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Part XVIII
Part XVIII:
♥ Joe Ashton, My Labour, My Party, (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1993):
"Internal polling indicated we were running at 35% on the eve of the announcement of the general election of '87. The next morning the Brent East Constituency Labour Party announced they were deselecting Reg Freeson in favour of Ken Livingstone, of the arch loony Greater London Council. That afternoon my poor secretary had to drive me to the hospital. I broke my hand punching my desk."
❥ Peter Shore, Leading the Left, (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1993):
"Reg Freeson supported Irish nationalism, opposed the Korean and the Vietnam Wars, was a founding member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in '57, marched with Michael Foot against the bomb in Aldermaston in '58, wrote for the Tribune (back when it was hardest of hard left), edited the anti-fascist 'Searchlight' rag in '64, and voted 'No' on Europe and almost assaulted Roy Jenkins in the House of Commons for voting 'Yes.' There was not a left wing cause in England to which Reg would not lend his name, but he was not left enough for Brent East and so they subbed him out for the clown prince of the London left, and did it on the day after the announcement of the '87 general election. I do sometimes wonder if my Party actually wants to lose."
♣ David Ian Marquand, Nomad, (HarperCollins, 1990):
"I was in the House of Commons in '72, when Reg Freeson ran up to Roy Jenkins after Roy exited the 'Yes' on Europe lobby and screamed 'rat-fucker' into his face repeatedly. Roy took it with remarkable sangfroid. I wanted to commit grievous bodily harm to the weasel. Roy Hattersley had to hustle Roy Jenkins out of the House and Bill Rodgers had to be restrained from exacting physical retribution. Roy Jenkins is a gentleman and can never say what I say now, I celebrated Reg Freeson being chucked out on his ear. I drank champagne, not claret, that day and it was rather expensive champagne at that."
♣ Roy Jenkins, Centre Ground, (Harper Collins, 1991):
"I did not celebrate the de-selection of Reg Freeson, but did much welcome the selection of Ken Livingstone. Since Tony Benn disappeared into the desert to commune with the great spirits of Marx, Levelers and the latest book he managed to finish reading, the patently false cures of 'Bennery' were extolled by a motley band of charlatans. The most well-known mountebank was Mr. Livingstone. His selection inspired more than a few of my fellow Social Democrats and seemed to have revived my fortunes in my seat, where the resident extoller of 'Bennery' was young George Galloway. When I first ran in Glasgow Hillhead in '82, it had an air of Gladstonian crusade, in '87 it was college entrance exam mathematics. The phrase 'tactical voting' was not as well known then as it is now and I dare say my seat may have contributed to its popularization, as Conservative voters stealthily approached me all through September, always alone or in pairs, and after looking leftwards and rightwards would lean and confess they were voting for me to keep Mr. Galloway out of Parliament. I was at first amused by this, then cheered by it."
♧ David Owen, Into the Maelstrom, (Macmillan, 1991):
"Contrary to popular opinion there was no 'tactical voting' or anti-Labour machinations in Brent East. The Social Democrats ran a good campaign, but we simply did not have the necessary level of support to do well there, through no fault of our excellent young candidate."
♣ Bill Rodgers, Call Me What You Will, (Politico's, 2000):
"Daniel Finkelstein was the Social Democratic Party candidate for Brent East in '87. Prior to that he was Chairman of the Young Social Democrats, which were as loyal to David Owen as the Mamelukes of the Guard were to Napoleon. During the month-long general election campaign, David Finkelstein appeared in Brent East thrice and spoke once. In '83, our candidate in Brent East got almost 7,000 votes and captured 17% of the vote, with the Conservative candidate coming in second with 13,529 votes (35%). In '87, we captured 1,035 votes for a deposit losing 2.6% and coincidentally the Conservative candidate saw her total rise to 19,794 and won the seat. But if David Owen says there was no 'tactical voting' done per his orders in Brent East, then I have no wish to openly call him a liar."
♦ David Steel, Against Goliath: The David Steel Story, (Penguin Books, 1989):
"David Owen and his campaign team gave me assurances in word and letter there were no formal deals being struck between Social Democrats and Conservatives during the general election and I have no court worthy evidence to the contrary."
♤ David Mellor, My Moment, (Fourth Estate, 2000):
"I very much resent the conspiratorial theories of a quid pro quo conducted between Conservative and Social Democrat candidates during the October '87 election."
♤ Norman Lamont, Inside Westminster, (Andre Deutsch Ltd, 1996):
"There was no quid pro quo. Most involved were silks, or at the very least had QCs on their staffs, and knew better than to commit themselves to actions from which there was no plausible deniability. But there were moves and countermoves. An SDP candidates suddenly forgot how to campaign in Brent East. A Tory candidate in Stoke-on-Trent North was not seen in the constituency during the whole of the election. In Aberdeen South and Edinburgh South, the SDP candidates were suddenly bereft of posters, had their radio buys yanked for 'budgetary reasons' and appearances by David Owen were cancelled and those of Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams redirected elsewhere. Tory candidates in Glasgow Hillhead and Stockton South quite suddenly found the Central Office of the Conservative Party unable to support their campaigns with an appearance by a single Cabinet minister. It wasn't 'tactical voting' it was voter manipulation, and it worked."
♧ Mike Thomas, Separate Ways, (Duckworth, 2000):
"Norman Lamont once called General Pinochet 'a good, brave and honourable soldier,' and that made more sense than the conspiracy theory he doodled on the back of a napkin in green ink and inserted into his book. I have had to live for four years with random radio hosts asking me about the missing posters in Aberdeen South with the same fervour a JFK conspiracy theorist talks about the Book Depository. I do not wish to spend much time on Lamont's ravings. Actually, I do not want to spend any time on his ravings. But since the publication of that book caused me to repeat myself more times than I can count, I do want to make some statements to bring an ounce of reality to the funhouse mirror world Norman constructed. I can't speak for the behaviour of the Tory candidates as I had nothing to do with them. Neither can I speak for the Tory electoral efforts in three constituencies Norman named in his ramblings. But I can speak regarding Social Democratic efforts in '87 in Brent East, Aberdeen South and Edinburgh South. No one told Daniel Finkelstein to forget how to run an election. He just read the political weather and realized he could not get elected in Brent East in '87 but he can siphon off Tory voters and help install Ken Livingstone into Parliament. He therefore took it upon himself, solely, to sacrifice any chances he had of winning to prevent Pink Ken from getting into the House of Commons. It was brave and entirely self-directed. I defy anyone to produce one letter where anyone from SDP Leadership or National Committee told Daniel Finkelstein to blot his copybook. I defy anyone to find a single witness of a single conversation between Daniel Finkelstein and the Committee or Leaders where anyone told David to stay home. I congratulated him on his choice after the election, but did not have a single word with him during the course of it. As to the candidates in Edinburgh South and Aberdeen South, as the names suggest, these were Scottish constituencies. Everyone in the SDP who was going to run in '87 and was not an incumbent was told to prepare for the worst. Actually, anyone in SDP who was running Scotland, incumbent or otherwise was told to prepare for the worst. Scotland was not going to go well for us and everyone knew it. Unlike Labour, flush with money from trade unions, or the Tories and their millionaire friends, the SDP campaign fund was not swimming about in Scrooge McDuck's money bin. We had to make decisions, hard decisions, on where to allocate resources. Our non-incumbent candidates in Scotland were not as supported as they should have been. There was no conspiracy there, just the financial perils of trying to elect 300 plus candidates. But if there was, consider the sheer number of people who would have to be involved to tell three people with healthy egos running for Parliament to do their best to lose. Consider what would have to be done to redirect resources and alter schedules. Consider the overwhelming odds of some kind of paper trail to carry out some of what Norman suggests was done: posters sent to a different warehouse or constituency, alteration of campaign diaries, transferring funds. How did no journalist manage to find any proof of the supposed conspiracy? Did we bribe the press as well?"
♥ Philip Gould, Confessions of an Adman, (HarperCollins, 1996):
"We lost two and a half days of campaigning to responding to the Ken Livingstone nomination in the press. Neil (Kinnock), Giles (Radice) and all of the Shadow Cabinet pledged to never allow Pink Ken into the Cabinet in the event of a Labour victory. For two and a half days I had to watch the 'Sun', 'Daily Mail,' 'Daily Express' and 'Daily Telegraph' slowly roast us on a spitfire. We had some counterattacks in the 'Daily Mirror' and 'Guardian,' but those were counterattacks instead of spreading our message. We had pipped Mail, Express and Tory-graph by the end of day three, but the 'Sun' was quite another matter. It was relentless."
☆ John Bercow, Thatcher, Thatcherism, and Thatcherites, (Faber, 1998):
"With a circulation of 3,993,000 and a readership of 11,316,000, the 'Sun' was the most widely read daily in the Fall of '87. At the time, 35% of its readership was C2 (National Readership Survey classification 'skilled working class') and it therefore struck at the heart of what many assumed to be a traditional Labour voter. The 'Sun' savaged Labour throughout the campaign in a brilliant and bigoted fashion. By and large the television coverage strived to be less factional and did its best to ignore the more sensational claims of the dailies. However, should some politician be goaded into responding to a newspaper story it was then covered on the TV under the guise of covering the politician's response rather than the prurient nature of the claim to which the politician was compelled to respond. Such was the case with Mr. Healey whose attack on an article disclosing Mrs. Healey had used private health care led to the issue being seen as fair game during his television interview. But the symbiotic relationship of TV and the newspapers cut both ways, as Neil Kinnock found out when he made an ill-advised attempt to explain his (by then) complex views on nuclear weapons in an interview with David Frost."
♥ Roy Hattersley, Roy from Yorkshire, (Penguin Books, 1992):
"I find it bewildering that Neil (Kinnock) did not anticipate being asked what he would do in the event of Soviet attack upon British soil. His response was muddled and defeatist. The Tories rags tore him to pieces over it, while the 'Guardian' said Neil was 'half way round Spaghetti Junction in a thick fog.'"
♥ Bryan Gould, Hard Labour, (Penguin Books, 1989):
"We were all in a fog. Each attempt to direct the conversation to education or healthcare was somehow pivoted back to defence. 19% of the lead stories on the front page of the dailies during the election campaign were on the issue of defence, as compared to 14% in '83. We found ourselves quizzed on Polaris as if it was a great novel we all should have read before daring to apply to college."
♦ David Steel, Against Goliath: The David Steel Story, (Penguin Books, 1989):
"The press coverage was unhelpful. It excluded us for the most part and treated the proceeding as a horse race between Labour and the Conservatives. Every day the politically aligned dailies argued the merits of this poll or another and neglected to address the core issues represented by the Parties. We were quite prepared to explain the difference in our manifesto with that of the muddled efforts of the King ministry and the Labour's attempt to break with its more doctrinaire socialist aspects. Instead we watched percentages of voters weighed in the balance on the front pages. The only issue the press seemed to wish to discuss was defence and there our intra-Alliance monk like silence regarding Polaris did not hold. David Owen felt compelled to speak at great length on the subject, causing much trouble for the unilateralist members of our coalition."
♣ Dick Taverne, Vagabond, (Weidenfield & Nicolson, 1988):
"There were no unilateralist SDP MPs in '87. It was not an article of faith we required incoming members to subscribe, but we happened to have uniform views regarding it. Asking Social Democrats to declare for the bomb but against it at the same would have as ludicrous as Denis Healey's awful compromises in '83. The Liberals could speak out against the bomb if they chose. We chose to speak out in favour of it. I saw no negative consequence to it."
♣ Chris Patten, Roamer, (HarperCollins, 1995):
"On the first day of the campaign the Alliance Shadow Cabinet was re-introduced with as much fanfare as we could muster. Prime Minister was to be either David Steel or David Owen and the loser would then be Home Secretary, certainly a first in the history of any campaign in Britain. The rest were evenly divided. In an effort to get a flint-eyed anti-unilateralist out of Defence, Liberals agreed to make Bill Rodgers the Foreign Secretary once Roy Jenkins announced he would not take on the position. Defence Secretary was then conferred upon Bob Maclennan, who was as puzzled as the rest when the two Davids called upon him to the job. He took it, but without any enthusiasm. He did swot up on it and gave cogent responses to questions and it raised his profile, due to Defence being a big issue in the '87 campaign. But no one among the SDP truly believed in the event of an election Bob would stay on as Defence Secretary. Nor could anyone really picture Bill as Foreign Secretary. The compromise Shadow Cabinet fooled no one, especially when both David Owen and Bill Rodgers were able and quite willing to to articulate the Alliance defence policy far better than its erstwhile Shadow Defence Secretary. It was a farce, but a dangerous one, for Bill could not pull his punches when discussing the necessity of Polaris, while David would not do it."
"Time and time again, David Owen drew attention to his nuclear policy, ignoring the rules put in place to create peace and waging open war on the unilateralist members of the Liberal Party, without consulting either David Steel nor anyone else within the Alliance regarding his statements, nor clearing them in advance with any of the bodies setup to address defence issues."
♤ David Mellor, My Moment, (Fourth Estate, 2000):
"Norman Tebbit ran a good, if not particularly inspired, campaign. Or I should rather say the official campaign. Norman Lamont and Nigel Lawson had setup their own sideshow, as did Michael Heseltine and his band, as did Michael Portillo and his Thatcherites. Although none were in the Cabinet, some of the schismatics were former members of it and could issue grand pronouncements for the benefit of the press and the detriment of the official Conservative campaign. Our message became quite muddled and Norman Tebbit could not impose order, despite his best efforts."
♠ Mark Robinson, A Better Britain, (Pimlico, 2000):
"I was highly disturbed in watching Lawson, Portillo and Heseltine efforts. Each was rooting for the King government to fail, but not too fail so badly as to not allow a recovery of the Conservative Party at the subsequent election with one of the three men taking a hand at the tiller. It was a less principled stand than that of Enoch Powell in '74. At least Mr. Powell had the fortitude to call upon the electorate to vote Labour as a way to punish Ted. The Lawson, Portillo and Heseltine camps pretend to be for King, while very much undermining him. Their actions might have splintered segments of the electorate but unified the Cabinet. The feeling of being besieged by former friends turned foes led to a remarkable spirit of loyalty among the ministers and all of them did their best to help the Party secure a victory."
♡ Cherie Booth, Speaking for Myself, (Little, Brown, 1998):
"The polls were going crazy. There was talk of a comfortable Conservative majority followed by a stringent belief Labour would have a razor thin majority. There was also talk of the Alliance overtaking Labour in the popular vote and the implication of an Opposition Party not speaking for the most people opposed to the Government. We all became half-experts at electoral mathematics during the course of the month long campaign. The problem wasn't lack of information, but its overabundance. There were too many polls and too many newspapers covering them from every angle. In '83, the question was how low could Labour sink and how large of a majority could Conservatives establish on the bones of Labour. In '87, the question was who would win?"