I had no political education. Brought up by my mum, a Dutch lone parent, a stranger in a strange land, she never seemed to carry any political ideology, even when she grew older. I spent Saturdays with my paternal grandparents who took the Daily Mirror, which hints at an affiliation to Labour, but in truth politics was never discussed in their house. I don’t remember learning about politics at school either, although it was said that some teachers had strong views. But it all passed me by.
The first time I ever voted was on 5th June 1975 in the ‘United Kingdom European Communities membership referendum’, the EEC which became the EU. I voted to join, not least because, I suspect, sensible, more moderate politicians were urging us to join and extreme fringe politicians, like Enoch Powell and Tony Benn were campaigning hard against. Whether my European heritage affected my vote, I have no idea. I never regretted my decision to support EEC entry, although I was later devastated when a much more powerful group of extremists led the UK to vote to leave the EU in 2016. The first general election at which I could vote was 1979.
3rd May 1979 – I voted Labour
For some years, I had become active in the Labour Party. Not that active – I had discovered girls and football by then – but committed to the aims of Labour. My MP, Tony Benn, had by then lurched from left to hard left, and even at my tender age I found myself wincing at what I saw as his simplistic rhetoric. I went to public meetings but would never say a word. Everyone seemed to have embraced Benn’s flowery language and seemed to see something I couldn’t: a manifesto that would see Labour returned to office under its current leader James Callaghan. In the end, the manifesto was watered down but Callaghan had bottled calling an earlier election in the autumn of 1978, which then saw the so called ‘winter of discontent’ when everyone seemed to be on strike.
The Tory leader was, of all things, a woman, something unheard of in British politics. Margaret Hilda Thatcher had already become infamous in the Tory government from 1970 to 19 when as education secretary she ended free school milk for over sevens, earning the nickname ‘Milk Snatcher Thatcher’. But by 1979, Labour looked tired, out of ideas and Thatcher swept into Downing Street with a majority of 43. My voting career was off to a sticky start.
9th June 1983 – I voted Labour
Thatcher’s popularity slumped after the 1979 election, despite the election as Labour leader in late 1980 of Michael Foot. Foot was a wonderful man, left of mainstream left but hardly extreme, and easily defeated the more moderate and, I would say, electable Denis Healey. All was going okay until in 1982 Argentina invaded the Falklands Islands.
This shocked many people who could not understand how a country 8000 miles away could take over an island off Scotland, until they realised that the Falklands were 400 miles off Argentina, known as Las Malvinas. It was an almighty cock up by the Thatcher government, who were busy making huge cuts to the armed forces, especially the navy, not least around the Falklands, which encouraged a desperate Argentinian military dictatorship to invade.
Thatcher turned the disaster into a triumph by sending a military task force to eject the invader, which it did. 255 British lives were lost but the public mood was one of triumph. On 9th June 1983, Thatcher went to the polls.
Although Foot, who supported unilateral nuclear disarmament, something I did too back in the 1980s, was behind the task force the Falklands War was but it didn’t matter
in 1981, Tony Benn had challenged Healey for the deputy leadership of the party and almost won. But Benn and the hard left had control of the party’s machinery and policy making. Labour went into the election with a manifesto described by one Labour MP Gerald Kaufman as the longest suicide note in history. Thatcher won with a landslide majority of 144, despite a small percentage fall in the Tory vote, but Labour on just over 27%, only just ahead of the Alliance of Social Democrats and Liberals. It was a disaster which most people saw coming. But not my MP Tony Benn.
The night before the election, I attended a public meeting at Holymead Junior School in the constituency. Alongside Benn was the actor Bill Owen, better known as Compo from the BBC’s Last of the Summer Wine (one for the kids, there). The main hall was packed as the speakers revved up the crowd, not that they needed much revving up. Owen spoke first, powerfully setting out Labour’s manifesto before ending with the words, “And tomorrow, we’re gonna win!” There was a split second of absolute silence before everyone leapt to their feet. Benn followed and his enthusiasm was just the same. As all this was going on, my friend and I just looked at each other. Labour was miles behind in the polls, Foot was deeply unpopular, Thatcher was hugely popular as the war leader. Were we missing something? As it turned out, we weren’t.
As the results came in, we could see that Thatcher had won big. Benn, whose seat had become vulnerable due to boundary changes, lost in Bristol East. Compo returned to Yorkshire, Benn, who never lived in Bristol, returned to Holland Park in London, never to return.
11th June 1987 – I voted Labour
Following the 1983 election disaster, fiery Welshman Neil Kinnock was elected Labour leader and started the long walk to government, if not for him then his party. He took on the hard left and won but electoral success was a long way from Labour as Thatcher cruised home to victory with a majority of 102.
9th April 1992 – I voted Labour
By now, Thatcher had fallen and her successor was the grey man, John Major. One more heave, we all thought, would do it for Kinnock’s Labour, but it didn’t. The Tory majority was cut to 21 but that was enough, at least to start with. Sadly for Major, the Tory party started to lose its mind in the 1990s and it was virtually unmanageable. He announced a ‘back to basics’ plan, only to find his MPs clambering into bed with whoever they could find, including Major himself. His majority gradually fell but he clung on as long as he could.
1st May 1997 – I voted Labour
Following the narrow defeat in 1992, John Smith became Labour leader. Sharp as a tack, the Scottish lawyer looked and sounded so prime ministerial it was surely a matter of when not if he would become PM. The Tories were a shambles. Exhausted after years in government, I finally felt Labour could actually win for the first time since I had been a voter. Then, on 12th May 1994, he suffered an almighty heart attack and died. The nation lost a great man.
Smith’s successor would be one of Tony Blair, the bright smiling new kid on the block or Gordon Brown, Smith’s Scottish heir apparent. The two cobbled together a deal and Blair became the man. New Labour was created and an unstoppable momentum saw Major finally call an election, in which the Tories were destroyed. Labour had a majority of 179 and apart from a fracas in 2000 when lorry drivers blocked fuel distribution points it was easy going.
7th June 2001 – I voted Labour
Labour’s majority crashed to 167. In the weeks before, for the first time ever I knew Labour would win by a lot. The country was generally united, jobs were being created, inflation was low, NHS waiting lists were falling; all in all we were a happy country.
5th May 2005 – I voted Labour
In 2003, Britain had taken part in the invasion of Iraq. At first, it was a popular war as people got behind ‘our boys’ but soon it was revealed that the intelligence services had cocked up big time. Blair led us to war believing Iraq’s psychopathic maniacal leader Saddam Hussain had weapons of mass destruction (WMD). He didn’t have any. So when Labour went to the country in 2005, I was worried. And I was right to be: Blair’s majority was down to 66. Phew. Time to regroup, rebuild, reconnect with the public? No chance. This was Labour.
6th May 2010 – I voted Labour
Gordon Brown succeeded Blair in 2007. At first it went well, but then we had the 2008 worldwide financial crash. Brown actually handled things brilliantly, both at home and abroad, but as we emerged from the crisis the new Tory leader David Cameron painted the worldwide financial crash as being Brown, and Labour’s, fault. It worked to a point. In the weeks leading up to the election, I knew Labour would lose. It was just by how many.
As it happened, although Labour lost, the Tories didn’t win, so they went into coalition with the Lib Dems with Nick Clegg becoming Deputy PM. They imposed terrible austerity on the country from which today it has not recovered. Labour reacted by electing Miliband as its new leader. Not David, who I supported and met when he visited Bristol, but his brother Ed, thanks to the unions. Ed was an okay leader but he was never going to become PM. I waited five years watching that not happen.
7th May 2015 – I voted Labour
Predictably, Labour lost and this time the Tories won outright, albeit only with a majority of 12. The Lib Dems were rightly punished for having taken jobs in a nasty Tory government and for lying about abolishing university tuition fees when actually tripling them. Cameron had won by promising a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU to try and end the Tory party’s civil war on the matter.
On 23rd June 2016, I voted to remain in the EU but the majority of those who voted decided we should commit the biggest act of self-harm in our history and leave. Another one I got wrong.
Meanwhile. Ed Miliband’s final act was to bring in a new leadership election system whereby people who were not members of Labour could pay £3 and get a vote equal to that of a member. It’s too depressing to go into detail other than to say instead getting Andy Burnham or Yvette Cooper, we ended up with an elderly hard left crank, a career backbencher, as leader of her majesty’s opposition. Ladies and gentleman: I give you Jeremy Corbyn.
Meanwhile, the Conservatives chose a safe pair of hands to succeed Cameron: home secretary Theresa May. What could possibly go wrong?
8th June 2017 – I voted Labour
But only just. May was a terrible prime minister and ran the worst general election campaign in history. In the weeks leading up to the election, I felt a small to middling Tory majority would be our best bet, but May was so bad she failed even to get that.
Corbyn appeared to be a barnstorming campaigner. A dreadful public speaker, he nonetheless attended countless well-attended rallies all over the country. I thought about his support for Hamas, the IRA, his paid work for the Iranian state TV broadcaster Press TV, his dubious associations with groups like Stop the West – sorry, War – and then had to decide which was the least of two evils. I could never vote Tory, I could not vote Lib Dem, especially not in my constituency where it would be a wasted vote so I decided to vote for the local Labour candidate who seemed a good sort and not a Corbyn fan. She lost anyway, as did Corbyn, but I was a heartbeat from spoiling my ballot paper.
12th December 2019 – I voted Labour
After arsing about for a couple of years, May was eventually removed and replaced by a liar, a shyster, a charlatan and an absolute wrong ‘un. They were all the same person: Boris Johnson. Johnson was popular in some circles for achieving Brexit, even though he no more believed in it than I did. But for some odd reason, he connected well with working class people, of whose lives he knew nothing and cared even less.
Corbyn was still Labour leader and most of us bit our tongues as he criss-crossed the country shouting at people who already agreed with him. Not only was he a terrible public speaker, he was a poor parliamentary performer. It was clear he did not have an original idea in his entire being. Johnson wanted to call an election but could only do so with the assistance of the opposition, which in a tragic act of stupidity Corbyn happily gave him.
The result was clear long before the day. Corbyn ran a poor campaign and came across as what he was: a poor excuse for a leader who had been totally found out. Result? Labour’s worst result since 1936 and a Tory majority of 80.
CONCLUSION
Well, there isn’t one really. I’ve always voted Labour and even when a wrong ‘un like Corbyn was nominally in charge, I still voted for it. In 42 years of voting in general elections, I’ve only ‘got it right’ on three occasions, in 1997, 2001 and 2005. Labour rarely wins and it’s unlikely it can unless it makes inroads back in Scotland.
I learned very early what I believed in, which was a left of centre politics, with strong investment in the NHS, schools and other vital public services, as well as a society in which hard work and innovation was rewarded, where people would be encouraged to get on, be the best person they can. Call it the third way, call it what you like. I’d probably call it a mixed economy.
Tony Blair’s government delivered all that and more. My only regret about the New Labour years was that the changes it made were not made irreversible. Unfortunately, rightly or wrongly, Iraq tarnished Blair’s reputation and he won’t be back. But a government like his, where the country was more or less united and where we were not in the grip of endless culture wars, well they have to be better than the Johnson years, wouldn’t they?
