That Option No Longer Exists: or how I learned to stop worrying and love Monetarism
1970-1974: Edward Heath (Conservative)
1970 (Majority): Harold Wilson (Labour), Jeremy Thorpe (Liberal)
1974-1976: Harold Wilson (Labour)
(Feb) 1974 (Minority): Edward Heath (Conservative), Jeremy Thorpe (Liberal), William Wolfe (SNP)
(Oct) 1974 (Majority): Edward Heath (Conservative), William Wolfe (SNP), Jeremy Thorpe (Liberal)
1976-1982: James Callaghan (Labour)
1979 (Majority): Edward du Cann (Conservative), Margo McDonald & Jim Sillars (SNP-SLP Alliance), John Pardoe (Liberal)
1982-1982: Denis Healey (Labour Majority)
1982-1984: David Owen (Labour Majority)
1984-1988: Francis Pym (Conservative)
1984 (Coalition with Libeals): David Owen (Labour), Margo McDonald & Jim Sillars (SNP-SLP Alliance), Clement Freud (Liberal), Shirley Williams (Independent Radical)
1989-1994: Peter Jay (Labour)
1989 (Majority): Francis Pym (Conservative), Nina Fishman (Radical) & Alex Salmond (SNLP) (POPULAR FRONT), Alan Beith (Liberal)
1993 (Minority): George Young (Conservative), Nina Fishman (Radical) & Alex Salmond (SNLP) (POPULAR FRONT), Malcolm Bruce (Liberal)
1994-1996: Brenden Donnelly (Moderate)
1994 (Coalition with Radical): Peter Jay (Labour), Nina Fishman (Radical) & Alex Neil (SNLP) (POPULAR FRONT), Ann Widdecombe (Traditional)
1996-1999: Peter Jay (Labour)
1996 (Majority): Brenden Donnelly (Moderate), Nina Fishman & Alex Salmond (Radical), Kenny MacAskill (SNLP), Alan Clark (Traditional)
1999-2002: John Stevens (Moderate)
1999 (Coalition with Radical): Alan Howarth (Labour), Peter Hain & Martin Jacques (Radical), Kenny MacAskill (SNLP), Roger Knapman (Traditional)
2002-2007: Frank Field (Labour)
2002 (Majority): John Stevens (Moderate), Hilary Benn & Fiona Miller (Radical), Kenny MacAskill (SNLP)
2007-2007: David Davis (Labour Majority)
2007-2015: Chris Patten (Moderate)
2007 (Majority) David Davis (Labour), Neal Lawson & Sian Berry (Radical), Katy Clark (SNLP)
2012 (Coalition with Radical): Michael Gove (Labour), John Harris & Caroline Lucas (Radical), Katy Clark (SNLP)
2015-2018: Michael Gove (Labour)
2015 (Majority): John Bercow (Moderate), Owen Jones & Lisa Nandy (Radical), Katy Clark (SNLP)
2018-????: Patricia Hewitt (Labour Majority)
The October 1974 election would prove to be the most important in modern British history. Pulling off a mighty second landslide, with a 10 point difference and a thumping 123 seat majority, Harold Wilson's fourth electoral triumph established the Labour Party as Britain's "natural party of government". The result was a body blow for the Conservatives, suffering their third defeat out of four under the leadership of Edward Heath. Within hours of the result Heath was gone forever, sulking on the Conservative Party benches for another ten years before eventually, and rather inevitably, finding his way to the Liberal Party benches. The inevitable right-wing rebellion within the Conservative ranks saw Edward du Cann take up the leadership of a party many commentators began to describe as sociologically doomed. Labour had replaced their position as Britain's natural party, while polling showed the Liberals fast approaching second party status among young and first time voters. Heath's flirtations with a more laissez-faire economic policy had proven unworkable, and du Cann's election was not seen as a sensible long term solution. Nevertheless, the Liberals could not be too happy with themselves either. Thorpe's predicted breakthrough failed to materialize, going back on their previous performance in February, while also suffering the humiliation of losing third party status, being usurped by the remarkable growth of the SNP, winning an impressive 20 seats to the Liberals' 16. With a divided opposition, the future appeared Labour's forever. Many "Gladstonian Liberals" within the Conservative Party such as Keith Joseph even began envisaging the need for electoral reform if the country was to be saved from Socialism...
Ultimately the price of Labour's victory in October 74 was that it would be them who would do the dirty work of modernising social-democratic Britain. The IMF loan was the first of many stark realities that forced Jim Callaghan and Denis Healey to slowly begin the hard work of abandoning the mixed economy. Full employment was gradually abandoned, a harsher line was taken against the trade unions and while not selling off "the family silver" some of the non-essential nationalised industries were gradually returned to the market. Healeynomics became a phrase known in accademic and political circles around the world, symbolising the difficult and traumatizing adjustment of social democratic parties to the new demands of the neoliberal era. For many on the left, however, this proved a step too far. Slowly stalwarts of the left drift to margins of British political life, many sulking on the backbenches, abandoning parliament altogether or attempting numerous botched left-wing challenger parties. Jim Sillars' split just before the 1979 election proved the most longlasting, albeit with far greater implications for Scottish politics than British...
In 1979 the British people were offered the choice between two monetarist programmes for Britain, giving little choice for voters. While the troubles with the Trade Unions had been damaging for Callaghan's government, the sheer size of his majority made any outright defeat unlikely. The Liberal Party's new leader offered little beyond a vague support for a continuing mixed economy, and the SNP/Scottish Labour Alliance between husband and wife Margo MacDonald and Jim Sillars proved more of a political oddity and opportunity for protest votes in Scotland than a viable political project. Callaghan carried on, not exactly muddling, but lacking the dynamism of his predecessor.
After six years in office, Callaghan retired to his farm. After a short leadership election Healey was finally given the reins of power after eight years doing socialism's dirty work, making him the longest serving Chancellor in British history. A deal with Foreign Secretary David Owen saw him appointed Deputy Prime Minister and heir apparent, a slight over Healey's closer ally Roy Hattersley. While things were not perfect, the economy had begun to finally pickup after the harsh prescriptions of monetarism had been finally enforced in full. Despite being left something of a poisoned chalice by Callaghan, as 1982 hit April the feeling among many Labour MPs was that a gradual uptick in the economy would guarantee a third full term in 1983 or 84. That was before, however, the Malvinas Crisis.
As Argentinan troops landed on the undefended British territory, Healey was incapable of avoiding the blame. Under his cuts the islands had lost their defence capabilities, while a genuine apprehension to jump into war that only those who have actually fought in one seem to possess only hampered his standing further. Despite appealing to the UN for support, Healey was seen as weak for not acting unilaterally, coming under the harshest criticism from Owen. When Healey's infamous cabinet outburst was leaked to the press, his fall became inevitable. While Healey still stands by his belief that the islands were not worth young British soldiers "spilling their guts", the view did not chime with the British public. Within a few days David Owen had resigned and launched a leadership challenge, to say the instability of a leaderless government in the midst of a crisis, Healey surrendered power to the man he famously described as "a shit".
Despite an eventual, if bloody victory in the Falklands, Owen was unable to translate it into a third victory for Labour. His abrasive, arrogant and hawkish leadership had alienated both the left and large sections of the right, many of whom had put him power to begin with. Eventually, as the 1984 election campaign began, Labour found itself in an absurd position of having a more right-wing manifesto, both on defence, economics and social issues than the Conservatives, led by the Heathite Francis Pym. The embarrassment of Labour's intitial handling of the war permanently damaged the party's standing, despite Owen's best efforts. Scotland became a heartland for the left-wing Scottish Alliance, as most voters stood far to the left of Owen's Labour. And crucially, the disillusionment of many English Labour MPs on the Soft Left of the party, most of whom still clinging to the glory days of the post-war mixed economy, finally gave up the fight. Shirley Williams, a figure who embodied the ex-Owenite wing of the Labour Party, quit the party along with a dozen others, varying in faction into a loose collective of left-leaning intellectuals. Without formally forming a party, they stood under the same banner as "Independent Radicals".
Eventually the election result was indecisive, the second hung parliament in ten years. Despite Owen's attempts to win Williams back in to the fold, it was Francis Pym that finally marched through the doors of number 10, followed on by a dozen Liberal MPs, one of whom being Roy Jenkins, a man once tipped to be a Labour Prime Minister, taking up the mantel of deputy in a coalition government.
All that could define the Pym's ministry was moderation and inertia, the last hurrah of a warn out generation of post-war politicians. The attempts to slow the tide of neoliberalism was impossible, simply prolonging the warn out institutions of the day, and allowing Scargill's Strike in the winter of 1984 only further demonstrating the dire need for complete industrial modernisation. Ironically, it appeared only Labour could claim to show any real authority against the unions, and with Peter Jay, the former journalist and diplomat as well as arch-monetarist, taking the helm of the party leadership, it appeared that the party's transformation to vanguard of neoliberalism was becoming more pronounced than ever before.
...
Peter Jay's first premiership oversaw the last essential reforms of the transitional era from the mixed economy to a fully neoliberal "new order". Along with it, came the death of the Conservative Party, the formation of the Moderates, Nina Fishman's failed Popular Front, the realignment of the Scottish National Labour Party along "Fundamentalist" lines, and the first years of the far-right Traditionalists. The dynamics of British politics have been defined since then by a majoritarian Labour Party, wedded to Eurosceptic monetarism, challenged by the liberal, ProEuropean Moderate Party, serving almost always in coalition with the soft left Radical Party, dominated by old lefties, green activists, feminists and members of the left intelligentsia. On the periphery are the extreme separatist Scottish National Labour Party, with the ugly head of the Traditional Party occasionally rearing, despite failing to gain parliamentary representation since 2002.
Now, in 2018, it appears the next great change of British politics has finally arrived. Despite the ultraorthodoxies of the Field, Davis and Gove ministries, with Chris Patten's 8 years in office (the longest of any non-Labour PM since the war) being a strong outlier, the traditional socialist left has been re-forming. The old Bennites had been biding their time, continuing to fight the impossible war for democratization within the Labour Party, while the Radicals have seen a marked shift from vague welfare state social democracy to something a little more creative and exciting. Meanwhile Katy Clark's focus on "Socialism First" has seen far more productive electoral gains for the SNLP than pure separatism. The climax of these changes, with the final scrapping of MP votes in leadership elections saw the old Bennite backbencher Patricia Hewitt appear from nowhere early this year to challenge the embattled Michael Gove. His shock defeat has sounded a key change in British political life.
As Patricia Hewitt, the grand old woman of the Labour Left begins her first full day in office tomorrow, the promised land appears closer than ever for the true believers who stuck it out over all these years. Whether the so-called "Full Socialist Government" with the SNLP and Radicals is really going to happen remains to be seen, as does the prospect of Benn's Alternative Economic Strategy finally seeing the light of day.
As Labour Monetarism moves into the annals of history, it is up to Hewitt to decide what should come in its place.
Extra: List of Deputy Prime Ministers
"The office of Deputy Prime Minister developed in the 1980s from a constitutional oddity in Britain's parliamentary system, to a formal and consistently occupied office, particularly during the numerous coalition governments. Unofficially, it eventually developed into a tool of the Prime Minister's patronage, typically used to anoint the heir apparent. The most famous office holder being Robert Kilroy Silk, Peter Jay's right hand man, who served for longer than any other, while also being the only person to hold it on two non consecutive occasions before dying suddenly in 1998."
1979-1982: Michael Foot (Labour)
1982-1982: David Owen (Labour)
...
1984-1988: Roy Jenkins (Liberal)
1988-1994: Robert Kilroy Silk (Labour)
1994-1996: Nina Fishman (Radical)
1996-1998: Robert Kilroy Silk (Labour)*
...
1999-2001: Peter Hain (Radical)
2002-2007: David Davis (Labour)
2007-2007: Michael Gove (Labour)
2007-2011: Danny Finkelstein (Moderate)
2011-2012: John Bercow (Moderate)
2012-2015: John Harris (Radical)
2015-2018: Caroline Flint (Labour)
2018-: Emily Thornberry (Labour)
*died in office