \u201cso it has the name but not the substance. And that, in a way, is a pity.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Paul is still kept busy. The Living Wage is looked after by a group of employers, the Living Wage Foundation, which is persuading other employers to take the Living Wage. Paul\u2019s involvement in the early stages of that, includedshouting along with a Unite demonstration for contract cleaners outside global consultancy KPMG.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were there with a wonderful collection of cleaners, and we did all the shouting. Then we went in and spoke to the management, and they were very, very embarrassed. And I thought, Oh! wonderful, let\u2019s go and do some more shouting. And then a KPMG manager said \u2018It\u2019s not the shouting. We\u2019ve\u00a0 been telling our employees that we\u2019re the best employers in the world, and you\u2019ve just shown us we are not.\u2019\u201d This, Paul says, was because the sub- contracted cleaners were not subject to all KPMG\u2019s outstandingly fair rules. But KPMG, Paul says, \u201cagreed toeverything.\u201d It put cleaners on the same type of terms and conditions of employment as every other employee, even though they were contracted out and they came into the company. They introduced a \u00a0Living Wage, and provided the case for everyone else to introduce the Living Wage. \u201cKPMG were a very, very leading light in the whole launch of the Living Wage to other employers,\u201d says Paul. \u201cAs were most of the banks. It\u2019s been employer-led.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ulterior motives? Paul thinks not. \u201cThey were very positive about it. No ulterior motive. Entirely commercial. If you\u2019ve got a proper wage, you get less turnover of staff. You\u00a0 get less sickness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paul wraps up our interview because he has to join a protest against mothers and children being separated under thebenefits
\nregime. His mischievousness on display when talking about the living wage demo has gone. His sadness isunguarded: \u201cI am due to go on a demonstration outside the family court, at half past twelve, which is with women whoare having their children taken away from them by the Social Services. And it causes unbelievable grief, and it\u2019s being done with massive insensitivity to women who are under pressure, under this dreadful benefits regime.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, they\u2019re in trouble, and in difficulty, and not managing. You can\u2019t cope when you don\u2019t have any money when you have piles of debts and you\u2019ve got three government departments leaning on you. So it\u2019s sad, it\u2019s sad.<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0\u201cYou can\u2019t cope when you\u00a0 don\u2019t\u00a0have any money when you have\u00a0piles\u00a0of debts and you\u2019ve got three government departments\u00a0leaning\u00a0on you.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0\u201cI dealt with a case and supported a single mother who had all her children taken away. Because we argued about it, shegot to keep her two youngest, but she had eight children. And it was very sad because she loved them. And they loved her. It wasn\u2019t a … there was no violence, no damage to them.<\/p>\n

So they were taken because she was impoverished? Paul answers quietly: \u201cBecause she was untidy. Because it was overcrowded, because it was impossible to be tidy.\u201d Even with his seasoned battle sensibilities, his disbelief is deafening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paul Nicolson is a wine\u00a0merchant, a minister and a\u00a0lifetime battler for people who\u00a0struggle to fight for\u00a0themselves against the unjust\u00a0and powerful. He had some\u00a0stories for the The Mint. Paul\u2019s family business … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26390,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,45],"tags":[718,174,1547,197,333,1548,207],"class_list":["post-26394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews","category-uk-ireland","tag-campaigning","tag-housing","tag-living-wage","tag-paul-nicolson","tag-poverty","tag-religion","tag-sept-2017"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26394\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}