Recent content by BenoitBonMarch

SDP MPs in elected in the United Kingdom General Election of 2000: Oxford West and Abingdon (Chris Huhne) Exeter (Norman Lamb) Colchester (Stephen Haseler) Greenwich and Woolwich (Adair Turner) Richmond, Yorks (Stephen Milligan) Twickenham (Vince Cable) Plymouth Devonport (Andrew Cooper)...

IIRC Kinnock did have a pre-election secret plan to devalue within the ERM of which Smith was kept unawares - partly mistrust between the two, partly also because it would be electorally toxic. Smith's anger was more that he had been excluded from policy making than the idea itself was...

I echo this question. From the (admittedly) brief exposure I've had of him I pegged him down as a Keynesian whose intellectual rigour suggested an assertive adherence to such ideas. Perhaps all that 1988/9 ends up with is Prescott as Deputy Leader to nudge Kinnock to the left, better placed to...

The question is, why would they (or any other anti-Kinnock) left challenger not emerge by this stage? Even going beyond the Tribune/Campaign Group/later Bevanite boundaries in Labour's leftwing, 1988/9 were considered cruicial turning points for the general turn of the Party going into the...

Lansbury's election was, I think, not just because he was the only senior candidate left. He was, after all in the running for challenging MacDonald all the way back in 1924 for that Labour government's perceived failings and compromises. Ramsay MacDonald's drift from radical to incremental...

Arthur Greenwood wasn't a vigorous or dynamic personality but could, I think, do a decent enough job under the right circumstances. His "speak for England" episode was very much the exception to his personal style but showed he had inner steel, if not perhaps the confidence or opportunity to...

A successful Yes vote would really come from, and reflect, a different political landscape. As to how you get there, I think it's doable within the years leading up to it. The discrediting of all three parties helped it along - coalition disillusionment, Conservative austerity, and the...