Further to yesterday's post asking how and why the UDM never made common cause with the SDP, especially in order to capture the Mansfield seat vacated by Don Concannon in 1987, an email today reminds me of the Moderate Labour Party, essentially the political wing of the UDM.
It did in fact contest Mansfield with Concannon's support, in the person a former Labour Councillor who went to on to be a Conservative candidate for local office. The SDP provided the Alliance candidate. The Conservative very nearly took the seat. But the man who was then still plain Mr Alan Meale held it for Labour by the skin of his teeth.
I am very glad that he did. I only wonder why no attempt seems to have been made to unite the efforts of the Moderate Labour Party and thus of the UDM with those of a local SDP organisation which clearly existed. The key failure of the SDP was its failure to reach the working class. This would seem to be the most striking of all the illustrations of that.
"Old, unhappy, far-off things," indeed.
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