TLIAPOT: Blinded by the Light
- Thread starter Gonzo
- Start date
Note to self: do not miss footnotes because they can stop you looking like a fool.
If you want a nigger for a neighbour, Vote [for] Labour
If you want a nigger for a neighbour, Vote [for] Labour
Peter Harry Steve Griffiths felt rather confident with his chances at the General Election in the Smethwick constituency. The seat itself had had a rather intriguing electoral history; at the 1918 General Election, Christabel Pankhurst, running for the Women's Party nearly won the seat from Labour; and from 1926 until 1931 the seat housed the charismatic Labour frontbencher Sir Oswald Mosley, and was the scene of where he made his foray into the more 'peculiar' aspects of politics, with his pseudo-fascistic populist protectionist New Party - which lasted a mere year, despite being launched to much fanfare. The seat had been held by Labour's Patrick Gordon Walker since a 1945 by-election - though his majority had fallen from the heights of around eleven thousand votes in 1950, to a mere three-and-a-half thousand votes at the last General Election. Griffiths remember it well - after all it was he who managed to halve the Labour frontbencher's majority to it's lowest ever.
The constituency itself had been a focus of Commonwealth immigration in recent years; the slowdown of economic and industrial growth since 1945, coupled with local factory closures, a lack of modern housing and an ageing population; all created some issues for the safety of the Shadow Foreign Secretary's seat. Griffiths ran a slick and relatively single-issued campaign in the constituency on the issue of immigration; he opposed the immigration policies of both the (Tory) Government and the (Labour) Opposition. The issue itself was slowly creeping up around the nation; the issue itself was rather potent in the Smethwick constituency - for instance the local Labour club operated a coloured bar.
The campaign took a particularly negative turn when leaflets linked to the Conservative campaign read out 'FACE THE FACTS: If you desire a COLOURED for your neighbour, VOTE LABOUR - If you are already burdened with one VOTE TORY;' This was shortened into a little 'jingle' - 'If you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote [for] Labour.'
Labour Leader Jim Callaghan, by this stage seeing his party's polling numbers decline, somewhat condemned the Tory campaign as "distasteful" - seemingly not wishing to alienate those voters considering voting for the likes of Griffiths in the constituency and elsewhere in the country. Griffiths himself did not actually coin the phrase or even approve of it's use - though he refused to disown it. "I would not condemn any man who said that", The Times quoted him as saying. "I regard it as a manifestation of popular feeling." Griffiths denied that there was any "resentment in Smethwick on the grounds of race or colour."
This in many ways was a mirror image of the General Election campaign in the rest of the country. Heading into the General Election, Labour were buoyed by their victory in the Greater London Council (GLC) election in April 1964. Labour defeated the Tories by a 64-36 seat margin - no other party won any other seats. This however disguised the close nature of the election, Labour only winning the popular vote by around four percent of the vote - indeed the large constituencies where the winner took all exaggerated Labour's win in votes into a near two-to-one lead in terms of seats. It also made it extremely difficult for the Liberal Party to win any seats. Interestingly in Tower Hamlets, the Communist Party of Great Britain came in second place with eight percent of the vote. The GLC would begin it's first sitting virtually a year later in April 1965.
Butler delayed calling a General Election for as long as possible so as to give himself as much of an opportunity to improve the polling and electoral prospects of the Conservative Party. To an extent this strategy paid off - the Labour polling lead of near twenty points - had been virtually halved - a remarkable achievement considering the supposed charisma problem of Butler and the various scandals and shortfalls of the Tory Administration over the years. The issues of the campaign included the Polaris missile system, unilateralism, Labour's manifesto commitment to the re-nationalisation of the steel industry (which had been publically opposed by two 'right-wing' MP's - Desmond Donnelly and Woodrow Wyatt), Rhodesia and increasing deficit in the balance of payments.
The Conservative campaign sought to utilise the 'runner up' in the Conservative leadership race - Quintin Hogg - making him in effect the chief spokesman for the Tories; and subsequently outshining the Prime Minister - who was left to do speeches and look 'Prime Ministerial' for the press. This strategy worked... to an extent; though Butler was famously egged at a Tory campaign event in Birmingham by a group of Labour hecklers, one of whom seemed to try a reach out and grab the Prime Minister by the lapels of his blazer. Hogg meanwhile relished the opportunity to lash out at hecklers and "put the buggers down a peg or two." One evening when giving a political address, he was hailed by his supporters as he leaned over the podium pointing at a long-haired heckler. He said, "Now, see here, Sir or Madam whichever the case might be, we have had enough of you!" The police ejected the man and the crowd lapped it up with a long applause and Hogg went on as if nothing had happened. Another time, when a Labour Party supporter waved a Harold Wilson placard in front of him, Hogg smacked it with his walking stick.
The Labour campaign saw Callaghan and the Deputy Leader George Brown tour up and down the country making energetic stump speeches - with Brown making the odd (drunken) gaffe which were usually received a laugh or two from the audience or press; but which led to some embarrassment within the Labour Party - and to questions concerning his suitability as a potential Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
The Daily Sketch meanwhile maintained it's long running '[X] number of days until Socialist takeover' - now into the single figures - and with the headlines become ever more and more apocalyptic.
Then the 15th of October came around.
Richard Dimbleby once again was at the helm of the BBC General Election coverage, along with Robin Day, David Butler, Cliff Michelmore and Ian Trethowan. Throughout the night Labour made various gains up and down the country; but the resident psephologist David Butler cast doubt on whether the swing was great enough for Labour to overtake the Tories and to win a majority.
Peter Griffiths won Smethwick with a decent majority; Harold Wilson angrily condemned him on air as "this parliamentary term's leper." Surely Labour couldn't get a majority?
As it turned out, yes they could, but only just. The Labour Party gained fifty-eight seats to see their total number of seats rise to 316; Rab Butler managed to pull off one of the greatest electoral upsets in British history - winning ten seats less than Labour on 306. The Liberals meanwhile saw their vote effectively double - but they only gained two seats, rising to 8. No other parties (unless you could the National Liberals, Scottish and Ulster Unionists - who were counted as Tories in the BBC's electoral tally.)
The next day James Callaghan went to the Palace and was asked to form a Government by the Queen. Outside Number 10 he pledged to create a fairer and more 'just' Britain - though many commentators questions how exactly he intended to initiate all the change and reform with a majority of two. His re-nationalisation pledge was especially cast into doubt with the returning of both Donnelly and Wyatt - who could vote with the Tories and Liberals to oppose the legislation.)
Interesting times were indeed ahead for the United Kingdom.
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Labour wins, but by a smaller margin than OTL - it will only take one by-election defeat to turn everything pear shaped. 
Yes good idea - nearly forgot to put it in!
Yes good idea - nearly forgot to put it in!
Labour wins, but by a smaller margin than OTL - it will only take one by-election defeat to turn everything pear shaped.
One-seat majorities: The best kind of majorities.
First Among Equals
First Among Equals
The first Labour Government in over a decade was formed by a wide array of individuals spanning the wide ideological chasm within the party between the Old Guard, Bevanites, Gaitskellites and party moderates. Callaghan, one of the youngest British Prime Ministers in decades, ensured that there were enough of those on the opposing, left wing of the party within the cabinet, to placate their feelings of being robbed of their 'rightful' place as the majority within the party. The position of Deputy Prime Minister, last held by Callaghan's predecessor and now Leader of the Opposition, Rab Butler, was reformed and saw George Brown (also First Secretary of State and the Secretary of State for Economic Affairs; a newly created post which would oversee nationalisation of industry; and the functioning and running of said nationalised industries) appointed to that post. The post of Chancellor of the Exchequer was filled by Callaghan's leadership opponent, Anthony Greenwood, who was firmly on the left of the party. Richard Crossman, the face of the Zionist social conservative left of the party was appointed as the new Home Secretary; Harold Wilson, another challenger to the former party leader, Hugh Gaitskell, became Colonial Secretary; while the right-winger Denis Healey was appointed Secretary of State for Defence. Patrick Gordon Walker was appointed Foreign Secretary, despite having lost his seat of Smethwick to Peter Griffiths, and thus being unable to answer to Parliament.
To resolve this issue, Callaghan opted to give a peerage to a backbencher Labour Member of Parliament from a safe seat for the party; so as to trigger a by-election to allow Gordon Walker to safely be returned to parliament. The seat of Leyton was selected and the incumbent Member of Parliament, Reginald Sorensen, who was generally expected to be on his way out at the next election or the subsequent election, was offered a peerage; which he accepted and was ennobled as the life peer, Baron Sorensen, of Leyton in the County of Essex. The by-election was set for the 21st of January, 1965 - the first by-election of the new parliament. The seat was generally safe of Labour - having been held by the party since it's creation in 1950; with the Labour vote never falling below fifty-percent. In 1964 the majority had rebounded from seven-and-a-half percent (3,919 votes) to a rather safe, near seventeen-percent of the vote (7,926 votes). The Tories selected Ronald Buxton, their candidate at every election since 1955, who had seen the Tories gain their highest ever percentage of the vote in the constituency in 1959, with 46.29% of the vote. The Liberals ran their candidate from 1964, Alistair H. Mackay, who had achieved a respectable sixteen percent of the vote; also running were Jeremiah Lynch of the UK & Commonwealth Party and George Delf who was running under the nuclear 'Disarmament' label.
The campaign did not go as planned for Labour. Gordon Walker was hammered by Buxton for being a carpetbagger who had simply been parachuted into the East London and had no local connections or knowledge. The by-election itself presented an opportunity for the Leyton constituency to show that they were not happy with being ignored and taken for granted by the Labour leadership. In the early morning of the 22nd of January, 1965 the electorate of Leyton, on a significantly reduced turnout, dealt the Labour Government a bloodied nose when they elected the Conservative Ronald Buxton with a majority of two-hundred-and-five votes (representing a swing of nearly nine-percent.) Gordon Walker subsequently resigned his position of Foreign Secretary, to lick his wounds in private and hopefully be elected for the seat that had just rejected him at the next General Election. In his place Callaghan selected the Home Secretary, Richard Crossman to replace his defeated Foreign Secretary. In Crossman's place Callaghan selected the right-wing Central London MP and Home Office Minister, Bob Mellish to become the new Home Secretary. This came as a surprise, due to the fact that Mellish was known to harbour rather strong feelings of dislike towards the Prime Minister.
As a result of the by-election the Government had effectively lost it's majority in the House. This situation was further made clear by the fact that two of the party's more right-wing Members of Parliament, the alliteratively namely Desmond Donnelly and Woodrow Wyatt, who both publically opposed the re-nationalisation of the steel industry - a manifesto pledge of the party and something being greatly pushed by left-wingers such as the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Callaghan not long after the by-election managed to strike a deal with the Liberal leader Jo Grimond, which ensured the Govt's survival for the meantime. The 'Lib-Lab Agreement' as it was called, ensured that on important confidence motions (such a Votes of Confidence, Budgets etc) the Government would be able to survive. In return a more proportional electoral system was adopted for some local council elections, and for the Greater London Council (GLC); there would also be no 'snap' elections for at least a year after the General Election; therefore making an election in 1966 a very real possibility.
Things however were quickly coming to a head within the Government itself. The Chancellor the Exchequer, Anthony Greenwood, was becoming ever more agitated by his inability to initiate any major or "radical" reforms to the economy. Rather he was being used as repository for unpopular policies, which could be pinned on him as an excuse to get rid of him at the next cabinet reshuffle. The final straw in the face of the massive balance of payment deficits - the feared devaluation of the Pound. Greenwood remember from his first term in parliament the devaluation of the pound under Stafford Cripps' Chancellorship in 1949; this was seen by many as one of, if not the reason for Labour's majority being sliced down in 1950 from their historic high in 1945 and then into opposition in 1951.
Greenwood support devaluing the currency and this was however opposed by the likes of the Colonial Secretary, Harold Wilson; thus showing a split on the left. Unfortunately for Wilson were in a minority - with the likes of the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Tony Crosland; the Foreign Secretary Richard Crossman; Ministers Anthony 'Tony' Wedgewood Benn and Barbara Castle; several figures on the right of the cabinet, such as the jack-of-all-trades George Brown and the Home Secretary, Bob Mellish tactically supported so as to create a split on the left. By a simple majority Callaghan was swayed and it appeared that the likes of Wilson had been outvoted.
This temporary near-unity within the party was not long to last.
In early April 1965 Greenwood, frustrated by the conservative nature of Callaghan and being sold out by others within the cabinet, tendered his resignation to the Prime Minister. Greenwood was frustrated by the lack of renationalisation conducted by the Government (this was ignorant of the fact that such a move would have been virtually impossible with the two right-wing Labour MP's, the Liberals (for it was not a confidence motion), the Tories and perhaps other right-leaning Labour MP's certain to vote again.) It appeared to many in the press that it could be a launch board for a potential leadership bid; even if he was considering doing so - it was expected that the new 1964 intake - who were generally loyal to Callaghan - would hand him a handy victory; coupled with many of the left of the party seeing their moves as ill thought out and an act of throwing their toys out of the pram.
In their places Callaghan promoted loyalist and strong ally Tony Crosland to the position of Chancellor of the Exchequer (with Barbara Castle shifted to the position of Chief Secretary to the Treasury; ) the eccentric peer Lord Longford was selected as the new Colonial Secretary - both far more conservative or 'less radical' in nature than their predecessors.
If the strife within Labour was anything; it surely was nothing in comparison to the open guerrilla conflict within the Tory Party during the same period; which pitted moderates against the more hardline elements within the party - the former Prime Minister Rab Butler, not prepared to hand over power anytime soon; sat uncomfortably on top of the metaphoric volcano which could blow at any moment.
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Well to be fair, this is what occurred OTL - I simply used it as an excuse to shuffle the frontbench up a bit.
Comrades at War
Comrades at War
After his very narrow defeat at the 1964 General Election, Rab Butler was quick to dispel any sort of suggestion that he was on his way out as Tory Leader. Rather he sought to reshuffle his Shadow Cabinet and reward those who were Butler loyalists, while demoting those who were beginning to draw some questions over his leadership. Reginald Maudling was informed that he was on thin ice, and that any more quiet suggestions from him or his camp that he wished to try for the leadership would see him axed from his position as Shadow Chancellor. Promoted were the likes of Enoch Powell - who became Shadow Defence Secretary and Iain Macleod - who became Shadow Foreign Secretary. The fact that Callaghan's 'victory' was by a mere seat or two ensured that Butler could claim the mantle (rightly or wrongly) that he had turned the party around from a massive deficit in the polls, and had nearly won an historic election victory. The party, however, by this stage had seen the 'old' factions of traditionalists and reformers effectively put aside for the meantime, in favour of the 'pro-Butler' and 'anti-Butler' camps. These two camps were, as their names suggested, not generally ideological based, but were rather based on whether they supported or opposed Butler remaining on as leader of the party. The 'pro-Butler' faction included moderate 'One-Nation' Tories such as Butler himself and Iain Macleod, while it also included right-wing libertarian 'radicals' such as Enoch Powell; who had only really supported Butler due to possibility of the skeletal Scottish peer, Alec Douglas-Home become Prime Minister in 1963. The 'anti-Butler' camp included the likes of Lord Hailsham and Reginald Maudling (though his 'opposition' was considerably more mellow and hushed up), both of whom considered himself to be the rightful party leader, cheated out of the Premiership by Butler and the 'magic circle' of Macmillan which still maintained a weakening grip on the party's leadership mechanisms. Others within this group included equally bitter moderates and the Conservative Monday Club faction; which had been producing and handing out material to party members arguing for Butler to go and for the party's One Nation leadership to be "purged."
The Conservative Monday Club was founded in 1961 as a Conservative Party aligned pressure group which sought to pull Macmillan back from the 'leftist' drive he was undertaking as Prime Minister. The group, which was considered to be High Tory or on the 'Radical Right' at best, was compared to the radical right-wing American anti-communist advocacy group, the 'John Birch Society.' The Society, which had been rather influential within the American Conservative moment in the 1950's, had been effectively divorced from the movement and the Republican Party due to the efforts of the likes of 'National Review' magazine editor William F. Buckley Jr.; who found the group too radical, conspiratorial and a drag on the Conservative movement as a whole. This approach was adopted by the Tory Party's Chairman, Lord Home who sought to divorce the rather 'toxic' Monday Club from the party - in order to ensure that there was less criticism within the party towards Butler's leadership. Home ensured that in the Conservative press, such as the 'Spectator Magazine' (edited by Macleod until his appointment as Shadow Foreign Secretary in early 1965; and subsequently by Nigel Lawson) which declared the Monday Club to be "divorced from reality and consigned to the extreme fringes of conservative politics." The Daily Sketch, the populist tabloid newspaper, meanwhile argued the contrary, calling the Monday Club, "the conscience of the Tory Party."
If the idea was to silence the Club, the strategy failed miserably. The Club's President, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 5th Marquess of Salisbury and former Leader of the House of Lords and Lord President of the Council under Churchill, Eden and Macmillan; angrily condemned these actions as the work of "cowards, who have infiltrated the party." The Club's Wiltshire Chairman, Alan Clark, who would later be elected as the Member of Parliament of Plymouth Sutton, called the actions, "vain anti-British borderline socialistic tripe." Even some who would usually have been uneasy with the Monday Club were rather uneasy with the tactics to silence them. The Club itself did not take the attempted silencing lying down. Rather they engaged in heckling of some in the leadership, such as Home and Butler and engaged in several stunts and antics that seemed to have been directly lifted from the playbook of the League of Empire Loyalists (who were known for various stunts, such as invading the party conference and managing to break into a luncheon for U Thant, impersonating Cypriot President Makarios III.)
By the time the party conference rolled around in late July 1965, things seemed to be spiralling out of control within the party. Maudling had been side-lined to the position of Shadow Foreign Secretary and replaced by his predecessor as Shadow Foreign Secretary, Iain Macleod, as the Shadow Chancellor. This came in the wake of the newly appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer, Tony Crosland, announcing a budget which would fix the "financial quagmire created by the Tory Government." The budget saw increases in income and petrol taxes, while a 'capital gains' tax was introduced by the Chancellor. Maudling was a harsh critic of the economic policy, but soon had to die his criticism down, when it became apparent that Maudling did not command much respect from the public, after his less than stellar stint as Chancellor the Exchequer, less than a year prior. He and Macleod were quietly reshuffled across before the party conference, in a bid to ensure that the conference would not be taken up by talk of division within the party or potential leadership bids.
If that was the aim, it failed miserably.
The Tories went to their convention with the aim of rebuilding their rather good polling at the election, which had begun to bleed in light of the drama within the party. The convention effectively became a series of auditions for the next party leader, and a venue for old scores to be settled and egos to be severely inflated, in front of the whole party.
Butler gave an adequate speech appealing for party unity and for the party to "unite and defeat the old-fashioned forces of socialism of the Labour Government." This statement was rather ironic - for the 'socialism' of Callaghan appeared to have been updated and was compatible for the new decade; the Tories appeared to be stuck in the 1950's preaching the messages of Churchill and Eden.
Macleod gave a well received speech which argued for a "common sense Tory economic policy [...] which puts the national interest at heart." This however was apparently countered by the likes of Enoch Powell who appeared to be arguing for a completely non-interventionist economic policy; arguing that it was only a matter of time (ie a General Election) before re-nationalisation of steel which was being blocked by Wyatt and Donnelly: "the conscience of the Labour Party," as a Powell supporter put it.
Powell himself gave a rousing speech which outlined a break from the past and a fresh new defence policy, which swept away what he saw as the outdated global military commitments left from the Imperialist past of the country. He instead stressed that the United Kingdom was a European power, and therefore and alliance with nations of Western Europe from a potential attack from the East, was central to British safety. He also defended the maintenance of British nuclear weapons and argued that they were "the merest casuistry to argue that if the weapon and the means of using it are purchased in part, or even altogether, from another nation, therefore the independent right to use it has no reality. With a weapon so catastrophic, it is possession and the right to use which count."
Powell also used the occasion to make a thinly veiled attack on the United States; which called into question western military commitments East of the Suez: "However much we may do to safeguard and reassure the new independent countries in Asia and Africa, the eventual limits of Russian and Chinese advance in those directions will be fixed by a balance of forces which will itself be Asiatic and African. The two Communist empires are already in a state of mutual antagonism; but every advance or threat of advance by one or the other calls into existence countervailing forces, sometimes nationalist in character, sometimes expansionist, which will ultimately check it. We have to reckon with the harsh fact that the attainment of this eventual equilibrium of forces may at some point be delayed rather than hastened by Western military presence."
The speech was received an "enormous ovation," according to David Howell of The Daily Telegraph who said to Andrew Alexander that Powell had "just withdrawn us from East of Suez, and received an enormous ovation because no-one understood what he was talking about." Across 'the pond' many within the United States were worried by Powell speech as they wished for British assistance in South-East Asia, specifically in Vietnam. A transcript of the speech was sent to Washington; the American embassy requested to talk to Butler concerning the 'Powell Doctrine.' He accepted and emerged saying he felt Britain could "maintain her own commitments while assisting our allies;" something Powell rubbished to some confidants.
The Tories appeared to the public to be on both sides on the issues of the economy, defence and on party unity - surely there wasn't much to disagree on? As it would happen there was.
On the 11th of November, 1965 the cabinet of South Rhodesia signed a statement which adopted a Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) from the United Kingdom. The British territory had effectively been self governing since 1923 and considered itself to be a sovereign state. It's UDI came after a near year long dispute with elements within the Labour Government over the issue of black majority rule. Some within the Labour Government strongly condemned the actions, others such as the Prime Minister gave a somewhat reluctant condemnation; the Home Secretary, Bob Mellish however remained tight lipped, seemingly confirming his 'support' for the white-minority Government. The Tories were also seemingly divided on the issue. Some such as Ted Heath, the Shadow Colonial Secretary and Macleod (who had served as Colonial Secretary some years prior) were appalled by the threat of racial conflict rising up in that neck of the woods - especially when it bordered the equally white-minority minded Estado Novo regime held Portuguese colonies and the Apartheid National Party regime led South Africa. Maudling however appeared indecisive on the issue, after being apparently 'advised' to not offer much of strong condemnation due to the "white vote that helped to deliver us Smethwick." Maudling shared the view of the foreign policy virtuoso and wonk, Lord Home that a quick transition to majority rule in the area would be unwise, due to the fact that most of the country's assets and economic mechanisms were held by the minority white population - making such a move rather unwise. This led to strong criticism from the likes of Macleod, who let his criticism seep onto the pages of his former magazine, where he condemned Maudling's actions (or lack thereof) concerned Rhodesia.
The Conservative opposition, which could have been capitalising on the small scale divisions within Labour had by the start of 1966 fallen into infighting, making many fear that the electoral defeat that they had been expected to receive in 1964, could finally be coming their way come the next election; whenever Callaghan decided it would be.
So the government is fighting amongst itself over a number of issues leaving them divided, most recently over a foreign policy debacle, whilst the opposition are fighting amongst themselves over all manner of issues within the political spectrum, currently setting themselves up for a leadership challenge against a leader who doesn't have the full confidence of the parliamentary party. Oh, and there is the looming threat of an election to be shortly called in the future.
But enough about the current state of British politics - I'm rather enjoying what you've got so far, Gonzo. Interesting to see where you take it.
You really had to put an Alan Clark reference in there somewhere, didn't you?
But enough about the current state of British politics - I'm rather enjoying what you've got so far, Gonzo. Interesting to see where you take it.
You really had to put an Alan Clark reference in there somewhere, didn't you?