Anthony Wedgwood-Benn (Labour)
1982-1986
The Class Martyr
The 1982 General Election marks the first time a single party won a majority of seats in the House of Commons since the introduction of PR. That party, unsurprisingly, was Labour, and Anthony Wedgwood-Benn found himself back in government with a stronger mandate than ever. The problem was, he had two different agendas from the different wings of his party, and from the moment of entering Number 10, his efforts had to be focused towards reconciling these contradictory agendas.
The first agenda came from the party right, led by Treasury spokesman, and now Chancellor, David Owen. As flippant toward the party left as he was staunch in his “radical centrist” approach to social democracy, Owen wanted to see Labour dismantle significant portions of the bureaucratic state apparatus it had spent the past forty years building up. Above all it was in monetary policy that Owen was interested – he saw the regulations on credit lending and cross-border exchanges as a drain on the economy, and wanted them gone as soon as possible so that the economy might get a head start after the years of recession.
The second agenda came from the party left, particularly the TUC, who had become increasingly militant since Labour's last spell in government. To ensure that its interests would be protected, the unions had exerted a significant influence on Labour's 1982 manifesto, which was suitably radical as a result – it called for further job standard increases, wealth redistribution, and most radically of all, the introduction of what it called a “Workers' Dividend”, a scheme that would distribute a portion of a given company's profit margin towards a fund directed by the trade union active at that company. This was roundly mocked by everyone to the right of Labour and a significant portion of people in Labour, but not enough to prevent it from being passed at conference, and Benn, ever the party democrat, did not take the voice of the Labour Party Conference lightly.
So it was that Benn found himself with two different courses to follow. He could go with Chancellor Owen's plan for economic deregulation and growth through increased market economics, or he could go with the TUC's plan for traditional democratic socialism and “thin end of the wedge politics” (as Keith Joseph derisively referred to it in the 1982 leaders' debates). In a somewhat unorthodox move, he chose
both. After all, Owen's plan was mostly focused on monetary policy while the TUC's plan was mostly focused on fiscal policy, so why not run both at once? They'd barely overlap, and it'd keep the party united. It was good politics, but was it good policy?
Unfortunately, it turns out that they were less compatible than Benn might've hoped. Combining tax hikes and predatory (so it seemed) moves against British business with a deregulation on foreign currency transfers caused a disaster of unseen proportions, as scores of businesses and hundreds of wealthy taxpayers left Britain for brighter shores, many moving to Switzerland or the Low Countries. And beside this, the apparent contradictions in government policy made Labour look ever so slightly silly – this is probably exemplified by a picture taken illicitly in the Commons Chamber by a journalist, showing Chancellor Owen penning a poem attacking the Workers' Dividend proposal, the very policy he would take the Despatch Box to argue for mere moments later.
The side effects of the Worker's Dividend could've been less of a shambles if it actually would light the path toward socialism – after all, the expropriation of the capitalist class was an essential step on that path, and with most of them leaving the country and the remainder subjecting their profits to union control, it seemed likely that this would be easier done now than ever before. However, this ignores the nature of the Dividend as actually passed by Parliament. The fact that David Owen would be the minister responsible for introducing the scheme, as well as the scrutiny of the Lords, meant that the Dividend as passed was a very different beast from the Dividend as the TUC originally intended it. Whereas the original plan had been for the Dividend funds to be controlled by the unions themselves, and used to gradually buy out stock in the company in question, the final Dividend would be controlled by the state, effectively making it a form of tax on profits. The proceeds from this would be moved into one of five funds, which had rather indistinct purposes – they mostly did not end up being used to purchase stock.
The Workers' Dividend would be the last major step toward socialism undertaken by the Labour Party, as from 1984 onwards, Owen's agenda received priority. It seemed in line with the times – the economy was booming, and right-wing leaders in many other countries, notably Reagan in America and Chirac in France, were implementing similar policies. Over the succeeding years, Britain's economy faced a boom unseen since the 1950s, and the people grew richer and more innovative (or decadent, depending on whom you asked) by the day. However, the TUC, and in particular its Secretary-General, the militant Clydeside agitator Jimmy Reid, continued to attack the government in general and Owen in particular for their pursuit of “short-sighted” policies that might seem to serve the country well right now, but would surely lead to ruin when the boom-and-bust cycle inevitably reached its other end.
The conflict was kept within the party for now, however, and Benn decided to put his accumulated goodwill to use by calling a snap election for February of 1986. His goal was to maintain Labour's majority, which he failed to do, but with a minority of 6, Labour would be able to comfortably remain in power with passive Communist support. The big surprise of the election was the return of the Liberals, who had suffered major losses under Alan Beith's leadership – new leader Paddy Ashdown, however, struck a chord with the electorate, and it showed as his party crossed 100 seats for the first time since 1923. The big loser of the election was the Centre, still led by Henry Plumb, who went below 10 percent of the vote for the first time since their founding.
Only a week after polling day, tragedy struck. On his way home from a night at the theatre (not a usual haunt of his, but one he'd been persuaded to indulge in by his son Hilary), Anthony Wedgwood-Benn was shot in the back by an unknown assailant. The Metropolitan Police launched an investigation that would be perhaps the most high-profile case in its history, with a variety of leads considered ranging from Afrikaner nationalists to domestic far-right groups to any number of disillusioned individuals, but their search ended up fruitless. One of the main suspects, a drug addict and previous manslaughterer named Christopher Patterson, was indicted by the Crown Court for the murder in early 1989, but when the case was inevitably appealed to the Lords of Appeal in Ordinary, they were forced to acquit Patterson for lack of evidence. Mrs Benn's testimony, in particular, was considered unreliable, as parts of it suggested that she'd been fed information by the police prior to picking Patterson out of a line-up. No other suspect was brought to trial, but speculation continues to this day, particularly in the crime pages of the
Daily Mirror, which has become nicknamed the “Daily Benn” as a result.
Anthony Wedgwood-Benn may have been one of Britain's longest-serving Prime Ministers, a political titan of his era who stood up to the US and presided over a variety of policy experiments, but he will forever be remembered as the only Prime Minister in modern times (though not, as commonly believed, the first one – that honour goes to Spencer Perceval, who was shot inside the Palace of Westminster in 1812) to be assassinated. His death sent the nation into mourning, and precipitated a significant increase in Secret Service protection for political leaders, but it also sent the Labour Party into chaos, as no clear successor had been chosen. In the end, the task fell to his Deputy Prime Minister, a man of little previous renown who, while he didn't have Benn's charisma, Wilson's longevity or Attlee's vision, proved a fairly successful leader who took the party into a new age – the age of neoliberalism.
