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Robinson successfully defended his school from closure, fought for the unification of the teaching unions, mentored future trade union leaders and transformed teaching at the Marx Memorial Library, writes JOHN FOSTER
Despite being regarded by many as bone idle, Coffey recently whined that she had, “nearly, dare I say it, died. I was in hospital for a month with some of the stresses that happen with ministerial life.” Which must have come as a great surprise to both her Suffolk Coastal constituents and those environmental and farmers’ groups whose meetings she tended to zone out in.
The infamous Great Stink of 1858 lasted two months; the tenure of Therese Coffey was just over a year. As to which caused the most damage, the jury has yet to decide; certainly, both created a stench that remained in the nation’s collective nostrils.
Unlike Coffey’s dismal record of shrugging off water pollution, the heatwave-induced Thames sewage crisis of July-August 1858 forced Parliament to deal with the problem of the vast quantities of human excrement and industrial waste pouring into the river — undoubtedly due to the fact that the reek was literally under their noses.
Charles Dickens wrote to a friend, “I can certify that the offensive smells, even in that short whiff, have been of a most head-and-stomach-distending nature.”
But credit where credit is due, the Earl of Derby’s Tory administration actually did something about the sewage (although a temporary move to St Albans or Oxford was contemplated), whereas Therese Coffey was content to (metaphorically) wallow in it.
