Thinking In Centuries

In the latest edition of Progress, there are two articles on the 1983 General Election.

Polly Toynbee reminds us, inter alia, that the SDP - yes, the SDP - fought on a commitment to reject Trident and to put Cruise into START talks.

But John Spellar's piece is even more remarkable. The legendary "Ex-Spellar" of the anti-Militant crusade rejects the "Jenkinsite heresy" that a radical and Radical nineteenth century was followed by a conservative and Conservative twentieth century.

Since that was held to have been due to the split between the Liberals and Labour, the latter, it was contended, ought never to have been founded.

Yet that heresy was the creation myth of New Labour.