Please do more of these Steve. I’d love to hear your unscripted thoughts on Change UK, the ERG, Starmer making Labour electable again, the Brexit fiasco, the Trussterf**k etc
Very interesting and informative. Thank you. I was surprised to find out that the SDP are still around. I think they will get an increase in popularity due to the recent political turmoil.
The story of the SDP has very strong parallels with the Australian Democrats. They were formed in 1977 as a breakaway from the centre-right Liberal Party of Australia, managed to gain the balance of power in the proportional representation Senate and in some state parliaments. The Australian Democrats started to lose support in the late 1980s for many reasons such as their leader shagging the Labour Party deputy PM and defecting to Labour, the Liberals tending away from the hard right and back towards the political centre and by factional warfare when a socialist faction tried to take control of what was founded as a centre-centre-right-ish party. The Australian Democrats slowly withered and were out of federal and all state parliaments by early this century.
Left wing of labour Foot Benn Castle and Shore Right wing of conservative party Powell the Scottish and Welsh nationalists along with sinn Fein were anti EEC
The SDP needed two things, if they were to supplant Labour as a major party: 1) Tony Benn to win the Labour deputy leadership challenge against Denis Healey. Benn would’ve been Labour leader within a year, over a destabilized Michael Foot. 2) For the Falklands War (which was in fact caused by the Thatcher government’s ineptitude, in having slashed all the deterrent defenses there) to never happen.
Agree with #1 but for #2 Argentina caused the Falklands war by actually invading. Second defense spending was maintained. Also the election was one year after the war and was not the only reason why the Conservatives won (as they did in1987 and 1992 without the war). A left wing Labour Party has never won in the UK. We are too small c conservative.
Adding to your list: 3) Make Shirley Williams leader instead of Roy Jenkins, who was too old school and out of touch by 1981. Williams as leader would have provided a welcome contrast to Margaret Thatcher. 4) Broaden their appeal to disaffected Conservative voters and MPs (the Tory 'Wets'). Position themselves as a party of the centre instead of spending all of their time and efforts trying to outflank the Labour party. 5) Carry out a full merger with the Liberals instead of splitting up which riding each party would contest. This would no doubt have been a long, messy process, but a single SDP Liberal party would have put them in a much stronger position in 1983.
David Owen totally and utterly confused... Leaves the labour party in 1981 because he disagrees with tony Benn... Makes donationto the labour party at the general election of 2017..
Makes a donation to a Labour party at the general election of 2017.. to a party led by a pound land Tony Benn.. Jeremy corbyn... David Owen totally and utterly confused in his entire 4000 weeks..
There's quite a lot of evidence that they actually prevented an even greater majority for Margaret Thatcher by sucking in votes that would otherwise have gone to her
Should of backed Michael foot labour wouldn't of been beat as bad shirley Williams would of become leader ,Foot was an unlikely leader for the modern era but was treated shabbily owen and Jenkins were a disgrace
