City at the heart of radical politics; From Toxteth riots to shooting the prime minister, Liverpool radicals helped shape British politics Peter Elson reports.

Byline: Peter Elson

IT probably will not come as too big a shock to find that Liverpool played a large part in the radical politics of Britain.

As some readers will also know, the only assassination of a British prime minister was by Liverpudlian, John Bellingham.

However, it is more of a surprise to learn that Bellingham's actions in shooting dead Prime Minister Spencer Perceval, on May 11, 1812, were widely celebrated in the industrial North West.

When the vicar of Bellingham's local church of St Mark's gave a sermon deploring the murder, he received threatening letters from local Luddites.

In all too typical Liverpool fashion, what was an embittered personal vendetta turned Bellingham into a national hero for some.

Bellingham was a Liverpool merchant who was imprisoned in Russia over a disputed debt.

Sore about the lack of effort by the British government to free him, he sought vengeance by murdering the PM.

Coincidentally, the prime minister had just initiated much tougher laws against the Luddites, who were weavers attacking mills in protest at the mechanical looms destroying their livelihood.

Hence the Luddites hailed Bellingham as a hero.

This fascinating story is retold in a new book, A Radical History of Britain, by Dr Ted Vallance, of Liverpool University.

"Harsh conditions breed more violent brands of radicalism, which is how Bellingham was brought into the Luddite fight," says Dr Vallance, 33.

"It was rough justice by 'the people' in return for the lives of Luddites who were executed.

"Luddites were very active in the Lancashire mill towns. Their radical behaviour turned into warfare with mill owners. More soldiers were stationed in the North West than in Spain during the Peninsula war.

"Liverpool's reputation as a centre of radicalism grew alongside the city's growing importance as an international port in the 18th and 19th centuries."

Everyone remembers the Toxteth riots which began for more complex reasons yet became associated with the wider national political mood, he believes.

"Liverpool is a very interesting place for this subject, particularly if you also look at a figure like William Roscoe.

"He shows the way in which parliamentary reform was combined with other causes for which Liverpool is more famous, such as slavery." Roscoe was far more rational than many radicals and realised that sudden change was not only to the authorities distaste, but also that of a conservative public.

He developed an agenda similar to the Chartists' later in the mid-19th century for political and social reform.

"While Wilberforce worried about African slaves, Britain had its wage slaves," says Dr Vallance.

"Contemporary radicals often made the point that you could not talk about the evils of Africa without also referring to the evils of the factory system." Liverpool's mid-19th housing conditions were so appalling that life expectations here were 15 years below average - worse than during the Black Death.

"Liverpool, though, is a port city, not a manufacturing centre, so it does not lend itself well to political movements like Chartism in Manchester," says Dr Vallance.

"Because of this different kind of economic base, organised protest is easier to initiate in an organised labour force in single industries like cotton.

"Even though Liverpool suffered grinding poverty, it's special cultural outlook and cosmopolitan make-up meant it was not homogenous." Liverpool's sectarian divisions added another layer as the population did not see itself in class terms, but religious and ethnic.

"Liverpool has a long tradition of people seeing themselves in ways other than class," says Dr Vallance.

"Not least that of protestants versus Catholics and English versus Irish." The fear was about the Irish connection and how it would play out in Liverpool diverted the attention of radicals.

"Even the poor are more concerned about threats from other ethnic groups," says Dr Vallance.

"This serves to prevent their perceptions about being poor.

"The working class do not see a common interest with each other.

"Working class protestant Tory supporters (the orange and the blue) beat up Catholic workers (the red and green) or liberals.

"The scale of Irish influx into Liverpool is like no other place, except Glasgow and persists far longer here than anywhere." Thomas Carlyle, the historian, and Richard Carlile, the radical thinker did not like the chartist leader Feargus O'Connor as he was Irish.

"Yet Chartism was generally a peaceful movement," says Dr Vallance.

"Overall it was defined by mass petitions, mass demonstrations and clever use of the press.

"Its leaders tried to rein in any possible violence. The huge Kennington rally could have turned into mass attack on Westminster, but Feargus O'Connor told the 150,000 people there to disperse.

"The military and police outnumbered the protesters so it would have turned into a blood bath far worse than Peterloo.

"Peacefullness tended to be hallmark of British 19th century radicalism.

"Contrary to popular opinion, this applied to the Suffragettes.

Their 1909 Hyde Park demonstration in London attracted 500,000 people and was the largest peaceful protest until the anti-Iraq War one.

Liverpool's greatest statesman, William Gladstone, Feargus O'Connor and Henry Hunt at Peterloo, all learned from the Chartists' tactics.

"They were all charismatic orators from an affluent backgrounds," says Dr Vallance.

"They had an upper middle class gentlemanly aspect, combined with the attractiveness of persuasive public speakers." In the early 20th century Liverpool's politics were generally calmer with Conservative and Liberal dominance, but the city remained a radical battleground.

The Suffragettes staged two spectacular acts of militancy.

In 1909 they smashed the windows of Sun Hall, Kensington, where the Liberal war minister Richard Haldane was speaking..

"Four years later, as the Suffragettes' tactics became more extreme, a bomb was planted by Edith Rigby, in the Liverpool Exchange building," says Dr Vallance. "The bomb didn't go off and, although she was being monitored by the police, three days later she set fire to Lord Leverhulme's new house at Rivington, in Lancashire.

"As a result she was sent to prison for nine months.

"This wasn't the first time.

Rather amusingly she had also been arrested for pelting J H Thomas the Labour MP, with black puddings while he gave a speech in the Free Trade Hall, in Manchester.

"Although married to a doctor, Mrs Rigby dressed in man's trousers and was the first woman to ride a bike in Preston - very radical for the time.

"She viewed Lever as very wellto-do grandee who had far more interest in building his latest holiday retreat than looking after workers.

"Thomas was an anti- Suffragette cabinet member and Edith Rigby held this animus against Leverhulme, whom she believed held similar views.

"Many Labour MPs of the time regarded the Suffragettes and women's rights as a distraction from more profound political matters of change.

"The 2008 debate over 42-day detention for terrorism suspects shows that the struggle for our rights and freedoms is far from over.

"But as the march against war in Iraq demonstrated we can rise again like lions from slumber." * A Radical History of Britain: Visionaries, Rebels and Revolutionaries, by Edward Vallance, Little Brown, pounds 25.

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Region where radicalism could arise again A TORY and Liberal city for almost as long as its history, Liverpool made a huge lurch to the Left in modern times.

"After the collapse of Liverpool's industry and port trade, there was an unprecedented shift to the left," says Dr Ted Vallance, Liverpool University lecturer in early modern British history.

"The Far Left infiltrated industries like shipbuilding and their influence was fanned by the social problems of the city in early 1970s to 1980s and the cuts that were proposed by central government.

"This shift had not even been seen in the Labour party, which by then was almost centre right in retreat from its 1945 beliefs.

"Toxteth was a strange and late polarisation of Liverpool radical behaviour.

"The Militants were strong in their left-wing Trotskyite rhetoric of being a splinter group of Labour party.

"Yet in Liverpool they operated on a very populist platform of improving housing and services and reducing costs of transport.

"This harked back to working-class communities lost through industrial decline and slum clearance." The Toxteth riots had a particular local character of slow-burning tensions between different ethnic communities and their relationship to the police.

"These were symptomatic of wider economic problems rather than the radical tradition," says Dr Vallance.

"Liverpool is now better known for shopping than socialism and electors are characterised by apathy.

"But the city has an incredible sense of history and identity and its radicalism could rise again."

CAPTION(S):

Police officers with riot shields d and, left, vehicles overturned and roads during the Toxteth riots of 1981 d burned by rioters block the Dr Ted Vallance who has written a book about radical Britiain