Marta Sáenz de Aguilera
Banned
Are there any plausible alternatives to James "Jim" Callaghan that could have done better as Labour PM of the UK in the 1970s?
Alternatives to James Callaghan
- Thread starter Marta Sáenz de Aguilera
- Start date
Putting aside any arguments about Callaghan's effectiveness as a PM, there were alternatives to him, though I doubt that they would have been as acceptable to all wings of Labour Party as he was. There were Michael Foot, Barbara Castle and Tony Benn on the left, and Roy Jenkins, Denis Healey and Anthony Crosland on the right (each to a varying degree). Most of them were polarising figures who never cultivated a broad following within the party, Benn and Jenkins had alienated everyone apart from their respective followers due to the issue of Europe and Crosland was a solitary figure with a few supporters on the right. Perhaps Healey could bridge the gap, though he had a reputation as a bully and had quite a divisive personality. If the party didn't have Callaghan as its leader then it would be extremely difficult to manage (even more so than OTL), as the failure of the Wilsonian consensus revived the polarisation of the past.
Roy Jenkins.
Far more fiscally responsible and prudent than Callaghan. Indeed, Thatcher herself would credit Jenkin's service to the country in the late '60s for bringing about the recovery in the '70s, and in fact blamed the Conservative chancellor Anthony Barber for introducing policies which halted the recovery (by bringing about high inflation).
I could easily see Roy Jenkins radically transform the technocratic Labour Party and become something of a British Bob Hawke. I wonder if we could find a British Roger Douglas to become his Chancellor. Then we would have a British Labour Party that I'd love to see in power any day.
The problem for Healey was that he didn't cultivate a personal following within the party and as Chancellor of the Exchequer he was having to make decisions that the left didn't like.
Callaghan wasn't all that bad. He would have won if he went to the country in the autumn of 1978. He was betrayed by the unions and I guess they paid the price for it after 1979.
The problem with Jenkins is how polarizing he was. Same with Healey. For all of his problems, Callaghan was a well-liked figure by the majority of Labour MPs. I agree with the idea that had he gone to the country in 1978 he would have preserved the Labour Government for at least a few more years. He also would have kept the party more centrist (i.e. social-democratic, not democratic socialist) and united.
P.S.: For any Americanos like myself, it's important to note that New Labour didn't signify a radical departure for the Labour Party. Blair and Brown simply rehashed the ideology of the 1960s and 1970s. The real difference was the messaging.
P.S.: For any Americanos like myself, it's important to note that New Labour didn't signify a radical departure for the Labour Party. Blair and Brown simply rehashed the ideology of the 1960s and 1970s. The real difference was the messaging.
I agree that Healey wasn't an overwhelmingly appealing figure but that would be part of his strength. The party needed rigor after the lax, self-indulgent regime of Wilson and IOTL it simply got more and more of the same right the way up until Kinnock. Healey would likely not have turned the situation around, but he would have probably stopped some of the rot.
He would possibly have won, but he had no ideas and no programme. If Labour had won in 1978 then probably they would have wheezed on under Healey's economic course but it wouldn't have brought them popularity with either the public or the unions, and Callaghan wasn't the man to make a new political settlement. They would be out, well out, in '83.
Uhm, what? Would you care to expand on that? I mean I think the radicalism of New Labour is often over-stated and there are continuities, but I've never seen anyone claim that it was a complete rehashing of the Wilson era. Maybe in management attitude but not in ideology.
Any Labour leader who called an election in 1978 instead of singing "Waiting at the Church" at the TUC would probably have done better than Callaghan OTL (including Callaghan if he did so), though obviously it's difficult to say what would have happened once campaigning actually began - Thatcher may still have pulled it out of the bag.
Thing is, if Mrs. T wins in '78 then she's landed with at best, a Major '92 majority. Facing down the Discontent with squishes and wimps as trenchmates is hardly a recipe for Tory success.
As for the OP: An alternative who could do better on the intraparty front? No.
As for the OP: An alternative who could do better on the intraparty front? No.
Well indeed, and I would say that New Labour tapped into many old, long-established conservative strains in Labourism. But I'm not really sure certainly a foreign audience would consider the pre-Blair party at least not to be a Socialist one.
Didn't he immediately get rid of Barbara Castle (I don't know why they didn't like each other, but they didn't) with the lines 'Clearing out the old' to which Castle replied that in that case he should start with himself.
Thande
Donor
Yeah. He also put Crosland in as Foreign Secretary over the more qualified Jenkins just because he liked Crosland better and the PM and Foreign Secretary often have to travel together to international conferences.
I doubt Castle would have wanted to stay on under Callaghan anyway. (They didn't like each other because he, in one of the great ironies of history, had been one of the principal wreckers of In Place of Strife)
I can see 1979Callaghan beating 1969Callaghan for that, if he ever met him.