In Britain's Middle

AUGUST 1980

A Private Meeting

"Denis Healey must go!"

"He is refusing to listen to the demands of our union supporters! He will never get anywhere as a junior Tory!"

"Mr. Benn, you must challenge him at the next party conference..."

"What is our strategy until then?"

"We make him into Thatcher-lite. We'll get the Electoral College yet."


The Independent

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Question Time devolves into confrontations!

HEALEY & BENN NEARLY COME TO BLOWS FORCING CLEARING!
SOME IN LABOUR THREATEN ON RIGHT AND LEFT!
Yesterday, after a heated exchange in the House of Commons during a Question Time debate, Labour leaders are fuming amongst one another. The Prime Minister, when confronted about her positions on democracy by Scottish Nationalist leader, Gordon Wilson, skillfully turned the tides of the debate that left her opponents in Labour fuming. She told Mr. Wilson that "She, unlike some within the Party Opposite, supports democracy and the will of all the people of Great Britain" and that "Unlike the members opposite, she would never allow trade unions to decide the course of the nation alone as they would decide the future of the opposition if they go through with their electoral college."

At first, Mr. Healey defended his party and the moderates who strongly opposed the electoral college. He was immidiately challenged by Michael Foot and an argument among members quickly ensued. Tony Benn and Mr. Healey nearly came to blows, having to be seperated by members. Mr. Speaker adjourned the House until cooler heads could prevail.

There is much talk that defections will occur no matter what course the party takes. If they are to continue on the right wing path, Mr. Benn is openly consorting about either defection or a challenge. On the right, there is much dissatisfaction with Mr. Healey's leadership. Roy Jenkins, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, however no longer a member of the House, has denounced Mr. Healey's leadership. Several moderate MP's, including Roy Hattersley, David Owen, William Rodgers, Shirley Williams and Neil Kinnock have been meeting over the issue for some time to discuss what to do. We will continue to update you with events as they occur in this tumultous story...


SEPTEMBER 1980

Mrs. Thatcher was quite pleased with the goings on in the opposition. They were completely disorganized as well as fractured. Healey and Shore couldn't get along. The Shadow Cabinet was failing during Commons debates against her Ministers and she was getting her program passed most easily. The Liberal Party looked completely dead. Sure, there were some worries, such as the issue with Iran. America's Secretary of State, the decorated Edmund Muskie had been negotiating for the release of Americans almost fruitlessly. But all in all, Mrs. Thatcher was riding high. She had no reason to suspect that anything would go wrong in Britain. That is, until the news leaked...

Francis Pym had been holding negotiations with Edward Heath, yes, the former Prime Minister who could not even bring himself to say Thatcher's name! Pym was also talking to the moderately conservative Cyril Smith in the Liberal Party. Pym, Heath and Smith were considering a full break and the creation of a new political party in the middle. With Labour disorganized, the Liberals dying and the Tories moving further to the right, the prospects for a centrist party were greater than ever. When Thatcher got wind of this, she reamed out Pym and demoted him. Replacing him as Foreign Secretary would be one of Thatcher's favorite problem solvers; Norman Tebbit.
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Norman Tebbit

This would prove to be problematic. Tebbit could not get along with his American counterpart, the tempermental Muskie, which strained relations with America. Meanwhile, the 1980 U.S. Presidential Election was underway. Jimmy Carter had been rejected by the Democrats that summer in favor of Edward Kennedy and his running mate, Morris Udall. Ronald Reagan, whom Thatcher regarded as a close friend, had held the lead since the conventions and it was looking increasingly like he would win.
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Ronald Reagan campaigns in 1980


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Edward Kennedy at the 1980 Democratic Convention


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Morris Udall on the left shakes hands with his
Vice-Presidential Opponent Republican George Bush

OCTOBER 1980

Out of the government completely, Pym set his idea in motion with Heath. However, at the last second, Smith soured on the idea of leaving the Liberals at the time, thus putting off the brand new party for a time as Pym and Heath correctly judged that just "Two sour old Tories do not a new party make. We will need someone else... Someone who isn't quite so fickle as Cyril..."

BREAKING NEWS!!!!

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IRAN THREATENS EXECUTION OF POLITICAL PRISONERS!!!
President Carter and Secretary Muskie
denounce Iranian leader as "totally mad"
Prime Minister Thatcher
joins America and calls
for Iran to be stopped!

 
October 1980

The Ayatollah Khomeini had threatened to make good on his promise to execute one American political prisoner per day to prove that aligning with the United States in the middle east would be trouble. Israel in particular was uneasy over Iranian aggression. President Carter, a lame duck, pulled out his own "October Surprise by launching a rescue mission with Israel as a base of operations. Although British assistance was desired, Muskie and Tebbit intermediaries could not reach an agreement.

The New York Times


Rescue Mission Successful!

American Hostages Successfully Reach Israel!

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October Surprise Could Effect Election!!!

With the rescue of the American hostages, Senator Kennedy managed to pull about even with Governor Reagan in the polls. Thatcher watched now with greater interest. Ted Kennedy was a lion of American progressivism and would not be someone she could have a close relationship with. Sure, they could be cordial, but the two of them were both stubborn fighters for ther ideals. The unfortunate fact that Britain had not provided assistance only strained the "special relationship".
LIBERAL DISAGREEMENTS
David Steel shuffled slowly to his private meetings. He dreaded them. He was not a strong-willed man, but led through concilliation. With much of the party feeling that Clement Freud, the grandson of the famous psychoanalyst, was their man, Steel was confronted with a problem he could not solve. Freud seemed to relish the attention and fostered it with the press for all he was worth. Cyril Smith regarded neither, but stated that when his vote came down, it was for Freud. Smith's treason to the Liberals would not be discovered until sometime later. Steve Ross, a conservative like Smith had held his nose and voted for Steel after originally voting for Alan Beith. David Penhaligon on the other hand, liked Steel. They shared much in terms of common belief and where the Liberals should go. He wanted to bring the Liberals to the social left of Labour while maintaining a centrist economic stand. MPs like Ross and Smith did not have time for the eager young Penhaligon, but this was soon to prove to their undoing.
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David Penhaligon


LABOUR DEFECTION?
The pressure was becoming far too great on Denis Healey. He was fighting tooth and nail privately against an electoral college for Labour. He worried that the trade unions would hurt the party in the end and much polling around the country proved him right. Inflation was still a serious problem and Thatcher's free market principles had done little to stop it. Unemployment had gone up slightly and people were beginning to feel discontented. They were not ready to dump the Iron Lady yet, but Healey felt if he could hold onto leadership, he would have a great chance of winning the general election.

However, Healey's focus on left wing defections blinded him to the chasm his leadership was causing in the Labour center. His poor relationship with the Shadow Foreign Secretary, David Owen were coming to head. Young Dr. Owen argued constantly with Healey as well as Peter Shore in private meetings. He had argued that Labour should offer strong support for the United States' rescue mission and to condemn Thatcher's reaction. Healey felt, however that there was nothing to say. He had no inkling of siding with America or a military operation where there was no immidiate British endangerment. Owen became disillusioned. He and Roy Hattersley became more open about either Healey going or they wanted out of Labour. It was this rumor that Ted Heath had heard that led he and Francis Pym to get to the young doctor alone, without Hattersley's balancing influence. They told him there would be much to gain by the creation of a new Centre Party. Owen held out for a time, but Pym and Heath felt that he would be the most likely person they could get a commitment from.
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David Owen

Coming up for Chapter 3.....

Will David Owen Leave Labour for the new forming Centre Party?

Will Reagan or Kennedy win and what will happen with relations to Britain?

What's in store for the Liberals in the next saga?

What will happen with Denis Healey? Will he be ousted sooner than later?


Be sure to check back for Chapter 3!
 
Issues...

orry, but one or two problems with this to be honest. It should be remembered that in 1979 Margaret Thatcher did not even really dominate her own Cabinet - the crucial ally was William Whitelaw who supported her out of loyalty more than from any instinctive ideological kinship.

The "Wets" were centred around Ian Gilmour and James Prior and both were in the Cabinet. Pym was much more of a Thatcher loyalist and Heath was frankly irrelevant. The breakaway from the centre-right would always have been Gilmour, Prior, perhaps Peter Walker and a group of backbenchers including the likes of Bruce Douglas-Mann and Christopher Brocklebank-Fowler.

I simply don't recognise the picture of David Steel's Liberal leadership. Steel is simply not the character you describe and the party had only 11 MPs after the 1979 election so there wasn't much room for disunity. Cyril Smith strongly fought Labour but that didn't make him a Tory and the same goes for David Penhaligon.

As Labour lurches to the Left and the Conservatives to the Right, it's tempting to see the new Centre Party as an obvious evolution but, apart from Europe, I can't see the common ground between the Gilmours, Priors, Owens and Penhaligons at that time though by 1981 things might be different.
 
orry, but one or two problems with this to be honest. It should be remembered that in 1979 Margaret Thatcher did not even really dominate her own Cabinet - the crucial ally was William Whitelaw who supported her out of loyalty more than from any instinctive ideological kinship.

The "Wets" were centred around Ian Gilmour and James Prior and both were in the Cabinet. Pym was much more of a Thatcher loyalist and Heath was frankly irrelevant. The breakaway from the centre-right would always have been Gilmour, Prior, perhaps Peter Walker and a group of backbenchers including the likes of Bruce Douglas-Mann and Christopher Brocklebank-Fowler.

I simply don't recognise the picture of David Steel's Liberal leadership. Steel is simply not the character you describe and the party had only 11 MPs after the 1979 election so there wasn't much room for disunity. Cyril Smith strongly fought Labour but that didn't make him a Tory and the same goes for David Penhaligon.

As Labour lurches to the Left and the Conservatives to the Right, it's tempting to see the new Centre Party as an obvious evolution but, apart from Europe, I can't see the common ground between the Gilmours, Priors, Owens and Penhaligons at that time though by 1981 things might be different.

Well, you're entitled. This is fiction after all ;)

I think though that you're mistaking a few of the character representations I've made... But like I said, it is still fiction & we're just getting started.
 
Chapter 3

THE CENTRE PARTY ABORTS

On the 1st of November, 1980, David Owen and Roy Hattersley began a telephone conversation regarding possibly joining the Centre Party being formed by some unsatisfied Tory backbenchers. With some Labour moderates in as well, it might truly have been regarded as a true centrist alternative. However, there was a problem.

Roy Hattersley could not make himself break off from his party and his chances of re-election would suffer immeasurably in left-leaning Birmingham. The roly-poly lisper with the keen sense of humor knew that it would mean certain defeat to bolt Labour.

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Hattersley and Geoffrey Howe speak to each other in the background


For David Owen, there was a different issue entirely. As Shadow Foreign Secretary, he still had a voice and a face. He maintained a public position of leadership, which was of paramount interest. He could continue on with Labour and pull in rather narrow victories in Plymouth Devonport. Or, he could bolt Labour, lose his position of leadership and be generally isolated in the Centre Party with a bunch of Tories. Owen felt his chances of climbing the ladder would disappear. Hattersley's words that Owen would become Prime Minister one day also weighed in his mind. Labour without the EC still had a place for him and he clung to it.

With Hattersley and Owen's pronouncements of rejection, several of the other Labour moderates followed. There would be no break from Labour and the Centre Party was dead in the womb.


MRS. THATCHER'S FOREIGN WOES

Jimmy Carter and the United States had made themselves pesky for the first year of Margaret Thatcher's Ministry. She and Carter just could not get along. With disagreements over certain trade because of Britain's refusal to assist the U.S. in the Iranian Hostage rescue, Carter's effective "October Surprise" had bolstered Ted Kennedy's Presidential aspirations. Senator Kennedy, had lived down the infamous Chappaquidick incident enough to keep his chances alive (though of course, not completely) in the election. Thatcher did not want to see Edward Kennedy elected President. Liberal and sympathetic to Northern Ireland Republicanism, she stood to have a contentious relationship with him if he were elected. She hoped and believed however that her ideological brother, Ronald Reagan would hold onto his tenuous lead and be elected. Thatcher had visited Reagan in California in early September during the early stages of the campaign to lend her support.

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Britain's Foreign Secretary, Norman Tebbit let it be known to his junior ministers that there would be no more diplomatic problems with America once Reagan was elected and he instructed them to generally ignore the outgoing members of the American State Department until January of 1981. Tebbit's well documented loathing of Edmund Muskie (The latter returned the feelings) contrasted sharply with how the Carter Administration had gotten along with the Callaghan Ministry. Carter and Callaghan had formed a friendship that would span the rest of their lives. Muskie's predecessor Cyrus Vance had also formed a close friendship with David Owen. Indeed, relations between Britain and America were at a high from 1977-1979. When Thatcher defeated Callaghan, the "special relationship" frosted.


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James Callaghan (CL) and Jimmy Carter (CR) in 1977


Although Carter did not particularly get along with Kennedy or the Vice Presidential nominee, Morris Udall, he could have taken comfort in the fact that he did assist the Democrats in battling a foe who looked unbeatable. So on the night of November 4, 1980, Carter retired to bed before finding out the results of the election. If he had stayed awake, they might've surprised him...
 
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