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| REVIEWS | BY THEO BLACKWELL |
 Tony Benn  Roy Jenkins  A front page of Militant urging people to defy the Poll Tax  Councillor Theo Blackwell is the deputy leader of Camden Council |
Hammer of the Left: defeating Tony Benn, Eric Heffer and Militant in the Battle for the Labour Party by John Golding Edited by Paul Farrelly MP – Politicos, £25 My aim,” writes John Golding at the outset, “is to be accurate but unfair”. And so this account of the reclaiming of the Labour Party between 1978 and 1985 begins – and it is not a pretty tale of 1980s’ party politics from any political perspective. This is no mere ‘Betsygate’: it represents a salutary lesson of the electoral consequences facing any political party obsessed by personal or ideological infighting. Edited by Paul Farrelly MP, the posthumous memoirs of John Golding, MP for Newcastle-upon-Lyme, former Employment Minister, key union player and leading ‘moderate’ of the period on Labour’s National Executive Committee, chart the struggle for the control of the tiller of the listing Labour supertanker during the Callaghan and Thatcher years. It is a ‘fixer’s’ account of how Labour’s internal divisions played a role in the loss of the 1979 and 1983 elections, cementing the foundations of 18 years of Conservative government. As someone who joined the Labour Party as a teenager at the end of the 1980s, much of this is the political myth of shadowy fixers exposed – fables whispered quietly but never written down and made real. Golding was advised not to publish, but did so – possibly egged on by a fear that the battles of this period have not been penned by the victors. Treated are the crucial Benn-Healey leadership contest; the Peter Tatchell by-election loss of Labour’s ultra-safe Bermondsey constituency to Liberal Simon Hughes; the infamous 1983 election manifesto; and the purging of Militant in the run up to Kinnock speech to the 1985 conference and beyond. It should be read both as a personal account of Labour politics of the 1980s and as a corrective to Golding’s arch-nemesis, Tony Benn. While the Benn Diaries are in my view generally written in a courteous style, although often (ponderously) removed from the cut and thrust of the internal ‘fixing’ of which Benn is accused, Golding’s account gives fuller flavour to the rancor of internal party feuds. His venom is brutal and undisguised – and not for the squeamish or idealistic. Betrayal to the SDP is by “the posh set” of defecting Labour MPs. The late Roy Jenkins is “arrogant, superior, remote”. Malcontent left-wing constituency activists at party conferences are described as “Trots” or “social workers” (remember when that was a common term of political abuse as opposed to ‘valued key workers’?) or otherwise just generic “lefties”. Many of his other opponents on the left are simply described as “mad” or “a nutter” or more generally allied to “the forces of darkness”. Conversely, effusive loyalty and praise is bestowed upon Golding allies, like current government minister John Spellar MP. But it is Tony Benn for whom the most viciousness is saved. Benn is at the centre of everything. As a government minister he is “completely wishy-washy”; as a politician full of ambition (“a Messiah”), intrigue and the pure source of much of the instability affecting Labour’s chances of turning the tide against Thatcher. Manoevering against Benn to deselect him from his Bristol stronghold is one of Golding’s self-confessed crowning achievements. Benn’s Diaries get special treatment, with lengthy rejoinders to accounts of meetings and key events appearing in the memoirs, and as such they should be seen in this context. References to Golding himself do not feature too heavily in Benn’s Diaries (1980-1990) – although it is perhaps noteworthy that “Golding, John” chalks up more mentions in the index than “The Conservative Party”. As Neil Kinnock remarks in his Foreword, this book is “a dipped-in-vitriol documentary”. For Labour Kremlinologists who like this kind of thing this will be a detailed and mischevious read, a sometimes brutal but on occasion coldly humorous account of behind-the-scenes intrigue that can make change happen in political parties and full of familiar names. It is also a reminder for someone who didn’t live through it of how much of the ideological ground has shifted in mainstream politics. Golding himself never made it to the Shadow Cabinet and moved from the Commons in 1986 to become General Secretary of the then Post Office Engineers Union. He died in 1999. His seat was won by his wife Llin – now Baroness Golding – and now Farrelly. There is a lament (“Old trade union Labour, which I am, and the Party I have written about are things of the past”) but no regret: he rejoices in the defeat of the Tories. But a current which runs as strong as his distrust for the Bennite left and Militant is his near tribal loyalty to the Labour party and labour movement which did not just manifest itself in smoke-filled rooms. Golding set the record for the longest-ever Commons speech on a Commons amendment – a magisterial 11 hours and 15 minutes – opposing the telecommunications privatisation and helping to delay it until after the 1983 election. A minor victory perhaps – and we know what happened then – but it is a legacy, like some of his other extra-parliamentary work, which exists today. |
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