- Location
- Tamaki Makaurau
I'm currently reading David Owen's memoirs, which came out in 1991 and therefore contains a delicious amount of Roy Jenkins Is Badd And Also Have I Mentioned The Thorpe Affair Yet In This Paragraph?
His central point on the SDP is that they went into the Alliance too fully and too early, and would have done better to take advantage of their strengths in funding, branding and popularity to smash the Liberals back on their heels in early electoral contests and hold them to a more favourable seat deal in the GE. He mentions that he wanted a Gladstone-MacDonald type pact in which the parties would stand aside for one another in 80-100 constituencies. The core reason for burying the strengths of the SDP into the Alliance within months, he claims, was that the Jenkinsites didn't buy into the idea of the SDP as a Social Democratic Party with a unique role to play, only seeing it as a stepping stone for a full merger.
The point at which this tone was properly set was at the Warrington by-election, when Shirley Williams (Owen's favoured candidate for the SDP leadership at that time) refused to stand because she was scared of becoming a two-time loser. Instead, Roy Jenkins stepped in and lost narrowly - and in the process, he became closer to the Liberals who had stood down and detached one of Williams' key advisers (John Lyttle) to his own camp. A poll of the constituency before the candidate was announced showed that Jenkins would lose narrowly while Williams would win 55% of the vote and could probably even afford to have the Liberals running.
And then Williams immediately regretted her decision, putting herself forward for the Croydon by-election but being over-ruled by the Liberals, who had first option on the next by-election after standing aside at Warrington. Even David Steel wanted to waive the deal and let her stand, but the tiny Croydon Liberal Party were controlled by Bill Pitt, who was really keen to run, so she had to stand in Crosby instead and basically she lost a lot of credibility and couldn't stand for leader.
So anyway, Owen's reckon is that Williams would have won Warrington and been the favourite to become SDP leader, and this would have established the SDP as a party distinctive from the Liberals (new, classless, experienced, non-sandally) and with a strong first outing with which to hold the Liberals to a more favourable seat deal. My take would be that a looser pact would still see more Liberals elected than Social Democrats, but Social Democrats would tend to beat Liberals in the non-target seats where they might oppose one another - they polled well ahead of the Liberals when both were included as separate parties at this stage. And then the merger would still come, But Different.
Thoughts?
His central point on the SDP is that they went into the Alliance too fully and too early, and would have done better to take advantage of their strengths in funding, branding and popularity to smash the Liberals back on their heels in early electoral contests and hold them to a more favourable seat deal in the GE. He mentions that he wanted a Gladstone-MacDonald type pact in which the parties would stand aside for one another in 80-100 constituencies. The core reason for burying the strengths of the SDP into the Alliance within months, he claims, was that the Jenkinsites didn't buy into the idea of the SDP as a Social Democratic Party with a unique role to play, only seeing it as a stepping stone for a full merger.
The point at which this tone was properly set was at the Warrington by-election, when Shirley Williams (Owen's favoured candidate for the SDP leadership at that time) refused to stand because she was scared of becoming a two-time loser. Instead, Roy Jenkins stepped in and lost narrowly - and in the process, he became closer to the Liberals who had stood down and detached one of Williams' key advisers (John Lyttle) to his own camp. A poll of the constituency before the candidate was announced showed that Jenkins would lose narrowly while Williams would win 55% of the vote and could probably even afford to have the Liberals running.
And then Williams immediately regretted her decision, putting herself forward for the Croydon by-election but being over-ruled by the Liberals, who had first option on the next by-election after standing aside at Warrington. Even David Steel wanted to waive the deal and let her stand, but the tiny Croydon Liberal Party were controlled by Bill Pitt, who was really keen to run, so she had to stand in Crosby instead and basically she lost a lot of credibility and couldn't stand for leader.
So anyway, Owen's reckon is that Williams would have won Warrington and been the favourite to become SDP leader, and this would have established the SDP as a party distinctive from the Liberals (new, classless, experienced, non-sandally) and with a strong first outing with which to hold the Liberals to a more favourable seat deal. My take would be that a looser pact would still see more Liberals elected than Social Democrats, but Social Democrats would tend to beat Liberals in the non-target seats where they might oppose one another - they polled well ahead of the Liberals when both were included as separate parties at this stage. And then the merger would still come, But Different.
Thoughts?