Sweet memories of '79

I bet you didn't think you'd see a headline like that today from a left-of-centre blogger. But just as 1979 turned out to be a seminal year in British politics, so was it a seminal year for yours truly, though for different reasons I hasten I add!

I was 16 at the time Margaret Thatcher came to power, and irrespective of what was going on in the world of politics, it was a great time to be alive.

I didn't of course vote in the general election, and neither did my parents, or at least not in persons. In fact they sent in postal votes as they were on holiday in California, having left me in charge of the house for three weeks.

I spent most of those three weeks revising for my O-levels, but I also found time to learn how to cook my own meals - the first flickerings of a love affair that has lasted ever since - and to watch a lot of snooker, the World Championships in Sheffield being then, as now, the main sporting interest on telly at that time of year.

It was the year of one of the sport's great fairytales - Terry Griffiths' amazing run from the qualifiers to the championship trophy, the first time this feat had been achieved. With no mum and dad around to send me off to bed, and with dad's bottle of Scotch providing liquid sustenance, I stayed up till 2.40am to watch the conclusion of Griffiths' epic semi-final encounter with Eddie Charlton, and hear him tell David Vine afterwards: "I'm in the final now, you know" in that lilting Welsh accent.

Later that year, I fell in love for the first time, something about which I'd love to write more, but I'm not Nick Hornby, and three decades on, it would be unfair to the lady in question.

And Thatcher? Well, I guess her coming to power did play a part in my political education. Up until then, I would probably have classed myself as an apathetic Tory, but it was only after seeing the impact of her policies on the country and the divisive nature of her rule that I realised where I really stood on the political spectrum.

There will doubtless be a great deal of bollocks talked over the next 48 hours about how Thatcher "saved Britain." To my mind, there is just as convincing a case to be made that in fact she ruined it, and since we may now be reaching the end of the neo-liberal consensus which she ushered in, I think it's important that this counter-argument is heard.

Neil Clark makes the case well in an article in The First Post, arguing that Britain had created a contented society that had managed to get the balance right between work, leisure and remuneration, contrasting it positively with the anxiety-ridden, job-insecure society of today.

He's right. Britain in the 70s wasn't all that bad a place to be really. And having grown up there, I think I'm in as good a position to know as anyone.

The way we were

The latest edition of Total Politics magazine focuses on the 1979 general election which was of course 30 years ago next month. I have contributed a tangentially connected "Where Are They Now?" piece about the former Labour MP Maureen Colquhoun who lost her seat at that election after having become Britain's first openly lesbian MP during the course of the previous parliament. It is not a story that reflects particularly well on British society at the time or more particularly on the Labour Party.

More memories of 1979 on this blog coming soon......

I leave this party withour wancour

The story of Dennis Skinner's heckling of Roy Jenkins during his parting speech to the PLP before leaving for Brussels in 1977 never loses anything in the telling, so I naturally jumped at the opportunity to tell it again in my latest "Where Are They Now?" piece for Total Politics magazine which is now online. The subject of the piece - and the victim of Skinner's wicked humour - is Jenkins' close political ally David Marquand, a man whose career encapsulates much of the shifting history of the British centre-left over the past four decades.

The Freudian Slip

Actually I'm not sure it really was...but here's Slob's take on it anyway....




Other sayings which Prime Ministers may have come to regret:

"Most people who know me know that I'm a pretty straight kind of guy." Tony Blair.

"I don't think other people in the world would necessarily take the view that there is mounting chaos." [translated by The Sun as "Crisis? What Crisis?"] Jim Callaghan

"[Devaluation] means the pound is now worth 14pc less on the foreign exchanges. It does not mean that the pound in your pocket or in your purse or in your bank has been devalued." Harold Wilson

"Most people in this country know they've never had it so good." Harold Macmillan

"I bring you peace in our time." Neville Chamberlain

"Psst...wanna buy a peerage?" David Lloyd George (okay I made this one up.)

Nothing new under the sun

The frequent references in the mainstream media to "binge drinking" never cease to bring a smile to my face. News editors who think that women throwing up in the street is somehow representative of our having crossed the fine line between civilisation and anarchy have clearly never seen any Hogarth prints. In a similar vein, this article provides proof, if ever it were needed, that British men have always been, and always will be, overgrown schoolboys at heart.

The good old, bad old days...

If like me you miss the good old, bad old days when Labour conferences were effectively pitched battles between the leadership on the platform and the delegates on the floor, you'll have enjoyed this bit of reminiscing today from Neil Kinnock and James Naughtie. There's an excerpt from Kinnock's great Bournemouth '85 speech at 6.03 minutes in.

Where are they now No 4

The latest edition of Total Politics is now in circulation together with the fourth instalment of my "Where Are They Now?" series of columns. This one focuses on the Liberal Democrat David Bellotti who won one of the most significant by-elections in modern times in 1990, but whose newsworthiness lay less in his rather inconsequential political career and more in having been one of the worst football club proprietors in the history of the game.

Pitt the Obscure

My second monthly "Where are they now?" contribution to Total Politics magazine can now be found online HERE and deals with the short parliamentary career of Bill Pitt. Hopefully this won't persuade him to attempt a political comeback, unlike last month's subject, Walter Sweeney.

The Not the Labour Party

This week's Saturday column in the Newcastle Journal focuses on the Conservatives and specifically on whether David Cameron needs to do more to set out a distinctive vision for the country.

***

Of all the many political truisms that get trotted out from time to time, one of the most oft-heard but possibly most misleading is the one that says oppositions don’t win elections, governments lose them.

It is true there has been the odd election where that has been the case, but by and large, it is bunkum.

In the last election, in 2005, for instance, an unpopular and discredited Labour government was grudgingly returned to office not on its own merits but for fear of what a Michael Howard-led administration might do.

Another election that was “lost” by the opposition as opposed to “won” by the government was Labour’s “suicide note” election under the leadership of Michael Foot in 1983. The contests in 1987, 1992 and 2001 fall into a similar category.

The 1997 election was a bit of a special case. Perhaps uniquely in the past 40 years, this was an election which the opposition did as much to win as the government did to lose.

John Major’s government may have been universally derided – but Tony Blair never took victory for granted, and his mantra of “no complacency” continued long after it became obvious to everyone else that he was heading for a landslide.

Practically the only election in modern times where the old cliché about governments and oppositions did hold true was 1979, when Margaret Thatcher’s Tories defeated Jim Callaghan’s Labour.

This was not so much a triumph for “Thatcherism” which was only a half-formulated ideology at that point, as a defeat for Old Labourism in the wake of the chaos of the Winter of Discontent.

So what’s all this got to do with the present day? Well, it is clear that the next general election, if it were held tomorrow, would be another which fell into the 1979 category.

We have in this country at the present time a government that seems to have decisively lost the public’s confidence, yet an opposition that has not yet done enough to earn it.

In 1979, people voted for Mrs Thatcher despite having little idea what her government would look like – it is possible that had they known it would mean 3m unemployed, she would not have won.

Likewise today, David Cameron appears to be on course for an election win even though very few people have any clear idea what sort of Prime Minister he will turn out to be.

Mr Cameron’s true appeal would currently appear to rest on the fact that he represents the Not Labour Party, and that he is Not Gordon Brown.

The collapse of public confidence in the government has yet to be matched by any great outpouring of public enthusiasm for the Tories – hardly surprising given that Mr Cameron has turned the party into a policy-free-zone.

What we do know is fairly unconvincing. For instance, we know Mr Cameron would stick to Labour spending plans for much of his first term, while somehow delivering a large cut in inheritance tax for the richest 6pc of voters.

Meanwhile he has yet to discover a compelling “Big Idea,” while a lot of what he says is merely vacuous mood-music such as “let sunshine win the day.”

There are basically two schools of thought within the Conservative Party as to how they should respond to the current crisis facing the Brown administration.

Essentially, the debate is over whether they should follow the sort of strategy successfully employed by Mrs Thatcher in 1979, or the one equally successfully employed by Mr Blair in 1997.

Some argue that the party now needs to do very little in the way of setting out a new policy agenda, and simply sit back and let the government continue to destroy itself.

Others, however, maintain that this is not enough, and that the party still needs to articulate a clear vision of what it will do with power, as Mr Blair did to great effect between 1994-97.

This is in essence a refinement of the continuing debate within the Conservative Party over how far it needs to change in order to be entrusted again with the nation’s destiny.

By and large, those who fall into the “modernising” camp are arguing that the party still needs to do more to “decontaminate” the Tory brand.

But the seeming inevitability of a Tory victory has latterly encouraged the “traditionalists” who want Mr Cameron to stop the political cross-dressing and place more emphasis on cutting taxes and cutting crime.

At the moment, this camp seems to have the upper hand – there has been markedly less talk from Mr Cameron in recent weeks about the importance of winning from the “centre ground.”

But whichever side prevails in this argument will ultimately depend on what happens to the government.

There is still time for Mr Brown to recover, although that really depends on an improvement in the economy that is looking less and likely with each new doom-laden forecast.

The only other alternative for him is the so-called “go for broke” strategy which involves him throwing caution to the winds, doing something radical, and somehow discovering a convincing narrative.

There is also, of course, time for Labour to change its leader again, although many Labour MPs fear that would now do no more than avert a landslide.

Logically speaking, a situation in which a government has lost the public’s support but an opposition has not yet earned it should have “hung Parliament” written all over it.

Oddly enough, that is what Jim Callaghan’s pollsters told him was the best he could hope for if he were to go to the country in the autumn of 1978, as everyone expected him to.

As I have pointed out before, had Mr Callaghan known that his delay would lead not to outright Labour victory but to 18 years of Tory rule, he would have taken that hung Parliament.

Three decades on, I suspect that the current generation of Labour MPs would take it, too.

A broken reed

This Friday, BBC Parliament is planning to screen 11 hours of coverage of the 1983 General Election, the one that has gone down in history as the point at which when moribund Old Labour finally committed suicide, although in truth the stricken patient lingered on until Neil Kinnock finally put it out of its misery at Bournemouth in 1985.

I was at uni in London during the course of that election and my most abiding memory of it was a visit by Michael Foot to a West London housing estate where large numbers of students then lived.

As Footie tottered into view, a bearded Labour activist suddenly started bellowing at the top of his voice: "Michael, save us from this woman," as if he were imploring Christ to come down from heaven and vanquish the devil and all his works.

The idea of this pathetic old man acting as any kind of saviour in the face of the irresistable force of nature that was Thatcher struck me as a telling metaphor for the Labour Party's weakness at the time.

Local history site unearths oldest ever England team photo

Anyone who has heard the news today or read any of the nationals will be aware of the discovery of what is believed to be the oldest ever photograph of an England football team. It dates from 1876 and was taken in Glasgow on the day England played Scotland in what was only the fifth ever international football match.

What you may not be aware of - because none of the nationals actually mention it - is that this was actually a world exclusive for a Derbyshire local history site with which I am currently involved called You and Yesterday.

The picture was uploaded to the site last weekend by one of its regular contributors, Peter Seddon, who unearthed it during a search of old newspapers on microfilm at the Derby Local Studies Library.

To its credit, the FA website's write-up includes a link enabling users to click straight through to the picture on You and Yesterday. Readers of this blog can do the same by clicking HERE.

Belper's most famous export?

Actually this was nails, hence the name of the local football club (Belper Nailers) and the occasional use of "nailheads" as a term of abuse for the natives. But in terms of recent political history, the town where I now live is perhaps best known for being the constituency of George Brown, legendary piss artist and Labour Deputy Leader of the 1960s, who dramatically resigned from the job of Foreign Secretary (allegedly while drunk) forty years ago this week.

I always thought it was Tony Crosland who said that "George Brown drunk was a better man than Harold Wilson sober" but apparently this phrase was actually first penned by William Rees Mogg in a Times editorial. What Crosland said, a propos of the 1963 leadership contest between the two men, was that the party faced "a choice between a crook and a drunk."

For my part, I have always regarded Brown as a much-maligned chap. The oft-repeated story about him going up to the Cardinal Archbishop of Lima while under the influence and asking him for a dance is almost certainly an invention, for instance.

Possibly the most fair-minded assessment I have read on Brown's career appears on a Derbyshire wiki project with which I am currently involved called You and Yesterday. You can read it HERE.

Was entering WW1 the biggest mistake in British history?

Last week The Times invited readers to nominate the biggest mistakes in history. Henry VIII's decision to break with Rome, Margaret Thatcher's signing of the Single European Act, and entering WW1 all figured quite prominently.

But was WW1 quite the mistake it often seems? Here's what I wrote in response to a similar point on the ever-thought-provoking Kate's Home Blog.

Let's just look at what would have happened had the conflict still taken place but with Britain standing on the sidelines. The war would effectively then have been between Imperial Germany/Austria-Hungary on the one side and Russia/France on the other.

In all likelihood, Imperial Germany would have won, which would have meant it controlled virtually the whole of continental Europe stretching from the Atlantic to the Arals. With Russia defeated, there would probably still have been a Russian revolution, but the resulting Russian republic would have been very much a client state of the dominant European superpower, Germany.

The really intriguing counterfactual point about a German victory in WW1 is that the Hohenzollern dynasty would have continued, and Adolf Hitler would in all likelihood have remained an impoverished painter.

So by entering the war, winning it, and giving the Germans a thirst for revenge, we ended up with Hitler. By not entering, we would have ended up with a German superpower controlling the whole of Europe. Take your pick...

I think what this demonstrates is that quantifying whether something is a "mistake" or not is very hard. History tends to have a Yin and Yang about it, and sometimes apparently "bad" things have unexpectedly "good" consequences.

A Christian would say that God ultimately redeems everything, or in the words of an old worship song "he turns our weaknesses into his opportunities."

It's not in fact very Christian, but I would probably have to say that the biggest mistake in recent history was the Clinton administration's failure to take out Osama bin Laden when they had the chance in the mid-90s. Sadly, they were distracted by Kenneth Starr and the Lewinsky scandal.

Closer to home, here are half a dozen things which I wish recent British governments had done differently, the consequences of which have been pretty baleful for all concerned, and which continue to be felt today.

1. Introduced the Barnett Formula (Labour, 1978)

2. Paved the way for Robert Mugabe to take over Zimbabwe (Tories, 1980)

3. Allowed Rupert Murdoch to buy The Times and the Sunday Times (Tories, 1981)

4. Privatised the railways (Tories, 1996)

5. Chosen Rowan Williams as Archbishop of Canterbury ahead of Michael Nazir-Ali (Labour, 2002)*

6. Joined the invasion of Iraq (Labour, 2003)

* For the benefit of those who have asked me for my take on the Archbish.

The best of times, the worst of times

The Today Programme this morning featured a fascinating discussion between two historians on whether it was possible to come up with an objective criteria to find the worst year in UK history. It followed a claim by one of them that the answer was 1812, not because the Prime Minister got assassinated in that year but because there was such a general level of anger amongst the populace that the news of his assassination was actually greeted by cheering.

I can't find a link to this, although Iain Dale has taken it up and got a bit of a discussion going as to worst years of people's lifetimes.

In a comment I left on Iain's blog I named 1979 as the worst year, but this was deliberately provocative. If it was a bad year it wasn't so much because it was the year Margaret Thatcher came to power as the fact that it was the year we handed Zimbabwe-Rhodesia over to the tyrant Robert Mugabe.

Politically speaking I think you would have to say that 2001 was the worst year in living memory. The first half of it was dominated by the sight of plumes of smoke going up from the funeral pyres of millions of dead cows, the second half by the sight of plumes of smoke going up from the World Trade Centre.

I think the best political year I can recall was probably 1977, the year of the Queen's Silver Jubilee. It was a period of benign and enlightened government under Jim Callaghan and David Steel and I recall a general sense of national uplift around this time, though sadly it didn't last.

But what of my personal good and bad years? Here's a potted history of the four and a half decades of my lifetime with the highpoints in blue and the lowpoints in red.

* 1963 - BAD. I am told this winter was the harshest in living memory, and that on one occasion when my mum tried to bath me I turned blue.

* 1970 - GOOD. The year of Mungo Jerry's "In the Summertime" as well as the last real White Christmas I can remember.

* 1972 - BAD. My first pet, a goldfish called Highfield, was eaten by the cat.

* 1974 - BAD. My grandad died - my first, and deepest, bereavement.

* 1979 - GOOD. Fell in love for the first time, with one of the bridesmaids at a family friend's wedding.

* 1983 - GOOD. Fell in love again and went on a memorable camping holiday to Ireland.

* 1987 - GOOD. Celebrated my 25th birthday with a legendary party at my flat in Nottinghamshire that still gets talked about occasionally.

* 1990 - GOOD. The summer of Italia '90, Ambient House, and beer. Enough said.

* 1995 - GOOD. Achieved my career ambition and became a lobby correspondent.

* 1997 - BAD. A real belter. I got dumped by a long-standing partner and my landlord tried to attack me during a period of drug-induced psychosis.

* 2001 - GOOD. Got married.

* 2004 - GOOD. My son George was born, and we moved to Derbyshire.

* 2006 - BAD. My American brother-in-law Mitch died in a road accident.

* 2007 - GOOD. Little Clara arrived, and we moved again to a new home we now hope to stay in for a lot of years.

Greens set to join the real world

With New Labour increasingly seen by many as a lost cause, there has been much discussion on Liberal Conspiracy of late as to whether the Green Party might be a more effective political vehicle for the British left.

This weekend, in what will be seen as an indication of their desire to be taken more seriously as a party, they are set to ditch their dual leadership structure in favour of having a single leader.

The history of the Liberal-SDP Alliance between 1981-87 ought to be enough to persuade party members that this is a good idea.Before the 1983 election, the Alliance appointed SDP leader Roy Jenkins as "Prime Minister Designate" only to realise half way through the campaign that the Liberal leader David Steel was actually more popular with the public.

There then followed a botched attempt to replace Jenkins with Steel as Alliance leader which had the effect only of weakening Jenkins to such an extent he was forced to resign as soon as the election was over.

It got worse. David Owen took over the SDP leadership and refused to give any quarter to Steel whatsoever despite the fact that the Liberals had three times as many MPs. The dual leadership of the "two Davids" ended in total fiasco in the 1987 election campaign with them publicly disagreeing both over whether to replace Polaris and over which of the two main parties to do a deal with in the event of a hung Parliament.

The moral of the story is that, the closer you come to real power, the more important it is that a party speaks with a single, united voice. If the Greens really can get their act together, I for one could see myself voting for them.

The Top 10 Political Turning Points

As a companion piece to my Top 10 Political Misjudgements, here are what I consider to be the Top 10 Political Turning Points of my lifetime. With the exception of Black Wednesday, which stemmed directly from the misjudgement over the rate at which we entered the ERM, most of these were either random acts of chance which politicians were helpless to deal with - "events, dear boy, events" as Harold Macmillan called them - or, as in the case of the Falklands War or Denis Healey's defeat of Tony Benn, acts of political courage which succeeded in changing the course of history. Will Gordon Brown's election-that-wasn't eventually join the list? Come back here in two years' time and I'll tell you!

1 The Winter of Discontent, 1978

Modern political history turns on the question of what would have happened had Margaret Thatcher never become Prime Minister. We would now be living in a quite different country, a less prosperous one maybe, but a more civilised one too. It was the industrial chaos of 1978-79 that paved the way not just for her election victory, but for the whole tenor of her premiership. Outgoing PM Jim Callaghan captured the shift in public mood in his famous comment "I believe that there is now such a [sea] change - and it is for Mrs Thatcher."

2 England 2 Germany 3, 1970

Or was it the balance of trade figures that were to blame? Either way, days later Harold Wilson lost an election he was universally expected to win, and this proved to be the pivot on which the subsequent history of the 1970s, and arguably also the future of the Labour Party turned. Had Wilson won in 1970, Roy Jenkins, not Jim Callaghan, would have succeeded him. Had Heath lost, he would have been replaced as leader, possibly by Enoch Powell, but certainly not by Mrs Thatcher. Peter "The Cat" Bonetti has a lot to answer for!

3 The Death of Hugh Gaitskell, 1963

This had profound consequences which weren't really appreciated at the time. It didn't affect the result of the following general election - Labour would have won that anyway - but it did affect the way the Labour Party developed thereafter. Had he lived, Gaitskell would have turned Labour into a modern social democratic party. He would have established a revisionist line of succession from Jenkins to Healey to Hattersley to Brown. There would have been no need for the SDP breakaway, and arguably, no New Labour either.

4 Black Wednesday, 1992

The counterpoint to the Winter of Discontent. Whereas that destroyed Labour's credibility as a governing party for a generation, this destroyed the Tories' - perhaps unfairly as the Labour frontbench of the time under John Smith had been committed to exactly the same monetary policy that caused the debacle. The only leading politician who opposed this unholy consensus was Bryan Gould, who ended up running a university in New Zealand. Which only goes to show that there is very little justice in politics.

5 The Falklands War, 1982

People now talk about the Thatcherite hegemony of the 1980s as if it were a historical inevitability. But up until this point, her government's long-term survival was seriously in doubt. The recently-formed Liberal-SDP Alliance was riding high in the polls and even Michael Foot's Labour Party was more popular than Thatcher's Conservatives. The Falklands campaign, which could easily have turned into the biggest military debacle since Suez, changed all that. It gave us back our self-belief, and Thatcher her aura of invincibility.

6 The Miners' Strike, 1984

The defeat of the miners destroyed not just a union, but also an industry, a movement, and eventually an entire Northern British and Welsh subculture to which the film Brassed Off now stands as a memorial. Politically, the strike reinforced the Thatcher legend that had been born in the Falklands conflict but socially, its effects went much deeper, and I don't think many of them were positive. When I started out in journalism in North Nottinghamshire, the pit villages in the area were vibrant places. Now most of them are riddled by drugs.

7 The Profumo Affair, 1963

Of course I was too young to remember this, but it did occur in my lifetime - just! It's a turning point not just because it contributed to the downfall of Harold Macmillan and the loss of the 1964 General Election for the Conservatives, but also because it captured a decadent ruling elite in its death-throes. Up until this point, the British ruling class thought it could behave moreorless as it liked. Afterwards, as Nigel Birch put it poetically, it was "never glad confident morning again" for Macmillan and his ilk.

8 Healey v Benn, 1981

Much of the credit for transforming the Labour Party in the 80s and 90s has gone to Neil Kinnock for his "grotesque chaos" speech and Tony Blair for his New Labour reforms. But Big Denis was the man who really saved the party. By fighting off Tony Benn's challenge for the deputy leadership, he turned the tide of the left's advance and prevented a haemorrhage of support to the SDP. Together with the Falklands War, it was this that dished Roy Jenkins and Co. Had neither happened, Labour would now be the third party.

9 The Bombing of Canary Wharf, 1993

This one will probably get me hate mail, but the cold hard facts are that it was only when the IRA started targeting big financial institutions on the mainland that they finally succeeded in bombing their way to the negotiating table. After this the Major government realised that it could not defeat the provisionals militarily and set about achieving a political solution. The Anglo-Irish Agreement, then the Good Friday Agreement, and finally the restoration of devolved government earlier this year, was the end result.

10 The Death of Dr David Kelly, 2003

It was not, I think, the Iraq War itself that turned the nation against Tony Blair, but the realisation that we had been systematically lied to about it. Dr Kelly's death was not just a personal tragedy, but the moment we knew that the core value our country had to defend was not democracy, nor even national security, but the sainted reputation of its leader. It was a moment of profound disillusionment that affected the way many people now view politics, and from which the reputation of our political system has not recovered.

Brown is his own Chancellor

Who runs the Treasury? asks Ben Brogan a propos of Downing Street's leaking of today's partial U-turn on capital gains tax.

"No one seriously expected the new Prime Minister to surrender all interest in his old department, but recent weeks suggest Mr Brown still has an office there," he says.

I'm not sure Ben or anyone else should be terribly surprised by this. History shows there are two sorts of Chancellors - those who have their own independent powerbase, like Denis Healey, Ken Clarke and Brown himself, and those who owe their power entirely to the Prime Minister, such as Anthony Barber, Norman Lamont, and Mr Darling.

From this list it will be seen that the more successful Chancellors tend to be the former variety, which bodes ill for Mr Darling's tenure. I continue to take the view that Jack Straw would have been a more sensible appointment.

The top 10 acts of political altruism?

Following on from my Top 10 Political Misjudgements, which looked at political bad calls which adversely affected the careers of those who made them, a number of people have asked whether I could compile a list of acts which, while bad for their perpetrators, actually turned out to be good for the country.

My initital, perhaps rather cynical reply was to doubt that there were actually ten politicians who had been prepared to sacrifice their careers in such a way, but I am open to being proved wrong!

Politaholic, writing on Westminster Wisdom, nominated John Hume, saying:

"I can think of one act of political altruism (or at any rate putting public interest ahead of party interest): John Hume's participation in the Hume-Adams talks. Bringing Sinn Fein into the political mainstream was something from which the SDLP could only lose. I don't think this was a misjudgement: Hume knew what he was doing."

I can think of one other example - Roy Jenkins' decision to rebel against the Labour leadership in 1972 and vote with the Tories in favour of joining the EEC. Readers will have different views as to whether this course of action was good or bad for the country, but ultimately it cost him the Deputy Leadership and the inside track in the race to succeed Wilson.

Are there more examples? If readers can find at least ten, I will duly compile the list based on your nominations.

Political misjudgements - the debate continues

It's been great to see so many comments on my Top 10 Political Misjudgements post, and to see the debate about this continuing on other blogs. I have tried to reply to all the points listed below on the blogs concerned.

Jonathan Calder of Liberal England questions the assumption that Jim Callaghan would indeed have won a 1978 election had he risked it.

Thunder Dragon argues ingeniously that, far from ending his frontline career, it was Powell's Rivers of Blood speech that could have made him a contender for the Tory leadership.

Mick Fealty on the Telegraph's new Brassneck blog sees the whole thing as proof of Powell's dictum that all political careers end in failure.

Stephen Tall on Lib Dem Voice asks for nominations for the biggest misjudgement by a Lib Dem politician (since there weren't any in my list.)

Gracchi on Westminster Wisdom makes the case for political chaos theory.

Thanks also to Comment is Free, Tim, Rupa, Some Random Thoughts, Vino S, Guido and of course Iain for linking - I'll leave you to guess which one was responsible for the most traffic!

The Top 10 Political Misjudgements

Ever since Gordon Brown decided not to hold an autumn General Election this year, there has been speculation that it could prove as fatal a misjudgement for him as it did for Jim Callaghan in 1978.

I myself speculated in a recent column: "The danger for Mr Brown is that his government, like Major’s, is now entering a period of what the Germans would call Gotterdammerung – the twilight of the gods. Far from renewing Labour in office, it could be that his destiny is to spend the next two years fighting back the inexorable Tory tide, while Mr Cameron prepares for his inevitable victory."

I have already listed my Top 10 political gaffes - so what's the difference between a gaffe and a misjudgement, you may ask?

Well, it's a qualitative one, really. A gaffe is primarily a one-off mistake, often humorous and with few lasting consequences. The misjudgements listed here, by contrast, are ones that arguably changed the course of history, and certainly adversely affected the careers of those who made them.

Five of them were mistakes made by Prime Ministers in office which either ultimately brought them down or, as in the case of Harold Wilson, set their governments off on the wrong course. Three were mistakes made by people who went on to become Prime Minister before the said mistakes in question came back to haunt them. Two were mistakes made by people who could easily have become Prime Minister had they not made them.

And yes, Callaghan is not only at the top of the list, but is the only politician to appear twice....

1. Jim Callaghan not calling an autumn election, 1978

What happened: Prime Minister Callaghan ducks out of an autumn 1978 election after private polls show it might result in a hung Parliament. The ensuing Winter of Discontent puts paid to Labour's credibility as a governing party and leads to 18 years of Tory hegemony which ultimately removes all vestiges of democratic socialism from the British state.

What might have happened: Narrowly re-elected, Callaghan serves for a further three years as Prime Minister before handing over to Denis Healey, who, buoyed by North Sea oil revenues, goes on to establish Britain as a stable, continental-style social democracy. The defeated Margaret Thatcher is replaced by Francis Pym and relegated to a historical footnote as only the second Tory leader of the 20th century not to become Prime Minister.

2. Enoch Powell playing the race card, 1968

What happened: Enoch Powell, spiritual leader of the Tory Right, makes a speech about immigration prophesying that the streets of Britain will soon be "foaming with much blood." He is immediately sacked from the frontbench by Ted Heath and becomes a peripheral figure on the margins of British politics, eventually joining the Ulster Unionists.

What might have happened: After distinguished service as Defence Secretary in the 1970-74 Heath government, Powell successfully challenges Heath for the leadership in 1975 after his two election defeats. Using his supreme oratorical skills to destroy Jim Callaghan at the Despatch Box in the late 70s, he becomes Prime Minister in 1979 at the age of 66, serving for one term before handing over to his faithful protege, Margaret Thatcher.

3. Tony Blair joining the US-led invasion of Iraq, 2003

What happened: Tony Blair, the most electorally successful Labour leader in history, gambles his career on joining a US neo-con inspired military adventure to get rid of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Although militarily successful, it later becomes clear that the public has been duped into supporting the conflict by a tissue of lies, destroying their trust in the Prime Minister.

What might have happened: Using his world-class diplomatic skills successfully to keep Britain out of a disastrous conflict, Tony Blair is re-elected by a third successive landslide in 2005 and immediately announces his intention to fight a fourth election in 2009. In spring 2007, Gordon Brown accepts the presidency of the International Monetary Fund, and Mr Blair appoints David Miliband as his Chancellor and heir-apparent.

4. Margaret Thatcher implementing the poll tax, 1987

What happened: Believing herself to be politically immortal after a third successive election triumph in 1987, Margaret Thatcher decides to implement a 13-year-old pledge to reform the rates. Her decision to introduce a flat-rate tax unrelated to ability to pay sparks off a popular revolt which ultimately sweeps her away.

What might have happened: Continuing to see-off all pretenders to her crown, sometimes by deliberately over-promoting them as in the case of John Major, Margaret Thatcher secures a fourth term in 1991, albeit by a narrow margin over Labour whose leader Neil Kinnock antagonises some floating voters with his triumphalism. Despite having vowed to go "on and on and on," she serves for only three more years before handing over to her young acolyte, Michael Portillo.

5. Ted Heath's "Who governs Britain?" election, 1974

What happened: Prime Minister Heath, his authority under constant threat from union unrest, ups the stakes by calling a general election on the theme of "Who Governs Britain?" The voters respond: "Obviously not you," and deliver a hung Parliament with Labour as the largest party. Heath loses a further election the same year before being toppled by Margaret Thatcher.

What might have happened: Heath delays the election until the following year and trumps Labour's calls for a referendum on Britain's membership of the EEC by calling one himself, and leading the "Yes" campaign. With the two votes held simultaneously, the public votes overwhelmingly in favour of staying in and returns a triumphant Heath to No 10 for a further five years. He is still succeeded eventually by Mrs Thatcher, though.

6. Harold Wilson not devaluing the pound, 1964.

What happened: Newly-elected Prime Minister Harold Wilson ignores the good advice of his best economist, Tony Crosland, and decides not to devalue the pound, believing it will merely strengthen the widespread belief among voters and the financial markets that Labour governments always devalue. In 1967, Wilson is forced to devalue, thereby strengthening the widespread belief....

What might have happened: Knowing that it pays politically to get the bad news out of the way at the start of a government's lifetime, Wilson overrides the objections of George Brown and Jim Callaghan and devalues in 1964. Recovering from this initial hit, Wilson establishes for Labour such a reputation for economic competence that he is twice re-elected, in 1966 and 1970, finally passing the baton in 1972 to his long-serving Chancellor, Crosland.

7. Michael Heseltine resigning over Westland, 1986

What happened: Tiring of Margaret Thatcher and her autocratic ways, Defence Secretary Michael Heseltine ignites a row over the fate of a small West Country helicopter company which gives him the excuse to stage a dramatic resignation. But his bid to set himself up as the Tories' king-over-the-water backfires when he is defeated by John Major for the leadership in 1990.

What might have happened: Remaining studiously loyal to Mrs Thatcher throughout the late 1980s, Heseltine's steadfast support in the face of a bitter attack from Sir Geoffrey Howe is widely-held to have headed-off a potential leadership challenge in 1990. After Thatcher is gently persuaded by the men in white coats grey suits to stand down the following spring, Heseltine's loyalty in allowing the old girl a final lap of honour is rewarded by grateful MPs who elect him leader by acclamation.

8. Jim Callaghan opposing In Place of Strife, 1969

What happened: Big Jim takes on Barbara Castle over her plans to curb union power and wins. His gamble in appointing himself as Labour's Keeper of the Cloth Cap appears to pay off when seven years later he wins the leadership, but nemesis awaits in the shape of the still-unreformed unions who sweep away Callaghan's premiership in the Winter of Discontent.

What might have happened: Capitalising on the public acclaim engendered by his tough stance against the unions, Harold Wilson wins a comfortable victory in the 1970 General Election. Overtaking Asquith's 20th century record of continuous service as PM in 1972, Wilson hands over the leadership to his long-time heir apparent, Roy Jenkins. But tiring of the endless battles with the Labour left, Jenkins quits in 1977 to become President of the European Commission, leaving Callaghan in charge.

9. John Major entering the ERM, 1990

What happened: After years of saying "no, no, no" to British membership of the European Monetary System, Margaret Thatcher is finally prevailed upon to enter by her new Chancellor, John Major, at a rate of 2.95DM to the pound. The level proves unsustainable, and on Black Wednesday in 1992, Prime Minister Major is forced to withdraw from the EMS and effectively devalue sterling.

What might have happened: Siding with Mrs Thatcher against her pro-European Foreign Secretary, Douglas Hurd, Major decides the time is not right (or ripe) for ERM entry. Hurd and Geoffrey Howe resign, precipitating a leadership challenge by Michael Heseltine. Thatcher is brought down, but Major emerges as Prime Minister and reaffirms his decision to stay out despite sustained Labour criticism. Two years later, his stance is vindicated and the Tories' reputation for economic competence reinforced.

10. Gordon Brown not challenging John Smith, 1992

What happened: Gordon Brown, seen as the natural leader of Labour's modernising faction, declines to challenge John Smith for the party leadership in 1992. Over the ensuing two years, he is eclipsed by his younger rival Tony Blair, and is forced to stand aside in his favour when Smith unexpectedly dies in 1994. Blair goes on to serve for 13 years as leader, ten of them as Premier.

What might have happened: Brown loses to Smith, but establishes himself as the clear heir apparent. He is elected unopposed in 1994 on Smith's death and become Prime Minister in May 1997, winning again in May 2001 before handing over to Tony Blair after ten years as leader in 2004 as previously agreed between them. Blair goes on to win another landslide for Labour in 2005, but faced by the prospect of a Tory resurgence, embarks on a radical plan to renew the party in office under the banner "New" Labour.

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