TRADE unionists took a socialist message to Britain’s biggest agricultural show yesterday in Tory North Yorkshire, writes Peter Lazenby.

The Great Yorkshire Show is a three-day annual event attracting hundreds of thousands to its site outside Harrogate.

But along with the show jumping, best in show competitions for sheep, bulls, shire horses and even a “one man and his pig” competition, general union Unite was there staging an exhibition of union history, including the foundation of British trade unionism in agricultural communities.

The exhibition included the history of the Luddites, who wanted the benefits of textile mechanisation to be shared by workers as well as mill owners, the Chartists and the Suffragettes.

Also present were Women Against Pit Closures, including co-founder Anne Scargill, who spoke about the role women played in the 1984-5 miners’ strike.

“This year we made it an educational event, not just about Unite but about the history of the trade union movement — the Luddites right through to the miners,” Unite Yorkshire and the Humber regional secretary Karen Reay told the Star.

“We have actors from Red Ladder Theatre here talking to schoolchildren — and this is just the first day, with two days to go.”