When the Labour Government lost the no confidence vote in Parliament in 1979, many cabinet and other ministers at the time expected Labour to lose the following general election, but they believed that Labour would bounce back quickly.  The tragedy that followed was, of course, a generation out of power, and it was Labour’s traditional areas that paid the heaviest price for our electoral failure.  Now is not then, but lessons can be learnt.

The aftermath of Callaghan’s defeat at the polls was a full scale civil war inside the party, with tensions that had simmered around the Cabinet table for many years in government finally boiling over.  The party pushed the self-destruct button in electing veteran left-winger Michael Foot to the leadership and, despite narrowly losing the deputy leadership to Denis Healey, the influence of Tony Benn was ubiquitous and destructive. (more…)