TLIAPOT: Blinded by the Light

Gonzo · Jun 22, 2016

The King is dead, Long live the King!

Hugh Gaitskell easily defeated two leadership challenges from the left, in the forms of Harold Wilson in 1960 and Anthony Greenwood in 1961; seemingly cementing his control over the ideologically polarised Labour Party. By the start of 1963 it was seemingly certain that Labour would finally usurp Harold Wilson and his Conservative; the party after all was far ahead of the Government in the opinion polls. This wasn't very surprising, considering the events of the year prior.

The Tories had lost the Orpington by-election in spectacular fashion, to the Liberal candidate, Eric Lubbock. At the 1959 General Election the seat had been retained by the incumbent Conservative Member of Parliament Donald Sumner, with a majority of nearly fifteen-thousand over his nearest opponent, N. J. Hart of Labour - the Liberals, despite increasing their vote by nearly nine percent, still came in third. Sumner resigned his seat, in order to take up a post as a County Court Judge. The Conservative's selected Peter Goldman, who was seemingly assured to win the safe Conservative seat; his appointment was generally considered to be a way to get Goldman, who had worked with Ian Macleod on the 1959 party manifesto, into parliament. The Liberals meanwhile opted to not re-select their 1959 candidate, Jack Galloway, after it emerged that he had been technically guilty of bigamy - instead they selected local councillor Eric Lubbock.

During the campaign, Goldman attracted criticism for living outside the constituency and admitting that he had no plans to move into it. His close association with the Exchequer also meant his standing was damaged when the Conservative government was forced to announce a pay freeze (Selwyn Lloyd's "Pay Pause") for public sector workers that was seen, in particular, to penalise nurses.

On the 15th March, 1962 the people of Orpington decided to give Goldman, Macmillan and the Tories as a whole a bloody nose when they rejected Goldman in favour of Lubbock by a 7,855 vote margin - representing a swing in the region of twenty-two percent. This is often described as the start of the revival of the Liberal Party in the United Kingdom, indeed due in part to Lubbock's efforts the party continued to gain seats at every General Election until 1976. This also represented the first time since the 1929 Holland with Boston by-election that the Liberals won a by-election from another party and held the seat at the subsequent General Election (the Liberals won the Torrington by-election in 1958, but lost it at the 1959 General Election.)

Later that year, Harold Macmillan instituted a reshuffle of his cabinet; in a move intended to rejuvenate his Government, make Macmillan look decisive and replace those wavering individuals with those who were more in line with the Prime Minister's thinking. Instead he came off as rather too decisive, sacking a third of his cabinet in what would become known as the 'Night of the Long Knives;' out were the likes of David Maxwell Fyfe, 1st Earl of Kilmuir, David Eccles, Harold Watkinson, Lord Mills; and National Liberals such as John Maclay and Charles Hill. The most high profile sacking was, however that of his Chancellor, Selwyn Lloyd. Lloyd had become very unpopular as Chancellor the Exchequer; his public persona of being the 'austerity Chancellor' was moulded into places as a result of delayed pay increases and restrictive growth measures; this coupled with his frequent squabbling with the Prime Minister over what he perceived as vain electoral populism and measures he felt would increase inflation. In his place was Secretary of State for the Colonies, Reginald Maudling. Maudling set about cutting purchase tax and interest rates in banks. His 1963 budget aimed at "expansion without inflation". Following a period of economic difficulty, with a growth target of 4%. Maudling was able to remove income tax from owner occupiers' residential premises. He also abolished the rate of duty on home-brewed beer which in effect legalised it. This was the period in which Maudling was at his most popular within the Conservative Party and in the country. Contemporary commentators considered his policies to be responsible for the growth in the nation; later commentators took the contrary point of view - instead viewing his measures as creating the chronic instability with sterling in the latter half of the decade.

Surely with the repeated missteps of the Government, Hugh Gaitskell was only a few months away from moving into Number 10 Downing Street?

As fate would have it - no he wouldn't.

On the 18th of January 1963, Gaitskell died of lupus erythematosus - a rare disease in the western world - leading to suggestions of foul play; though these were never really substantiated. The death of the party leader raised fears among many in the party that factionalism would come to the fore once again as it did during the wilderness years of the 1950's - and especially at a time when the party seemed on the cusp of winning their first General Election since 1950. The divisions between left and right, Bevanite and Gaitskellite surely would come to the forefront; and come to the forefront they did in February.

Deputy Leader George Brown took over as the acting Leader of the Party until a new one was elected. Brown hoped to use the temporary position in order to springboard into the leadership of the party; after all he was the best to prevent the Bevanites and left-wingers like Greenwood and Wilson from gaining power in the power. Brown however after a publicised drunken stupor and criticism from some right-wing MP's; after a meeting with other right-wing Labour MP's he opted not to stand for the leadership. The left of the party saw Greenwood once again stand with the mantle of left-wing firmly his. He had endeared himself with this wing of the party with his left-ward trend on social and nuclear issues. The 1961 left-wing nominee, Harold Wilson opted to not stand, instead seeking to not split the left-wing vote - and angling himself for a shadow cabinet post regardless of the winner.

The right of the party subsequently found their man in the form of Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, James 'Jim' Callaghan. Callaghan, a WWII Royal Navy veteran, who had been first elected to parliament in 1945 for a southern Cardiff constituency, was someone who could preach the 'right stuff' about economics, while promoting a social policy that was conservative enough for the party's working class base - something Greenwood could not. One of Callaghan's greatest supporters was Anthony Crosland who wrote that the election was "a choice between un-electable Bevanite dogma and an electable sensible leader who can take the party and the country kicking and screaming into the nineteen-sixties."

The election itself was as much about image, as it was about policy. On the policy front, Callaghan was the clear winner on this front; for he was more in step with the party as a whole. Greenwood however had charm and charisma and could perform well on television - in front of even the most formidable opponents, such as Robin Day. Callaghan on the other hand was more rusty and 'folksy' for lack of a better word - a better conference and parliamentary speaker - but less so where it really mattered to the electorate. Many political commentators concluded that the race was a dead heat - but that Greenwood could have the edge with his rousing performances on the platform and on the 'box.' Callaghan however was adamant that he had the votes and the policies which could return Labour to Government - something that Greenwood's supporters could not argue against.

Then came election day.

On the 7th of February 1963 the Labour Party elected it's new leader with a larger than expected margin of victory. That someone was James Callaghan who won the election 140 to 107 votes. Greenwood, to his credit, conceded and congratulated Callaghan; who subsequently appointed Greenwood to his now former post of Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Gaitskellites, a mere month after their leader's death - could sigh a collective sigh of relief, as they had seen of the Bevanites, hopefully, once and for all. It seemed that common sense Labour policies had finally won out in the end; and that Labour would finally be on it's way to the Government benches.

Callaghan could for the meantime rest on his laurels, the same could not be said for Harold Macmillan who had another storm to weather just along the horizon...

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Gonzo · Jun 23, 2016

Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer

On a hot summer evening in 1961 a young woman was swimming in the pool of a grand manor house - Clifton in Buckinghamshire. Watching her was a small assortment of men, including a member of the House of Lords, a peculiar osteopath, and the British Secretary of State for War, John Profumo. Later, after some drinks and other pursuits, a Soviet spy also joined the mix at this very strange party. The cast of characters in this intriguing tale were drawn from two very different worlds - the inner circle of the traditional British establishment, and the brash, assertive 'New Britain' taking shape around it. These two worlds were soon to collide, first in the privacy of the bedroom, then in parliament and then on the front pages of the tabloid press. Nothing would seemingly be the same again.[1]

The soon to be named 'Profumo Affair' would effectively come to be the embodiment of the woes of the Tory Party in the early 1960's. The scandal itself increased in scope and intrigue as it brought in a Soviet naval attaché, Yevgeny Ivanov, a Jamaican jazz singer & gangster and the osteopath Stephen Ward; into the mix; thus increasing public knowledge and interest in the series of events. Profumo's steadfast denials of his involvement in improprieties and infidelity became ever more worn away. What had begun as the word of a call girl against a respected Government Minister, now saw the tables turned. Profumo finally admitted to the House of Commons that he had misled his fellow Members of Parliament and had lied to the press, the country and even his wife in denying the affair and the results of it. He subsequently resigned from the Privy Council, the cabinet (as Secretary of State for War) and from his parliamentary seat. He soon after showed up at Toynbee Hall, a charity based in the East End of London; as a volunteer cleaning toilets - he eventually became the Hall's Chief Fundraiser and by 1975 (when he was awarded a CBE) he had seemingly been rehabilitated.

The Tory Government and Harold Macmillan were seemingly disgraced and hopelessly out of their depths over the scandal; especially over their discomfort about talking about subjects such as a sex. Polls showed that Callaghan's Labour Party was sailing high in the opinion polls; newspapers such as the Labour backing Daily Mirror were hailing the fact that "we're now virtually assured a Labour Government by this time, next year." The Tory press was rather apocalyptic, with the populist conservative Daily Sketch giving a running count down until the end of the parliamentary term under '[X] number of days until Socialist takeover.' The press by this stage had effectively declared open season on the Tory Government. The Profumo Affair had effectively opened the floodgates to the press - to scrutinise and attack the private lives and even the individuals themselves; even Supermac himself. Macmillan, who had led the Tories to a historic election victory in 1959 was now at the whim and mercy of the pollsters and commentators in the press, who were all now predicting the end of his leadership and Government.

Supermac's health also appeared to be on the wane over the months; it was sometimes later reported that he believed himself to have inoperable prostate cancer, he in fact knew it was benign before a scheduled operation on the 10th of October. Macmillan was almost ready to leave hospital within ten days of the diagnosis and could easily have carried on, in the opinion of his doctor Sir John Richardson. Macmillan had been over the prior month discussing privately with his son, Maurice and other members of his inner circle about stepping down. The prostate troubles appeared to offer him a way out and indeed while recovering in hospital, he wrote a memorandum (14th of October) recommending the process by which "soundings" would be taken of party opinion to select his successor, which was accepted by the Cabinet on 15th of October. On the 18th of October, 1963 he received the Queen from his hospital bed, resigning finally in the eyes of members of his party. Macmillan however felt privately that he had been hounded from office by a small clique of disgruntled backbenchers, writing: "Some few will be content with the success they have had in the assassination of their leader and will not care very much who the successor is... They are a band that in the end does not amount to more than 15 or 20 at the most."

For the race to replace Supermac, four eligible suitors emerged to run for the party's leadership (which was to be decided by the 'Magic Circle' of the hierarchy of the Tory Party - and not the party membership as a whole.) Those emerging were, the Lord President of the Council & Leader of the House of Lords, Lord Hailsham; the Deputy Prime Minister Rab Butler; and the Chancellor the Exchequer, Reginald Maudling. The support each could hope to achieve was summed up by The Time: "Mr. Butler can no doubt be sure of a majority inside the Cabinet, where the main initiative must now be taken. Mr. Maudling, when Parliament dispersed at the beginning of August, could have commanded a majority among backbenchers in the Commons. Lord Hailsham, as his reception showed today on his first appearance before the conference, continues to be the darling of the constituency associations." In the same article, the Foreign Secretary, Alec Douglas-Home was mentioned in passing as a "fourth hypothetical candidate" who could be a compromise candidate, if necessary; he made it very clear he had no intention of serving as leader and took his name out of consideration for the race.

Butler was considered by far the most accomplished of the three men - having served in all but one of the four Great Offices of States (the office of Prime Minister being the elusive office); he was famously overlooked in 1957 in favour of Macmillan when Anthony Eden resigned. At the conference Butler gave an acceptable leadership speech - it wasn't the best, nor was it the worst - it was passable. This placed him apart from his two opponents.

Reginald Maudling, the newly appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer, and by far the youngest candidate in the running. He intended to up Hailsham and Butler with an historic speech that would rouse the party membership and force the 'Magic Circle' to accept him as the popular choice of the party membership. If that was his aim - it feel flat on it's face. He delivered a well written and eloquent speech, but failed to electrify the audience - even many Maudling supporters were half asleep by the time he ended. And he was supposed to be the fun, outgoing Tory...

Lord Hailsham however outshone his two opponents with a great speech to the party membership; which earned him a standing ovation at the end. He was by far one of the more popular figures within the Tory Government and would be a great Prime Minister. Posters and placards with 'Quintin in '63' and 'Hailsham for PM' began to pop up around the conference hall - though these appeared to have been factory produced and not as spontaneous as they seemed initially.

So, when the 'Magic Circle' selected Butler as their candidate, nearly everyone was left scratching their heads. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that Hailsham was seen as too brash, too exciting and too loose tongued for the Premiership - or perhaps it was the fact that Butler was at least a capable, if not, then safe pair of hands to take the party into the final run into the General Election. Unlike Hailsham, he was a Member of Parliament and thus did not need to run for a by-election to be represented in parliament.

The Tories thus had a capable pair of hands to take on Sunny Jim; the Tories were surely in a better position than they had been several months prior. After all their polls numbers had seemingly shot up a few points, denting Labour's impressive lead. Only time would tell if this was enough to snatch victory from the claws of defeat; or if Butler would be a mere footnote in history, along with the likes of George Canning and other Prime Ministers who served for less than a year in office.

[1]Abridged from 'Andrew Marr's History of Modern Britain'

Gonzo · Jun 24, 2016

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.

---

Gonzo · Jul 6, 2016

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.

Gonzo · Jul 7, 2016

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.

Gonzo · Jul 8, 2016

Standing athwart history, yelling 'Stop!'

Bob Mellish had no time for the social liberals trying to corrupt Britain with their nonsensical 'reforms' to society. Mellish was very much a man of the people; those people being the deeply socially conservative Labour voters, such as the TGWU dockers who routinely helped to see him re-elected by landslide majorities in his Bermondsey seat. They after all were the ones who voted en bloc to have him selected as the Labour candidate for the Rotherhithe by-election in 1946 - voting against the establishment Dr. John Gillison who represented the area on the London County Council at the time. Mellish had retained his anti-establishment ways over the near two decades within the Commons, but he viewed the attempts to liberals social policies within the country to be of a detriment to the very people that the Labour Party was elected to represent in parliament. Rather it was the establishment, who had been given a bloodied nose with the revelations of their lifestyles with the Profumo Scandal, who wanted to legalise many unspeakable acts and deviancies which were just yet another part of their hedonistic Bohemian lifestyles. Whether it be liberalisation of abortion and contraceptive laws or the decriminalisation of homosexuality; he was going to have none of it. His resolve was further hardened with his strong-arming to 'not oppose' Sydney Silverman's Private Members Bill which suspended the death penalty in the United Kingdom for five years (except for treason); Mellish was opposed to this move, but was effectively bypassed due to the fact he was newly in office when the bill came up for a vote.

This only hardened Mellish resolve to prevent any further liberalisation of laws - despite the threat of being outvoted if the bills came to a vote in the Commons. The first opportunity came in the twilight of 1965 when the newly elected Liberal Member of Parliament, David Steel (who had won a by-election in the traditionally Unionist constituency of Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles, that March) introduced a Private Members Bill to liberalise the United Kingdom's Abortion Laws (which were over a century old; set out in the 'Offences against the Person Act 1861.')

In the November of that year, the left-wing director Ken Loach directed a television adaptation of the 1963 work 'Up the Junction' which showed audiences in the United Kingdom the 'horrors' of backstreet abortions in Central London. Pro-abortion advocates argued that to prevent such horrors from continuing, legalisation of the procedure within the NHS was the right step for the Government to take. Pro-life advocates were disgusted by the thought of a mother killing her unborn child - a viewpoint shared by many Labour voters north of London and by the Home Secretary himself. Mellish called the drama "dramatized nonsense appealing to bleeding hearts in the metropolitan Bohemian establishment." The dividing lines were drawn inside the Government and outside within Parliament and the general public as a whole.

Mellish fought to have the Steel reform bill effectively die in the committee stage - with support from other social conservatives within the cabinet, such as the Foreign Secretary Richard Crossman (who held strong anti-homosexuality views on that particular question) and even the Prime Minister himself. Mellish ensured that if the bill were to come to the floor, he would employ several social conservative Labour Members of Parliament, such as the Irish Roman Catholic Liverpool MP's (and brothers) Simon and Peter Mahon; fellow Liverpudlian Irish Catholic Member of Parliament Walter Alldritt and the Welsh Labour MP for Pontypool Leo Abse (who despite seeking to liberalise divorce and homosexuality laws - was hardly a social liberal; he was well known for his deeply pro-life and anti-abortion viewpoint.) These Members of Parliament would engage in the parliamentary device of 'talking out' the bill by using up the allocated parliamentary time. The strategy appeared to work as no such reforms to the abortion law were undertaken during the term of the 43rd Parliament.

Mellish's strident social conservatives brought him plaudits and allies within the party - such as the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister, both of whom were uneasy and even opposed to radical social change, if change at all, in the country. Others, who were firmly on the liberal end of the social spectrum, such as the Colonial Secretary Harold Wilson, Overseas Development Secretary Barbara Castle and Aviation Minister argued that social reform was needed for the betterment of society in general, whether it was what the party grassroots outside of metropolitan London areas specifically wished for.

The debate of social reform was not one merely consigned to the Labour Party. The Conservative Party was equally divided on the issue. The pro-reform side saw One Nation Moderates such as Iain Macleod - who proclaimed that the next "Conservative Administration will initiate the necessary reforms for our society" (he would forever earn the ire of local pro-life activists in his Enfield constituency, who advocate a vote for the Labour candidate instead) and Reginald Maudling, join forces with right-wing 'libertarians' such as Enoch Powell - who supported reforms to homosexuality laws in particular; to advocate the reforms that Mellish and several others within the Labour Government were refusing to give to those who needed it. Other such as Lord Hailsham and the party leader himself were on varying degrees opposed to reforms on social issues. Even the Liberal Party had divisions within it; some such as future Member of Parliament David Alton were of a more pro-life positon compared to Steel.

The Labour Government, despite many disagreements over domestic policy (such as Mellish stating to a constituency hustings: "As I come to this platform, many of you will know that I have never been an anti-racialist"; ) made an effort to appear as a happy family in public, while the Tories were still tearing themselves to pieces come the dawn of 1966. This did not bode well for the Tories, especially as a General Election appeared to be on the horizon as the Liberal-Labour Pact ran to it's end.

Gonzo · Jul 9, 2016

You know Labour government works?

When James Callaghan went to the Palace in April 1966 to request that Parliament be dissolved and new elections held for the start of June, it caught virtually no one by surprise. The election itself appeared at the get-go to be a fight between the publically unified Labour Government which had little to no successes and achievements to point to, in it's year and a half in power; but also little failures to point to as well. Meanwhile it would appear to the public, and to all intensive purposes that the Labour Party would be facing three major opponents, the pro-Butler Tories, the anti-Butler Tories and the miniscule Liberal Party - who were finding it increasingly hard to carve a wedge between the Conservatives and Labour in order to break into the double figures in number of seats, for the first time since 1945. Going into the election, Labour sat on a polling lead of around four or five percent in the polls; leading to some unease within the Labour camp; going into the 1964 General Election Labour had held a lead in the opinion polls four to five times larger than they held going into the 1966 General Election.

The election campaign was fought primarily on the issues of foreign policy, the economy and on social issues.

During his brief tenure at the Foreign Office, Richard Crossman had been primarily preoccupied by the situations in South Arabia and Rhodesia. On the issue of Rhodesia the Labour frontbench was generally united in their opposition to the UDI of the Rhodesian Front Government of Ian Smith; though this unity was to varying degrees. Some like the Colonial Secretary Harold Wilson were strongly supportive of majority rule, while others were less stridently supportive of this point of view. The Prime Minister himself seemed to brush off the topic when asked, responding by talking of a "settlement which is amicable to all parties involved." The Home Secretary, Bob Mellish was among the few individuals within Labour who appeared to even support the Smith Government; though it really depended on the audience at the time.

The Tories were equally divided on the issue. Majority rule was strongly advocated by Iain Macleod and Reginald Maudling; a more neutral position was advocated by the likes of the party leader - who as ever appeared to be sitting on the fence, with "his buttocks clenched and getting splinters," as one editorial in 'The Guardian' put it. The Monday Club, and some of it's cohorts argued strongly in favour of the Smith Government and it's right to "protect the interests of it's people - negro, coloured or white." This led to criticism and condemnations from the pages of 'The Spectator' and from the party Chairman, Lord Home.

The issue of South Arabia was a rather contentious one. Any hopes for a speedy British withdrawal from the quagmire in the south of the Arabian peninsular were dashed in 1962 when the Mutawakkilite monarchy of 'North' Yemen was deposed by a coup d'état carried out in September of that year under the command of Abdullah as-Sallal, who declared himself President of the newly formed Yemen Arab Republic. Britain, along with the Arab Kingdoms of Saudi Arabia and Jordan supported the Royalist partisans, while Egypt and the Soviet Union gave their tactical support to the Republican forces. The Zionist Crossman, conscious of the fact that a pro-Egyptian Yemen could join forces against Israel, if a repeat of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War was to occur. This led to a three year British intervention in the North, with British and Saudi forces engaging Republican forces within the capital Sana'a and the surrounding area for several months. The conflict eventually resulted in a Monarchist victory when the Egyptian forces began to withdraw, leading to the collapse of Republican forces and the fleeing of as-Sallal to Cairo.

In the South the Labour Government in early 1966 handed over control of the newly formed 'Federation of South Arabia' (which was a unification of the Federation and Protectorate of South Arabia) under the control of the Front for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen (FLOSY) under the rule of 'President' Abdullah al Asnag. This move was met with distrust and unease in Washington, who did not wish for the British to withdraw while the United States were escalating their involvement and troop numbers in South East Asia - in Vietnam. Crossman, who was noted for his somewhat anti-American views, reportedly told the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom, David K. E. Bruce, to "tell your boys in D.C. to shove off and let us control our own affairs over here."

The policy was supported by the vast majority within the Labour Party; and gained support from some within the Conservative frontbench, such as the Shadow Defence Secretary Enoch Powell who found it compatible with his 'Powell Doctrine' outlined at the Tory conference in 1965 - which gave "the Americans the spooks." Others, such as the populist 'Daily Sketch' newspaper, called it "cowardly actions from a cowardly Government."

Labour's economic policies were attacked by the Conservatives, Macleod and Maudling in particular, who saw it as putting "the national interest and wellbeing after the desire to nationalise every last industry under the sun." Macleod reiterated his conference speech from the year before where he gave a well received speech which argued for a "common sense Tory economic policy [...] which puts the national interest at heart." This however fell flat on it's face when comments made by Powell the year before where 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. The Conservatives, who the public were not in any mood to listen to over the economy, after the "long year under Maudling," were left with considerable egg on their face.

Socially, the divisions within the two main parties remained; the social conservatives held the upper hand within Labour - with the likes of Mellish, Crossman, even George Brown and the Prime Minister himself holding the lever to power in the party. In the Conservative Party, Butler sat uneasily as he was tugged left and right on the various social issues of the day - though he as more inclined to the conservative arguments on most issues. That being said Macleod and Maudling argued that the Conservative Party, if elected to Government would "bring the radical social change that this country needs in choice and freedoms."

The election to an extent came down to image. The Prime Minister came across as well informed, capable and able to handle himself under the heat of the cameras; his comparative youth played well for the Labour campaign. Butler was anything but this. Butler was well into his sixties and as he grew older, Butler acquired an increasingly dishevelled appearance. As early as 1938, the noted Tory diarist Chips Channon called Butler's clothing "truly tragic." He also ate and drank too much as Master of Trinity, causing him to put on weight and begin to suffer from heart problems; leading to his predecessor to remark in an interview with the Telegraph on "how fat" Butler had become. Most worryingly, Butler also suffered from a skin complaint from the 1950s, which grew progressively worse, to the point towards the end of his life that he would sometimes appear unshaven in public. This led to comparisons with Richard Nixon's performance and appearance during the 1960 Presidential debates. Callaghan was certainly no Kennedy - but Butler was very much Nixonian.

To make matters worse for the Conservatives; in addition to the various image problems for Butler, and the various divisions and disagreements within the party; the party's Shadow Foreign Secretary, returning from a visit to the Washington, D.C. was hear to remark "For God's sake bring me a large Scotch. What a bloody awful country to return to." This all helped to shape the final result on the 9th of June.

The Liberals, running a campaign less than two years after the last election, were rather short on funds and had to sacrifice several seats and were seeing their polling numbers gradually bleed away as the country became increasingly polarised between the Conservatives and Labour.

Then election night came.

After several results came in, showing strong swings to Labour; Robert MacKenzie, under the jovial gaze of Cliff Michelmore was confident to predict a 4% swing to Labour - which would give them a majority upward of one-hundred seats in the House of Commons. In the end he wasn't far off.
Labour saw their number of seats jump up sixty-one seats to three-hundred-and-seventy-seven; on nearly half of the votes cast (49.1% of the vote.) Butler's Tories fell down sixty seats, down to two-hundred-and-forty-six; on forty percent of the vote (40.4% of the vote). The Liberals saw their vote fall down to just over eight percent (8.3% of the vote); while they saw their number of seats fall down to six - down two on 1964.

Several individual seats captured the mood of the night. Griffiths lost his Smethwick seat on a smaller swing to Labour than the national average; while his predecessor Patrick Gordon Walker won the Leyton seat that had evaded him a year prior - but yet again on a smaller than nation average swing. The Liberals saw David Steel lose his Scottish border region seat, in a result that bucked the nation trend and gave the Unionists a gain. The Liberals could take solace from the fact that the likes of Eric Lubbock in Orpington held their seats with relative ease, while 1958 by-election victor (their first since 1945) Mark Bonham-Carter, returned to parliament for the Torrington constituency, owing to a collapse in the Conservative vote there.
Perhaps the most potent result came from the constituency of Nelson and Colne. The seat had been held by Labour from 1918, except for a blip in 1931 where Tory Linton Theodore Thorp defeated Arthur Greenwood, the father of the former Chancellor, Anthony Greenwood. The seat was a close fought race between the Tories and Labour usually, with the Conservatives coming within 2,644 votes of winning.
The race in 1966 however saw the local Conservative association, expecting a heavy loss withdrawing and supporting the third party of Patrick Downey. Downey was the uncle of Lesley Ann Downey - who was a victim of the Moors Murderers on Boxing Day 1964. Downey ran on a platform advocating the return of hanging. Downey had been approached by the fledgling 'English Nationalist Party' to run as their candidate - hoping they could use their resources and the recognition from the peculiar state of affairs to help propel them into the limelight. He agreed and they co-opted some pro-English devolution material into his campaign; but the pro-death penalty stance remained the calling card of the Downey campaign.
On election night Downey scored a slender victory over the Labour incumbent Samuel Sydney Silverman by a margin of three-hundred-and-seven votes (or 0.8% of the vote.)

On 10th June, 1966, James Callaghan went back to the Palace and was asked to form a new strong majority Labour Government - the first so in over twenty years.

---

Gonzo · Jul 15, 2016

Rockin' All Over the World

Richard Crossman more or less as soon as he was appointed Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in late January 1965 ensured that the Foreign Office would become effectively his own fiefdom, from where he could project his worldview. Crossman, a socially conservative Bevanite, could summarise his foreign policy into three sections - Zionism, anti-communism and anti-Americanism. Crossman, during the 1945-1946 period, served, on the nomination of the Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, as a member of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry into the Problems of European Jewry and Palestine. The report of the committee , which was submitted and published in April 1946, included a recommendation for a hundred thousand displaced Jews to be allowed to be permitted to enter Palestine. The recommendation was rejected by the British government, after which Crossman led the socialist opposition to the official British policy for Palestine. That incurred Bevin's ire, and was considered to have been one of the primary factors which prevented Crossman from achieving ministerial rank during the 1945–51 Attlee Government. Crossman initially supported the Arab cause but after meeting Chaim Weizmann, the first President of the State of Israel; he became a lifelong Zionist. In his diary, he described Weizmann as "one of the very few great men I have ever met." Crossman from that point on strongly supported the State of Israel and urged for greater British support for the Israeli State. This was rather ironic, considering the Government's effective withdrawal from Southern Arabia.

The issue of South Arabia was a rather contentious one. Any hopes for a speedy British withdrawal from the quagmire in the south of the Arabian peninsular were dashed in 1962 when the Mutawakkilite monarchy of 'North' Yemen was deposed by a coup d'état carried out in September of that year under the command of Abdullah as-Sallal, who declared himself President of the newly formed Yemen Arab Republic. Britain, along with the Arab Kingdoms of Saudi Arabia and Jordan supported the Royalist partisans, while Egypt and the Soviet Union gave their tactical support to the Republican forces. The Zionist Crossman, conscious of the fact that a pro-Egyptian Yemen could join forces against Israel, if a repeat of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War was to occur. This led to a three year British intervention in the North, with British and Saudi forces engaging Republican forces within the capital Sana'a and the surrounding area for several months. The conflict eventually resulted in a Monarchist victory in 1968 when the Egyptian forces began to withdraw, leading to the collapse of Republican forces and the fleeing of as-Sallal to Cairo.

In the South the Labour Government in early 1966 handed over control of the newly formed 'Federation of South Arabia' (which was a unification of the Federation and Protectorate of South Arabia) under the control of the Front for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen (FLOSY) under the rule of 'President' Abdullah al Asnag. This move was met with distrust and unease in Washington, who did not wish for the British to withdraw while the United States were escalating their involvement and troop numbers in South East Asia - in Vietnam. A Government official, reportedly told the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom, David K. E. Bruce, to "tell your boys in D.C. to shove off and let us control our own affairs over here."

Rather in Israel it appeared that the Government were doing the reverse, and were getting further more involved with the Jewish state. Callaghan, who was generally quiet overall on the issue, effectively ceded control over the issue of Israel to the Foreign Office and his Foreign Secretary. Crossman going into 1967 was effectively on a charm offensive with the Israelis; from the perspective of Washington, D.C. it appeared that the 'Brits,' namely that "Crossman nut," as increasingly embattled President Lyndon B. Johnson referred to him; were trying to resurrect the Empire and get Israel within the British sphere of influence. Rather it was merely Crossman striving to ensure that Israel would receive British support, should the surrounding Arab states to Israel attempt another invasion of Jewish state.

Elsewhere Crossman maintained the 'non-interventionist' policy of the Government was put into effect; especially in Nigeria, where the newly founded nation of Biafra was declared, for the Igbo people of southern Nigeria. The fighting between Biafran and Federal Government forces was increasing in intensity; with the United States and the Soviet Union, among other nations giving their support to the Nigerian Government; while France and Israel, among other nations supported the Biafran rebels. The Labour Government, and Crossman in particular came under fire from the Conservative Opposition, though the Tories' weak position after the General Election seemed to moot the otherwise rather serious condemnations of the Government's actions.

The United States' relationship (the 'Special Relationship') with the United Kingdom appeared to be under threat under the new Labour Government, with the first radical changes for many years in the relationship between the two nations.

Although it was not an official Government policy, the fact that several high profile Labour Members of Parliament, such as the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Anthony Greenwood and Michael Foot, were advocating nuclear disarmament and endangering the Polaris missile system with the United States, were met with concern in Washington. The repeated refusal by the United Kingdom to meet it's commitments in, and east of Aden were combined with a stubborn refusal by the Callaghan Government - especially coming from the likes of the Foreign Secretary and the newly appointed Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, Peter Shore (who, like Crossman was a strongly anti-American figure within the party) - to join the United States in Vietnam with military troops.

This was combined with the 'Powell Doctrine' where Powell used his Conservative Convention speech 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." 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 at the time.

By 1968 it appeared that the United Kingdom was fast becoming a fellow traveller of the 'Non-Aligned Movement' and turning it's back on the 'Special Relationship' with the United States. The United States was entering into a polarising election year. For the Republican side it appeared, after the death of Richard Nixon in 1967 due to a car accident, that either Governor George Romney of Michigan or Governor Ronald Reagan of California could be their party's standard bearer. For the Democrats everyone was asking whether Johnson would be seeking the Democratic nomination or would he give the Shermanesque statement; he was already being challenged by the anti-war Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy; eyes were also on New York Senator and former Attorney General Robert Kennedy as to whether he would run for the nomination. All this seeming turmoil internally and externally for the United States, did not seem to bode well for the future.

Gonzo · Jul 20, 2016

History_Speeches_1114_Lyndon_Johnson_Mcnamara_Air_Strike_still_624x352.jpg

Broadway Melody of Nineteen Eighty-Four

"I shall seek and run for the nomination of my party for President." With those words President Lyndon B. Johnson confirmed his intentions to keep in the Democratic Party Presidential primaries to become the party's nominee for 1968. Johnson based his decision due to a seeming upsurge in his approval ratings after several seeming 'successes' in the war in Vietnam; and his healthy performance (61%-38%) in the New Hampshire primary over his nearest challenger, Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota. Johnson maintained his winning streak, taking the next state - Wisconsin - taking the state with 48% of the vote over 34% for McCarthy and 16% write-in votes for Bobby Kennedy. All eyes remained on the New York Senator - to see if he would challenge his brother's successor for the Presidency. As it would turn out, yes he would. This entrance was reflected by the close result between the President and the 'New Yorker' in Pennsylvania - where Johnson won the state with 40% of the vote, to Kennedy's 32% and McCarthy's 24% of the vote. McCarthy pipped Kennedy to a rather distant second place in Massachusetts to the President. Johnson maintained his winning streak taking Washington, D.C. by a landslide margin - and Indiana and Ohio with a rather smaller margin of victory over Kennedy. The result in Nebraska once again gave the President a victory, while West Virginia gave the President a slender victory of 2% over Kennedy. Oregon and Florida yielded much stronger results for Johnson, who defeated Kennedy by at least ten points in each state. This continued into New Jersey and South Dakota; but however stopped in California. After a very close and rather bitter race, Kennedy defeated Johnson by a 46.8%-46.3% margin in that state's primary. Kennedy's victory was however short lived. Kennedy, after a victory rally at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, Kennedy made his way into the kitchen where he was shot twice by Sirhan Sirhan. Kennedy was seriously injured and was quickly transported to the nearby Good Samaritan Hospital. Despite his injuries Kennedy would survive, but required several months of rehabilitation to get back up to strength. This effectively handed the state of Illinois (owing to McCarthy's prior withdrawal several weeks before) to the President with well over 70% of the vote.

The Democratic Convention took place at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago under the ever watchful eye of party boss and city Mayor, Richard J. Daley. Outside and inside the convention there were a series of anti-war riots and scuffles which effectively took attention away from the coronation of Johnson as the party's nominee for the election; CBS News correspondent Dan Rather famously was famously roughed up by a Georgia delegate on live television as Walter Cronkite lamented, "I think we've got a bunch of thugs here." Despite some audible opposition from some anti-war protesters and Kennedy & McCarthy delegates, Johnson was easily re-nominated on the first ballot; as was his Vice President and once again Running Mate, Hubert Humphrey.

The Republican Primaries were very much different. After Richard Nixon's untimely death the year before, the race was effectively divided between three candidates. On the liberal wing of the party was New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller; on the moderate wing of the party was Michigan Governor and seeming front-runner George Romney and from the conservative wing of the party... Well there was some trouble deciding who that would be.

Despite toying with the idea of running, California Governor Ronald Reagan opted to not run, arguing that he was not experienced. Instead he gave his backing to the campaign of a fellow former actor, Californian Republican and the 'John the Baptist' to him; Senator George Murphy. Murphy, an Academy Award winning actor and noted dancer; as well as former President of the Screen Actors Guild from 1944 to 1946. After his noted victory in 1964 he was in high demand for Republican party functions and soon found himself in the position of the Chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. He soon found himself being backed by various conservatives within and outside the party, such as the columnist and commentator William F. Buckley and Governor Reagan himself.

In New Hampshire Rockefeller found himself an easy victory over Romney and Murphy; both far behind the victor who won with nearly 45% of the vote, to their 17% and 10% results, respectively. In Wisconsin, Murphy scored a strong victory with 37% of the vote, beating Rockefeller and the neighbouring Romney down easily. The one-time frontrunner (Romney) had shot his campaign in the foot, by suggesting that he had been "brainwashed" into supporting the Vietnam War by the military - something which was ridiculed by many and saw his numbers progressively tumble down. In Pennsylvania Murphy scored a strong victory over Rockefeller - however the result was seemingly flipped the other way in Massachusetts, only a week later. In Indiana, Ohio and Washington, D.C., Murphy scored solid victories over Rockefeller; meanwhile an unpledged elector slate won in West Virginia. In Florida and Oregon, Murphy and Rockefeller scored strong victories respective. In California, Murphy was the only name on the ballot and scored (surprising!) victory. He further won the primaries in New Jersey, South Dakota and Illinois with at least 75% of the vote. This however was not enough for him to win on the first ballot at the Miami Beach convention in August.

Murphy made a deal with Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, whereby he would select a Southern running mate for his ticket (as opposed to his initially preference of New York City Mayor John V. Lindsay); he also had to run a strictly 'law and order' campaign; both of these Murphy found to be palatable and thus Thurmond gave the signal for his 'bloc' to support Murphy - which it did and subsequently nominated him on a large shift. Murphy then announced to the convention that he would select Florida Congressman Edward Gurney as his running mate. In his acceptance speech Murphy argued for law and order and an end to the "strife which has plagued this nation for too long."

His campaign was seen to be directly appealing to the blue collar voters and white Southerners - usually a staple part of the Democratic New Deal Coalition.

The arrival of George Wallace on the newly formed 'American Independent Party' ticket then threw everything on it's head. While Murphy was rather palatable to Wallace; the former Alabama Governor wanted to force a deadlocked election in order to gain concessions on Civil Rights and busing from the two candidates. After pitching to several potential running mates, including Harland 'Colonel' Sanders and A. B. "Happy" Chandler, former Kentucky Governor he settled upon retired U.S. Air Force General Curtis "Bombs Away" LeMay; a rather strange choice considering LeMay's support for desegregation in the military. Wallace's campaign was however embarrassed by LeMay's suggestion that nuclear weapons could be used in Vietnam; as a result the campaign's polling numbers began to bleed from the 20% it was at before, down to the 15% it gained at the election.

The bitterness of the campaign was embodied by the debates between William F. Buckley, Jr. and Gore Vidal supposedly in response to the two party primaries on ABC. Under the 'moderation; of Howard K. Smith the two gradually became more and more antagonistic and traded insults and jibes at each other. This took a turn for the rather surreal come the Democratic primaries when Gore interjected and called Buckley a "pro- or crypto Nazi." This visibly infuriated Buckley rose from his seat and replied "Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I'll sock you in your goddamn face, and you'll stay plastered." Vidal sneered at him and was about to retort when Buckley 'socked him' across the face and broke his nose - on live television; garnering the rather weak ABC some of it's highest viewing figures in years.

Murphy campaigned on a theme to restore 'law and order'; which appealed to many voters angry with the hundreds of violent riots that had taken place across the country in the previous few years. Following the murder of Dr. King in April 1968, there was severe rioting in Detroit and Washington, D.C., and President Johnson had to call out the U.S. Army to protect lives and property as smoke from burning buildings a few blocks away drifted across the White House lawn. The President criticized the ;law and order' issue, claiming that it was a subtle appeal to white racial prejudice. Murphy also opposed forced busing to desegregate schools. Proclaiming himself a supporter of civil rights, he recommended education as the solution rather than militancy. During the campaign, Murphy proposed government tax incentives to African Americans for small businesses and home improvements in their existing neighbourhoods. [1]

Murphy also made it clear his opposition to the decisions of Chief Justice Earl Warren. Many conservatives were critical of Chief Justice Warren for using the Supreme Court to promote liberal policies in the fields of civil rights, civil liberties, and the separation of church and state. Murphy promised that if he were elected president, he would appoint justices who would take a less-active role in creating social policy. Murphy proposed selected a "true conservative" to the Supreme Court in the event of Warren's departure (which was highly expected considering his advanced age); he even privately floated the name of G. Harrold Carswell.

Murphy was however just a strident in his support for the Vietnam War - including opposition to an end to the draft, but made tried to bury this issue during the campaign; he was called out as a hypocrite by Democrats. He was further criticised for his continued salary from Technicolor after taking office as a Senator; he abruptly started to refuse the salary after the story emerged.

Johnson's efforts at the Paris Peace Talks appeared to be paying off by October, that was until the talks collapsed, with the South withdrawing; after being informed by an American delegation member that they could get a better deal with Murphy as President. This appeared to be the final nail in the President's flagging campaign.

Then came election night.

The Republican ticket won the night taking 43.5% of the vote to Johnson's 40.8% of the vote and Wallace's 15.2% of the vote. Murphy took 32 states to gain a slender victory of 273 electoral votes. Johnson won 12 states and the District of Columbia to gain 201 electoral votes; Wallace won six Southern states to take his electoral vote tally up to 64.

Murphy took office in January 1969 with the protests, the War and various other issues seemingly going on without end.

Across the Atlantic in 1968 the Conservative Party was also going through a tumultuous period...

---

"Hollywood's often tried to mix
Show business with politics
From Helen Gahagan
To Ronald Reagan?
But Mr. Murphy is the star
Who's done the best by far.

Oh, gee, it's great!
At last we've got a President who can really sing and dance.
We can't expect America to win against its foes
With no one in the White House who can really tap his toes.

The movies that you've seen
On your television screen
Show his legislative talents at a glance.
Should Americans pick crops? George says "No,
'cause no one but a Mexican would stoop so low."
And after all, even in Egypt, the pharaohs
Had to import Hebrew braceros.

Think of all the musicals we have in store.
Imagine: "Broadway Melody of Nineteen Eighty-Four."
Yes, now that he's President, he's really got the chance
To give the public a song and dance!"
-Tom Lehrer, 'George Murphy'

---

[2]

[1]Abridged from the Wikipedia 'United States Presidential Election, 1968' page
[2]Many thanks to @Kovalenko for the infobox and especially the map

Gonzo · Aug 22, 2016

The Voice of Reason...

The following is an excerpt from 'The Voice of Reason' column by Peter Griffiths in the Daily Sketch, first printed on the 26th of September, 1968

'What is the purpose of the Conservative Party if it cannot be entrusted to defend tradition and the conservative values of this county - against the onslaught of social Marxism?

We have seen more defence of traditional British cultural values come from the Government benches, in particular from the Home Secretary, Bob Mellish, who has repeatedly worked to prevent the aforementioned forces of cultural Marxism from continuing to tangle this nation in it’s harmful red tentacles. Rather on the Opposition benches we have the likes of Iain Macleod and Reginald Maudling promoting the radical anti-traditionalist agenda - while those who seek to defend tradition and morality in this nation are weak, dithering individuals who are well passed their prime. You, like e, must be despairing at the choice that is now before the select few who have a vote over which interpretation of conservatism - whether it be the Marxist infiltrated left of the party or the genuine patriotic right-wing of the party; will gain control of the Conservative Party.

I have always said that it does not matter two fiddlesticks who the individual who becomes the party leader is. No, it is the ideology and values that they represent and project that is by far the more important issue at stake in this election. As things currently stand, as of the time of the writing of this piece - I believe there is only one of the three candidates who have announced their intentions to run for the leadership of the Tory party; who can offer this genuine conservative message. That of course is Enoch Powell.

If the two-hundred and fifty or so Conservative Members of Parliament give the leadership to either of the liberal candidates - the I firmly believe that the Conservative Party can dismiss any suggestion that they will win the next General Election or return to power any time soon; for it will signal that the party has no intentions to stand up for British traditional values; but rather will try to appeal to the Bolshy student vote that even Mr Callaghan and his comrades have been quite happy to see off.

It would appear that that is what they are trying to do. Reginald Maudling, a man of little to no morals; this is as clear as can be with the revelation that his daughter has been acting like a common harlot who has welcomed the logical conclusion of those disgusting actions into the world. Yet Mr. Maudling, a supposedly "deeply conservative" individual has defended this and states that he is proud of his daughter's actions. I take it we can be assured that he will do everything in his power to stop the moral decline of this nation.

Iain Macleod would be even worse, I would argue. Here is a man who, jumping on the bandwagon of the leftist echo chamber after the airing of that disgusting propaganda 'Up the Juncture' several years ago; proclaimed that Conservative Administration will initiate the necessary reforms for our society." Wonderful, isn't it? Under a Macleod Administration I would not be surprised to find abortion legalised on demand, homosexual sodomy legalised, contraception giving to our children in schools; thus culminating in the Britain becoming Sodom to America's Gomorrah. At least it's reform - eh?

We all know what Enoch Powell stands for; England, Britain and the Empire - or at least the bits that Iain Macleod didn't sell off. He stands for tradition, giving it to the Americans and standing up to the cultural Marxism that is afflicting this nation most seriously.

So I urge you all to write to your local Member of Parliament or to the head of the local Conservative constituency association, if you reside in a Labour or Liberal held seat; tell them that you believe they should vote for the conservative patriotic English option in this leadership election - Enoch Powell. Only that way can we avert another 1966 General Election occurring in 1970 or 1971 - whenever General Secretary Jim decides to call the next General Election.'[1]

---

The 1968 Conservative Party leadership election pitted a buoyant Enoch Powell against a seemingly hapless Reginald Maudling and a reluctant Iain Macleod. The election itself set into motion earlier in 1968 when R. A. Butler was determined that the party should abandon the "customary processes of consultation", which had caused such rancour when he was appointed in 1963; Butler set up an orderly process of secret balloting by Conservative MPs for the election of his immediate and future successors as party leader. [2] In the interests of impartiality the ballot was organised by the 1922 Committee, the backbench Conservative MPs. The election would require a candidate to win an overall majority of the ballots cast (i.e. more than 50% of the vote); but would also require a victory margin over the next most popular candidate by at least 15% of the votes cast.

Macleod was initially going to rule himself strongly out of the running for the leadership, until a group of party moderates effectively got down on their knees and begged him to run against Powell. Powell, they argued, could easily defeat Maudling, who had been becoming steadily more self destructive in nature; stemming initially from his tenure in the Cabinet during the Butler Ministry; and now aroused suspicion among many Conservative Members of Parliament over his relationship with his daughter, Caroline. Caroline, the 'travelling teenager' journalist of the Daily Mail had raised eyebrows by having a child out of wedlock not long before the party conference. Her father immediately jumped to her defence; expressing paternal pride in his daughter, who had made "a loving decision to have her child" (this was seen as a rather weak attempt to court the anti-abortion pro-life wing of the party; who he had seemingly annoyed by supporting reform of the law on that particular issue.) His defence of his daughter earned him plaudits from many - but not from many backbench Tory MP's who were the one's who really held the deciding vote in this matter. "Who does he think he is?" exclaimed right-wing backbencher Ross McWhirter, "claiming to be a 'conservative' when it is clearly he who instilled such values into his daughter..."

Macleod, despite being far more openly socially liberal than Maudling, was seen as being more palatable to those on the right - owing to his strong defence and 'fiscally responsible' credentials. Many Powell supporters found Macleod to be rather welcome with his more mainstream (for the Conservative Party) stance on the EEC, which was shared by many on the right of the party (such as Julian Amery, who would return to parliament after his defeat at the ballot box; at the Brighton Pavilion by-election in 1969; Amery was, despite being a prominent Monday Club member - held pro-EEC views; much like fellow right-winger Geoffrey Rippon.)

A considerable amount of the more right-leaning Tory MP's were considering voting for Macleod, owing to their fear of being in the political wilderness, owing to the size of the Labour landslide in 1966. Would Powell be able to overturn the size of the majority and be able to return the Conservatives to power? Macleod at least was seen to be a shrewd political operator and surely wouldn't alienate voters in the way Powell would?

The only question was if Macleod would be able to outperform Maudling on the first ballot and thus consolidate the moderate and liberal support behind him on the subsequent ballots.

As it would happen, yes, he would.

On the first ballot Powell lead with 113 votes, to Macleod's 94 and Maudling's 47. After some internal wrangling, Maudling was forced to, reluctantly withdraw on the second ballot. On the second ballot, Macleod now led with 133 votes to Powell's 120. Macleod, despite getting an overall majority of the votes cast, did not achieve the 15% margin of victory over Powell to win outright. Powell however ensured that a third ballot was not necessary, by withdrawing from the race and thus handing the crown to Macleod. Powell stated that he did not wish to be seen as a "sore loser" and that he had "left [his] calling card" - hinting that he intended to run at the next leadership election.

Iain Macleod became the Conservative Leader at a time when the party's fortunes were seemingly getting worse. They had just won a dozen odd by-elections since the General Election; but did not appear to be getting the swings necessary to unseat the Government. Macleod resolved himself to the fact that it would be a two term cycle to get Labour out of power. The first election would weaken Labour's majority; which would then enable the Tories to win the next General Election.

A series of further developments internally and externally over the next two years, seemed to be working the in the Tory Party's favour. At least that's what it looked like at the time.

---

[1]The views expressed in the above 'column' are not necessarily those of the author.
[2]Taken from the Wikipedia, 'Alec Douglas-Home' page.

Gonzo · Aug 23, 2016

The Long, Hot, Summer of '69

1969 remains one of the most pivotal years in recent British history, due to the fact that three major issues dominated the headlines throughout that year; the Callaghan Government's application to join the European Economic Community; the riots and instability in Northern Ireland; and the Government's 'Commonwealth Immigrants Act.'

In 1963 French President, Charles de Gaulle, vetoed Harold Macmillan's Government's attempted application to join the European Economic Community (EEC); pushing Macmillan to burst out crying in despair at the 'difficult' Frenchman. Fast forward to 1967 and the Callaghan Government was preparing to introduce yet another application for EEC membership; Callaghan however choked and withdrew it, fearing he would be made out in the British press "as yet another failed statesman." His decision was probably affected by soundings coming from anti-Marketeer Government Ministers; in particular his Foreign Secretary, Richard Crossman and Peter Shore, the Secretary of State for Economic Affairs. Callaghan himself was determined to make a mark with his premiership and to be seen as the statesman who took Britain into the European Community of nations and into greater prosperity.

He felt he had his chance in 1969 when de Gaulle proposed a referendum which would lead to Government decentralisation and changes to the nation's upper house of parliament, the Senate. De Gaulle, as usual, announced that if the reforms were refused, he would resign; thus prompting opponents to urge people to vote no. Polls were close, but the word of mouth around Whitehall was that De Gaulle was going to lose, with people being tired of his rule; despite awarding his right-wing UDR (Union of Democrats for the Republic) a landslide victory in the legislative election the year before (winning over 380 seats in the 487 seat National Assembly); in the wake of the Government's heaved handed forceful ending of the May 1968 protests and demonstrations by leftists and students across the nation. In the end the General proved everyone wrong and managed to pull off a slender fifty-one : forty-nine victory. De Gaulle was buoyant with the 'massive' 'Oui' awarded to him by his countrymen; that he gave the British application a big 'Non' (as printed on the cover of the 'Daily Sketch' newspaper the day after.)

Despite all five other EEC member states (West Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Italy; ) being in favour of negotiations towards British membership; de Gaulle was adamant in his opposition to even negotiations on British EEC membership. At a news conference held at the Elysee Palace in Paris, attended by more than a thousand diplomats, civil servants, and ministers as well as journalists, de Gaulle accused Britain of a "deep-seated hostility" towards European construction. He went further and said that London showed a "lack of interest" in the Common Market and would require a "radical transformation" before joining the Economic Community. "The present Common Market is incompatible with the economy, as it now stands, of Britain."

De Gaulle went further and listed a number of aspects of the British economy, from working practices to agriculture, which he stated, made Britain incompatible with Europe. Further hopes that de Gaulle may be open to offering clear terms for associate membership were also dashed; the French President said that France would back commercial exchanges with Britain - "be it called association or by any other name" - but that was all he was prepared to state on that matter.His remarks were greeted with dismay in Europe, where it was feared an open crisis within the EEC was now inevitable; pitting the pro-British nations against the French.

Jim Callaghan waited a few days before replying to President de Gaulle's statement. Callaghan made a twenty point rebuttal of the French President's statement in Paris an ruled out any offers of associate or "second class" membership. Callaghan stated that he intended to press ahead with British application for full membership of the Common Market [1] - though this was quickly becoming unlikely due to the second defeat over membership in under a decade; what more the other members did not seem prepared to fight that strongly for British membership of the Community. It appeared that Britain would only proceed with it's application when de Gaulle was no longer President of France; and even then his successor would have to be pro-British as well.

Back home Bob Mellish was creating further controversy; this time over the issue of immigration. Mellish had in the past argued for repatriation and expulsion of Asian immigrants from Britain; at one constituency event he open a speech by stating "As I come to this platform, many of you will know I have never been an anti-racialist."

The 'Commonwealth Immigrants Act, 1969' was introduced by Minister of State at the Home Office (with responsibility over Immigration), John Stonehouse at the start of 1969; but (as one Times columnist commented) "the legislation was seen to have Bob Mellish's fingerprints all over it." Mellish was riled up, partly due to his own paranoia over migration, but also due to information being fed to him by Home Office Ministers (such as Stonehouse) and comments by Monday Club backbenchers on the Tory backbenches. Mellish, rather than dissuaded, was actually encouraged by Callaghan to press the new hardline immigration policies. This was partly due to the fact that Callaghan himself supported the proposed moves; but also due to the fact that two backbench right-wing Labour MP's - Desmond Donnelly & Woodrow Wyatt (the two MP's who stopped much of the Callaghan Government's nationalisation policies from occurring during the 1964-1966 Parliament) had recently announced that they were going to leave the Labour Party and instead form their own party, the 'Democratic Party' with Donnelly as leader (and Wyatt as his deputy.) The party advocated a more pro-American foreign policy (Donnelly himself advocated British involvement in Vietnam) and were uncomfortable with the more left-wing moves by the party in recent years. Callaghan, in back the 'CIA' sought to undercut these rebel MP's and to defeat them at the ballot box (Donnelly was expected to face no opposition from the Conservatives, owing to his good relations with the party right-wing; Wyatt also seemed unlikely to face either a Tory or Liberal candidate in his seat at the next election.)

The Commons was packed for the highly anticipated debate. Callaghan, Mellish, along with backbenchers from both main parties (along with the English Nationalist Downey and Donnelly & Wyatt) spoke in favour of the bill. Tory leader Iain Macleod spoke against the bill; Tory backbencher Michael Heseltine gave an impassioned speech against the bill; the Liberal Party also opposed the bill. The main speech of the occasion was not even from the Government benches, but was one given by the Rt. Hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West - Enoch Powell.

Powell rose and recounted a conversation he had had with a middle-aged working man who lived in his constituency, a year or so earlier. Powell said that the man told him: "If I had the money to go, I wouldn't stay in this country… I have three children, all of them been through grammar school and two of them married now, with family. I shan't be satisfied till I have seen them all settled overseas." The man finished by saying to Powell: "In this country in 15 or 20 years' time the black man will have the whip hand over the white man." [3+4]

The Wolverhampton Member of Parliament went on to say that Britain had to be mad to allow 50,000 depenents of immigration into the United Kingdom each year. Powell went further to compared it to watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre. Powell also called for an immediate reduction in immigration and the implementation of a Conservative policy of "urgent" encouragement of those already in the UK to return home. "It can be no part of any policy that existing families should be kept divided. But there are two directions on which families can be reunited." "Like the Roman, I seem to see the river Tiber foaming with much blood." Powell stated that if parliament did not enact the legislation before them it would be akin to "throwing a match on to gunpowder." Powell estimated that by the year 2000 up to seven million people - or one in ten of the population - would be of immigrant descent. [2]

Powell quoted a letter he received from a woman in Northumberland, about an elderly woman living on a Wolverhampton street where she was the only white resident. The elderly woman had lost her husband and her two sons in World War II and had rented out the rooms in her house. Once immigrants had moved into the street she was living in, her white lodgers left. Two black men had knocked on her door at 7:00 am to use her telephone to call their employers, but she refused, as she would have done to any other stranger knocking at her door at such an hour, and was subsequently verbally abused. [4]

The woman had asked her local authority for a rates reduction, but was told by a council officer to let out the rooms of her house. When the woman said the only tenants would be black, the council officer replied: "Racial prejudice won't get you anywhere in this country." He advocated voluntary re-emigration by "generous grants and assistance" and he claimed that immigrants had asked him whether it was possible. Powell said that all citizens should be equal before the law and that "the immigrant and his descendants should be elevated into a privileged or special class or that the citizen should be denied his right to discriminate in the management of his own affairs between one fellow-citizen and another or that he should be subjected to an inquisition as to his reasons and motives for behaving in one lawful manner rather than another." [3+4]

Powell concluded his speech by stating:
"As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see "the River Tiber foaming with much blood". That tragic and intractable phenomenon which we watch with horror on the other side of the Atlantic but which there is interwoven with the history and existence of the States itself, is coming upon us here by our own volition and our own neglect. Indeed, it has all but come. In numerical terms, it will be of American proportions long before the end of the century. Only resolute and urgent action will avert it even now. Whether there will be the public will to demand and obtain that action, I do not know. All I know is that to see, and not to speak, would be the great betrayal." [3]

Powell's speech was met with cheers from bill supporters and cries of 'shame!' from those opposed to the bill. Not long after the final vote Powell was handed a note sent by Macleod, telling him that he had been sacked with "immediate" effect from his position of Shadow Defence Secretary in the Shadow Cabinet. Powell commented that Macleod didn't even have the "courage" to challenge him in person over his speech.

When the bill came up for a vote - it passed by around a fifty vote margin; virtually no Member of Parliament in good health missed the vote. Not long after the vote, Tory MP, Ian Gilmour, an opponent of the bill, asserted that it was "brought in to keep the blacks and Asians out. If it had been the case that it was 5,000 white settlers who were coming in, the newspapers and politicians, Mellish especially included, who were making all the fuss would have been quite pleased." Mellish in later years stated that he had "no regrets" over the legislation and would happily introduce and defend the bill "a thousand times over" again, rather than not have introduced the legislation. The bill received Royal assent on the 15th April, 1969, and came into force at the start of January 1970. The bill itself was decried by many, including The Beatles who lampooned the central figures in the debate in their 1969 song 'Commonwealth.'

Across the Irish Sea, Northern Ireland was being rocked by intense political and sectarian rioting. The sporadic episodes of violence had arisen from the NICRA civil rights campaign, which demanded an end to the discrimination politically, economically socially of Irish Catholics within the province. These NICRA marches were often attacked by B-Specials of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (the largely Protestant and Unionist police force) and Ulster Loyalists. This disorder eventually led to the 'Battle of the Bogside' in Londonderry; this three day riot in the nationalist Bogside district of the city; between the RUC and the Irish Nationalist/Catholic residents. The violence in the Bogside (in particular the shooting of young Mid Ulster Member of Parliament, Bernadette Devlin by an, as of yet, unknown party) inspired fellow Irish Nationalist Catholics to launch protests elsewhere in the province. The most bloody rioting was in Belfast, where seven people were killed and hundreds more wounded. Scores of houses, most of them owned by Catholics, as well as businesses and factories were burned-out. In addition, thousands of mostly Catholic families were driven from their homes. In certain areas, the RUC helped the loyalists and failed to protect Catholic areas. Events in Belfast have been viewed by some as a pogrom against the Catholic and nationalist minority. [5]

Not long after the events in the Bogside; the recently re-elected Fianna Fail Taoiseach Jack Lynch went on RTE to make an address to the Irish people on the situation in 'the North:'

"It is clear now that the present situation cannot be allowed to continue. It is evident also that the Stormont government is no longer in control of the situation. Indeed, the present situation is the inevitable outcome of the policies pursued for decades by successive Stormont governments. It is clear also that the Irish Government can no longer stand by and see innocent people injured and perhaps worse. It is obvious that the RUC is no longer accepted as an impartial police force. Neither would the employment of British troops be acceptable nor would they be likely to restore peaceful conditions, certainly not in the long term. The Irish Government have, therefore, requested the British Government to apply immediately to the United Nations for the urgent dispatch of a Peace-Keeping Force to the Six Counties of Northern Ireland and have instructed the Permanent Representative to the United Nations to inform the Secretary General of this request. We have also asked the British Government to see to it that police attacks on the people of Derry should cease immediately.

Very many people have been injured and some of them seriously. We know that many of these do not wish to be treated in Six County hospitals. We have, therefore, directed the Irish Army authorities to have field hospitals established in County Donegal adjacent to Derry and at other points along the Border where they may be necessary.

Recognising, however, that the re-unification of the national territory can provide the only permanent solution for the problem, it is our intention to request the British Government to enter into early negotiations with the Irish Government to review the present constitutional position of the Six Counties of Northern Ireland." [6]

Rather than alleviating the situation, the speech managed to make Unionists queasy; it appeared to be a threat of Irish intervention in Northern Ireland. The fact that they couldn't look to the leadership of the Unionist Party, was also a further cause for concern. The Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, the moderate Terence O'Neill had been mortally wounded by the result of the February 1969 General Election which saw many anti-O'Neill Unionists elected to Stormont; his own 'majority' of pro-O'Neill was a mere 50% of the seats in parliament - dangerously low for the Ulster Unionists who usually won around two-thirds of the seats up for grabs.

From O'Neill's point of view, the election results were inconclusive. He was humiliated by his near-defeat in his own constituency of Bannside by Ian Paisley (who formed his own Protestant Unionist Party sometime before the election) and resigned as leader of the UUP and as Prime Minister in April 1969 after a series of bomb explosions on Belfast's water supply by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) brought his personal political crisis to a head.

In the ensuing leadership race, two supposed 'hardliners' faced off against each other. Brian Faulkner, the middle class Minister of Commerce and Major James Chichester-Clark, the aristocratic (he was a distant cousin of O'Neill; though the two rarely saw eye to eye) Minister of Agriculture. The leadership election was the first contested election in the party's sixty-four year history - the end result reflected that fact.

Faulkner beat Chichester-Clark by a single vote (O'Neill had voted for his cousin); and set about announcing hardline policies to deal with the violence in the Province. Not long after his ascension as party leader and Prime Minister he received a phone call from the Home Secretary, Bob Mellish, who proceeded to tell him that the Government in London was behind him "one-hundred-and-ten percent."

Not long after British troops were deployed in the Province; dispelling any sort of idea that the Government expected the violence to merely fizzle out. The soldiers were welcomed warmly by the Irish Nationalist Catholics - mainly because they were not RUC officers and were seen to be less prejudiced against them. It was anyone's guess how long this feeling of goodwill would last.

---

"Tonight Bob Mellish said "Get out immigrants; immigrants you better go home"
Tonight Sunny Jim said to the immigrants, "You'd better get back to your Commonwealth homes"
Yeah, yeah, yeah - he said "you'd better get back home".

Now Bob Mellish has said to the folks he said he cares ‘bout the colour of your skin.
He said he don't care what it is back home for you.

So Iain Macleod said to Bob Mellish.
He said you better get up or else you're gonna get out
He said to Bob Mellish "Bob, you'd better go home"

So Sunny Jim said to Crossman
"C'mon boy, we've gotta swing!"
We gotta go back to over the hill
And get them immigrants back home!

So Bob Mellish said to Jim Callaghan
"Boy you Commonwealth man"

Commonwealth - yes
Commonwealth - yes
Commonwealth - yes
Commonwealth - yes
If you don't want trouble
Than you'd better go back to home

So, I went to Pakistani, I went to India.
I've been to ole Calcutta (Kolkata) and I've had enough of that.
I'm coming back [yes] to England town - yes, welcome.
And dirty Bob Mellish lend his hand enough in Parliament

Oh, Commonwealth - yes
Commonwealth - yes
Oh, Commonwealth - yes
Can you hear me? Commonwealth - yes
Well now Bob Mellish you gotta get back to home.

Well I checked up to Australia, I sailed to New Zealand
You'd better come live with us, we're gonna have some fun.
We're going up to India, we're gonna Pakistan.
We're coming back to Europe and gonna all around, alright.
Now Bob Mellish says he’s gonna
Send them all back to the Commonwealth

Oh, Commonwealth - yes
Well, Commonwealth - yes
Yeah, Commonwealth - yes
Oh, hear me talking, Commonwealth
Well that Commonwealth, but it's much too wealthy for me.

[Much too common for me] 2x

I've been down Australia and New Zealand, too.
Had a trip to Pakistan and India, too.
I came back to West Indies and I had a cricket match.
I went to Tucson Africa and Rhodesia; Salisbury
Oh, Commonwealth, you're much too common for me.

Everybody say Commonwealth - yes.
Yeah, Commonwealth - yes
Bob Mellish, Commonwealth - yes
Immigrants, Commonwealth - yes

Everybody say Commonwealth - yes.
No Irish, Commonwealth - yes
No Negroes, Commonwealth - yes
And No Dogs, Commonwealth - yes
[Well I would join the common market, but it's much too common for me - yes.]"
-The Beatles, 'Commonwealth'

---

[1]Three paragraphs before this point are slightly abridged, yet re-written versions of the BBC 'On this Day' article on de Gaulle's 27th November, 1967 vetoing of Britain's application to join the EEC.
[2]A slightly abridged, yet re-written versions of the BBC 'On this Day' article on de Powell's 20th April, 1968 'Rivers of Blood' speech.
[3]Taken verbatim from Powell 'Rivers of Blood' speech.
[4]Taken from the Wikipedia, 'Rivers of Blood' page.
[5]Taken and abridged from the Wikipedia, '1969 Northern Ireland Riots' page.
[6]An OTL speech given by Lynch on the situation in Northern Ireland.

Gonzo · Aug 31, 2016

The Strange Rebirth of Liberal (South West) England (plus Yorkshire and South London)

At the 1966 General Election the Liberal Party received a less than stellar result, dropping down two seats to a mere six seats in the House of Commons, on just over eight percent of the vote - not a fantastic result for a party that had been several years prior celebrating it's supposed revival in the polls and in parliament; after a string of by-election successes. At the General Election their constituency support was generally to be found within England; with two Members of Parliament elected from the South West of England (John Pardoe in North Cornwall, and Mark Bonham-Carter in Torrington); one from London (Eric Lubbock in Orpington) and one in Western Yorkshire (Richard Wainwright in Colne Valley.) The other two seats came from the two other respective constituent nations of the United Kingdom where the official Liberal Party ran candidates (the Ulster Liberal Party was an affiliated but separate political entity which held a seat in the Northern Ireland Parliament for the Queen's University of Belfast constituency); Scotland (Jo Grimond once again returned for Orkney and Shetland) and Wales (Emlyn Hooson in Montgomery.)

In light of this result, the long serving party leader, Jo Grimond opted to stand down as party leader (he had been expected to do so, even if the party achieved a good result at the General Election.) Grimond, when standing down, argued for the party leadership to "be yielded to the next generation who can carry the torch of liberalism as leadership for the Liberal Party into the new decade." The party however had seen many of it's ascendant and potential future leaders defeated at the General Election; Jeremy Thorpe - widely expected to be a leading contender to succeed Grimond lost his North Devon seat by a few hundred votes - to a Monday Club backed candidate; David Steel - the Scottish 'boy wonder' who had spectacularly won the Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles by-election a mere two years prior - was out, losing to BBC Radio Presenter and Scottish Unionist candidate, Ian McIntyre (the addition of an 'Anti-Abortion Liberal' candidate also did not help Steel's electoral chances.) Rather half of the Liberal parliamentary caucus were freshmen in parliament; Bonham-Carter (having been election before in a 1958 by-election in the same constituency; but only holding it until the General Election eighteen months later), Wainwright and Pardoe were all new additions to the parliamentary team (Lubbock and Hooson had both, however, won by-elections in 1962 - leaving Grimond the only Liberal Member of Parliament to have at least a decade's experience in parliament; having been first elected in 1950.)

It is no surprise then that the ensuing leadership election was referred to in the Daily Sketch as 'The Battle of the Amateurs.' Running for the leadership were Erick Lubbock, John Pardoe and Emlyn Hooson; each presenting varying platforms for the party going into the future.

Pardoe; who had been an MP for less than a year (and had once been written of as having a bold comedic future ahead of him; after his involvement in the Footlights drama club) argued that the party needed to adopt an aggressive and rather fiercely partisan approach to elections. No longer, argued Pardoe, should liberalism and the Liberal Party be seen as a halfway house between Conservativism and Socialism; but rather as another distinctly different ideology apart from the two main parties. Pardoe appeared to be advocating a drastic change in party policy; apparently (according to some press sources) aiming for an adoption of classical liberal policies - apparently taking some ideas from the across the pond in the United States; though this was neither confirmed nor denied by the Cornish Member of Parliament (who was also a member of the Cornish nationalist Mebyon Kernow party as well.)

Hooson; who had been a Member of Parliament for an astounding five years and argued for much the same ideological policy as Grimond; but also arguing for a more aggressive push for devolution and aiming to appeal to voters in Wales and Scotland. Hooson's argument did have some merit to it - for the party did traditionally do well in Scotland and in various parts of Wales; why not shore up on seats in winnable areas; compared to a more evenly spread out campaign with less electoral fruits to take.

Lubbock; also a five year veteran of the House of Commons argued for a somewhat aggressive push against the main parties - like Pardoe; but instead argued that the Liberal Party should become the "beacon" of social liberalism within the country. With the Labour Party seemingly within the firm grasp of the Social Conservative 'Old Leftists;' and the Tories seemingly unable to push any meaningful social reforms through the House; it would be up to the Liberal Party to be the champion of those in society who were currently disadvantaged against; women, homosexuals, minors, minorities and the middle class (often ignored by both the main parties; according to Lubbock.) Lubbock stated that it was time for "the state to get out the bedroom, the home; and into areas where it can make meaningful progressive for the men and women of [the United Kingdom]."

The party's leadership election was to be conducted via the Alternative Vote method; with the winning candidate required to get more than fifty percent of the vote (i.e. four votes.) The polls closed not long after they opened; with all six Liberal Members of Parliament having cast their votes for the new leader of the party; the results were announced not long after (; after a long arduous count!)

Lubbock himself emerged 'victorious' on the first ballot; garnering half of the votes cast; Pardoe followed next on two votes; while Hooson managed to garner a single vote (presumably his own!) Lubbock secured the most votes in the first round, but did not win overall, as the rules said that he needed to win more than half of votes cast. Both Hooson and Pardoe's second preferences voted for one another, cancelling one another out, so faced with a deadlock, both other candidates withdrew from the contest to endorse Lubbock who was consequentially elected unopposed.

Although the election was a secret ballot; many years later it was revealed by former Liberal Member of Parliament, Peter Bessell (who had represented Bodmin from 1964 till 1966) how the Liberal Members of Parliament had each individually voted. According to Bessell, Bonham-Carter and Wainwright had both supported Lubbock; while Grimond had given his support to Pardoe; Hooson received his own vote for the leadership.

Lubbock immediately appointed his two opponents to leading positions within the 'Shadow Shadow Cabinet;' Hooson becoming Deputy Leader (Grimond became Party President), while Pardoe became the party's economics and financial affairs spokesman. The party itself had interesting times ahead as it appeared to be slowly, but surely gaining in the polls; but at which party's expense?

---

Gonzo · Sep 7, 2016

Money

When Anthony ‘Tony’ Crosland replaced Anthony Greenwood; little did he know that he would become the longest serving Chancellor of the Exchequer in recent years, since R. A. 'Rab' Butler who served a decade prior; he then becoming Prime Minister himself and appointed Reginald Maudling to the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer. Crosland himself would have liked to have an input in the Government’s social policy, but the conservative ‘Troika’ (the Prime Minister himself, along with Mellish and Crossman) maintained it’s stranglehold over that respective area of Government policy; nonetheless Crosland hit the ground running in his new position in one of the Great Offices of State.

Coming into office in April 1965, Crosland was more or less immediately hit in the July of that year with the fact that the pound was coming under more and more extreme pressure. Crosland was resolved to impose short term, yet harsh nonetheless, measures to demonstrate fiscal control of the nation’s economy. Some of the measures included a suspension of all (as of then) current Government building projects and ventures and the postponing of a proposed new pensions plan which had started life under his predecessor at the Treasury. An alternative to this was to allow the pound to float or to devalue the currency; the Prime Minister, James Callaghan was adamantly against this; arguing that such a move could create new socioeconomic problems and ensured that this avenue was not taken by his Chancellor. In addition to the economic problems; Crosland and the Government were faced with an exceptionally slender majority of one (due to Patrick Gordon Walker losing the nominally safe Leyton seat in a by-election); this ‘majority’ was in fact non-existent due to the fact that the two prominent ‘right-wing’ Labour rebels, Woodrow Wyatt and Desmond Donnelly were adamantly against any renationalisation and much of what Crosland proposed in his economic policy. Seeing this issue, Callaghan had called a General Election in April; to be held on the 9th of June. In early May of that year, Crosland gave what was referred to as the ‘little budget’ where it was announced that the United Kingdom would move away from a system of pounds, shillings and pence; instead adopting a decimal system of 100 pence to the pound. This change was not actually undertaken until 1975. Crosland also announced that the Government would bring in a full budget after the General Election, “when this Government will surely be returned by the British people.” He was right and Labour emerged victorious with a landslide victory and a majority of one-hundred-and-twenty-four.

The next budget proposed by Crosland was introduced in late June (this was announced during his ‘little budget’ prior to the General Election. In this post-election budget, Crosland announced the introduction of a ‘Selective Employment Tax;’ (or SET) which was intended to subsidise the manufacturing industry for the proceeds of the services industries, in order to help exports; at the end of each accounting period, manufacturing companies would have their SET payments refunded, along with a 7s 6d ‘bounty’ per employee. Much like his prior announcement of decimalisation; this change would be replaced by a ‘Valued Added Tax’ (or VAT) in 1975. Around two weeks after the budget, the National Union of Seamen called a national strike and helped to increase the problems facing the currency. This, combined further additional strikes ensured that the balance of payments deficit would increase and the £3 billion loan (which was given by the Bank of England during Greenwood’s tenure as Chancellor) was now due. To make matters worse unemployment was also starting to ebb upwards; it had been just over three-hundred thousand when Butler had left office; now, around two years later, this figure had climbed to over five-hundred thousand on the dole.

In July of that year the bank rate was again increased to over seven percept; a week later, Crosland announced an emergency ten-point programme that wage and salary increases would be frozen for six months. By 1967 the British economy had begun to stabilise once again and the bank rate was reduced to a 6% in March; 5% in May; and 4.5% in June. It was under these conditions that Crosland defeated a stalking horse change from backbench left-winger Eric Heffer, to become the Treasurer of the Labour Party.

During his tenure, Crosland’s economic policy could be summarised with pushes towards progressive taxation, the redistribution of tax revenue to the working class, the promotion of workers’ representation of the boards alongside mangers. There was also a controversial halt to nationalisation; in an attempt to mend some of the fences within the party, and to prevent a split in the party (this failed, with Donnelly & Wyatt (who were considered by the Whips to be “unreliable […] at the best of times”) resigning the party whip and forming the small Democratic Party in 1969 – along with both their constituency Labour associations. Under Crosland there was also a shift away from indicative targets in the economy; instead moving towards more entrepreneurship; and a push for employee ownership of shares in certain industries – this did not endear him with the left of the party; who, according to Richard Crossman, writing in his acclaimed diaries; “are baying for the poor fellow’s blood […] in extremely ferocious fashion .”

Crossman himself had an immediate impact on the next developments in this nation’s economy. The nation’s economy was not long after this brief respite, brought back into ‘uncertainty’ once again with the Six-Day War between Israel and an Arab Coalition (which Israel emerged victorious with a decisive victory; this was helped in part by support from the strongly Zionist Crossman; who reportedly phoned Israeli Premier Levi Eshkol pledged “any assistance whatsoever” – without the Prime Minister’s knowledge. This strongly pro-Israeli stance of the British Government did not endear it in the eyes of Arab nations; with Egypt especially raising her oil prices (Israel maintained a similar rate for the United Kingdom, as a show of thanks, while raising the cost for most other nations.) Britain’s economy was also hit in September when a national dock strike lasted for around three months (nine weeks.) A run on the Sterling had commenced with the six-day war and with the Egyptian decision to close the Suez Canal; along with the dock strike, the balance of payments deficit grew to an alarming level. A report from the Common Market suggested that the pound could not be sustained as a reserve currency; it further suggested that the Pound should be devalued – something that was abhorrent to the Prime Minister; who flatly refused a contingency fund offered by the International Monetary Fund; due to several of the conditions attached. This resolve however became weaker and weaker as the weeks dragged on; eventually the Prime Minister and the Chancellor committed the Government to over a 10% devaluation.

Crosland later admitted that devaluing the Pound was necessary to ensure that confidence was maintained in the pound and to avoid creating panic in the financial markets. Nonetheless, Crosland (and the Prime Minister to an extent) were embarrassed at having to devalue the Pound. Crosland, seeing the political opposition to the move, offered to resign as Chancellor. This was considered, but rejected by Callaghan, who considered losing a Chancellor as the first sign of a failing Government.

Crosland would remain – for the meantime; but this didn’t stop the calls from the backbenches “baying for [his] blood.”

Entering into 1968 Crosland introduced a budget that would lead to him being nicknamed 'The Hunger Chancellor' due to his announcement of tax increases amounting to around nine-hundred million pounds. This amounted to twice of any previous budget as of then. Leader of the Opposition, Iain Macleod slammed the budget as a "depressingly hard, cold budget, without any signs of improvement or glimmer of warmth or hope." Macleod's Shadow Chancellor, Anthony Barber nodded in agreement. This move was received lukewarm support; at best from the Government benches, the Prime Minister however commenting on Crosland's eloquence and giving a "hard hitting case for [his] budget [...] however draconian it may be."

This was seen as the catalyst for Callaghan's cabinet reshuffle in early 1969.

George Brown would remain as Deputy Prime Minister and as First Secretary of State; but was in actuality merely a stand in in the event that Callaghan was unable to attend Prime Minister's Questions. Crosland was shifted sideways from the Treasury to the Foreign Office; while Crossman was moved in the opposite direction towards the Treasury. Bob Mellish and Denis Healey would remain in their respective cabinet positions; as would Lord Longford as Colonial Secretary. Barbara Castle was shifted from Overseas Development to become the first female Chief Secretary to the Treasury (she replaced John Diamond, who was demoted to a mid level ministerial post); Home Office Minister, John Stonehouse (who had introduced the controversial immigration act into parliament) was promoted to Overseas Development Minister. Roy Jenkins was moved from Health, towards Education & Science Secretary (this was under duress; as he was informed by Callaghan that "if you don't like it - then get out!") In Jenkins' place, Merseyside Irish Catholic MP Simon Mahon was appointed Health Secretary. Patrick Gordon Walker, who preceded Mahon as Health Secretary, replace Mahon as Leader of the House of Commons. The reshuffle was seen as more a 'rearrangement' than a full scale reshuffle; though it was seen to be comprehensive; with those dubbed 'sheep' (i.e. supporters of the troika,) promoted or shifted sideways; those dubbed 'goats' (those 'less loyal' to the troika) (both these names were a reference to Matthew 25:31-46; whereby at the end times, the people will be judged by Jesus; who will separate believers 'the sheep' from the non-believers and sinners 'the goats') were demoted or shifted sideways to more menial positions.

Going into 1970; Callaghan seemed to have found the right combination for his Government. The economy had seemingly 'rebounded' under a cautious Crossman (who had continued the taxation increases; but had spread them out - to "lessen the blow.") This contributed to the Government rebounding in the polls, after the Tories had held the lead for several months during 1969.

---

[1]Much of this was aided by the by the wikipedia 'James Callaghan' and 'Roy Jenkins' pages (specifically on their tenures at the Treasury; much of the policies noted in this update are OTL policies followed by Callaghan and Jenkins while serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer

Gonzo · Sep 14, 2016

Spring Cleaning

Heading into 1970, most people expected Jim Callaghan to call a General Election at some stage in October; the Tories were confident of this, and began to build up their campaign for an election around the end of the year. Within Downing Street, the talk was of an election nearer to May or June. Around January 1970, senior Callaghan aide Bernard Donoughue, along with Callaghan's Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS), Jimmy Hamilton, a Callaghanite Lanarkshire Member of Parliament, with strong socially conservative credentials. The two drew up a memo for the Prime Ministers which stated the issues which the Government should appear, in the eyes of the general public, to getting under control. The first point on the 'Lavvy Letter' (for most of the points had been scribbled on several sheets of Downing Street toilet paper) was the economy. Chancellor Crossman was seen to be a pair of stable and safe hands. The number of strikes; one of the hallmarks of the Crosland era at the Treasury, had sharply declined, due in part to Crossman not being seen as being cut from the Gaitskellite cloth - rather coming from a Bevanite persuasion or as it was becoming fashionable to say, the 'Callaghanite' faction. This, argued Donoughue and Hamilton - was the least of the Government's concerns; even if the balance of payments results, due to be released sometime in early June, were unpredictably bad - the size of Labour's majority in 1966 made it "highly unlikely" that bad economic news would cause the Government to lose it's overall majority. The issue was, if the economic news was bad - along with ANY of the other issues which they mentioned in the memo going sour - then an overall majority looked like it was in jeopardy (not helped by the Liberal Leader, Eric Lubbock making soundings about backing Macleod in the event of a Hung Parliament; due to both of them being united in opposition to the ‘Callaghanism’ (as it was quickly becoming known as.)) The next point on the memo was Northern Ireland; an understandably serious issue which was unfolding in the most westernly point in the United Kingdom.

After the events in the Catholic Bogside area of Londonderry, which saw the shooting of the Baby of the House, Bernadette Devlin by persons unknown (still to the present day, it is not known who shot her.) In the ensuing civil unrest across Catholic areas in Northern Ireland - various Catholic areas in Londonderry, Belfast and other areas became effective no go zones for state security forces. In Devlin’s Mid Ulster constituency - for years a bellwether between Unionists and Nationalists - the Northern Ireland Labour Party and it’s candidate - noted NICRA (Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association) activist and Stormont MP; Ivan Cooper was elected, defeating liberal Ulster Unionist Neville Thornton by nearly six thousand votes; on a turnout which exceeded ninety-three percent.

Not long after he took the oath, Cooper announced that he would be taking the Labour whip, and would in effect be sitting as a conventional Labour Party MP. This presented the Government with a problem. To reject Cooper would be seen as in effect a snub against the Catholic Nationalist community in Northern Ireland - and to a lesser extent, in Merseyside with it’s large Irish Catholic community; while embracing him with open arms would summarily alienate the Protestant Unionist community in Northern Ireland - and even perhaps in some traditional Labour areas - such as in the central belt of Scotland. Callaghan then resolved to allow Cooper to take the whip, but to try to avoid him or any mention of him, unless specifically pressed to do so.

The situation itself seemed to be not getting any better as 1970 dawned. Northern Ireland Prime Minister and leader of the Ulster Unionist Party regime at Stormont, Brian Faulkner requested some Army troop deployment in the province to help alleviate the RUC and B Specials in trying to keep the order. The British Army were seen to be fairer, less brutal and to hold less prejudices against the Catholic population; who subsequently welcome the British troops with open arms - many being greeted with homemade food and treats in the street by a generally grateful Catholic population.

The Government on this issue maintained a ‘two faced’ approach - Callaghan and the Army would appeal to the Catholic population to reject resorting to violence; promises for reforms - in line with some of NICRA’s demands were proposed ‘soon’ helping the violence to subside for the rest of the year - though there was no guarantee if it would pick up again by the start of 1971. Crosland would keep the Irish Government on at least cordial terms (though this was rather hard considering Lynch’s verbal intervention the year before in the violence in Londonderry. Meanwhile Bob Mellish used his charm on Unionist and Loyalists - being greeted by a large crowd of Loyalists and Unionists; the welcoming party led by Stormont Government Minister Bill Craig and the Rev. Ian Paisley.

A proposal from some within the Cabinet to withdraw from Northern Ireland was flatly rejected by the strongly Unionist Prime Minister, who abhorred the suggestion of turning their backs on Northern Ireland or selling it down the river when the going got hard. Northern Ireland’s position in the Union was safe, “copper-fasted” as Callaghan said to Faulkner on the latter’s visit to Downing Street in March 1970; as long as the former remained Prime Minister.

At home, or rather the Home Office, Bob Mellish continued into his fifth year on the job - much the same as he had the years prior - prevent social liberalism from furthering - maintaining the use of backbench social conservative Labour MP’s to ‘talk out’ certain bills - that he himself couldn’t prevent by applying the full force of the Home Department or even other Government Departments.

On the first of January, 1970 the Commonwealth Immigrants Act of 1969 came into force; the changes were sweeping. A Minister for Repatriation was set up, to have immigrants ‘voluntarily’ opt to be repatriated back to their homeland; with a small payment to send them on their way, naturally. The move was naturally condemned, like the bill, by Macleod and the Liberals; while it gained plaudits from the Tory Monday Club right and from Enoch Powell; who many considered to be waiting in the wings, biding his time to strike and take the leadership from Macleod should the latter lose the expected General Election.

Mellish next turned his attention to the issue of drugs.

The Drugs (Prevention of Misuse) Act 1964, brought in under the Butler Ministry, was considered to be a rather liberal piece of legislation and it was not until United Nations influence had been brought to bear that controlling incidental drug activities was employed to effectively criminalise drugs use. Mellish and the Government opted to introduce their own drug’s policy before a potential Tory Government later in the year could do so.

The ‘Misuse of Drugs Act 1970’ was introduced by Mellish early in 1970 and was decried by some (for instance a full page advertisement in ‘The Times’ which called for decriminalisation of certain drugs - such as cannabis; with signatories such as the Beatles) as being a draconian piece of legislation for the exceedingly high penalties for not only production, dealing and selling but also possession and usage of drugs (such as cannabis). Mellish stated that the act gave the nation a “modern, up to date approach to deal with the crisis of drugs; we can now confidently say that we - with this bill enacted into law - able to fight a ‘War on Drug Usage’ in this nation; the likes the world has never seen before.”

The bill passed by a significantly larger margin than expected - the predicted backbench rebellion failed to materialise - with large numbers of Tory and Unionist MP’s voting in the Aye Lobby that evening.

In transcripts from Cabinet meetings, released several decades later - reveals the splits within the Cabinet over the bill. Education Secretary, Roy Jenkins (who was the primary opponent of the bill); along with Chief Secretary to the Treasury Barbara Castle, recently appointed Employment Secretary Harold Wilson (who had been rehabilitated back into the cabinet after some soundings from the backbenches by Callaghan’s PPS, Jimmy Hamilton) and Technology Minister Anthony Wedgewood Benn - who all spoke out in either opposition or unease at the bill. Mellish launched into a tirade against Jenkins in particular calling him a “supreme sodomite and evangelist for permissiveness” (due to his, unrelated, opposition to Mellish’s policies); Callaghan - who was known to support the bill strongly remained silent and refused to tell Mellish to calm down.

Not long after fault lines re-emerged in the Cabinet - this time over the issue of trade unions and the Labour Party’s relationship with them. For most of 1969 and into the Spring of 1970 - Employment Secretary Harold Wilson, along with Chief Secretary to the Treasury Barbara Castle drew up a white paper proposal which they named ‘In Place of Strife’ (the title was a reworking of the title of Nye Bevan’s book ‘In Place of Fear.’ The white paper was in essence a basis for a law to reduce the power of trade unions in the United Kingdom. Amongst the numerous proposals within the white paper were plans to force trade unions to call a ballot before a strike was held and the establishment of an Industrial Board to enforce settlements in industrial disputes.

When the paper was released to the rest of the cabinet in early 1970 the lines between the two camps over the issue were drawn quickly, and drawn deep. The strongest opponent came in the form of the Prime Minister; with much of the cabinet falling into line behind him - for fear of losing their jobs or being singled out for some menial task by Callaghan or his ‘cronies.’ Callaghan himself supported maintaining ties with the trade unions and not infringing on their powers; so when he responded explosively - no one was that surprised.

Then the press got hold of the white paper.

Trade unions were naturally furious and threatened further strike action over the proposals. Callaghan, in a stroke of political mastery, addressed the Trade Union Congress (TUC), at a special conference on that particular issue, held in Southwark that year. The generally aggressive audience expected Callaghan to defend the proposals or to try and talk his way out of it.

In the end Callaghan gave an eloquent and impassioned speech pledging his Government’s continued support of trade unions and their independence and how he remained committed to fighting for the working man, despite the white paper.

In the end it earned him a standing ovation from those assembled and greatly repaired any sort of damage done by the white paper. His speech became known as the 'Southwark Speech' and years later yielded it's name to a pressure group the 'Southwark Society' which argues on behalf of 'Callaghanist' policies and the maintenance of the Labour Party's ties with trade unions.

Wilson and Castle were informed not long after by the Chief Whip, Patrick Gordon Walker that they were both on “very thin ice” and that if they wanted to continue in their current posts they had the “button it.”

By the end of May Callaghan felt confident to call a General Election and to be able to win; also catching the Tories (who expected a late autumn, early winter campaign) off guard. On the 18th of May Callaghan asked the Queen to dissolve parliament on the 29th of that month - for a General Election to be held on the 18th of June.

Gonzo · Sep 15, 2016

The Persuaders

The first election of the seventies was certainly a dramatic affair and proved to be one of the most unpredictable affairs in recent history. It was also the first General Election to allow eighteen and nineteen year olds to vote - as set out in the Representation of the People Act 1969 (though it did not extend the right to stand for election to Parliament to under-twenty-ones.)

Parliament was dissolved on the 29th of May, with polling day set for the 18th of June. In doing so the Prime Minister, James Callaghan, caught the Conservatives off guard, who expected a General Election to be called in October. This advantage was harnessed by Labour heading into the General Election who utilised the boost from various successful ventures under the Callaghan Government in the run up to the General Election.

Labour released their manifesto not long into the campaign, under the message 'You know Labour Government works.' This was seized upon by the Tories who ran billboards with the same phrase only with a question mark at the end; and 'Really?' in bold font below. The Labour manifesto argued for staying the course and maintaining the current discourse with the trade unions; preventing any sort of debilitating strike from occurring; as it may under a Conservative Administration. The manifesto itself was in many ways a love letter to Middle England - who had handed Callaghan two prior election victories in 1964 and 1966. The 'Callaghanist' message of rejecting social progress and liberalisation, while advocating social democratic or democratic socialist policies elsewhere appeared to be a good vote winner for Labour; having scored them in 1966, their largest majority since 1945; and second largest out of any Labour Government in history. That being said the close relations between Callaghan and the trade unions and his 'Southwark Speech' made many middle class voters rather uncomfortable with voting Labour; the Labour campaign resolved to shout 'Remember Maudling' over and over again - in an attempt to remind people of what the last Conservative Government had done, when in charge of the Treasury.

The Tories ran on a manifesto entitled 'A Better Tomorrow: For All' which argued for a "radical new economic policy for Britain in the 1970's." The manifesto took several pointers from the economic liberalism, gaining popularity in the United States. While not as hardline as the proposals from the likes of Enoch Powell - they were considered to be rather radical arguing for privatisation of some sectors (not that many in the grand scheme of things) and slight curtailing of union powers (in line with the proposals in 'In Place of Strife'.) The party also ran on a platform urging social progress to take "Britain into the new decade as a liberal progressive outwardly looking nation." This section was red meat to the likes of Bob Mellish who went after the "debauched" Tories on his pet issues.

Both of the main parties ran on generally pro-EEC membership platforms - though Labour was rather more mild on the issue - owing to the significant number of anti-Marketeers within the cabinet (the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State for Economic Affairs for instance.)

The Liberals and the Democratic Parties both released their own manifestos, 'Give us a break!' and 'A truly Great Britain,' respectively. These two manifestos garnered far less media interest, owing to the relative sizes of the two parties (the Liberals were heading into the General Election with six seats, the Democrats two MP's.)

Macleod to his credit ran an efficient and effective election campaign attacking Callaghan for his close relationship to the unions and "putting this country's economy in the balance" as a result. The Tory campaign was very different to those in prior elections - especially in 1964 and 1966. This time around they were taking the fight to Labour and hammering the Government hard on it's record on the economy and on social issues; as well as harming "perhaps irrevocably" in the words of Shadow Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Rippon, "our friendship and relations with our American cousins" - a claim denied as "rubbish" by the architect of Callaghanist foreign policy - Richard Crossman.

On the weekend before polling day the nation's balance of payment figures were released. Labour had been leading in a Daily Mail poll on the Friday before by around seven points over the Tories. The figures were generally considered to be the critical indicator of how the nation's economy was performing. Rather than providing a stellar result for the Government - the results showed the nation barely avoiding falling into deficit. 'Crossman's Cockup' bellowed the Daily Sketch - running a variation of it's '[X] number of days until Socialist takeover' - instead running '[X] number of days until a real British Government.' 'Trade shock for Jim' ran the more restrained Evening Standard, 'Storm "narrowly avoided" over trade figures' ran the Daily Mirror; while the Daily Mail ran 'Nation narrowly avoids the rocks over trade figures.'

The episode became a source of embarrassment of the Government - who went into immediate damage control - seeing their lead shrink down to four points in a Gallup poll released just after the trade figures became public. Crossman effectively pushed the blame over to Crosland and Greenwood - who became an effective punching bag for many Callaghanites. The Tories had, in the words of future Tory frontbencher Julian Amery, "a field day" over the trade figures; especially with Macleod being a 'policy wonk' over the issue of economics - cooperating with his Shadow Chancellor Anthony Barber strongly over the issue.

Four days before polling day on the 14th of June, England won a 3-2 victory over West Germany in the quarter finals of the 1970 FIFA World Cup - the honour of handing the defending champions the victory goes to the goal keeper, Gordon Banks. The World Cup, due to England being the defending champions, gained considerably more interest that the General Election campaign. The ensuing feeling of patriotism among English voters worked in Labour benefit in the polls - as many predicted a tightening after the results of the balance of payment figures around the same time.

Heading into polling day Callaghan lead Macleod in polls over who was a better Prime Minister; while Labour led the Tories by around 10% in a Gallup fielded just after the World Cup quarter final match; an Opinion Research Centre (OPC) poll put Labour just ahead by 2% - concerning, but seen as a rogue poll by many commentators and Labour Party officials.

On the evening of the 23rd of June, 1970 the British public tuned in to watch the BBC's election coverage of the 1970 General Election; presented for the second time by Cliff Michelmore along with Robin Day, David Butler and Robert McKenzie.

Gonzo · Sep 17, 2016

Election 70

*Second Movement Rondeau from the Abdelazer suite by Henry Purcell, from Benjamin Britten's 'The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra plays*

BBC1 ... BBC1 ... BBC1
-----------------------
THE GENERAL ELECTION OF
1970
VOTES..FLASHES..RESULTS
PREDICTIONS..COMMENTS
ANALYSIS

"Good evening and welcome to Election 70 from studio one here at Television Centre in London. The Prime Minister, Mr. James Callaghan chose to hold the General Election today on June the eighteenth, the choice is essentially his, and of course he chooses the date because it's the date on which he best believes he can win. Now we're going to see if he chose right. He chose June - who did you chose? If the Labour Party win another big majority - we could have a Labour Government through to 1975. If the result is close, the we could have another election and election campaign within this year. And there are certain indications that the vote will be very close. Or perhaps all the opinion polls have all been wrong and Mr. Macleod will be the next Prime Minister and will be settling into Downing Street this time tomorrow night. The moment of reckoning has come and our studio here is geared towards one thing - and one thing only - to get the result through to you as quickly as we can - as clearly as we can - and to make sense of them... as quickly as we can. It's twenty-two forty-eight - twelve minutes to eleven; the first result will be in soon after eleven o'clock."
-Cliff Michelmore

"The Prime Minister voted earlier here in his Cardiff constituency with his wife, Mrs. Callaghan. He was in a jovial mood and was swarmed by reporters and by his constituents - who are expected to return him with a good majority; here the Labour vote is - as it is commonly joked - weighed, rather than counted - at it doesn't appeared to be any different tonight."
-David Dimbleby, reporting from Cardiff South East

"Welcome to Enfield West where the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Iain Macleod is defending a heft majority in a generally good Tory seat. There's little to no chance that he could lose here tonight - but the addition of the columnist and commentator Auberon Waugh running on an Independent Conservative and Anti-Abortion ticket here could potentially sour the Tory mood here in Enfield. Mr. Macleod is defending a majority of around nine thousand - and there's little indication that it will dip lower than that here tonight."
-Michael Charlton, reporting from Enfield West

"The essence of tonight's story will be told on the 'State of the Parties' board on the wall here. This board will show the composition of the new House of Commons - with Labour, Conservative, Liberal and Others presented there. Now in order to achieve an overall majority over the other parties - the winning party must get 316 seats out of the 630 seats at stake this evening. Over the night we'll be especially watching the top right hand corner of the board - gains and losses - this is the real battle ground. To knock out Labour's majority in the House of Commons the Tories have to knock out - sixty-two Labour MP's; while to gain an overall majority of their own - they have to gain seventy seats - a hefty task by anyone's measure.
Now let's have a look at what the Opinion Polls had to say on the result this evening - and to be frank - they were all over the place. They range from Marplan which gave Labour an eleven percent lead of the Tories - equating to a majority of nearer two-hundred - to the Opinion Research Centre - ORC - which gave Labour a slender two point lead over the Tories. What we'll do is put a big pointer here to show the average - which is around a five-point-seven percent lead for Labour over the Tories. Now remember at the last General Election Labour had a lead of eight-point-seven over the Tories - so this represents a shift of three percent to the Conservatives overall from Labour - but ensuring they have a majority still of around a hundred - hundred-and-five or so.
Now let's convert that into swing - now this represents the situation at the last General Election; Labour had a majority of one-hundred-and-twenty-four over the Opposition - the Tories. Now the Opinion Polls are saying a swing of around one-point-five percent - pushing Labour down to an eighty-five perce,- seat majority. Now what Iain Macleod needed was a four-point three percent swing to knock out Labour's majority and a five-point-three percent swing to gain a majority of his own. That is what he will he watching - can he do it - despite of what the Opinion Polls have said. So this evening many Opinion Polls will be on the chopping block tonight - but if some of them give an indicator of a Conservative victory - well then we're in for an interesting night. Cliff-"
-Robert McKenzie

"We're going over now to Guildford - and - it's rather hectic out there - with pieces of paper flying everywhere - general pandemonium it would appear... Yes now the returning office is coming to the stage..."

[...]

"So a Tory Hold there,-"

"If the whole country behaved like Guildford there with a four-point-five percent swing there - we'd see a dead heat between the parties and then,-

"I think Salford are about to declare... No... Yes..."
-Cliff Michelmore and David Butler on the Guildford result

"I declare that Arthur Douglas Dodds Parker has been duly elected to serve as the Member for Salford,-"

"Labour's vote here is down considerably as the Conservative Dodds Parker holds this seat once again with a four percent swing in his favour."
-Salford Returning Officer and BBC reporter

"Based on the swings we've just seen here now - it would appear that Labour have lost their majority - but that Mr. Macleod has not gained a big enough swing to win an overall majority..."
-Robert McKenzie

"Stanley Orme there retaining his majority; a reduced one at that."
-Cliff Michelmore

"What do you think of the results Mr. du Cann so far?"

"Absolutely marvellous first rate - I am over the moon at the results so far."

"Do you think that the rest of the country will perform like these results?"

"No, I think there'll be substantial regional variations - by region by region...

LADBROOKES OFFERING 2 TO 1 AGAINST LABOUR

...I think there'll be fluctuations all over the place."
-Exchange between Robin Day and Edward du Cann

"Yes, the Liberals here in Orpington are getting a bit concerned that the Tory swings we've seen so far - may even knock out some of their MPs like Mr. Bonham-Carter and here in Orpington - their party leader, Mr. Eric Lubbock."
-David Lomax, reporting from Orpington

"I declare that John Enoch Powell has been duly elected to serve as the Member of Parliament for Wolverhampton South West."
-Wolverhampton South West Returning Officer

"A six-and-a-half percent swing there in for Enoch Powell - which would give Mr. Macleod - on a swing like that - an overall majority."
-David Butler

"After these last few results the swing appears to be all over the place - Mr. Edward Short holding his seat with a minor three percent swing against him - versus something like for Mr. Enoch Powell up in Wolverhampton. The average would appear to be between Labour as the largest party in a Hung Parliament - or a slender Labour Majority."
-Robert McKenzie

"And the Health Secretary, part of the Merseyside Mahon duo in parliament - holds his seat with a swing of around three percent there in Bootle."
-Cliff Michelmore

JULIAN AMERY HOLDS BRIGHTON PAVILION

RECOUNT IN LIVERPOOL TOXETH

CONSERVATIVE HOLD GLASGOW HILLHEAD

DENIS HEALY HOLDS LEEDS EAST FOR LABOUR

"The 'State of the Parties' here now shows Labour on 106, to the Tories' 46, the Liberals' One and the One Other seat for Mr. S. O. Davies who held his seat in the Valleys of Wales after being deselected as the Labour Candidate there and running as an Independent Labour candidate."
-Robert McKenzie

CONSERVATIVES GAIN BEXLEY

LUBBOCK HOLDS ORPINGTON WITH REDUCED MAJORITY

DAME JOAN VICKERS HOLDS PLYMOUTH DEVENPORT

CONSERVATIVES GAIN ANGLESEY

"So Mr. Lubbock how are you feeling about the results so far?"

"Very encouraging Mr. Michelmore - very encouraging."

"Rather upbeat for someone with only two seats, aren't you?"
-Exchange between Cliff Michelmore and Eric Lubbock

JAMES HAMILTON HOLDS BOTHWELL FOR LABOUR

PETER MAHON HOLDS PRESTON SOUTH

HAROLD WILSON HOLDS HUYTON

PETER SHORE HOLDS STEPNEY FOR LABOUR

CONSERVATIVES GAIN SMETHWICK

LAB: 134 CON: 69 LIB: 2

ROY JENKINS HOLDS BIRMINGHAM STECHFORD

ROBERT CARR HOLDS MITCHAM FOR CONSERVATIVES

RECOUNT IN BELPER

CONSERVATIVE HOLD SHEFFIELD HALLAM

RECOUNT IN WEST LOTHIAN

LABOUR HOLD WESTERN ISLES

GEORGE YOUNGER HOLDS AYR FOR CONSERVATIVES

CONSERVATIVE HOLD BIRMINGHAM EDGBASTON

ANTHONY BARBER HOLDS ALTRINCHAM & SALE

CONSERVATIVE HOLD GLASGOW CATHCART

PETER GRIFFITHS GAINS PORTSMOUTH WEST

"It now appears that the swing it settling in and around the border between a Labour Majority and a Labour leading Hung Parliament here tonight."
-Robert McKenzie

"We can go and take a peak over there in George Brown's seat in Belper with our reporter Alan Hart. Alan?"

"Cliff, the result here is on a knife edge - it could really go either way. Labour sources are saying that Mr. Brown may have just lost the seat - though the Tories are saying they've just missed taking his scalp here in a seat he's held for twenty-five years."
-Exchange between Cliff Michelmore and Alan Hart, reporting in Belper

"I think we can say now that Labour will either be back with a majority far smaller than in the last parliament - or with no majority at all. I can't see a way for Mr. Macleod to become Prime Minister outright."
-David Butler

U.U HOLD IN FERMANAGH

COOPER HOLDS MID ULSTER

DESMOND DONNELLY HOLDS PEMBROKE FOR DEMS

"...And I declare that George Alfred Brown has been duly elected to serve as the Member of Parliament for the Belper constituency."
-Belper Returning Officer

"Goodness... Mr. Brown seems to be... rather... well... drunk there giving his acceptance speech... and... he's fallen off the platform..."
-Cliff Michelmore

"Well Mr. Healy how do you analyse how Labour has done of this fine evening?"

"I think we'll be home and dry by this time tomorrow with an overall majority..."

"A majority of what - two is that good?"

"Well a majority is a majority Robin at the end of the day whether it is two or two hundred..."

"Right so the Defence Secretary is happy with a majority of two then..."

"Now wait a minute Robin..."
-Exchange between Robin Day and Denis Healy

CHICHESTER-CLARK HOLDS LONDONDERRY

REG PRENTICE HOLDS EAST HAM NORTH

DUCAN SANDYS HOLDS WANDSWORTH STREATHAM

ROSS MCWHIRTHER HOLDS EDMONTON

RICHARD CROSSMAN HOLDS COVENTRY EAST

RECOUNT IN YEOVIL

LIBERAL GAIN IN LIVERPOOL TOXETH

IAIN MACLEOD HOLDS ENFIELD WEST

"We have fought a gallant campaign and certainly taking the fight of an open, pluralistic and modern Britain to Labour; despite what Mr. Waugh would like to say *HECKLES* we Tories are the party of a modern Britain and a better future for this nation. We may have come just short this time - but we will win next time - that I am sure of!"
-Iain Macleod acceptance speech in Enfield West

"Well that's a strong showing for Auberon Waugh there in Enfield West - taking presumably eleven percent of the Tory vote there; reducing Mr. Macleod majority by an unusually level - representing a strange swing there to Labour."
-David Butler

JAMES PRIOR HOLDS LOWESTOFT FOR CONSERVATIVES

CONSERVATIVE GAIN ABERDEEN SOUTH

PATRICK DOWNEY HOLDS NELSON & COLNE FOR ENGLISH NATS

RECOUNT IN GLASGOW POLLOK

SCOTS NATS GAIN WEST LOTHIANS

"Yes a rather bitter campaign up there with Mr. Wolfe running a rather sectarian anti-Catholic campaign - which seems to have paid off for him there."
-David Butler

LABOUR HOLD BARROW-IN FURNESS

LABOUR HOLD CARDIFF WEST

RECOUNT IN NORTH ANTRIM

"And we can go over to the Prime Minister' seat..."
-Cliff Michelmore

"...And I declare that Leonard James Callaghan is duly elected to serve as the Member of the Parliament for the Cardiff South East constituency..." *CHEERS*
-Cardiff South East Returning Officer

PRIME MINISTER HOLDS CARDIFF SOUTH EAST

"I think I can be confident in saying that the Labour Party has been returned for a record breaking third term in office. We have shown the Tories that the Labour way is the right way and that 'With Labour, Britain WILL win!"
-James Callaghan acceptance speech in Cardiff South East

"If the rest of the country behaved like the Prime Minister's constituency - then Labour would well and truly be home and dry with a one-point-five percent swing against them - leaving around a majority of a hundred or so seats."
-David Butler

WOODROW WYATT HOLDS BOSWORTH FOR DEMS

U.U. HOLD NORTH ANTRIM

ESMOND WRIGHT HOLDS GLASGOW POLLOK

"The Tories holding the by-election victory there in Glasgow; owing to a massive increase or retention of the Scots Nats vote there in Pollok."
-Cliff Michelmore

LAB: 221 CON: 137 LIB: 4

MARK BONHAM-CARTER HOLDS TORRINGTON FOR LIBERALS

CONSERVATIVE HOLD RENFREWSHIRE EAST

GERRY FITT GAINS BELFAST WEST

"So gentlemen how would you evaluate the night so far? Peter Shore?"

"Well the results are looking great so far - I think we'll be returned with a greater majority than you are predicting here at the moment."

"Robert Carr?"

"We're doing better than expected."

"Desmond Donnelly?"

"The country is doomed no matter the result..."
-Exchange between Robin Day, Peter Shore, Robert Carr and Desmond Donnelly

"I think David Dimbleby has gotten hold of the Prime Minister over in Cardiff..."

"Mr. Callaghan, Prime Minister how are you feeling about the evening."

"We will take things as they come - and I am just happy the people of Cardiff South East re-elected me by such as decisive margin."

"Prime Minister... Prime Minister - do you think you will be gain an overall majority?"

*Laughs* "Yes."
-Cliff Michelmore and an exchange between David Dimbleby and James Callaghan

"And we can see that the Liberals with their candidate the radio presenter and actor Nicholas Parsons have just gained Yeovil..."
-Cliff Michelmore

RECOUNT IN BUCKINGHAM

TONY CROSLAND HOLDS GREAT GRIMSBY

"The swing there for the Foreign Secretary is around the average now of about four or so percent - which will give the Government it's majority - but a larger one than we thought earlier - but far smaller than predicted by the polls."
-Robert McKenzie

GEOFFREY RIPPON HOLDS HEXHAM

"And we can see the Shadow Foreign Secretary holding his seat there in the far north of England."
-Cliff Michelmore

BOB MELLISH HOLDS BERMONDSEY

"The people of Bermondsey and the United Kingdom as a whole have repudiated the Tories' platform of abortion, acid and amnesty - and good riddance to the Tories!" *CHEERS*
-Bob Mellish acceptance speech in Bermondsey

SECOND RECOUNT IN BUCKINGHAM

"This is an astounding result here - a swing from the Conservatives to Labour here - of around six percent - going... off our swingometer here..."
-Robert McKenzie

"We have a major announcement now... Labour have won an overall majority with their victory in Buckingham for Government Minister Robert Maxwell - who bought 'The Sun' last year."
-Cliff Michelmore

Lab: 338 Con: 277 Lib: 8

"So Labour are back with 338 seats; down thirty-nine on four years ago - Tories up thirty-one on 277, the Liberals up two on eight. The other parties - Democrats, English Nationalists, Irish Nationalists, NI Labour, Independent Labour etc etc have all won seats on this thrilling election - with the swing now levelling out at three-point-eight, three-point-nine. Leaving Labour with a majority of forty-six; much larger than we though earlier..."
-Robert McKenzie

"So as you leave us after a thrilling General Election; with Labour being re-elected for a third time under the Prime Minister Mr. James Callaghan; I'd like to say goodbye on behalf of all of us here at election studio one here in London. Goodbye."
-Cliff Michelmore

---

Gonzo · Sep 17, 2016

Here are the infoboxes I couldn't add due to limits in number of picture I can add to a post...

Gonzo · Sep 20, 2016

Dancing in the Streets

Of the four men who served as Prime Minister during the nineteen-seventies; James Callaghan was one of two who actually commanded any real form of loyalty, respect or support within their parliamentary party; and it could be argued that he was the only Prime Minister who held a steady hand while serving as the First Lord of the Treasury. In order to understand the underlying issues which caused the various upheavals, socially, economically and politically during the nineteen-seventies it is advisable to look at the situation directly after the 1970 General Election which returned James Callaghan’s Labour Party with a reduced, but workable, overall majority.

Labour entering into the new decade on the back of their third General Election victory (the last triple election victory for a party in the United Kingdom, as of today), were understandably in a buoyant mood. James Callaghan was the most electorally successful Labour Prime Minister in the history of the party - leading the party to a slender General Election victory in 1964, upgrading that to a landslide victory in 1966 and a reasonable majority in 1970. Most people assumed that he would be gone before the next General Election - best to go out on a high note and with an unblemished electoral record. Plus, as Callaghan later wrote, “I had done all that I had set out to do and much more [...] all before the age of sixty.” The period itself from after the General Election until the handover of power in 1972 was a comparative period of tranquillity for the Labour Party and for the country, in comparison to the years after the Callaghan Premiership.

Entering into Downing Street once again on that June morning in 1970, Callaghan set about ensuring that the ‘strife’ of the last of the last parliament - especially within his cabinet, did not continue into his new administration. The reshuffle in the days after the General Election was officially to shuffle loyal Members of Parliament into positions which were held by defeated Members of Parliament - no member of the cabinet had been defeated at the General Election, though George Brown had come within two-hundred votes of losing his seat to his Conservative challenger. The real reason for his reshuffle was to settle old scores with his less than supportive - or even rebellious cabinet members. He couldn’t sack or demote Harold Wilson - Wilson had a good amount of support from within the parliamentary party; Callaghan couldn’t risk, or rather be bothered causing Wilson to (in the ever subtle words of Home Secretary Bob Mellish) “run off like a little faggot crying” and launching a leadership bid of his own. Barbara Castle was Wilson’s main cabinet ally; her going from her rather junior position as Chief Secretary of the Treasury, would probably precipitate Wilson resigning. There was however one opponent who Callaghan could hang out to dry.

Jenkins had held the ire of many traditionalist Labour MPs since his attempts to reform the Obscene Publications Act, in 1959. He had however come on the radar to the Callaghanites with his frequent spats with the Home Secretary, Bob Mellish branding him once in the cabinet meeting over the unrelated topic of the 1970 Misuse of Drugs Act, “supreme sodomite and evangelist for permissiveness.” Jenkins not long after the General Election was brought to Number 10; in the full glare of the media and press assembled outside; to be sacked from his position as Education Secretary. According to Callaghan’s senior advisor and aide, Bernard Donoughue - Callaghan sat at a table with a glass of scotch while Jenkins asked in a bitter tone, “I presume you’ve called me to sack me?” When Callaghan nodded the affirmative, Jenkins launched on a tirade of expletives decrying Callaghan as being “no worse than a Tory.” Callaghan remarked, “watch the door doesn’t hit you on the way out” as Jenkins was made to leave through a backdoor of the premises. In his place, arch-Callaghanite and trade-unionist Ray Gunter was appointed to the Education and Science portfolio. Other appointments include Gaitskellite Anthony ‘Tony’ Wedgwood Benn promoted from Postmaster General to President of the Board of Trade. All of the cabinet posts remained in their pre-election hands.

The nation’s economy - after the ‘totter’ of 1969-1970, appeared to be in safe hands under the ‘new’ Chancellor of the Exchequer, Richard Crossman - who formed one of the central pillars of the Callaghite clique within the Government. Crossman however appeared to be hesitant to engage in decimalisation (which would not be undertaken until 1975) and it would not be undertaken during his tenure at the Treasury. After the disappointing balance of payments released just before the General Election; the nation’s economy appeared to be on the up with GDP growth averaging in at around one-and-a-half percent; a definite increase on the state of affairs under Crosland. The introduction of various taxes such as the newly formed ‘capital transfers tax’ (or ‘inheritance tax’) and increases in capital gains taxes from around 25% to 35% were described as ‘taxes on toffs’ by the ‘Daily Mirror’ for instance. These taxes were decried by the Tory media, but were supported by the Callaghanite base - the union membered working class. This was despite the deteriorating situation on the other side of the pond.

George Murphy had been elected in 1969 promising in his Republican National Convention speech: “When the strongest nation in the world can be tied down for four years in a war in Vietnam with no end in sight; ...when the richest nation in the world can't manage its own economy; when the nation with the greatest tradition of the rule of law is plagued by unprecedented lawlessness; when a nation that has been known for a century for equality of opportunity is torn by unprecedented racial violence when the president of the United States cannot travel abroad or to any major city at home without fear of a hostile demonstration then it is time for new leadership for the United States of America. As we look at America, we see cities enveloped in smoke and flame millions of Americans crying out in anguish "Did we come all the way for this? Did American boys die in Normandy and Valley Forge for this?" I pledge to you That the current wave of violence will not be the wave of the future. Let us begin by committing ourselves to the truth...to find the truth, to speak the truth and to live the truth. A new voice is being heard across America today. It is not the voice of the protesters or the shouters. It is the quiet voice of the majority of Americans who've been forgotten the non-shouters, the, uh, non-demonstrators. They're the good people. They work hard and they save and they pay their taxes. Now, who are they? Let me tell you who they are. They're in this audience by the thousands. They're the white Americans and black Americans, Mexican and Italian Americans. They're the great silent majority and they have become angry, finally. Angry, not with hate, But angry, my friends because they love America and they don't like what's happened to America these last four years. Let us understand. North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that! I say to you tonight, I say to you tonight we must have a new feeling of responsibility of self-discipline. We must look to renew state and local government. We must have a complete reform of a big, bloated federal government. Those of us in public service know we can have full prosperity in peacetime. Yes, we can cut the defence budget. We can reduce, uh, conventional forces in Europe. We can restore the natural environment. We can improve health care and make it more available to all people. And yes, we can have a complete reform of this government. We can have a new American Revolution!" [1]

Murphy, a conservative Republican who had backed Goldwater in 1964, had actively appealed to ethnics, as well as Hispanic and negro voters; nearly costing him the Presidential election due to a better than expected showing for segregationist Democrat, former Governor George Wallace of Alabama. His first major test came with his appointment of a new Supreme Court Chief Justice, as the outgoing Chief Justice, Earl Warren had stood down the year before - in an attempt to get a fellow liberal nominated. This tactic had failed when Johnson picked an Administration ‘crony’ and personal friend Abe Fortas for the position - his nomination quickly fell through - enabling Murphy to make his own nomination - G. Harrold Carswell. Carswell was a conservative Florida Judge who had been touted by Murphy as a replacement for the “un-conservative and unconstitutional” Warren.

Carswell had a question mark put over his nomination when it emerged that Carswell had a relatively high reversal rate (nearly sixty percent) of his decision as a Judge. Civil rights advocates also questioned his civil rights records - in 1948 Carswell, while running in his native Georgia for a state legislature seat, had expressed support for segregation. Carswell put these under the rug by giving non-committal answers to these questions - so as to not alienate Southern Democrats (such as Richard B. Russell, Jr. who supported his bid strongly.) During a debate on his nomination - chief backer of Carswell in the Senate, Roman Hruska, Republican of Nebraksa injured himself by walking into a door and missed the debate. In the end Carswell was confirmed by a vote of 52-23, with many liberal Republicans missing or abstaining from the vote.

Not long after this Abe Fortas was forced to step down from the Supreme Court due to a conflict of interest charges against him; thus presenting an opportunity for Murphy to nominate a second Supreme Court Justice within a year. In his place he nominated the strict-constructionist and literal reader of the U.S. Constitution, Warren Burger, the Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit since 1956. Burger was easily confirmed by a large margin in the Senate, owing to his less than controversial persona, compared with the new Supreme Court Chief Justice. These nominations put the court on a more conservative footing; which was only increased with the resignation and subsequent death of Roosevelt nominee, former Alabama Senator Hugo Black in 1971 - who was replaced by the conservative William H. Rehnquist not long after.

A central plank of Murphy’s 1970 campaign was to bring ‘Victory -with Hono[ u ]r’ in Vietnam - how he intended to achieve this, no one really knew. Troop numbers in the south-east Asian nation where rapidly increased to nearly three-quarters of a million soldiers under the command of General Creighton Abrams. By the end of 1970 the frontline had been pushed dramatically up the country; with a ‘247365’ nonstop bombing approach on the North’s capital - Hanoi - taken by reappointed Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. More tonnage was delivered on Hanoi over the Christmas of 1969, than was delivered upon Dresden in WWII. ‘Murphy the Maddened Tyrant’ read banners held by student protesters, while the New York Times referred to the bombing as a “stone age tactic by the President.”

The United States gave two things to the United Kingdom over this period - both of which were not wanted or needed; economic issues and protests. Murphy’s Secretary of the Treasury, Milton Friedman often came into conflict with his British counterpart, Richard Crossman.

President’s Murphy’s rapid increase in the war in Indochina had ensured that the public purse was cut drastically down - Friedman convinced the President to engage in the “dieting” of the Johnson Great Society programmes which were initiated to help combat inner-city poverty and inequality with race. With many of these programmes “hacksawed to death” in the words of 1972 Democratic Presidential nomination candidate, Walter Reuther; public discontent, especially among left-leaning students. This led wide protests and strikes by students - this ironically, along with the increase in the ‘war effort’ helped to solidify the ‘Murphy bloc’ who would be characterised by the famous line from the 1977 Oscar Winning film ‘Network’ - “I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!” These voters were becoming gradually more and more “sick and tired” in the words of Murphy, of the student and leftist agitation within the nation. It’s generally considered that this backlash was responsible for the better than expected result for the Grand Old Party in the 1970 Midterms.

Soon after, by the end of 1970, the United State Dollar, as a result of the ‘war effort,’ could no longer function as the global reserve currency. This inevitably led to instability within the world currency markets and trade of currency around the world - due to this US Dollar reserves were quietly sound by countries around the world as the year 1972 dawned.

This led to a feeling of decline after the feeling of buoyancy in the economy in the United Kingdom under Crossman - though he tried valiantly to try and upend the nation’s economy. This will be discussed later.

Many young people and students in the United Kingdom where becoming gradually more and more frustrated and the lack of social progress within the country under the Labour Government. They were also frustrated at the 'imperialist' war being waged in Northern Ireland by the British Government - tensions in the province had been on the up recently. They were also incensed at British intervention in favour of the regime of President Abdullah al Asnag in South Arabia - who was threatened not only by a bureaucratic coup of communists; but also by Emirs who wished to merge with the Saudi backed monarchy to the north. Al Asnag gave repeated calls for help to the British Government - he was finally given aid and some troops to help alleviate the situation which would draw along for many years.

Many of the student protesters had voted for the Liberals, Tories or some other more left-wing options. A march on Trafalgar Square was held in in November 1970 - with speakers such as Eric Lubbock and Iain Macleod (recovering after a serious heart attack several months prior) this however quickly turned into a riot when police were called in - presumably on Mellish's orders to clear out the protesters. This caused students protests and riots up and down the country which lasted into January of the next year - by this time the lines of division on the social issues within the country had been drawn hard and drawn deep.

Many traditional Labour voters and Tories were disgusted and outrage at the actions of the students. This led to a political backlash - but not the sort that the students hoped. Many Christians in the United Kingdom had felt morality was beginning to decline in the nation; and that immorality and depravity were beginning to take root in the nation; as a result many - led by Malcolm Muggeridge set about creating the National Festival of Light which was aimed to give a forum to moral and Christian Britons who were sick and tired on what was going on in their country. In the years to come they would come to call address themselves a majority of the country - a 'Moral Majority.'

---

[1]Convention Speech taken from Oliver Stone's film 'Nixon.'

Gonzo · Sep 30, 2016

Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season)

In 1970 a young couple, Peter and Janet Hill, returned to the United Kingdom after a period of several years in India, where they had acted as evangelical Christian missionaries. When they returned to the United Kingdom they were shocked and surprised to be met by a society that was ‘at risk’ of becoming a far more permissive one than the one that they had left in the mid 1960’s. For them, and many other Christians and evangelicals, they saw Britain as being “one Government away from immorality and a permissive society of Malthusian proportions;” with the ‘horrors of humanity’ (abortion, homosexuality, contraception, drugs and other ‘immoral acts’) being legalised and incentivised by the Government; in a sort of ‘Brave New World’-esque society.

Hill imagined tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of young people and Christians marching on London to take a stand and to fight for Christian moral values and principals. The idea itself remained at just that, until Hill learned of a March of Witness in Blackburn, where 10,000 men marched calling for Christian moral standards to be maintained in the nation. Hill’s fears of a breakdown in traditional Christian values in the country were seemingly realised with the student protests and riots in the winter of 1970-1971. What more the addition of several high profile politicians and officials - namely the leaders of the Conservative and Liberal Parties at the rally in Trafalgar Square in November 1970; in Hill’s view - Britain was merely a Government or two away from a Sodom and Gomorrah situation.

Not long after this the Hills had formed contact with a wide network of individuals who shared their concerns and offered their encouragement and support. Among these were Malcolm Muggeridge, Mary Whitehouse, the Colonial Secretary Lord Longford and the novelist Anthony Burgess. There was also a formation of grassroots support from Anglicans, Baptists, Plymouth Brethren and Pentecostal church denominations.

A working committee was established by Hill with Colonel Orde Dobbie (a Social Services administrator), Eddie Stride (a former shop steward and trade unionist, later the Rector of Christ Church, Spitalfields), Gordon Landreth (general secretary of the Evangelical Alliance), Rev. Jean Darnall (Pentecostal evangelist), Nigel Goodwin (a professional Christian actor) and Steve Stevens (a missionary aviator). This working committee set about looking for ideas and proposals of what to call the group and to what it should exactly do and stand for. Additional input was received from a larger Council of Reference which included well-known politicians, lawyers, doctors, trades unionists, bishops, ministers, and other public figures such as Dora Bryan and David Kossoff from the acting profession. The name "Nationwide Festival of Light" was suggested by Malcolm Muggeridge. Additional support came from the Home Secretary, Bob Mellish who assured the organisers that a march on London would “not be impeded by the police;” Prince Charles sent “every good wish for the success of the Festival”

The movement itself had several expressed aims: firstly, to protest against ‘sexplotation’ in the media and the arts; secondly to offer the teaching of Christ as the key to recovering moral stability in the nation; thirdly to ensure that no Government would push for liberalisation of ‘moral laws’ in the country; and lastly to ensure that Christ and the Church remained an important part of everyday life in the United Kingdom. Plans were made for major public events, including the lighting of beacons on hilltops throughout the United Kingdom, and culminating in a massed march to a public rally in Trafalgar Square and an open-air concert of Christian music in Hyde Park.

The administrative task of enlisting and gaining the support of various Christian churches and denominations throughout the United Kingdom - with groups ranging from various Protestant denominations to several Catholic clergy and officials throughout the nation. There was also a necessity for public relations with the press, the Government and the general public. The movement already had enlisted the backing of the likes of the Daily Sketch, Daily Express, Daily Mail and The Times (with editor William Rees-Mogg writing favourably about the group in his editorials); the movement was however criticised by the likes of the Guardian and was openly mocked by the Labour supporting Sun as “Jesus nuts.” These various tasks preoccupied the committee and many of the grassroots volunteers throughout the first half of 1971.

On the 9th September, a initial rally was held in Westminster Central Hall, where the exploitation of sex and violence in the entertainment industry were denounced by the speakers assembled. The meeting itself was invaded by the Gay Liberation Front (GLF), who (in drag) released mice, sounded horns and turned off all the lights. Across the rest of the country nearly a hundred regional rallies followed. In Bristol the cathedral was filled to capacity, largely in reaction to the opening of a ‘sex supermarket’ in the city. A ‘nationwide day of prayer’ was observed on 19 September. The next day a large rally was held in Larne, where the likes of the Rev. Ian Paisley and Unionist Party right-wing leader, Bill Craig, addressed the many thousands assembled in a muddy field. On the night of 23 September bonfires and torches were lit on hilltops throughout Britain. In Sheffield a calor gas flare was lit by Cliff Richard. Local authorities were usually very cooperative, and individual opposition muted. There were probably about 500 such beacons, and on estimate claimed that anywhere from 150,000 to a quarter-of-a-million people took part in local events.

Then on the 25th September, the Trafalgar Square rally was held. Throughout the morning and into the early afternoon thousands of people began to converge on the Square, many people had travelled via coach from distant parts of the country - by 2:30pm the crowd has swelled to well over 50,000 people (police estimates state that this figure could be nearer to 65,000 people), easily filling the Square and clogging many of the side roads leading into it. A large raised platform and amplification equipment had been set up, and a large assortment of speakers took to the microphone, among them were Malcolm Muggeridge, Bill Davidson of the Salvation Army, Mary Whitehouse, Cliff Richard, and various politicians of all shades and colours.

Muggeridge exclaimed that “The purpose of the festival is that… the relatively few people who are responsible for this moral breakdown of our society will know that they are pitted against, not just a few reactionary people, but all the people in this country who still love this Light – the Light of the world.” The Tory MP for Chigwell, John Biggs-Davison stated that “It is not so much a permissive society as a licentious, callous and cruel society… The Christian strives to imitate Christ who calls him to heroic purity.” TV personality Bob Danvers-Walker said that “This is the age when men with dirty minds and tongues flourish because up till now there has been no militancy against those degenerates who befoul every form of art.” The Anglican bishop Trevor Huddleston meanwhile said that “For me the definition of pornography or obscenity is very simple. It is the abuse of what is made in the image and likeness of God for any end whatsoever.” Dagenham shop steward Frank Dees proclaimed that, “We ordinary people have allowed, through apathy, our television sets to become sewers… Our churches (and may God forgive them) have often been compromising, hesitant and plain scared to give a lead.” The Home Secretary, Bob Mellish was one of the ‘surprise’ speakers, he said that “in this day and age, people - generally young folk, are now finding solace from immorality, from drugs, from drink, from sex and from perversion - when they should be finding comfort and solace from their families, their friends, their religion and their institutions.” Mellish also revealed that he had ‘received’ a note which gave the Festival the ‘blessing’ of the Prime Minister, James Callaghan (; Callaghan himself was known to privately support the march and it’s aims - but was hesitant to publicly express these views - it has been claimed in the years after the former Prime Minister’s death that he was either an agnostic-theist or even a theistic-atheist - acknowledging the important bedrock that religion and the established church has in society - while not being a believer in their own right.) This gained large cheers from the crowd assembled.

A number of statements and proclamations were read out and received with applause by the crowd. Some called for a halt to the commercial exploitation of sex and violence. They warned that the "positive values" of love and respect for the individual and the family were under serious threat, and that once these were overthrown a safe and stable society could not long survive. They challenged the nation to recover "the pure idealism of Christ, the Light of world, who taught that real love always wants what is best for others and defends the weak against exploitation by the corrupt.” The speakers were of mixed ages, from many different walks of life. Some of the crowd heckled, but most cheered enthusiastically. Two thirds of those present were said to be aged under twenty-five.

After the speeches had concluded, the crowd began to march through the streets towards Hyde Park, singing Christian songs and hymns (such as ‘Onward Christian Soldiers.’) In Hyde Park they joined those unable to get into Trafalgar Square, swelling the numbers to around 120,000 (estimated by the London Times.) The rally in Hyde Park started at 4pm, where a number of Christian music groups proclaimed messages, echoing those made earlier in Trafalgar Square. Among the performers were Cliff Richard, Dana and Graham Kendrick. Rev. Jean Darnall led the rally. The main speaker in the park was Hollywood street evangelist Arthur Blessitt, famous for having travelled all over the globe carrying a 12 foot wooden cross. He said it was only by having "a personal relationship with Jesus" that the desire for "immoral entertainment and illicit behaviour" would be eliminated. He invited the crowd to kneel in Hyde Park and make a personal acceptance of Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour, and the vast majority did so.

The rally was met with generally positive responses in the media and in public circles. Perhaps the warmest support came from Roman Catholic periodicals. Vast quantities of mail continued to pour into the organisers' office, but once they had recovered from the effort entailed in the public events, there seemed a large measure of uncertainty about the next stage, if any. A periodical in the Sunday Telegraph wrote that ‘In the Festival of Light the silent majority has found it’s voice.’

The Festival stimulated some inter-denominational contact among evangelical Christians - bridging together many of the pre-existing divides between the various Christian denominations.

In the coming months the group held various other rallies up and down the country - which usually gained large support and crowds. The framework of the Festival of Light and the central committee - formed the basis of the 1976 ‘Religious Roundtable’ of various Christian thinkers and officials in the country - this in turn led to the 1977 foundation of the ‘Moral Majority’ group (formed between Muggeridge, Anglican Bishop of Truro Graham Leonard, the Rev. Ian Paisley, the Rev. Jack Glass and the Anglican Bishop of Chichester Eric Kemp); which aimed to provide and voice and a political vehicle for a more politicised version of Christianity in the United Kingdom.

The closeness among some of the leading Troika and it’s supporters led to a fallout (to an extent) among the Parliamentary Labour Party, some on the left - such as Michael Foot and Eric Heffer questioned the necessity of forging close links between the party and the Church. Some like Harold Wilson attacked in in a column in the Guardian; some in the Government were rather quiet in the opposition - such as the Foreign Secretary, Tony Crosland. The strongest critic of the proposals was the former Secretary of State for Education and Science, Roy Jenkins - who outlined his opposition to the group, it’s aims and the cordial relationship with various elements of the Government, in a very strongly worded letter. When he was effectively ‘fobbed off’ by the likes of Callaghan and Mellish, he announced that he had “no confidence” in the Prime Minister - he subsequently resigned the party whip not long before the October Party Conference in Brighton.

Then he dropped a bombshell on the day before the conference - he was to defect to the Liberal Party; where he was received with open arms by the Liberal leader, Eric Lubbock. In his speech at the press conference, held near the National Liberal Club in London, Jenkins stated that, “In Government, I hoped that a Labour Government would create a fairer and just society for all. Rather we have seen a Government which governs on behalf of the few - as opposed to all of us. What I support is called ‘permissive’ by some - but I call it a civilised society...”

The announcement appeared to hang over the party conference - but then again so did the recent death of the Tory Leader, Iain Macleod, this time running afoul of yet another heart attack - and once again putting into motion the third leadership race for the party, in under a decade.

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[1]Abridged and applied from the Wikipedia 'Nationwide Festival of Light' page

Gonzo · Oct 5, 2016

The New Statesman

By the start of 1971, the Conservative Party was seen to be either just behind, or neck-and-neck with the Labour Party in the Opinion Polls; several put the Tories ahead by a point or two. Unlike James Callaghan, who most considered to be on his way out by the end of the parliamentary term; Iain Macleod seemed to the public to be a pillar of strength and support within the Conservative Party - ensuring the ideological schisms and conflicts of the Butler years did not resurface within the party again. This was in many ways a sense of false stability within the party - Macleod had only been elected due to the distrust and fear of those on the party’s liberal, moderate and soft-right wings; concerning Enoch Powell becoming the leader of the party. A common saying at the time among Tory MPs was that Powell would only get the leadership over Macleod’s ‘cold dead body.’

This appeared to become a reality on the evening of the 16th of July, 1971 when Macleod, at his home in his Enfield constituency, succumbed to a massive heart attack while in his living room - he died not long after in the early hours of the morning.

Due to the circumstances of a new leadership race, it was considered wrong to announce any sort of leadership intentions until the period of mourning for the party leader had passed. Enoch Powell, despite the strong ideological and even personal conflict among the two, wrote a moving letter of condolence to Macleod widow, Evelyn; the Prime Minister himself paid a personal visit to express his “utmost and sincere condolences” to Macleod’s family.

Despite the effective moratorium on politicking during the period up to Macleod funeral - many party moderates began to panic and began to become paranoid with the possibility of a Powell led party. In the years since his sacking as Shadow Defence Secretary, Powell had become a strong critic of the Conservative Party leadership’s inability (in his view) to stand up to the “communist infiltrated and aligned” elements within the trade union movement; as well as his support for the Commonwealth Immigrants Act, introduced under Bob Mellish’s stewardship by John Stonehouse (a former Home Office Minister who would be reshuffled by the time of the General Election to the position of Overseas Development Minister); a bill which Macleod had strongly opposed and argued against (like many in his Shadow Cabinet.)

Powell - in the view of the party moderates - would kill any sort of chances the party had at winning the next General Election - alienating many voters with his hardline statements on trade unions and potentially not gaining too many voters over (and instead losing more) with his strong stance and speech on the CIA. As a result of these fears, a group of leading party moderates came together to discuss their options on how to beat ‘the man.’ The group, dubbed by hard-right Powell supporting Portsmouth MP, Peter Griffiths in his column in the Daily Sketch as the ‘Tory Socialists,’ comprised of several Shadow Cabinet members - such as Francis Pym, Robert Carr, Anthony Barber and backbenchers Michael Heseltine and Ian Gilmour; all were supporters of Macleod - either out of ideological or personal reasons - or out of a pragmatic need to prevent a hard-right take over of the party.

Meeting in the ‘smoke filled rooms’ of the bars and offices of the House of Commons into the late hours of the night and into the early hours; they compiled a list of ‘suitable candidates’ to take on Powell. Their criteria was that the individual would have to be rather ‘non-ideological’, have reasonable experience, to be non-controversial and to be able to appeal to some of Powell’s softer support base. Some candidates who they considered flat out declined to challenge or run for the leadership, such as William Whitelaw. By the time the window for nominations was approaching (Powell had received the backing of nearly a hundred Tory MPs - similar to the number he achieved at the prior leadership election); the ‘Tory Socialists’ were becoming desperate - it appeared that the Powell steamroller would continue rolling towards the conference in mid-October in Brighton. Whatmore former Butler cabinet member and leading backbencher Sir Hugh Fraser announced he would be standing. Fraser was more known for his hobnobbing with the Kennedy family (he would marry Jackie Kennedy Onassis in 1975 - after he and his wife divorced, due to her affair) than any form of legislative achievements in the past decade. A real concern of the group of moderates was the threat of Reginald Maudling standing; Maudling after all had been the party deputy leader and was serving as the pro tempore leader of the party until the election. By 1971 Maudling was seen to be caught in his own delusion of self-importance and was harmed by his standing in the 1968 leadership race; as well as his daughter’s ‘indiscretions’ (by this stage she was a columnist on youth issues of the Daily Mail) in having a bastard child. After pleading with Maudling and telling him what was likely to happen - he would be humiliated into third place and be beaten by Fraser, leading to ‘that odious man’ rising to power in the party. Maudling’s leadership bid was finally scuttled by the a fraud case - his business activities were causing considerable disquiet and speculation in the press. In 1966, he had obtained a directorship in the company of John Poulson, an architect Maudling helped obtain lucrative contracts. Poulson routinely did business through bribery and in early 1971 was made bankrupt by the problems with the Dollar which were beginning to affect British markets. The bankruptcy hearings disclosed his bribe payments, and Maudling's connection became public knowledge. Maudling came to the decision that his alleged links to the fraud investigations into Poulson, ensured that he would have to finally dispel any sort of suggestion of a Maudling leadership bid. [1] Maudling begrudgingly ‘dropped out’ and said he’d support a “unity candidate” for the party leadership - in reality he was still hoping for a high profile cabinet post within the party.

A day before the close of nominations the moderates finally came to a decision on their candidate. Robin Chichester-Clark hailed from a political dynasty that stretched back to the early 19th century, his great great grandfather the Rt. Hon. George Robert Dawson, a Tory MP, served as Financial Secretary to the Treasury in 1830; he was married to Mary Peel, the sister of Tory Premier Robert Peel. Directly he was the third generation of politicians in his family - his grandfather was the Member of Parliament (like Dawson) for the Londonderry Constituency, his grandmother and father were members of the Northern Ireland parliament. His brother, James Chichester-Clark had ran for the Ulster Unionist Party leadership in 1969 - losing by a single vote to the more middle-class Brian Faulkner; he was now the Minister of Home Affairs in the Stormont Government. Robin Chichester-Clark was educated at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth and Magdalene College, Cambridge. He began work as a journalist in 1949, worked as public relations officer for Glyndebourne from 1952-3, before joining the publishing house Oxford University Press. [2] In 1955 he was elected the Member of Parliament for Londonderry and rose through the ranks of the Conservative Party to become a Whip in the Butler Government - who he supported. Chichester-Clark was a leading supporter of Maudling in 1968, later carrying his vote over to Macleod in the second round of voting. After the 1970 General Election he was promoted from Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to the position of Shadow Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity. His stance on Northern Ireland was one of support for the reforms of Terence O’Neill and a rejection of the more hardline elements and anti-Catholic rhetoric; yet he acknowledged the need for the maintenance of ‘Law and Order’ in the province - something moderates were seemingly failing to do. He said on the issue of hardline versus moderate Unionism that “only the work of moderate people on both sides can maintain the hopes of those who yearn to see the scars of history vanish.” His own stance on many of the leading issues such as trade unions, morality and immigration was rather vague - he had quietly abstained on the Immigration Bill; not being persuaded to vote either way on the bill by the debate. He was also personally opposed to abortion, though he had voted for reforms to the law on homosexuality and contraception; unlike his fellow Ulster Unionists. He could therefore appeal to some of the more High Church Anglican elements in the party; especially if he amplified Powell’s own social liberalism, an anathema to many social conservative Tory MP’s who would nominally have supported Powell. His ideological vagueness appeared to work in his favour, as he couldn’t be accused of being a ‘Tory Socialist’ or ‘Godless liberal.’

Much like in the prior leadership election, many Tory MPs, who would nominally have voted for Powell, resolved to back the more centrist (in Tory Party terms) candidate, who could finally take the party out of it’s longest spell in the political wilderness in nearly over sixty years. Surely common sense moderate Toryism would prevail over the divisive ‘reactionary’ Powellism, would win the day?

On the first ballot Chichester-Clark led Powell by two votes - on 121 and 119 votes respectively. Fraser had won a respectable and larger than expected thirty-seven votes on the first ballot. Fraser thus was eliminated from the next round (officially "dropping out"); most of his votes were expected to go to Chichester-Clark on the second ballot. That they did, with 154 Tory MP's voting for the Londonderry MP, as opposed to a mere 123 for his opponent. Realising he had no chance of victory - despite holding Chichester-Clark to a victory margin of less than 15%, Powell opted to drop out - thus ensuring that Chichester-Clark was elected the new leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party.

Chichester-Clark vowed to "take the fight to Labour" and to offer "a comprehensive rebuttal to Labour's arguments." He set about forming a shadow cabinet 'of unity' - however the main issues still prevailed among many voters up and down the country - who are you and what do you stand for?

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[1]Taken from the Wikipedia, 'Reginald Maudling' page.
[2]Taken from the Wikipedia, 'Robin Chichester-Clark' page.

TLIAPOT: Blinded by the Light

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