Derek Hatton
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Derek 'Degsy' Hatton (born 17 January 1948 in Liverpool) is a broadcaster, businessman and after-dinner speaker. He won celebrity status as a local politician in Liverpool during the 1980s, where he was deputy leader of the city council, and a supporter of the Trotskyist Militant Tendency.
Early life
He attended Liverpool Institute for Boys from 1959 to 1964, having passed the 11 plus examination. His subsequent academic success was limited, but he enjoyed sports and appeared on stage as Gratiano in a school production of Merchant of Venice with the future theatre producer Bill Kenwright.[1]
Political career
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By then a fireman by occupation, Hatton became a member of the Labour Party and later the high-profile deputy leader of Liverpool City Council in 1983. Hatton was the most vocal, prominent member of the council's leadership and a member of Militant Tendency, a Trotskyist organisation then pursuing entryist tactics within the Labour Party. The Leader of the council, John Hamilton, was a quietly spoken but much admired and passionate non-Militant socialist member, with great standing in the Liverpool party.[citation needed]
Hatton, somewhat reluctantly, joined the rate-capping rebellion in 1985 under which the council refused to make a rate. In June, the council changed tactics and set an illegal "deficit budget" which committed the council to spend £30 million in excess of its income, claiming that the excess represented grant "stolen" by central government. Once adopted by the Liverpool District Labour Party and a broad coalition of 49 councillors on the Liverpool City Council (reduced to 47 by the deaths of two councillors), this policy catapulted Hatton and the city council into media attention and conflict with the Conservative led central government.[citation needed]
Hatton was expelled from the Labour Party in 1986 for belonging to the Militant Tendency, which Hatton argued was a legitimate Marxist organisation within the Labour Party, but the National Executive Committee of the party voted to expel Hatton by 12 votes to 6, the move being a policy aim of Neil Kinnock and the reformers around him.[2] Hatton claims that the faults and disasters of his time in office were the result of the policy of the Thatcher government, and that the Kinnock-led national Labour Party should have supported the council's demand for the "return" of the £30 million "stolen" from the council as a result of unfairly reduced government rate support grants for Liverpool.
Trial
In 1993 Hatton was accused of corruption during his time as deputy leader of Liverpool City Council. After a lengthy trial he was exonerated.[3]
Media career
After his expulsion from the party, Hatton pursued a career in the media, presenting a show on radio station Talk Sport, and appearing on such television programmes as Have I Got News For You, where he was given a particularly rough ride by regular panellist Paul Merton, who mocked his apparent aspiration to be a comedian. Hatton even began modelling menswear; he had worked in a men's tailoring shop as a teenager, and was famous during his time as a politician for his well-tailored suits.[4]
Hatton presented the lunchtime phone-in on 105.4 Century FM when it launched in 1998, titled "The Degsy Debate". The BBC2 fly-on-the-wall documentary Trouble at the Top followed the station's launch, and Hatton's training. In the 1990s, he worked as Talk Radio's morning phone-in presenter.[5] In 1996, he was the subject of a BBC documentary, My Brilliant Career.[6]
In 2010, he appeared in Channel 4's alternative election night special episode of Come Dine With Me alongside Brian Paddick, Edwina Currie and Rod Liddle.
Derek Hatton now works as a motivational speaker [7] and is chairman of the new media company Rippleffect. His son Ben Hatton is its managing director.
Political aspirations
It was reported in the Liverpool Daily Post [citation needed]in May 2007 that Hatton had recently rejoined the Labour Party and intended to seek selection as a parliamentary candidate in the North West. Hatton also said that his ambition is to be Deputy Leader of the Labour Party and that he would run for the office in the summer in the unlikely event of him being able to enter parliament via a by-election. Hatton made clear that he is no longer a Trotskyist, but maintains that he remains firmly on the left of the party, expressing his belief that Labour has to abandon 'New Labour' ideology (or "neo-Tory", as Hatton puts it) and return to its traditional values.
He appears to contradict this view when in an October 2008 interview with The Sunday Telegraph,[8] Hatton reveals that he has become a capitalist running a property company in Cyprus[9] and drives a £60,000 Range Rover. He justifies his change in attitude as "My days in politics were a very long time ago and I lost interest in it after I was expelled from the city council."
Hatton gave another interview to the Liverpool Daily Post [citation needed] in December 2008 in which he stated that his previous claim to the paper that he wanted to be Deputy Leader of the Labour Party was a joke referencing his time holding this position - and the de facto leadership - in Liverpool City Council. However Hatton also said that his other statements had been meant seriously and that he would seek selection as a parliamentary Labour candidate for one of the Liverpool constituencies (or failing that, another North West constituency) at some point in the future and that he has had a strong ambition to be a Liverpool MP for several years. Hatton stated that he may challenge "one of the neo-Tory types currently representing Liverpool, like Maria Eagle maybe".
See also
References
- ^ Derek Hatton Inside Left: The Story so Far [auto-biography], London: Bloomsbury, 1988. ISBN 0747501858
- ^ "On this day : 12 June 1986 : 1986: Labour expels Militant Hatton". BBC News. 1986-06-12. Retrieved 2010-07-17.
- ^ Foster, Jonathan (1993-03-13). "Hatton is cleared after 8-week trial: The investigation into alleged corruption continues, despite the verdict at Mold Crown Court". The Independent. Retrieved 2010-07-17.
- ^ "Regional politics in the Thatcher Era". Web.archive.org. 2007-09-29. Archived from the original on 2007-09-29. Retrieved 2010-07-17.
- ^ "Now You're Talking speakers profile : Derek Hatton". Nyt.co.uk. Retrieved 2010-07-17.
- ^ "My Brilliant Career: Derek Hatton a very different man". BFI. Retrieved 2010-07-17.
- ^ "Absolute Speakers profile : Derek Hatton". Absolute-speakers.co.uk. Retrieved 2010-07-17.
- ^ Anstead, Mark (2008-10-03). "Fame & Fortune: Derek Hatton, the militant capitalist". Telegraph. Retrieved 2010-07-17.
- ^ "Buy into Cyprus". Buyintocyprus.com. Retrieved 2010-07-17.
Bibliography
- Michael Crick The March of Militant, London: Faber, 2nd edition 1986. ISBN 0571146430