Labour - Comrades At War

you you late in the evening on the 2nd of April 1981 a rumor swept through the Palace of Westminster Tony Benn was about to challenge Denis Healey or the deputy leadership of the Labour Party it must have been 2 o'clock 3 o'clock in the morning can be everybody had a few drinks and I went to him a found him in his room and I said look 20 don't do it you know we don't need this you won't do yourself any favours because it's devised it and it's in your own interest it will not do you any good but Tony Benn was determined the deputy leadership was one step away from the leadership itself when the challenge was allowed under the new party Constitution which he had fought Hennessy Lee had never faced an election for absolution he got it unopposed when Michael foot became leader at the end of 1980 so he'd never been elected there had then been the conference where it was decided that there would be an electoral college so Canada sure there was a natural thing to do Tony announced as he understand in the wee small hours of the morning while we were debating I think one of the British telecommunications bills and he just went upstairs to the press Association that might watch person and gave them a statement say that he was going to stand it's very typical really of Tony's idiosyncratic approach to politics once he denounced it was too late to stop him and of course a lot of the tribune group were very angry including Neil Kinnock who also had his eye on the potential leadership in future I was absolutely furious um I mean from time to time you're angry in politics in any case but I was incandescent it was such a destructive act Michael had been elected in November 1980 the party was destabilized by the so-called Limehouse declaration on the beginnings of the SDP and arrested and along comes Tony the caring in April 1981 that he was going to be the candidate of the left and it couldn't be anything but disaster the polish party was a state of high knee roses at this stage in any event i think you could almost describe the two years between 81 and 83 as a as an institution very important leading institution having a collective nervous breakdown in the spring and summer of 1981 the Labour Party organized the people's March for jobs its purpose was to draw attention to the plight of the unemployed under Margaret Thatcher the demonstrations were the inspiration of Michael foot he wanted the marches to unite the party under his leadership but instead foot and his deputy Denis Healey presided over a party which came close to collapse the really sad thing about Michaels leadership was at the party split first of all it split in that there was the tearing away of the Social Democrats and secondly there was the way in which for example been behaved Ben who claimed to be a supporter of for tangoing getting better and better I fear we got it neither way with Michael and I was wrong because I thought Michael would be a unifier and he wasn't though he did his very best Tony Byrne and Michael foot were both men of the left they had been political allies and close friends over the years but now they became bitter enemies foot desperate for unity was ready to work with the right he saw Ben's challenge to Healey as a threat to the party's very survival he was so enraged by Ben's assault on the deputy leadership that he made a public demand challenged me not he me when he stood close to Teddy's hylia that was not in my opinion that was a rather cowardly act because if he really wanted to make the challenge we really thought I was doing the job wrongly and if he thought that he was the chapter dude what he should have stood against me and he could have done and that would have settled the issue if he'd been elected he would have been able to carry through his policy he wouldn't have been elected in my opinion in any case but that's the reason I think why he didn't stand it's just a matter of personal combat as the world heavyweight boxing championship I accepted nomination to stand for the devolution why aren't you taking on mr. ports but I support him as leader I supported by crowing he stood against Tennessee Lee last November and the campaign is about issues what about how to get out of the Common Market and how to stop American nuclear bases and how to get back to full employment and there's a wide support you know in the country for the policies not about personnel does it or this idea challenge me race all this approach to politics in terms of personal combat without any regard to what's really at stake so it was it was distressing but it didn't surprise me because as I honestly believed Michael had been put there by the parliamentary party who would have preferred Denis Healey in terms of their political sympathies but they felt that Michael was necessary because of his left credentials to stop the left and he was performing the function function we knew their house today because we've got the nationality better in an effort to prevent been going ahead with his challenge the party leadership mobilized union bosses traditionally Labour's power brokers when he said he was running for deputy leadership he came to my office for lunch he said he's light lunch America I was a good kosher salt beef and egg and onion dill latkes and when he had finished you he said can I have some tea I said yes and the lady who said to my secretary had brought in a Loving Cup he gave me a beautiful little mug which I have at home said don't do it Tony elections are a poisoned chalice did indicate the very strong tradition of fixing everything's always fixed and they were party don't discuss it fix it and I think that's one of the things is wrong and the denial of people of the right to participate is something that really characterized the right of the Labour Party they said no one's going to ask me as gracefully as this to not run I said well you going to do is I'm going to run and taking them back anyway the people's March for jobs - Michael foots theory became a platform for the deputy leadership contest Ben's strength came from the deep support he attracted from the grassroots of the labor movement the time that seemed crystal clear to me that we needed a big change and the only man who offered the big change was Tony Benn we didn't listen to people who said don't make a challenge and the reason we didn't listen was because we profoundly believed that we had have a big change and there was no question about that it was in our minds absolutely necessary to take off in a new and different direction the party was organizing marches rallies against unemployment throughout that period all of them became almost a hustings for the deputy leadership people were excited and enthused first of all the idea that they had something to say that mattered and secondly that here was a senior national politician specifically taking up issues of poverty of common ownership of industrial policy those kind of issues and it surely was very exciting time is a mark for human dignity and against those forces which still try to persuade us that men and women should be crucified on a cross of gold in the name of monetarism and profit and loss and we will accept I never forgotten in Wolverhampton where we had this meeting we went into the church and spin and sang church and then we came out and then some fascist and the women got round the fascists and danced and sang around them silencing the no aggression at all he just went round and I sang it was just tremendous a path I mean you mustn't think that for me the experience of all these campaigns hasn't kept me going because if you open the newspapers and you kept every day very discouraging then you go to meetings you feel there's a lot of support somebody hits you on the shoulder and says keep out it's worth in a number of words of praise from the press officer the Labour Party or a friendly leading article in The Guardian you know I mean that's what keeps you going it is the feeling that you're trying to reflect but people's needs for work and good home health and education and decent pensions and peace and that's what's all about I think one example of his innocence not wickedness is that he said at the time that that sort of election was a healing process now in fact as you know it was the least healing thing it was tearing the scabs off old wounds and it was profoundly repulsive to the average elector in the summer of 1981 rioting broke out in the inner cities Brixton Toxteth and Moscow were badly affected in the face of social unrest and rising unemployment Margaret Thatcher's government became vulnerable but labor was fixated with the contest for the deputy leadership of the party is an employment going up and up and up is mrs. Thatcher increasing the rents increasing the prescription charges cutting the the money to local councils cutting student grants doing a rendus things to national service and here's the Labour Party for six months obsessed with who is going to be deputy leader people look at so they're not fit to run the country despite suffering from a rare nervous condition Tony Benn took his campaign to the unions that summer of 1981 Union votes were crucial to the success of his campaign but his appeal was always to the members bypassing the traditional power structures of the party we organized a series of Fringe meetings around most trading in conferences certainly all the big ones and they proved to be extremely well attended and fringe meetings were pretty much unknown at many if not most trading news of that stage I've got a sample what I did discover as we went round was that the arguments very compelling and the contributions were very important the things that were said were very important and I suppose one of the biggest meetings was of the ast MS conference Bert I of Jenkins who agreed to be photographed like a Roman Emperor swimming in a swimming pool and commenting on it as much extraordinaire picture the one in Clive isn't the platform in fact trying to avoid a firm decision on the Tony Benn Denis Healey issued our first approach was that we felt they should not be in an action because the country now is in a kind of situation it was when Hitler invaded Norway only this time of course see the enemies inside at a packed fringe meeting Tony Benn courted the rank-and-file thanks very much for coming along to this small fringe meeting his aim was to persuade one of the largest unions the ASTM s to back him and overturn the official position we've got to have a socialist perspective now the word socialism is supposed Phelps spat out on the media as if it was a sort of disease they they get a picture of somebody sometimes me with his hands out of his eyes open socialism they said the children are put to bed and mother Heather mother has another oval diamond and settles down to her novel from the Bhoots library and people hope it'll all go away that's not how it's pronounced it is a social ism it's about trying to construct a society around production from the eater not just for profit around meeting people sneeze that's what it's about his improvised oratory won over the union activists to the fury of the leadership the ballot forcing the Union to back Ben for deputy was carried I was livid with rage because I thought someone's coming deliberately to undermine the democratically elected in an executive and the line it's taking but he won that conference although in the strange meetings and by IRA I naturally resented what I thought was a breach about democratic procedures all right by contrast attorney Ben Denis Eady chose to woo Union Baroness to win he needed the backing of their locked votes when the election came in the autumn Oh opulent looking right executive I know yet that's right I had to work very very hard going to Union conferences get togethers all over the country grubbing up boots and that's never been a an activity it's rather like fundraising which I enjoy but I have to do you know the Denis Eady I remember from those days is not the avuncular lovable figure I see around now it was an old flame fire always like we look back on a week rather later and he was the frontman really very effective frontman for what was a machine for the establishment in rather desperate conditions and his campaign really consisted of block votes I didn't take it for granted at all that I'd win I knew it'd be very closely balanced it was a very tense period but it had its amusing side now if the cameras will turn off just one moon I'm going to tell you a secret but it out like thank you Michael foot isn't perfect I'm not perfect everybody knows that even Jolie Ben isn't perfect bloody hell but despite the occasional amusement the deputy leadership election rapidly disintegrated into trench warfare overall it was a nasty period and nasty campaign one that reflected no credit on the Labour Party as an open democratic comradely organisation quite the reverse it showed some of the worst sides of people in politics on the left the people's March for jobs became a march for the deputy leadership the rival factions vying with one another to be the center of attention in their midst the leader Michael foot seemed unable to impose order on his party Michael Hoover had not only had the great affection of the party but it became clear that he wasn't up to being leader he'd also not fixed anything no I you can't be a Labour leader unless to be blunt about it you're ready to to fix things to ensure that things don't go wrong and also to work on Murphy's Law that everything that can go wrong will go wrong so you have to plan for those eventualities things did go wrong at rallies in Cardiff and later in Birmingham Denis Healey was abused and heckled by supporters of Tony Benn swelling anger several of those demonstrations were wrecked by tony benz candidature because of many of those meetings people would turn up Tony bender could claim he wasn't responsible for them but he'd incited it they turned up on wrecked the meetings we had our great demonstration in Cardiff wrecked by a few enraged supporters of Tony Benn who came to it they came shouting and denouncing Jenny Sealy as if he was some kind of traitor which is a label muumuus of course was an absolute outrage for anybody to say we had a rally where we had the anarchist carrying skull and crossbones and the militant carrying the militant tendency stuff we even had the posse dist who thought that supporting Tony who thought that socialism would be brought to Britain by beings from outer space I think they were hangover from his period as minister of Technology when he was a great technology nerd and the site of this on the television created the image of the Labour Party as extremists and divided which lasted for another 10 years it's only really just been overcome by Blair's election and women don't don't some of you who've been yelling understand you're playing the Tauri game when you play that sort of game one of the things which I'll never forgive tell me was not only accepting the support of these people but being inappropriately pious about it saying I don't believe that speaker should be shouted down I believe in free speech but that's nothing to do with me when he could have with a single sentence of tell them to leave Denis Healey alone well I'm not in favor of breaking up public meetings and I think it's a ludicrous idea to expect somebody to denounce somebody over whom they have no control from and now part of what they choose to do but it was an attempt to make it look as if I was encouraging it which I was not Tonie Ben's campaign exasperated one of Michael foots closest supporters Tony Benn considers that he has almost birthright to lead the Labour Party now I don't say that he articulates that in his own mind in such an arrogant way but in a lot of the ways in which he has conducted himself he does give the impression that no one else is fit to lead so much of what he did appears to have been impelled by this idea Neil Kinnock had made his mark as a firebrand of the left but many suspected him of harboring his own leadership ambitions and in the summer of 1981 he distanced himself from the Ben camp we have him from time to time in an article in Tribune the Labour Party's Journal of the Left Kinnick attacked Ben for encouraging a personality cult and announced that he would not vote for Ben but would abstain we're very angry about it very very angry about it because no it was hoped that Neal and others who profess to be on the Left were actually going to cast their votes for Tony pann so we felt very very angry about it don't think you would just simply didn't like Ben I think Neal had longer-term calculations and want people of the caliber of Neal and those that want to become leaders of parties and possible Prime Minister's they do have a long term agenda a long term strategy and I think that influenced Neal Neal decision not to vote for Tony Bennett had a number of consequences one was that he was hated by the far left the other was that he was accepted by the moderate left and moderate right I don't believe Neil Kinnock would have become leader of the Labour Party had he voted for Tony Benn for deputy so whilst I'm prepared to believe it was a not heroic but brave thing to do it was also a shrewd thing to do and much free credit if you would be brave and shrewd at the same time that's not bad on Sunday the 27th of September 1981 the Labour Party gathered at Brighton for its annual conference and the election of deputy leader there were crowds not necessarily of Labour Party members lining the street between the the hotel and the conference centre and it was a national event the like of which I haven't seen since within the Labour Party I haven't seen so much attention paid to the goings-on in the Labour Party in the subsequent 14 or 15 years inside the conference hall delegates calculated the odds it was clear that Tony Ben's grassroots campaign had been effective and that the result defying earlier predictions would be no walkover for his rival than his healing I remember the excitement I remember people coming up and saying you won we think you've won I got declarations of support from some very surprising people who thought I'd won and clearly I'm in Time magazine had a cover prepared I must be the only one who has the cover of the Time magazine that never appeared there was a lot of excitement as I sat on the platform and waited for the results of the deputy leadership election I thought to myself if the polls weren't close now I would vote for Healey and I would get those who were part of my loose grouping of abstainers to do the same because I I wanted at that juncture to make it set and I didn't even want the possibility of Tony Benn winning to become real people kept coming with messages saying Ben's got it by two percent then somebody else would come in with about his saying he'll is just scraped it he was the most friendly atmosphere I've ever known as a Labour Party conference because we knew the vote was tight and people at least like me believe that if it had gone the wrong way that everybody who probably not recover when the ballot was declared the result could hardly have been closer a final decision I now say this now the votes have been counted three times Johnny Bailey forty nine point five seven four dennis ala fifty point four turn even had lost by less than one percentage point Neil Kinnock's very public abstention and proved decisive well delegates you have heard the result of the elections congratulations Tennessee way I now can only hope that we can get on with the business of his father I won by half an eyebrow off a hair of an eyebrow and I think Tony was very upset but he took it in good part and I mean he's always been very gentlemanly decent silver tongue charming chap it's just this destructive innocence of his which is so disastrous I can't say that it was a disappointment because I never expected to win and when I look back on it I thought it was an extraordinarily important event in labour politics and I still think there but Healy had one and for the right of the party his victory was a watershed it was a turning point because the Labour Party had decided to cling bytes fingertip nails to reality and sanity and that made it possible for the Labour Party to be saved it took a long time for the Labour Party to be saved but the Labour Party was saved and saved as a major electoral force and the content of a government now where is is a camera and that's I'm one of that small band of people who believe even now that had Tony Benn become leaders the Labour Party our fortunes would have been very different there would have been a clear opposition to the Thatcher regime that people could understand but I do think we would have been in a much stronger position today than we subsequently terney been put on a brave face in defeat he claimed a moral victory he had lost by the narrowest of margins in face of the full weight of the party establishment but in reality defeat was a devastating blow from which he and the left have not yet recovered the fortunes of the left receded extremely strongly they had run out of momentum we then were in the run-up to the 83 election and of course we were reaping the whirlwind of anger and disgust at the what were perceived to be a party at war with itself Neil Kinnock's refusal to support Tony Benn was also a critical moment in his career at the 1981 conference he put down a marker for the future and alienated many friends on the left as the conference ended some of Ben's allies called him a Judas to his face at the bar at the conference Hotel was extremely crowded and you really could not move and again someone made disparaging remark towards Neil and know Neil immediately lost his temper and started pursuing this person through the crowds you know obviously very red-faced with with fury and I think eventually came to blows with him in the in the gents at the back I was attacked in the gents by a young man who I guess has never attacked anybody in his life I've never seen him since I've kept my head and because I'd like to I'd like to apologise to him for what I actually did to him but it indeed got caught up in all the emotions and so on so he rather foolishly attacked me and it was it was it was more stupid than malicious but at the time it further defined my view that if people were prepared to get carried away to that extent then we really were in grim circumstances and I think the years after that tended to prove but that was right you while labour slugged it out those who defected to the SDP appear to be on an unstoppable bandwagon by election victories followed in quick succession Roy Jenkins captured Hill head a Labour stronghold and Shirley Williams won Crosby taking almost two-thirds of the former Labour vote move from the Callum bitter lonely battle from the Labour Party to be extraordinary for an excitement of the SDP was dark from light I mean it was just a total contrast and in those first few months everywhere we went I mean thousands of people came to meetings it was almost impossible to find anybody who wasn't met about for the SDP and later for the Alliance and of course the by-election results were all phenomenal one of the other the success of the Social Democrats and Labour's internal divisions focused attention on the leadership of Michael foot at the Cenotaph that year he seemed distracted and unsuitably dressed to some his manner and appearance at the ceremony came to symbolize his unfitness to be party leader let alone Prime Minister but the first time he was openly criticized by members of his own party he turned up in a what the donkey jacket he was like a reefer court we should marvelous for a parade of minors or a demo wouldn't cap on but it wasn't the sort of thing that a Labour leader should wear but at the Cenotaph on Armistice Day and that there were things like that which did is a lot of damage but Michael foot seemed unaware of the impression he was creating after it was over I went back to the Foreign Office where they have drinks there was the Queen Mother and she said to me that's a lovely warm coach you've got on I said yes you need a coat like that on a day like this so that was I had never dreamt that this was going to cause such trouble Michael foot became the object of derision and cruel caricature and press the suffering inflicted on a gentle and otherworldly man was deeply distressing to his friends it would have been better for Michael foot if Denis Healey had become leader of the party I mean in personal terms in terms of the pressures upon Michael and the wretched treatment that he got from most quarters I was caricature and of course caricatures can be extremely wounding but there have been quite a lot of people in our politics before me and much more myself who've been caricature sometimes the caricatures are so fierce that he can destroy them but sometimes they surmount the caricatures the contrasts have put with the Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher became more marked as time passed in 1982 Argentina's invasion of the Falklands and their recapture transformed her standing in the polls she was able after three very unpopular years when popularity and the party's popularity fell to a quarter of the electorate that she was able following the Falklands Filip to build Thatcherism into a political approach which was appealing to many people for a time and we instead of challenging her with fighting one another on abstract theoretical questions totally irrelevant to the needs of ordinary people Michael Woods problems would not go away early in 1983 Peter Tatchell stood for labor in the Bermondsey by-election rely on your support for labour in the election on 24 okay Michael foot had condemned Tatchell in the House of Commons after the left-wing activists called for extra parliamentary action against the tourists footed declared he would never endorsed Achille as a candidate but then back down and allowed him to stand it was an absolute phone girl and self-inflicted wound whatever you think of Peter Tosh is a principled man associated now a lot with gay rights but at the time trying to bring the Berman's a Labour Party into line with the thinking and needs of the people in the locality the terrible thing to do I'm pretty touched on the Labour candidate I live over the Rockingham estate that's why I'm a rebel if you doing around here and you're working cash economy don't you well I don't think he ever I never said I never said that he would never be Academy you know I think I dealt with it very well I'm I'm sorry that Peter Tatchell was injured by what was said originally because especially he berry very well about it in many ways Michael foot by denouncing me as a candidate gave a green light both to the right-wing press and to Labour's political opponents what he was effectively saying was that I was unfit to be a candidate and that effectively declared open season on me all the protection or whatever the Labour leadership might have given me was removed I became fair game for virtually everybody under the Sun to have a go virtuals public association with gay rights was a gift to some of his opponents natural Oh pleased to meet you posters were displayed in the bowmen see constituents is saying which Queen would you support and a photograph of the Queen of England and a photograph of Peter Tatchell designed to really appeal and to incite the worst kind of prejudices the old guard of the Labour Party in Bermondsey put up a rival candidate John O'Grady a local councillor whose campaign plumbed the depths satchel is a puppet as pretty as can be but he must be slowly don't know he can't be Herod it seemed that some senior members of the party actually wished for a catch-all defeat I'd remember morning press conferences where I was surrounded by Labour front bench spokespersons I was suffering incredible grilling over issues like my support for the role of troops from Ireland or follows Ben and Gary quality troops after me we are it's a hypothetical no it's not a hypothetical question it's a question before this to give you debate Landon Cassill do you believe yourself that there is a need for money to be given to the closeout movement yes or no you please ask the question I will discuss it tomorrow morning when a decision has been made the point is mr. Castle you can't give us straight in fact ask your question can you you sites there every question was wrong a straight answer can you while the right-wing press was absolutely ferociously grilling me the front bench spokespersons just sat there and did nothing they couldn't come to my aid they didn't offer any intervention to try and help me at all I was just left to be grilled non-stop by these right-wing hyenas the result when it came was even worse than expected Peter Tatchell 11 nine seven thousand six hundred and ninety eight now therefore declare that Simon Henry wolf Hughes has been duly elected to serve a member of parliament for the southern Germany constituency and that tonight sensationalism címon human little sdp 17,000 in 17 defeated Bermondsey raised questions about michael foot leadership once more the baton see by-election was a walking nightmare up from beginning to end and anybody who worked in that by-election and came to the view that the most we could hope for in the general election which was on the cars two three months away after that was Labour's survival as a second party and that we had literally no hope of getting into government aware as an opposition party ever lost a seed with twenty odd thousand majority at a time when unemployment going through the roof and at a time you know when it went missing statute was screwing the contract and here we are in Bermondsey of all places losing seats I mean that really was the pits and you know that I think that's when people thought Mitel he's no leader but as labour politicians have so often lamented the party lacks the ruthlessness of the Conservatives in replacing its leaders although many felt that Michael foot should be toppled in favour of Denis Healey few were willing to wield the knife I didn't want to suggest it my job was as deputy leader to be loyal to him the only chap who suggested it was Gerald Coffman and he put it to Michael and Michael refused I said him Michael I think you ought to resign as leader of the Labour Party I think that there are people going away to fight the general election who will not come back if you leave the Labour Party in this general election and he listened with the courtesy that you would expect from Michael foot and he said I don't think I can do that I thought it would be a quite unwise step to take and I think I still think I was right although I could well understand that people said only you know Denis Healey would have made a better leader of the party those circumstances the knew at all actually what we did was to co-operators well we could to try and deal with a desperately difficult situation on the 9th of May 1983 Margaret Thatcher surprised the country by calling a general election to victory you can have any problems with the manifesto today Michael foot was ill-prepared for the campaign without his own manifesto right do we are now this is IVA so feel about he and Dennis Healy hey hastily salmon colleagues to consider the party's proposals well party traditionally had a meeting of Shadow Cabinet a National Executive which the manifesto it's be fleshed out I went that meeting thing here God we come here all dead much of the night not looking for to suddenly to my astonishment John going the leader of the hard right proposes that all these documents should be incorporated into a single manifesto my gut feeling was to get rid of it as quickly as possible without any argument without any dispute just take this suicide note as Gerald Kellerman described it the longest suicide note in history put it there get it signed and dispatched as quickly as possible they were carried virtually without any discussion and afterwards I remember saying to gilding earth what sort of manifesto is this and he said to me this election is going to be fought on Tony Ben's terms so we might as well thoroughly incriminate him we can't win this election so we might as well hang all his policy around his neck now this indicate the degree of despair to weasel end party had come by then I was simply paired to try and make a decent manifesto out of it but harder men that I wanted to label later they'd been election so we'd learn our lesson from disaster a week later my goof wood presented Labour's policies at the morning press conference Gerald Kaufman's tag the longest suicide note in history quickly became common currency it was a huge document covering everything which a Labour government was going to do written frankly from overwhelmingly the point of view of the hard left of the Labour Party so total unilateral nuclear disarmament mediate total withdrawal from the common market abolition of the House of Lords command economy a siege economy and so on pass through planning agreements everywhere that was all there and much much more I know that told that the party's position was going to lose this election I mean I no doubt about that at all and that was precisely because we'd allowed a small group of people to determine the agenda of the party who had the faintest notion what was going on in the world out there and who constructed a whole set of policies there were absolutely nothing to do with the needs of real people and I won my seat in that 1983 election in a strong labor area despite our program not because of it we read up and down the country and we believe it was all these different questions in the proper perspective if we'd won on that election manifesto we would have had a much better chance of dealing with these economic problems than we had under Thatcher and the Tory government so I'm not ashamed of that document and I'm very happy that when discussions of this nature lead people back to look at it what was wrong with that document was it it was a stupid document it contained a number of extremist things it contained also utter nonsenses during the course of the compilation of that document we only narrowly staved off a proposal that we should have a socialist policy for puppy farms I kid you not if the manifesto was a liability the campaign itself was a disaster Michael would disdain modern electioneering with its gimmicks its emphasis on sound bytes and the dominance of image instead he entered on an arduous and poorly organized speaking tour of the country wherever he went he carried the baggage of four years of Labor's divisions it was a hopeless campaign but memories vividly now of the difficulties we were all in and the Labour Party was losing votes day after day support was just sliding away from us and the reality is that we had tested to destruction the confidence and the trust of our supporters we were going down part of my constituency on the top of the campaign bus which was open and I could remember seeing a man who knew the truth of the polls which were devastatingly anticipating a huge defeat he knew it we all knew it and yet here was a man who who was giving his very all I mean he was physically at the limit of everything that he could give but he knew he was staring two feet in the face I admired him at that moment but we all knew he was doing the general perception from the outside was that the campaign was ban very badly wrong and inept but I have to say that from the inside it was even worse the only relief was that from time to time libido - who was the broadcasting officer they got hold of the awful Michel foot tape March and stuck it in the machine and marched around the press office to relieve their tensions in the lead back she's going to make a very good member of parliament and of the united states according to their constitute at the heart of Labour's difficulties was the question of defense Michael foot was a lifelong unilateralis utterly committed to ridding Britain of nuclear weapons but during the campaign the party's divisions over the issue was soon exposed most terrible one of the problems is that policy wasn't clear policy was often damaging but not clear there was one day when three different interpretations of Labour's defense policy were given on the very same day by Michael foot by Denis Healey and by John silk'n who was our defence spokesman it was utterly uncoordinated it was a shambles every time he'd speak up there polls would go down it was clearly an unpopular policy supported by relatively few people and yet Michael was kept on banging on about it the only safety for our country the only defense for our country the only defense for this country and the other countries is worldwide disarmament starting with nuclear disarmament that what we got and so his colleagues were saying Michael will you please shut up about it and he said at one point he said I am NOT going to be leader forever of this party this is the opportunity that I have to get my message across and I am NOT going to lose that opportunity to communicate to the British electorate what I think so strongly about this policy now you have to admire that kind of attitude but as somebody said in the American context this was a person who'd rather be right than president well Michael clearly would rather be articulate on unilateral nuclear disarmament than Prime Minister white we came free we're going through there if you're in the way you commander why Michael foot on the Left distrusted opinion polls instead they favored rallies demonstrations and the power of sustained oratory I would show you a 42 year opinion polls totally strong you're on sit there were thousands people but by making us wrong no cheered let's say yeah but they're under than 22,000 outside saying you're crackers William Hazlitt an old friend of mine said I think many many years ago before there any such things as Poe's he said the fear of what the public will think prevents the public from thinking at all and people do use the fear of what they think the poles are going to say from stopping all kind of thought Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative Party in direct contrast to labour had no qualms about mimicking the razzmatazz of an American political convention and her supporters played on Michael Woods more obvious weaknesses let's bomb Russia let's kick Michael foot stick away we're an a a very professional campaign the thing I remember most was canceling the last four days of advertising because the Chairman's I suppose and decided there was no need to to do it since we were so far ahead and so unlikely to lose the election I think they were still deeply embedded in her you know in a concept of politics that had long gone by and they were also they'e stood all modern presentation techniques as gimmicks and misleading the public and so on and they regarded our industry the advertising industry and for that matter the public relations industry as being some kind of mouthpiece of the devil as the campaign progressed attention focused on needle Kinnick michael foots time in office was clearly drawing to its close and Kinnick was ready to step into the limelight even though i was a member of whatever committee it was called that was supposed to meet everyday to discuss the ongoing state of the election I don't think I went to mourn four or five of those meetings because I after the first couple I thought Karen better in the ski and so I got behind the wheel of the car fixed my own frog up and off I went rampaging around the country it wasn't self-indulgent my presence in London would have been completely redundant as I think most people from us rushing the election was a preparation for Neil becoming candidate Michael thought of Neil is his favorite political son the great affection between them and Mike was still there doing its best to prepare the way for an eel key meetings that Michael pulled out of the last moment messages when they would have a wife not solutely no complaint about this it just was read by read Neil started his campaign the night before the election result was known by a wonderful speech which appeared on television he had the good luck of having his count on the Friday morning he therefore had a meeting quite unnecessarily in terms of winning votes on the Thursday evening it was the meeting that got on all television programs while we're waiting result and it was a brilliant preach Margaret Thatcher wins on Thursday I warned you not to be ordinary I warned you not to be young I warned you not to fall ill and I warned you not to grow old now I had said well it'd be very closed and that in a particular set of circumstances if we lost the election I would have to run but I frankly hoped those circumstances wouldn't arise I thought my mind would be made up for me but on the day of poli first in the 9th of june 1983 not even the most optimistic labour politician had any hope of victory good morning ladies and gentlemen and welcome to our final press conference I remember the last press conference I'm always at the last press conferences of dueled election and in transport house my coming and saying goodbye to us and because I have a silly sense of humor say I hope on Saturday morning you won't keep me waiting very long I hope your phone straight away to say I'm going to be held secondary and sort of hysterical laughter went round the room they weren't laughing at my joke during the joke and they were laughing at the absurdity the bizarre quality of a suggestion that we might possibly win the general election and that was the spirit throughout the campaign ah it was a light the 83 election at the beginning of the election period our cry against Margaret Thatcher was that she'd cut and run by the end of the election I was secretly praying and regretting the Shadle cut and run some more because had that election gone on for another week we would have come third there is no doubt about it our votes were dissolving like snow in the sunshine there it is going blue just about everywhere sweeping the country the rural parts of Britain now have gone blue there are only two labour see the election results confirm the party's worst fears under Michael foots leadership labour won only 209 seats Margaret Thatcher increased her majority to 140 for a landslide there was one important consolation labour hung on as the main opposition party and beat the SDP liberal Alliance into second place I'm not making any comment until we hear the real results you know and of course I'll be happy to comment in and I think that's much the most sensible course for us to take do you fear them the worst time when they woke up and hate when the actual result came through and it was the terrible result even worse than I feared almost people had prophesied and some of my closest friends were defeated that election defeated no doubt because of their association with me in there so was a very very bitter moment but he was bitten for the country and for the party as well in my opinion if you as an opposition after four years of conservative govern actually lose 29 seats if you are down to your lowest total since the 1935 election if you are down to the lowest proportion per Labour candidate of the popular vote ever it seems to me that's quite a bad defeat I think that history will say and judging Michael thought but no he had no chance whatever of becoming Prime Minister of Britain winning a general election and that his contribution such as it was was to prevent the Labour Party from having a still more serious split than in fact took place Antony Neil Wedgwood then Labour 18,000 and 55 it was also said of Michael foot but by the size of his defeat he ensured the Tony Benn could not succeed him leaving the way clear vanilla clinic for bent lost his seat in Bristol and only an elected MP can stand for the leadership but after the years of struggle then felt he had no cause for regret not one little bit I would have been utterly ashamed if I'd followed the course of Neil Kinnock given up everything he believed in in order to get the leadership and then at the end find having done so nobody - nobody believed the word you said I have no regrets what I made mistakes there were mistakes made because I believed what I was saying in the time not because I was maneuvering or manipulating for some position for myself as expected Neil Kinnock was elected leader of the Labour Party at the conference in October 1983 you know a self-styled radical had grasped the torch from his friend and mentor Michael foot also a man of the left yet over the years to come Kinnick would lead his party on a fraught and difficult journey to the right in his youthful enthusiasm he'd come to believe that this was the only way out of the political wilderness but the ultimate prize would never be his we got together in the evening and the best way to manifest a sort of Victorious joy mr. Singh and and so we sang as opposed as opposed it's either very British all very well probably more Welsh in times of celebration and mourning at times of disaster and possible trial who resort the singing an optimal will of attorny revolutes your medium-level see only israel tara me the imbecile evening ever Cellini a Bunty popular it was Cellini ever Cellini subpoena

Channel: thatcheritescot

Views: 142,829

Keywords: margaret thatcher, neil kinnock, john major, wiiliam hague, john smith, tony blair, ian duncan smith, michael howard, david cameron, gordon brown, tory, labour, politics, ronald regan, bill clinton, george bush, alastair campbell, maastricht treaty, roy jenkins, bernard wetheral, tony banks, house of commons, house of lords, shirley williams, charles kenedy, nick clegg, the falklands

Id: 6ITCj38dLgk

Length: 59min 43sec (3583 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 26 2012

Reddit Comments

[u/geraldspoder]

In light of the recent election, perhaps the most relevant of the parts of the documentary.

Details 1981 war between Dennis Healy and Tony Benn over the deputy leadership, troubles with the SDP, Michael Foot's gaffes, and the 1983 election campaign, concluding with the election of Neil Kinnock as leader.

Features cameos from Jeremy Corbyn and Jon Lansman.

[u/Square14]

Neil Kinnock was truly a servant of his party and his country.

Tony Blair changed this country for the better and he made it happen basically.

It’s so sad that the brutal fight Kinnock waged for 9 years to kick the trots out was all undone in a moment of madness with allowing members to join for 3 pounds and elect the leader. To me Kinnocks general elections are the definition of heroic defeat - and he deserves praise in history for what he did. What Corbyn, Seamus milne, mccluskey etc have done is drive the party off a cliff.

This 3 pound change was absolutely mad - no regard for checks and balances - the basis for which all well functioning democratic institutions are based, it’s the descent into mob rule by entryists.

The tories system is a lot better. MPs vote to take it down to 2 and then go to members of the party. MPs have huge democratic legitimacy through their mandate from the people - but the PLP have been marginalised and all focus is on the mandate of the members which it turns out is completely out of line with the electorate.

[u/Jazz-Mojo]

Thanks for posting these.

I saved all the parts on YouTube should be a good watch.

[u/OCPEoireitum]

Well that was a re-run - down to the results - of last week’s fiasco. Uncanny. And weird to see both Corbyn and Lansman interviewed too.

[u/ukpolbot]

thatcheritescot

Labour - Comrades At War
part 2 of the 4 part series episode 1 - cast into the wilderness episode 2 - comrades at war episode 3 - enter the rose episode 4 - the pursuit of power
🕘 0:59:43
📅 2012-09-26
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