"We do not want to enter the age of abundance, only to find that we have lost the values which must teach us how to enjoy it."
The Age of Abundance - a British Political Timeline
- Thread starter Cevolian
- Start date
"We do not want to enter the age of abundance, only to find that we have lost the values which must teach us how to enjoy it."
Part I
PART I
The People vs the Peer;
The People vs the Peer;
The 1964 General Election ended in a way which no one would have expected – Alec Douglas-Home, despite all the odds, secured a fourth consecutive electoral victory for the Conservative Party and returned with a majority – albeit of one seat – of his own. This was a crushing blow for the Labour Party who, for the second time since the war, had won the popular vote but secured fewer seats than their Conservative rivals. This quickly led to the assertion by many on the left that the election had pitted “The people vs the peer”, and the peer had won… How had Douglas-Home secured this historic victory? Perhaps we will never know, but a few theories have been postulated by psephologists over the years.
The prevailing theory is that it was the influence of “Great Men” and, despite the general trend against “Great Man History” in modern academia, it is widely accepted that two individuals tipped the balance in this election. The two, rather dully and predictably, were Alec Douglas-Home and Harold Wilson – Douglas-Home’s primary influence was the adoption of a profoundly unconservative manifesto, calling for a “Property-Owning Democracy” and advancing a radical One Nation agenda in the mould of his mentor Noel Skelton. This radical manifesto was coupled with the minimising of the role of more “conservative” figures in the party – the bombastic Viscount Halisham was restrained, whilst young new figures like Reginald Maudling and Edward Heath were pushed to the forefront as the stars of the “new” Conservatism. Douglas-Home, despite his own antiquarian style, was pitching a modern vision to rival that of Wilson.
Wilson, for his part, played a less clear role in shaping the election. A seemingly devout Bevanite taking over the party that Gaitskell had led back out of the wilderness, he never quite had the support of the party’s moderates. Maybe it was these divisions, maybe it was Wilson’s increasingly evident lack of conviction in his principles (coming out in favour of a Nuclear Deterrent after winning the leadership), or maybe it was the radical nature of those principles, but the electorate never quite trusted James Harold Wilson. He was certainly popular with a large share of the electorate (larger, in fact, than Douglas-Home was when it came to the election), but in marginal constituencies the story was not quite the same. A series of stunningly close defeats for Labour have largely been blamed on these apparent reservations which the public had towards Wilson.
Regardless of why the election turned out as it did, it certainly had wide-ranging ramifications. Douglas-Home had been returned, but only very narrowly and with a majority of one any of the backbenchers who his One Nation stances had angered could come out against him… or worse, bring the government down. A fragile government was still a government, but the knives were already out in some sections as Douglas-Home refused to call another election in 1964. For now, however, Douglas-Home had a grace period in which he could seek to shape the country in his image.
The turbulence in the Labour Party was even worse – the Gaitskellites, whose leader had seemed certain to be Prime Minister before his death, were outraged by Wilson’s snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, and many demanded a challenge to the leader. Wilson, for his part, refused to stand down – he anticipated that another election would come in either 1964 or at some time in 1965 and wanted to be the man who led the party back into government. With half of the party utterly opposed to his leadership and the other half only lukewarm at best, Wilson’s position seemed untenable.
For the Liberal Party the election represented another slow step on the path back to relevance, increasing their seat total by three, and their share of the vote by a remarkable 5.3%. For the ambitious and charismatic new leader Jo Grimond, the party was on the verge of greatness. Indeed, the minuscule majority which the government had won made things even better for the party – they now had the chance to become kingmaker in the event of a by-election which went against the government. For a party which could not even win ten seats, the level of potential power within their grasp was unprecedented and the potential for a revival was closer than ever before. With the Conservatives winning another majority without even a plurality of the vote even the Liberal dream of electoral reform seemed possible.
The 1964 Election stands out to this day as one of the most unusual in British History – the last gasp of a deeply Conservative Establishment before the social and political revolution which would engulf British society…
(And here's the first part)
The prevailing theory is that it was the influence of “Great Men” and, despite the general trend against “Great Man History” in modern academia, it is widely accepted that two individuals tipped the balance in this election. The two, rather dully and predictably, were Alec Douglas-Home and Harold Wilson – Douglas-Home’s primary influence was the adoption of a profoundly unconservative manifesto, calling for a “Property-Owning Democracy” and advancing a radical One Nation agenda in the mould of his mentor Noel Skelton. This radical manifesto was coupled with the minimising of the role of more “conservative” figures in the party – the bombastic Viscount Halisham was restrained, whilst young new figures like Reginald Maudling and Edward Heath were pushed to the forefront as the stars of the “new” Conservatism. Douglas-Home, despite his own antiquarian style, was pitching a modern vision to rival that of Wilson.
Wilson, for his part, played a less clear role in shaping the election. A seemingly devout Bevanite taking over the party that Gaitskell had led back out of the wilderness, he never quite had the support of the party’s moderates. Maybe it was these divisions, maybe it was Wilson’s increasingly evident lack of conviction in his principles (coming out in favour of a Nuclear Deterrent after winning the leadership), or maybe it was the radical nature of those principles, but the electorate never quite trusted James Harold Wilson. He was certainly popular with a large share of the electorate (larger, in fact, than Douglas-Home was when it came to the election), but in marginal constituencies the story was not quite the same. A series of stunningly close defeats for Labour have largely been blamed on these apparent reservations which the public had towards Wilson.
Regardless of why the election turned out as it did, it certainly had wide-ranging ramifications. Douglas-Home had been returned, but only very narrowly and with a majority of one any of the backbenchers who his One Nation stances had angered could come out against him… or worse, bring the government down. A fragile government was still a government, but the knives were already out in some sections as Douglas-Home refused to call another election in 1964. For now, however, Douglas-Home had a grace period in which he could seek to shape the country in his image.
The turbulence in the Labour Party was even worse – the Gaitskellites, whose leader had seemed certain to be Prime Minister before his death, were outraged by Wilson’s snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, and many demanded a challenge to the leader. Wilson, for his part, refused to stand down – he anticipated that another election would come in either 1964 or at some time in 1965 and wanted to be the man who led the party back into government. With half of the party utterly opposed to his leadership and the other half only lukewarm at best, Wilson’s position seemed untenable.
For the Liberal Party the election represented another slow step on the path back to relevance, increasing their seat total by three, and their share of the vote by a remarkable 5.3%. For the ambitious and charismatic new leader Jo Grimond, the party was on the verge of greatness. Indeed, the minuscule majority which the government had won made things even better for the party – they now had the chance to become kingmaker in the event of a by-election which went against the government. For a party which could not even win ten seats, the level of potential power within their grasp was unprecedented and the potential for a revival was closer than ever before. With the Conservatives winning another majority without even a plurality of the vote even the Liberal dream of electoral reform seemed possible.
The 1964 Election stands out to this day as one of the most unusual in British History – the last gasp of a deeply Conservative Establishment before the social and political revolution which would engulf British society…
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Part II
PART II
A House Divided;
Harold Wilson shortly after Labour's defeat in 1964
A House Divided;
Harold Wilson shortly after Labour's defeat in 1964
Far from unifying the Labour Party on the government benches as Harold Wilson had hoped, the 1964 Election only created more strife, intensifying the struggle between the party’s rival factions. Prior to Wilson’s election as Labour leader the party had seemed certain to win the General Election, with the popular, intelligent and charismatic Hugh Gaitskell at the helm. When Wilson had taken over hope had remained, but the disastrous electoral defeat in October tore down any faith that the right had in the left-wing leader they had followed off the path to victory.
The problem for the right was finding their challenger.
The initial prime candidate seemed to be James Callaghan the popular Shadow Chancellor, whose union links and Bevanite history made him the ideal compromise candidate to replace Wilson. Callaghan, however, quickly ruled out any idea that he might challenge the leader, fearing he would lose his position if his leadership challenge had failed. The next potential figure was Deputy Leader George Brown, who had already challenged Wilson in 1963 alongside Callaghan following Gaitskell’s death. Brown presented the idea of his own candidacy to a group leading Gaitskellite figures (largely assumed by modern historians to be Douglas Jay, Michael Stewart and James Callaghan) on the 13th of November, just under a month after the election but was rebuffed. His colleagues feared that Brown, having already lost to Wilson once, could not command the support within the party necessary to mount a challenge.
With both major figures ruled out much talk was made of one of the party’s “Young Bucks” seeking the mantle. The Gaitskellite Roy Jenkins and the soft left Anthony Wedgewood-Benn (both certainly longshots for the leadership) are reported to have met with Stewart and Jay - Callaghan now refusing to even entertain the idea of a challenge – who had now essentially taken on the mantle of a provisional challenger campaign, but neither believed they had the standing to take on Wilson. Following the failure of their various schemes, the conspirators to replace Wilson laid low for the rest of November in the hope that something would come along to change Callaghan’s mind, or significantly undermine Wilson compared to Brown – they were, at this stage, still very wedded to the idea of a party “Big Beast” taking their leader on.
Amongst the party’s left there was also disquiet with Wilson (although primarily over his lack of conviction and ties to the right rather than due to his defeat) , and Anthony Greenwood and Barbara Castle are reported to have met with Callaghan to discuss the idea of a “Party Unity” ticket of Callaghan and Greenwood seeking to challenge the leader and deputy leader respectively. Callaghan was far from being a man of the left, but Greenwood and Castle recognised that, for dissident Bevanites to remove Wilson the support of both the right and the left would be needed. Callaghan again refused to challenge Wilson, however, writing in his autobiography that;
Many in the party came, by December, to wish for either the conspirators within to make a swift and deceive challenge, or to be quiet and allow Wilson another go at it, for fear of internal bickering leading to another electoral defeat. Enter Charles Anthony Raven Crosland. An unlikely challenger who, at forty-six, was only two years younger than Wilson and from a similarly intellectual background, Crosland was on the fringe of the party, having written extensively of his rejection of the concept of Collective Ownership and whose views had been very clearly laid out in his seminal revisionist text “The Future of Socialism”. At his initial meeting with Jay and Stewart his suggestion that he might make a run was brushed off, with Jay describing him as “Too bookish and scholarly” to make an inspiring leader for the party.
Soon, however, it became clear that no other challenger would be forthcoming and that the window in which a challenge might be possible was rapidly closing, having already missed the chance to challenge Wilson at the annual formal re-election of the leader and deputy leader. With no other choice, and with sections of the press now mocking them as a “Socialist Magic Circle”, the conspirators gave Crosland the nod. On the 11th December Crosland formally challenged Wilson and a new race for the leadership election began – the timing had been chosen carefully, coming on a Friday evening as Wilson was returning to his Huyton Constituency for a routine visit. Whilst the ensuing two days gave Wilson time to prepare, they did the same for Crosland, and allowed the challenger to drum up support in the party before the expected vote on the Monday. Moreover, the selection of a period immediately before Parliament’s winter recess meant that the party would have time to come back together in the event of a messy contest, away from the cameras of the London press.
With Crosland quickly making the rounds of the Members’ Tea Room, the Labour Civil War had begun…
Anthony Crosland declares his challenge to an audience of Labour MPs in 1964
The problem for the right was finding their challenger.
The initial prime candidate seemed to be James Callaghan the popular Shadow Chancellor, whose union links and Bevanite history made him the ideal compromise candidate to replace Wilson. Callaghan, however, quickly ruled out any idea that he might challenge the leader, fearing he would lose his position if his leadership challenge had failed. The next potential figure was Deputy Leader George Brown, who had already challenged Wilson in 1963 alongside Callaghan following Gaitskell’s death. Brown presented the idea of his own candidacy to a group leading Gaitskellite figures (largely assumed by modern historians to be Douglas Jay, Michael Stewart and James Callaghan) on the 13th of November, just under a month after the election but was rebuffed. His colleagues feared that Brown, having already lost to Wilson once, could not command the support within the party necessary to mount a challenge.
With both major figures ruled out much talk was made of one of the party’s “Young Bucks” seeking the mantle. The Gaitskellite Roy Jenkins and the soft left Anthony Wedgewood-Benn (both certainly longshots for the leadership) are reported to have met with Stewart and Jay - Callaghan now refusing to even entertain the idea of a challenge – who had now essentially taken on the mantle of a provisional challenger campaign, but neither believed they had the standing to take on Wilson. Following the failure of their various schemes, the conspirators to replace Wilson laid low for the rest of November in the hope that something would come along to change Callaghan’s mind, or significantly undermine Wilson compared to Brown – they were, at this stage, still very wedded to the idea of a party “Big Beast” taking their leader on.
Amongst the party’s left there was also disquiet with Wilson (although primarily over his lack of conviction and ties to the right rather than due to his defeat) , and Anthony Greenwood and Barbara Castle are reported to have met with Callaghan to discuss the idea of a “Party Unity” ticket of Callaghan and Greenwood seeking to challenge the leader and deputy leader respectively. Callaghan was far from being a man of the left, but Greenwood and Castle recognised that, for dissident Bevanites to remove Wilson the support of both the right and the left would be needed. Callaghan again refused to challenge Wilson, however, writing in his autobiography that;
I found it particularly craven of my colleagues in the Parliamentary Party to seek to flex their own ambitions through me in the Autumn of 1964. Had Stewart and Jay, or indeed Greenwood and Castle, wanted the leadership for themselves (which I am certain they did) they would have to challenge Wilson themselves. As far as I was concerned he had won a democratic mandate to govern already, and we just had to wait until the Douglas-Home ministry fell…
Many in the party came, by December, to wish for either the conspirators within to make a swift and deceive challenge, or to be quiet and allow Wilson another go at it, for fear of internal bickering leading to another electoral defeat. Enter Charles Anthony Raven Crosland. An unlikely challenger who, at forty-six, was only two years younger than Wilson and from a similarly intellectual background, Crosland was on the fringe of the party, having written extensively of his rejection of the concept of Collective Ownership and whose views had been very clearly laid out in his seminal revisionist text “The Future of Socialism”. At his initial meeting with Jay and Stewart his suggestion that he might make a run was brushed off, with Jay describing him as “Too bookish and scholarly” to make an inspiring leader for the party.
Soon, however, it became clear that no other challenger would be forthcoming and that the window in which a challenge might be possible was rapidly closing, having already missed the chance to challenge Wilson at the annual formal re-election of the leader and deputy leader. With no other choice, and with sections of the press now mocking them as a “Socialist Magic Circle”, the conspirators gave Crosland the nod. On the 11th December Crosland formally challenged Wilson and a new race for the leadership election began – the timing had been chosen carefully, coming on a Friday evening as Wilson was returning to his Huyton Constituency for a routine visit. Whilst the ensuing two days gave Wilson time to prepare, they did the same for Crosland, and allowed the challenger to drum up support in the party before the expected vote on the Monday. Moreover, the selection of a period immediately before Parliament’s winter recess meant that the party would have time to come back together in the event of a messy contest, away from the cameras of the London press.
With Crosland quickly making the rounds of the Members’ Tea Room, the Labour Civil War had begun…
Anthony Crosland declares his challenge to an audience of Labour MPs in 1964
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Aha only Jenkins was close to him in that way as far as I know! I'm interested why, apart from trying to unseat Wilson, what don't you like about him?
Thanks
coming from you in particular that means a lot since BBTL (and of course WBTH before it) are big inspirations for this! I imagine for a lot of people on this board the choice will be difficult!
Eh, its mainly that he's of the party right. Really, I suppose it comes down to having spent several hours a week for half a year going over and over his, admittedly very good, book. Its in the same vein as that Blackadder skit about punching Shakespeare.
Ah I see, yes one can hardly like Crosland if one is averse to the Labour right...
I read the book for fun and have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it! But I take your point... if I could get my hands on Willy Russel I'd have a thing or two to say about Blood Brothers...
Part III
PART III
Pistols at Dawn;
Pistols at Dawn;
Anthony Crosland’s leadership challenge had left Harold Wilson furious, and a particularly livid passage from his diary for the 11th of December read; “As I had always suspected the right have initiated a challenge, no doubt the left soon will too – there is no one who can be trusted in this damned party.” Taking the soonest available train back to London, Wilson sought to regain the confidence of his party and to secure the backing of the majority of MPs in order to abort the Gaitskellite revolt on the first ballot. Angry, but determined, Wilson was quick to whip the soft left of the party behind him and, after a lengthy telephone conversation, was able to persuade Greenwood of how “potentially calamitous” it could be for his career were he to participate in any kind of challenge. This was probably a wasted effort, Greenwood having already reconciled himself to the fact that the left of the party was, for better or for worse, tied up with Wilson.
The right of the party had already begun its campaign to overthrow Wilson, and many Gaitskellites in the Parliamentary Party had thrown their weight behind the challenge, but there were two, very major, exception. Callaghan, although privately supportive of Crosland, stayed neutral in public and refused to make a comment about the new contest for the same reasons that he had refused to challenge him in the first place. Similarly, George Brown, still stinging from his rejection, refused to back Crosland but, far more dangerously for the challenger, mounted his own bid on the 11th, securing just enough nominations to be on the first ballot. That two right-wing tickets were now both running for the leadership was a dark reflection of the leadership election of the previous year in which Brown and Callaghan had failed to present a united front, allowing Wilson to win. Interesting some on the soft-left shifted their support to Crosland, viewing Wilson as being unelectable - the participation of one young man in particular - Anthony Wedgewood-Benn - would have a profound impact on his future career.
Anthony Wedgewood-Benn makes a speech to soft-left colleagues in favour of Crosland
Indeed, the morning of the first round, it seemed like the cause of the challengers was doomed to failure and that Wilson would win on the first ballot. In a last attempt to shore up some support and get at least a decent showing to allow for another, later, challenge by some other figure Crosland delivered a speech to his supporters, which would go down in history as the “Age of Abundance” speech in which he reprised many of the views stated in “The Future of Socialism”, and in particular spoke of the importance of a revision of socialism to fit better with modern society and of reform within the Labour party to guide Britain into the future. Of particular note was a section partly taken from his book, which was often repeated by Croslandites and Bennites in the internal party struggles of the 1980s, when Crosland said “We do not want to enter the age of abundance, only to find that we have lost the values which must teach us how to enjoy it. Only a Labour party that looks forward with hope can keep the flame of those values, and only when we have consigned not just fancy and extremism, but cynicism too, to the past.”
Receiving a standing ovation from his colleagues, even as he ignored his own words and used the speech to attack Wilson’s “cynicism” and pragmatism, the speech is credited as having swayed many on the soft left of the party away from Wilson and towards Crosland, as well as convincing many potential Brown supporters that Crosland was the only man capable of brining the reformist zeal needed to turn the party around. That afternoon the votes were cast, and eventually recorded as follows;
Crosland; 147
Wilson; 115
Brown; 41
Unlike in the faintest and wildest dreams of the right of the party Crosland had not won on the first ballot, but he had been closer than they had expected in their most pragmatic calculations and, more importantly, he had not only prevented Wilson from getting a majority, but also secured more votes than him. Utterly humiliated, and with great reluctance, Wilson resigned as the leader of the party that evening and withdrew from the contest, endorsing Anthony Greenwood, who now received enough nominations to appear in Wilson’s stead on the second ballot as a new challenger for the left of the party. Many on the left hoped that Wilson’s defeat had more to do with his personality than his ideology, and that now he had been defeated the PLP would rally around Greenwood and kindly thank Crosland for doing the dirty work of dethroning an unpopular leader.
Crosland, however, was not going to give up. Seizing on his momentum, he and his campaign continued lobbying for support, particularly from MPs who had voted for Callaghan, and spent the next five days doing so in the lead up to the second leadership ballot. With Wilson now gone, Callaghan swung his weight behind Crosland, which swayed much of the “pro-union” right behind Crosland. Greenwood was able to attract some of the soft-left MPs who had reluctantly voted for Brown as a protest against Wilson and, by the day before the vote, it seemed like the two candidates would be neck and neck whilst George Brown would be eliminated.
At the end of the final day, however, Brown stopped some of the votes he was haemorrhaging from bleeding away when he delivered a speech criticising both of his opponents’ lack of experience. Had he decided to pursue this kind of strategy earlier then it could have been quite possible for Brown to turn this into a truly three-way race, but it was too late. The next morning the votes were cast, with an extraordinary 100% turnout amongst Labour MPs (although several did vote by proxy) and the results were eventually announced.
Crosland; 162
Greenwood; 120
Brown; 21
By a surprisingly large margin Crosland had won. Setting about to immediately reshape the party not in his own ideological image but instead with the aim of restoring party unity, Anthony Crosland was declared leader of the Labour Party. After a brief Bevanite interregnum, the heirs of Gaitskell had been restored.
The right of the party had already begun its campaign to overthrow Wilson, and many Gaitskellites in the Parliamentary Party had thrown their weight behind the challenge, but there were two, very major, exception. Callaghan, although privately supportive of Crosland, stayed neutral in public and refused to make a comment about the new contest for the same reasons that he had refused to challenge him in the first place. Similarly, George Brown, still stinging from his rejection, refused to back Crosland but, far more dangerously for the challenger, mounted his own bid on the 11th, securing just enough nominations to be on the first ballot. That two right-wing tickets were now both running for the leadership was a dark reflection of the leadership election of the previous year in which Brown and Callaghan had failed to present a united front, allowing Wilson to win. Interesting some on the soft-left shifted their support to Crosland, viewing Wilson as being unelectable - the participation of one young man in particular - Anthony Wedgewood-Benn - would have a profound impact on his future career.
Anthony Wedgewood-Benn makes a speech to soft-left colleagues in favour of Crosland
Indeed, the morning of the first round, it seemed like the cause of the challengers was doomed to failure and that Wilson would win on the first ballot. In a last attempt to shore up some support and get at least a decent showing to allow for another, later, challenge by some other figure Crosland delivered a speech to his supporters, which would go down in history as the “Age of Abundance” speech in which he reprised many of the views stated in “The Future of Socialism”, and in particular spoke of the importance of a revision of socialism to fit better with modern society and of reform within the Labour party to guide Britain into the future. Of particular note was a section partly taken from his book, which was often repeated by Croslandites and Bennites in the internal party struggles of the 1980s, when Crosland said “We do not want to enter the age of abundance, only to find that we have lost the values which must teach us how to enjoy it. Only a Labour party that looks forward with hope can keep the flame of those values, and only when we have consigned not just fancy and extremism, but cynicism too, to the past.”
Receiving a standing ovation from his colleagues, even as he ignored his own words and used the speech to attack Wilson’s “cynicism” and pragmatism, the speech is credited as having swayed many on the soft left of the party away from Wilson and towards Crosland, as well as convincing many potential Brown supporters that Crosland was the only man capable of brining the reformist zeal needed to turn the party around. That afternoon the votes were cast, and eventually recorded as follows;
Crosland; 147
Wilson; 115
Brown; 41
Unlike in the faintest and wildest dreams of the right of the party Crosland had not won on the first ballot, but he had been closer than they had expected in their most pragmatic calculations and, more importantly, he had not only prevented Wilson from getting a majority, but also secured more votes than him. Utterly humiliated, and with great reluctance, Wilson resigned as the leader of the party that evening and withdrew from the contest, endorsing Anthony Greenwood, who now received enough nominations to appear in Wilson’s stead on the second ballot as a new challenger for the left of the party. Many on the left hoped that Wilson’s defeat had more to do with his personality than his ideology, and that now he had been defeated the PLP would rally around Greenwood and kindly thank Crosland for doing the dirty work of dethroning an unpopular leader.
Crosland, however, was not going to give up. Seizing on his momentum, he and his campaign continued lobbying for support, particularly from MPs who had voted for Callaghan, and spent the next five days doing so in the lead up to the second leadership ballot. With Wilson now gone, Callaghan swung his weight behind Crosland, which swayed much of the “pro-union” right behind Crosland. Greenwood was able to attract some of the soft-left MPs who had reluctantly voted for Brown as a protest against Wilson and, by the day before the vote, it seemed like the two candidates would be neck and neck whilst George Brown would be eliminated.
At the end of the final day, however, Brown stopped some of the votes he was haemorrhaging from bleeding away when he delivered a speech criticising both of his opponents’ lack of experience. Had he decided to pursue this kind of strategy earlier then it could have been quite possible for Brown to turn this into a truly three-way race, but it was too late. The next morning the votes were cast, with an extraordinary 100% turnout amongst Labour MPs (although several did vote by proxy) and the results were eventually announced.
Crosland; 162
Greenwood; 120
Brown; 21
By a surprisingly large margin Crosland had won. Setting about to immediately reshape the party not in his own ideological image but instead with the aim of restoring party unity, Anthony Crosland was declared leader of the Labour Party. After a brief Bevanite interregnum, the heirs of Gaitskell had been restored.
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Part IV
PART IV
In the Court of the Earl of Holme;
In the Court of the Earl of Holme;
Alec Douglas-Home delivers an address on the BBC shortly after his electoral victory in 1964
A man who had fully expected to be out of government after the election, Sir Alec Douglas-Home spared no time in reasserting himself over the enthused Conservative Party. Despite the government’s small majority, the spirits of a party which had been on the precipice of disaster just days before were revived – Edward Heath the young Secretary of State for Industry and Trade was heard jubilantly proclaiming “Rejoice, rejoice!” in his Bexley Constituency after learning that the government had been re-elected. Immediately recognising that he had work to do, Douglas-Home set about forming a cabinet; largely the same as his previous cabinet, notable changes included the sacking of a furious Rab Butler in favour of Christopher Soames as Foreign Secretary, and the replacement of Anthony Barber (who had lost his seat at the 1964 election) as Health Secretary with the radical Enoch Powell. The young and widely popular (if untested) Margaret Thatcher, at the suggestion of Edward Heath, was made the new Minister of Education (many saw this as simply a cynical move to counter claims the party was old-fashioned, though these were flatly denied by the government), with Quintin Hogg given Soames’ old position as Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food as well as retaining the Science Portfolio. Brief talk of making Reginald Maudling Home Secretary and Heath Chancellor was abandoned after Maudling said he would not serve were that the case, which would produce a powerful enemy within a government with an extremely slim majority.
With a new cabinet assembled, Douglas-Home set to work again as Prime Minister, seeking to assure the public of his competence and ability to lead both his party and the country. It came as a surprise to many when, in his first post-election interview with the BBC, Douglas-Home flatly denied any suggestion that a snap general election would be held in late 1964 or early 1965. Later dubbed “lunacy” by his Chancellor Reginald Maudling, this decision failed to take advantage of the suddenly high poll numbers for the Conservative Party after the election and during the Labour leadership battle. Particularly considering how events would come to conspire, many historians and commentators (especially on the right of British politics) have subsequently criticised Douglas-Home’s decision, though a few argue that it was admirable how he placed national stability over political and personal advancement.
In his second ministry Douglas-Home presided over a growing balance of payments deficit and the exacerbation of the “Stop-Go” economic problems which had begun in the Macmillan Era, but nothing overly apparent to the public occurred, and although the economy was clearly not as strong as it had once been, nor was it in a period of crisis. It was clear to some that the economy was trending towards a dangerous chain of events, but in the halcyon days of 1964-1965 how badly things could turn out was not yet evident. With Edward Heath consolidating his relaxation of price regulations and Reginald Maudling providing a firm, One Nation, hand at the tiller the economy seemed to be in a stable, if not exactly “good” position.
No, as is perhaps fitting of a man who was Foreign Secretary prior to entering Number Ten Douglas-Home’s premiership was characterised primarily by his handling of foreign affairs. The beginnings of the Aden Emergency had been an early challenge, occurring just over a month after he assumed office in 1963, but it would be Vietnam which shaped Douglas-Home’s legacy. After the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (1964) the war in Vietnam had begun to escalate, but Britain (despite her close diplomatic relationship with the USA) had made no formal military commitments to the war, with the closest thing to an official British presence being the “British Advisory Mission to Vietnam” under Robert Thompson. Following Douglas-Home’s re-election, however, he met with President Lyndon Johnson and pledged not only to support the war publicly, but also to lobby secretly for a British SAS team to join any potential American deployment.
The Prime Minister speaking in Washington in December 1964
This move was met with very little support from the public, and total opposition from the Labour and Liberal parties – even some backbench Conservatives (and cabinet member Enoch Powell) were highly sceptical of the decision. The motion was narrowly navigated through Parliament thanks to a three-line whip despite numerous threatened abstentions from backbenchers, and only managing to do so because of Labour infighting. Douglas-Home triumphantly spoke alongside Lyndon Johnson in Washington against Communism in December, whilst back in London he was widely criticised by the new Labour leader for the decision to commit Britain militarily.
Both Labour and the Liberals were opposed to British involvement in the war, and in time the Liberal opposition in particular would come to haunt Douglas-Home…
With a new cabinet assembled, Douglas-Home set to work again as Prime Minister, seeking to assure the public of his competence and ability to lead both his party and the country. It came as a surprise to many when, in his first post-election interview with the BBC, Douglas-Home flatly denied any suggestion that a snap general election would be held in late 1964 or early 1965. Later dubbed “lunacy” by his Chancellor Reginald Maudling, this decision failed to take advantage of the suddenly high poll numbers for the Conservative Party after the election and during the Labour leadership battle. Particularly considering how events would come to conspire, many historians and commentators (especially on the right of British politics) have subsequently criticised Douglas-Home’s decision, though a few argue that it was admirable how he placed national stability over political and personal advancement.
In his second ministry Douglas-Home presided over a growing balance of payments deficit and the exacerbation of the “Stop-Go” economic problems which had begun in the Macmillan Era, but nothing overly apparent to the public occurred, and although the economy was clearly not as strong as it had once been, nor was it in a period of crisis. It was clear to some that the economy was trending towards a dangerous chain of events, but in the halcyon days of 1964-1965 how badly things could turn out was not yet evident. With Edward Heath consolidating his relaxation of price regulations and Reginald Maudling providing a firm, One Nation, hand at the tiller the economy seemed to be in a stable, if not exactly “good” position.
No, as is perhaps fitting of a man who was Foreign Secretary prior to entering Number Ten Douglas-Home’s premiership was characterised primarily by his handling of foreign affairs. The beginnings of the Aden Emergency had been an early challenge, occurring just over a month after he assumed office in 1963, but it would be Vietnam which shaped Douglas-Home’s legacy. After the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (1964) the war in Vietnam had begun to escalate, but Britain (despite her close diplomatic relationship with the USA) had made no formal military commitments to the war, with the closest thing to an official British presence being the “British Advisory Mission to Vietnam” under Robert Thompson. Following Douglas-Home’s re-election, however, he met with President Lyndon Johnson and pledged not only to support the war publicly, but also to lobby secretly for a British SAS team to join any potential American deployment.
The Prime Minister speaking in Washington in December 1964
This move was met with very little support from the public, and total opposition from the Labour and Liberal parties – even some backbench Conservatives (and cabinet member Enoch Powell) were highly sceptical of the decision. The motion was narrowly navigated through Parliament thanks to a three-line whip despite numerous threatened abstentions from backbenchers, and only managing to do so because of Labour infighting. Douglas-Home triumphantly spoke alongside Lyndon Johnson in Washington against Communism in December, whilst back in London he was widely criticised by the new Labour leader for the decision to commit Britain militarily.
Both Labour and the Liberals were opposed to British involvement in the war, and in time the Liberal opposition in particular would come to haunt Douglas-Home…
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Thanks
It's great, though I expect some on the right-wing to oppose British intervention a la Powell and Amery for instance.
Gonzo pls, what have I done to offend you so?
I believe I did mention that opposition in the last paragraph didn't I? And thanks
it's something I've wanted to do for a while and it's great to get it down!
Part V
PART V
The road to Roxburgh;
The road to Roxburgh;
Since the election, the government had worried about the danger presented by by-elections, but by 1965 a number had already occurred in safe Tory seats where, despite the death of sitting MPs, they had remained staunchly Conservative. Indeed, by-elections had actually helped the party, allowing Anthony Barber to be brought back into parliament, which in turn led to the end of Margaret Thatcher’s short-lived first cabinet career and her bitter resentment of the centrists in the party. The by-election in Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles seemed to be yet another of these – the by-election followed the death of Conservative MP Charles Donaldson on the 12th December 1964, and was scheduled to be held in the following year on Thursday 25th March.
A campaign poster for Anthony Barber at the Altrincham and Sale by-election in February 1965
The 1964 General Election has seen Donaldson narrowly beat the Liberal party candidate “David Martin Scott Steel” with a majority of just 1,739 votes. This would not be an easy by-election, but the Scottish heritage of the Prime Minister (who represented a neighbouring constituency) was thought to be an advantage for the Conservatives. Alec Douglas-Home was certainly able to sleep easily at first, with early polling showing a small, but respectable, Conservative lead. The majority was under threat, but it looked likely to be held, albeit barely, and – some senior Conservatives hoped – shock Douglas-Home into recognising the need for a snap election.
It was when Britain joined the conflict in Vietnam that things started to go wrong for the Conservatives. The Liberal candidate, David Steel once again, stated his opposition to the war outright, campaigning on the fact that, were he elected, he would endeavour to prevent Britain taking part in any way possible. The insurgent left-wing “Campaign for Solidarity with Vietnam” (or CSV) was founded in January with support from Bertrand Russel, and quickly began to send activists in to campaign for Steel despite the apparent political differences.
The Conservatives saw a startling reverse in the polls, and the Liberal star seemed on the rise. Douglas-Home himself went to campaign for the Conservative candidate Robert L. McEwen in February as the by-election drew nearer. Labour’s new leader was in two opinions on the by-election – on the one hand he could hardly withdraw his candidate, but on the other it was in Labour’s advantage for the Liberal Party to win in this Conservative-Liberal marginal constituency and topple the government (particularly with polls giving Labour a five point average lead). In the end he opted for minimal campaigning, which sent a clear enough message to many Labour voters about what they needed to do to advance the party.
As March drew closer the position of the government looked more and more precarious, with Edward Heath writing in his diary that “The Prime Minister ought to seize the initiative and call an election, but he won’t – the Earl of Home is far too honourable to do what’s best for the party”. The Liberal leader Jo Grimond was similarly pleased with how events were shaping up, predicting that the party would narrowly win the seat and bring the government down. David Steel had proven a phenomenon, capturing the attention of the nation with his charm and youth which led to a brief spike in opinion polls for the party (although this was ultimately not sustained). It seemed certain that the Liberals were going to win.
In fact members of the Labour and Conservative policy units began drafting rough provisional manifestos in the case of snap election. The Labour Manifesto “Ushering in the Future” was based clearly on Crosland’s book, calling for higher taxation and a society based both on the welfare state and personal liberty. A central aspect of the manifesto was the role of a mixed economy in British society, with Labour pledging to help small businesses and entrepreneurs – this did not sit well with the Labour left, but was surprisingly popular with the public. The Conservative Manifesto was, unsurprisingly, markedly similar – the main difference was Douglas-Home’s foreign policy and proposals to take Heathite economic reforms further, including limited market deregulation and the elimination of price controls on wages (an important safeguard against the ongoing balance of payments crisis).
Towards the end of the campaign the Liberal Party focused overtly on the fact that, were Steel to win, an increasingly unpopular government would be thrown out. David Steel argued that “This by-election more than any other has the potential to shape this nation for the better” and called for the “elitist reactionaries” to be thrown out. Jo Grimond delivered a passionate speech in Steel’s support that was met with a rapturous standing ovation on the penultimate day of the campaign. With the Conservatives still campaigning largely on improving the local area realised far too late that this was not so much a by-election campaign as it was a referendum on the government.
Liberal Candidate David Steel campaigning, 1965
The day of the vote finally came, and it was clear that turnout was going to be high from early in the day. The national press had rallied to see this historic by-election, and many politicos were glued to their televisions (which Douglas-Home would wryly remark were proof of the success of the government the voters were seeking to throw out). The polls closed at seven, and then late the following morning the result was announced – David Steel had won, with over 50% of the vote and a huge 15% swing away from the Conservatives. Although Labour had lost her deposit, the party was overjoyed – they were still surging in the polls and, just two days after the by-election, the Prime Minister decided he could not govern with a minority and called for a dissolution…
A campaign poster for Anthony Barber at the Altrincham and Sale by-election in February 1965
The 1964 General Election has seen Donaldson narrowly beat the Liberal party candidate “David Martin Scott Steel” with a majority of just 1,739 votes. This would not be an easy by-election, but the Scottish heritage of the Prime Minister (who represented a neighbouring constituency) was thought to be an advantage for the Conservatives. Alec Douglas-Home was certainly able to sleep easily at first, with early polling showing a small, but respectable, Conservative lead. The majority was under threat, but it looked likely to be held, albeit barely, and – some senior Conservatives hoped – shock Douglas-Home into recognising the need for a snap election.
It was when Britain joined the conflict in Vietnam that things started to go wrong for the Conservatives. The Liberal candidate, David Steel once again, stated his opposition to the war outright, campaigning on the fact that, were he elected, he would endeavour to prevent Britain taking part in any way possible. The insurgent left-wing “Campaign for Solidarity with Vietnam” (or CSV) was founded in January with support from Bertrand Russel, and quickly began to send activists in to campaign for Steel despite the apparent political differences.
The Conservatives saw a startling reverse in the polls, and the Liberal star seemed on the rise. Douglas-Home himself went to campaign for the Conservative candidate Robert L. McEwen in February as the by-election drew nearer. Labour’s new leader was in two opinions on the by-election – on the one hand he could hardly withdraw his candidate, but on the other it was in Labour’s advantage for the Liberal Party to win in this Conservative-Liberal marginal constituency and topple the government (particularly with polls giving Labour a five point average lead). In the end he opted for minimal campaigning, which sent a clear enough message to many Labour voters about what they needed to do to advance the party.
As March drew closer the position of the government looked more and more precarious, with Edward Heath writing in his diary that “The Prime Minister ought to seize the initiative and call an election, but he won’t – the Earl of Home is far too honourable to do what’s best for the party”. The Liberal leader Jo Grimond was similarly pleased with how events were shaping up, predicting that the party would narrowly win the seat and bring the government down. David Steel had proven a phenomenon, capturing the attention of the nation with his charm and youth which led to a brief spike in opinion polls for the party (although this was ultimately not sustained). It seemed certain that the Liberals were going to win.
In fact members of the Labour and Conservative policy units began drafting rough provisional manifestos in the case of snap election. The Labour Manifesto “Ushering in the Future” was based clearly on Crosland’s book, calling for higher taxation and a society based both on the welfare state and personal liberty. A central aspect of the manifesto was the role of a mixed economy in British society, with Labour pledging to help small businesses and entrepreneurs – this did not sit well with the Labour left, but was surprisingly popular with the public. The Conservative Manifesto was, unsurprisingly, markedly similar – the main difference was Douglas-Home’s foreign policy and proposals to take Heathite economic reforms further, including limited market deregulation and the elimination of price controls on wages (an important safeguard against the ongoing balance of payments crisis).
Towards the end of the campaign the Liberal Party focused overtly on the fact that, were Steel to win, an increasingly unpopular government would be thrown out. David Steel argued that “This by-election more than any other has the potential to shape this nation for the better” and called for the “elitist reactionaries” to be thrown out. Jo Grimond delivered a passionate speech in Steel’s support that was met with a rapturous standing ovation on the penultimate day of the campaign. With the Conservatives still campaigning largely on improving the local area realised far too late that this was not so much a by-election campaign as it was a referendum on the government.
Liberal Candidate David Steel campaigning, 1965
The day of the vote finally came, and it was clear that turnout was going to be high from early in the day. The national press had rallied to see this historic by-election, and many politicos were glued to their televisions (which Douglas-Home would wryly remark were proof of the success of the government the voters were seeking to throw out). The polls closed at seven, and then late the following morning the result was announced – David Steel had won, with over 50% of the vote and a huge 15% swing away from the Conservatives. Although Labour had lost her deposit, the party was overjoyed – they were still surging in the polls and, just two days after the by-election, the Prime Minister decided he could not govern with a minority and called for a dissolution…
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