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"Selsdon Man": Heath Sticks to the Manifesto

Beata Beatrix

Camille Paglia on Judge Dredd
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I'm not the first person to speculate on this by any means, but I figure it's an interesting enough subject to warrant some more discussion here. Just a bit of recap: Heath was, of course, a One Nation Tory through and through but the 1970 manifesto, A Better Tomorrow, was a sort of a proto-Thatcherite one - leading to Heath's being dubbed 'Selsdon Man' and all that - or at the very least monetarist platform. Heath quickly veered away from it as soon as Iain Macleod died, inasmuch as he was never really on board. So, then, what if Heath had stayed the course and stuck to the manifesto?

The only POD I can think of is Macleod living longer or someone other than Barber replacing him, but it's a bit difficult to butterfly away Macleod's health problems, which were persistent since the '40s, and certainly weren't helped by his chain smoking, and even if you do, it's going to change more than just Heath post-1970, but it's still an interesting scenario. I'm not quite sure how to achieve it, though.

Thoughts, anyone?
 
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At least from what I've read Heath was on board, but the demands of the miners strike and other areas of industrial strike broke his will. If Selsdon man continued, I think Labour still posing a pretty convincing opposition to it without the damaging images of the Winter of Discontent would have left voters still as receptive to Wilson's outright opposition as before, though it's debatable whether a more extreme Heath would have encouraged either Labour to double down on an Alternative Economic Strategy along Benn's lines, or perhaps have stuck even more firmly to the consensus of the day.

Either way I think its hard to butterfly away the economic crisis of the mid 1970s so I think either way Heath goes down to defeat and how Labour proceeds from there is down to interpretation. Heath going overboard probably strengthens Wilson so I don't think he's in danger. If he comes back in 1974 with a stronger mandate I think Labour might have a better chance in government, and in 1970-74 Tory Government is proto-Thatcherite, I expect a One Nation backlash after another election defeat in 74.

The result could be the Tories harking back to what they know with a One Nation Tory taking over after Heath, and Labour left to do Neoliberalism's dirty work as the wheels eventually fall off the post-war consensus in the later seventies, albiet without the harshness of Thatcherism.

Think of Healeynomics, but forever.
 
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At least from what I've read Heath was on board, but the demands of the miners strike and other areas of industrial strike broke his will. If Selsdon man continued, I think Labour still posing a pretty convincing opposition to it without the damaging images of the Winter of Discontent would have left voters still as receptive to Wilson's outright opposition as before, though it's debatable whether a more extreme Heath would have encouraged either Labour to double down on an Alternative Economic Strategy along Benn's lines, or perhaps have stuck even more firmly to the consensus of the day.

Either way I think its hard to butterfly away the economic crisis of the mid 1970s so I think either way Heath goes down to defeat and how Labour proceeds from there is down to interpretation. Heath going overboard probably strengthens Wilson so I don't think he's in danger. If he comes back in 1974 with a stronger mandate I think Labour might have a better chance in government, and in 1970-74 Tory Government is proto-Thatcherite, I expect a One Nation backlash after another election defeat in 74.

The result could be the Tories harking back to what they know with a One Nation Tory taking over after Heath, and Labour left to do Neoliberalism's dirty work as the wheels eventually fall off the post-war consensus in the later seventies, albiet without the harshness of Thatcherism.

Think of Healeynomics, but forever.

[AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND INTENSIFY]
 
There wasn't any such thing.

Selsdon Park was just a routine conference discussion aimed at co-ordinating shadow cabinet policy. The press found out about it, Heath, improvising, briefed the press that they'd been talking about law and order (they hadn't), and then Wilson, who had not the slightest real idea of what had gone on of course, coined the Selsdon Man phrase.

The notion that there was a 'Selsdon Man' which was repudiated is Thatcherite mythology within the Tories. So I'm kind of surprised to see it put about, accepted, on here.

What undoubtedly is true is that Heath was from the (mildly) economic right of One Nation, and that he also had a habit of sounding much more strident in speeches than he was in reality of policy. He liked to give speeches where he sounded pretty Thatcherite. At conference in 1970 he said that he aimed to change the course of history, with a 'revolution', in favour of more individual decision making. So you can see why the Thatcherites ended up thinking they'd been souled down the rivurh.

You can sense if you read about the period, that it was pretty formative, an awakening period for a lot of the economic right. And for the first time, they were an important force in the party. But the notion that Heath had a 'secret plan' which he junked? Yeah, nah, that's just balls. The party didn't even have a policy to tackle inflation in 1970, let alone some secret scheme to deflate the economy. Hell, Heath was a boom and bust PM! Can't get more non-Monetarist than that.

What you got is what Heath always wanted to do. Which is to say, a lot of reforms, some of them mildly deregulating and contra the trade unions, badly.
 
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Much of this post I agree with, but I will say that the Selsdon Myth does get repeated by some on the Left and I even had a fairly centrist lecturer steer the class towards that idea; mostly as some weird attempt to portray Thatcher as not all that radical and actually a continuation of existing Tory ideas i.e. Rab Butler and Selson. Very strange as he was also very much a pro-post war consensus (or perhaps simply pro-post-'45 Establishment) person.

I guess I didn't want to tarr the board with the whole Chuffin' Torrrreeees all't bloody same approach on this, which is why I sound so surprised above. But yeah, it's obviously going to be horseshoe-like popular with both left and right.

I think it's legitimate to believe that a lot of Thatcher didn't just sprout Athena-like out of nowhere - to pick one issue, there was an inevitability about TU reform from all wings of the party - but equally, I don't believe Heath was a crypto-Thatcherite in any real sense.
 
I think it's legitimate to believe that a lot of Thatcher didn't just sprout Athena-like out of nowhere - to pick one issue, there was an inevitability about TU reform from all wings of the party - but equally, I don't believe Heath was a crypto-Thatcherite in any real sense.
Oh indeed, I just felt the interpretation bordered on 'Butler was jolly-Thatcher/Thatcher was a grumpier Macmillan who didn't care about unemployment'. IIRC, one of the reasons that a lot of wets gave for backing down or grumbling throughout 1980-81 was because for all they rolled their eyes at TINA, they didn't actually have much of an alternative.
 
British Rogernomics (Owenomics? Dellnomics?) is probably a likely outcome to this, actually and definitely something that deserves a dedicated timeline.
There wasn't any such thing.
This whole post is really interesting and I'm very inclined to listen to your opinion - is there any way I could possibly find some more sources about this? I guess what I'm trying to ask is why this idea of Heath's proto-Thatcherism is so prevalent if it was never really a thing.
 
This whole post is really interesting and I'm very inclined to listen to your opinion - is there any way I could possibly find some more sources about this? I guess what I'm trying to ask is why this idea of Heath's proto-Thatcherism is so prevalent if it was never really a thing.

It was a big piece of mythology on the right - of which Doctor Owen mentioned above can be counted an almost-honorary member - of the generation that came of age in the eighties. That Heath was just identical to Mrs T policy, but was too weak/incompetent/whatever to see it through. This also - somehow - stood side-by-side with Heath the unreconstructed man of the post-war consensus, which they were also keen to believe in. His emergency nationalisations of Upper Clyde, etc. All denounced by Mrs T's camp followers.

You're dealing with the winners writing history on this.

As I note above, Heath is to some extent a transitional figure, in that he was mildly to the right economically given the context he was operating in - more to the right than Maudling, for instance - but the whole Selsdon thing is crude. I mean, if attempts at TU reform are a mark of crypto-Thatcherism, then Mr Wislon and Barbara Castle were crypto-Thatcherites. And I mean, the following Labour government eventually became more anti-inflationary than Heath was.

I think neither of the Selsdon notion, nor the unreconstructed 1950s-economic-management-style-guy notion are accurate. The truth is more somewhere in between.
 
It was a big piece of mythology on the right - of which Doctor Owen mentioned above can be counted an almost-honorary member - of the generation that came of age in the eighties. That Heath was just identical to Mrs T policy, but was too weak/incompetent/whatever to see it through. This also - somehow - stood side-by-side with Heath the unreconstructed man of the post-war consensus, which they were also keen to believe in. His emergency nationalisations of Upper Clyde, etc. All denounced by Mrs T's camp followers.

You're dealing with the winners writing history on this.

As I note above, Heath is to some extent a transitional figure, in that he was mildly to the right economically given the context he was operating in - more to the right than Maudling, for instance - but the whole Selsdon thing is crude. I mean, if attempts at TU reform are a mark of crypto-Thatcherism, then Mr Wislon and Barbara Castle were crypto-Thatcherites. And I mean, the following Labour government eventually became more anti-inflationary than Heath was.

I think neither of the Selsdon notion, nor the unreconstructed 1950s-economic-management-style-guy notion are accurate. The truth is more somewhere in between.
Thanks very much. Apologies for the vagueness - Selsdon is sort of a shorthand for the idea of a more economically right-wing Heath, which is, I know, a rather difficult thing to accomplish, but it's not necessarily a reference to lore behind the manifesto itself, which, like most every 'POD' is rather oversimplified explanation for why something did or didn't happen.

I definitely agree that Selsdon is a rather crude way of putting it, and that Heath was economically "somewhere in between" monetarism and '50s policy - those are factual assertions, after all. Still, I do think the idea of either Macleod having a longer tenure as Chancellor or there being a different Chancellor than Barber is an interesting idea, which might well lead Heath down a course of relative monetarism - perhaps like what one might've seen from Whitelaw in '79?
 
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Barber was just a cipher for Heath, I assume any alternative would be as well. He's almost certainly one of the least independent and weakest Chancellors vis a vis the Prime Minister ever.

Macleod wouldn't do anything Monetarist, he was very anti-unemployment. His big personal goals were mostly relatively technical, like reforming the tax system, he also had an interest in negative income tax. For various reasons beyond the scope of this thread if he'd lived I think the chances of Heath getting a second term increases substantially, and then you are in a world of divergence, though almost certainly not in a more right-wing direction.
 
Also, a little thing about Macleod and something that also passingly touches on this thread, he hated Wilson passionately, and wanted to make some economies when the Tories came in, so the DOE was given a choice between cutting back on free school milk, or abolishing the Open University, which is what Macleod wanted, it being a part-child of Wilson. (It had barely got going at this point and hadn't stated admitting students IIRC) Mrs Thatcher, the new Secretary of Education, wisely thought this was no choice at all and decided to keep the OU.

So the only reason the OU exists today is because of Mrs Thatcher.
 
Barber was just a cipher for Heath, I assume any alternative would be as well. He's almost certainly one of the least independent and weakest Chancellors vis a vis the Prime Minister ever.

Macleod wouldn't do anything Monetarist, he was very anti-unemployment. His big personal goals were mostly relatively technical, like reforming the tax system, he also had an interest in negative income tax. For various reasons beyond the scope of this thread if he'd lived I think the chances of Heath getting a second term increases substantially, and then you are in a world of divergence, though almost certainly not in a more right-wing direction.
I get the impression he (like several other mostly 50s - 60s Tory figures) is someone who gets misunderstood in large part due to the maneuvering around the 1963 leadership change being seen mostly through the lense of Powell's later reputation (including by me until recently).
 
Also, a little thing about Macleod and something that also passingly touches on this thread, he hated Wilson passionately, and wanted to make some economies when the Tories came in, so the DOE was given a choice between cutting back on free school milk, or abolishing the Open University, which is what Macleod wanted, it being a part-child of Wilson. (It had barely got going at this point and hadn't stated admitting students IIRC) Mrs Thatcher, the new Secretary of Education, wisely thought this was no choice at all and decided to keep the OU.

So the only reason the OU exists today is because of Mrs Thatcher.
Very much an opponent of the BBC too, another aspect that you see in his protege (a bit strong on his end, but I think his status as 'the Good One' when it comes to Thatcherite recollections of pre-1975 Tories comes as much from his support for her as it does him dying).

Had he lived and managed to steer Heath away from being among the worst PMs since 1945 (Eden and Major say hi), I agree that it'd change the character of the Tories heavily. The disaster of losing to the NUM and 1974 defeats didn't just discredit Heath, but also radicalised the likes of Keith Joseph and Thatcher to the point of disowning the past as 'not Conservative.' If Heath manages to make it to two terms, Wilson's going to resign due to Alzheimer's eventually and the party's leftward drift might swing it to Foot, if defeat radicalises them.

Robert Shepherd's biography is a strong read for anyone here who wants to learn more about the man. He doesn't shy away from his flaws or the barriers to his career prospects had he not died (IIRC, he wanted to retire in 1973/4), but also offers strong logic as to why he'd avoid Barber's mistakes.
 
I get the impression he (like several other mostly 50s - 60s Tory figures) is someone who gets misunderstood in large part due to the maneuvering around the 1963 leadership change being seen mostly through the lense of Powell's later reputation (including by me until recently).

Well, the 1963 events are rather opaque at the best of times, so an easy mistake to make. Macleod was amazingly liberal though, it's no surprise that Rivers of Blood collapsed his relationship with Powell. ('Enoch has gone mad and hates the blacks')

Very much an opponent of the BBC too, another aspect that you see in his protege (a bit strong on his end, but I think his status as 'the Good One' when it comes to Thatcherite recollections of pre-1975 Tories comes as much from his support for her as it does him dying).

Had he lived and managed to steer Heath away from being among the worst PMs since 1945 (Eden and Major say hi), I agree that it'd change the character of the Tories heavily. The disaster of losing to the NUM and 1974 defeats didn't just discredit Heath, but also radicalised the likes of Keith Joseph and Thatcher to the point of disowning the past as 'not Conservative.' If Heath manages to make it to two terms, Wilson's going to resign due to Alzheimer's eventually and the party's leftward drift might swing it to Foot, if defeat radicalises them.

Robert Shepherd's biography is a strong read for anyone here who wants to learn more about the man. He doesn't shy away from his flaws or the barriers to his career prospects had he not died (IIRC, he wanted to retire in 1973/4), but also offers strong logic as to why he'd avoid Barber's mistakes.

I think it's interesting how distant Macleod was from traditional grassroots opinion on all sorts of subjects, but how he was still capable of getting standing ovations at conference because there was that thread of tribalism on stuff like the BBC and the like.

I agree on Shepherd's biography being strong and perceptive.
 
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