And another thing…

TWENTY-FIVE years ago this week, I finally decided to join the Labour Party.

The decision was made after a lot of introspection. I knew I wanted to get involved in politics; in the early 1980s it was difficult not to be affected by political events all around us: the inner city riots of 1981, the Falklands War, the splits in the Labour Party and Benn’s challenge for Labour’s deputy leadership, mass unemployment (particularly in north Ayrshire, where I grew up), Thatcher’s 1983 landslide and the year-long miners’ strike.

Both my parents had voted Labour throughout their lives, as had their parents. My maternal grandfather had been a great fan of Tony Benn in the 1960s (and was therefore a natural recruit for the SDP when it was formed in 1981). And, on the occasion of my first vote — the 1982 regional council elections — I dutifully turned up at the polling station to support the Labour candidate, Jimmy Jennings.

But a year later, the first time I had the chance to vote in a general election, I just couldn’t bring myself to vote for a party led by Michael Foot, even though I was living in a marginal seat at the time. Along with two friends who were also voting in a general election for the first time, I put my cross against the SDP candidate’s name (as described in a post I wrote last year). As happened in numerous seats across the country, the third party managed to split the Labour vote, allowing the Tory candidate to win.

Fast forward another year, and despite my brief and accidental membership of the Conservative Party, I knew that that was the one party I just couldn’t consider joining (actually, there were two parties I wouldn’t have considered joining, but the SNP didn’t even qualify as a candidate to be rejected). Neil Kinnock’s election as Labour’s leader had grabbed my attention: here was somebody who was serious about opposing the Tories and, at last, serious about turning Labour into a government-in-waiting, rather than an umbrella pressure group pandering to every minority interest under the sun. I still had my reservations about policy: I didn’t support unilateral nuclear disarmament and thought Labour’s previous policy of disengagement with Europe was bonkers. But they would be ditched in time, I figured. So when, at the end of a party political broadcast, an address was given for membership enquiries, I bit the bullet and sent off a letter.

Funny how a seemingly casual decision at the time could have such a massive effect on the course of someone’s life. But the truth is I never considered it to be a casual decision. I took it extremely seriously at the time, and in the years that followed, my commitment to the Labour tribe defined my career and even my personal relationships. Personal and political highlights became indistinguishable: when Kinnock made his anti-Militant speech to Labour conference in Bournemouth in 1985, I was house-sitting for a friend in Sale, whooping and air-punching in a room occupied by a total of one person. On a related note, 1988 will always resonate in my memory as the year I was served with an interim interdict (injunction) due to my involvement in a local constituency inquiry into the activities of Militant members in Cathcart.

The low points have regularly outnumbered the high points: defeat in the 1987 and 1992 general elections (the consequences of the latter being the loss of my job when I had just bought a house and started a family), the loss of the Scottish* by-election in 1988, John Smith’s death in 1994, my rejection as a Labour candidate for the local elections in 1990, the attempted coup against Tony Blair in 2006.

But the highlights made everything seem worth it: the morning of 2 May 1997, my selection as Cathcart’s parliamentary candidate in September 2000 and subsequent election as an MP in June 2001, my appointment as Scottish Labour’s press officer in September 1990, my first speech to national conference in September 1989, my appointment as a minister in September 2006 (September seems to be an important month for me, I’ve just realised).

Something of a roller coaster ride, you might conclude. As I’ve often told Carolyn: I’ve never understood those who claim politics is dull. It’s more entertaining than the best soap opera, with more interesting and better-written characters. 

And in the last quarter of a century, I’ve never regretted for an instant my decision to pick up a pen and notepad as that party political broadcast came to an end and jot down the address, “150 Walworth Road, London”.

* In the same way actors refer to Macbeth as “the Scottish play”, that’s how I tend to refer to Jim Sillars’ former seat.

I HAPPENED to be present at the fringe meeting at Labour’s annual conference in Blackpool in 1992 at which Bryan Gould, then Shadow Heritage Secretary, announced he was standing down from the Shadow Cabinet, citing differences of opinion on Europe with Labour leader John Smith.

Less than two years later he was out of parliament and headed to the southern hemisphere to take up a post with a university in his native New Zealand.

I occasionally wondered if he ever regretted that decision, given that within a few months of his retirement from British politics, a leadership election was taking place to replace the man who had beaten Gould humself in the fight for that position in 1992.

Gould always seemed to me to be one of those talented but flawed individuals who are incurably bitter at the failure of others to recognise their own leadership potential. And now, from the safety – some might say perspective – of 12,000 miles away, he has given us his verdict on 12 years of a Labour government in which he could have played an important role.

It’s not a glowing report. But then, I’m not sure if the endorsement of an embittered quitter who chose the cushy life of academia over the hard slog of opposition (and subsequent government) is one that the Labour Party, and this Labour government, would have valued.

I’VE PROMISED the family a break from blogging over the next few days (apart from comment approval which, of course, will continue).

So in my absence, might I encourage you to contribute to this open thread, on the subject of “Who was the greatest prime minister we never had?”

I can think of a few missed opportunities already: Iain Macleod, John Smith, Hugh Gaitskell, Nye Bevan, Michael Heseltine, Roy Jenkins… no, but seriously, who do you think would have made a great PM (and why) but never got the chance?

Speak again at the end of the week. Be seeing you…

I BOUGHT a house in 1992. Bad move. Long story. The best fixed-rate deal I could get was 9.9 per cent for five years. I remember the figures well because a month later, despite the then prime minister’s promise that the UK would never leave the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM), the UK left the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM).

So while everyone else’s mortgage interest rates were falling, mine stayed the same. That’s what happens when you trust the word of a Tory prime minister, I guess, so it served me right.

Now, I can see the comments already: “John Smith and the Labour Party supported Major’s ERM policy at the time…”. Yes they did. And they were wrong. But it was Major’s policy and Major’s responsibility. And Black Wednesday was his, his chancellor’s and his chancellor’s special advisor’s legacy.

The Bank of England base rate today is five per cent. Mortgage rates paid by home owners today are far, far lower than anything experienced during the Tories’ wasted years. Times are very difficult for those hoping to move house (and let’s face it: most of the criticism of yesterday’s stamp duty announcement is based on the fact that it was announced by a Labour government). But we would be kidding ourselves if we claimed that things wouldn’t be an awful lot tougher if we were experiencing the kind of interest rates the Tories inflicted on us.

I remember the day when inflation hit ten per cent. I was standing in a back room at the headquarters of Labour’s double by-election campaign in Paisley in November 1990. With me was the shadow chancellor, John Smith, who was ruminating on how to respond to what was a pretty catastrophic economic headline for the then chancellor, John Major.

Today one of the news channels carried a headline that screamed: “Inflation soars to 3 pc”. Soars? Isn’t it amazing how quickly we take economic success for granted, as if it wasn’t hard won, as if it all happened by accident? And isn’t it depressing how hard the media will try to paint a three per cent inflation rate – which in the UK is historically incredibly low – as a reason for criticism?