Anna Soubry? Has every failed candidate from the last General Election been entered in a lottery for a seat on the Question Time panel? You would be the first to know if my number ever came up.
In After The Party, a collection of reminisces published in 2011 to mark the twentieth anniversary of the dissolution of the Communist Party of Great Britain, Andrew Pearmain wrote: "I started sleeping with other women on my trips to London, other Communist students and even a Tory member of the NUS Executive whose taste for rough sex really shocked me; she later joined the SDP."
Soubry was a Minister from 2012 to 2016, so her endorsement of Keir Starmer is notable. As is the fact that she is on a panel with Bridget Phillipson; Starmer's supporters now get two seats. But it is the non-non-endorsement of Starmer by Ken Clarke that ought to be the showstopper. Clarke was a Whip or a Minister under every Conservative Prime Minister from 1972 until he had already announced his intention to retire from the House of Commons.
Clarke was a Minister continuously from 1979 to 1997, implementing key aspects of Thatcherism at Health and Education. He was Chancellor of the Exchequer for most of John Major's Premiership, notably attempting to double VAT on domestic fuel and power. Had the Conservatives won the 1997 Election, then he would certainly have taken Britain into the euro, to which Gordon Brown was implacably opposed. Like the Liberal Democrats, he must take a share of the blame for every bad thing that the Coalition did at home and abroad.
Yes, Clarke voted against the Iraq War, and he delivered what now turns out to have been a painfully prescient speech against it. But that was his stopped clock moment. The day before his expression of comfort with a Starmer Government, he was calling for "wealthy" patients to be made to pay "modest" charges to visit their GPs or to have "minor" operations. Such is the support that Labour now attracts.
But Starmer's dishonesty is becoming a story. He lied to his party members to get their votes, so he would lie to anyone else to get their votes. We are heading for a hung Parliament. To strengthen families and communities by securing economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, including national and parliamentary sovereignty, we need to hold the balance of power. Owing nothing to either main party, we must be open to the better offer. There does, however, need to be a better offer. Not a lesser evil, which in any case the Labour Party is not.
Had the Conservatives won the 1997 Election, then he would certainly have taken Britain into the euro, to which Gordon Brown was implacably opposed
ReplyDeleteNo he wouldn’t. The Conservatives stood on a manifesto commitment not to join the euro without a national referendum, a pledge which Labour copied.
You obviously cannot remember it, and you were probably not born.
DeleteClarke could not have been refused the Chancellorship if Major had won, meaning that Britain would have joined the euro on day one, and if you believe that there would have been a referendum, then good luck with puberty if and when it ever hits.
There had been all of 22 Conservative votes against Maastricht, and that would have been before Clarke had been confirmed in Number 11 by the electorate. In any case, you cannot imagine how boring most people in those days found the whole subject of joining the euro, or indeed of anything to do with the EU. A referendum? To put it politely, turnout would have been low.
Brown, on the other hand, was implacably opposed to joining the euro. His tests were designed to be impossible, and if Blair did not know that, then the likes of Mandelson certainly did. Having Brown as Shadow Chancellor was a way of saying no to the euro, and even more so with Cook as Shadow Foreign Secretary as well.
Blair himself was never keen. The Labour whip had been to abstain on Maastricht, and 66 MPs, three times the Conservative total, had rebelled to vote against it. Peace in the wider party was kept by John Prescott, a classic Soft Left Eurosceptic in the Cook mould. It was never going to happen under Labour. And it did not. But it would have happened under Major and Clarke. A referendum? I ask you!
You’re simply wrong. The Conservatives’ defused their party split as early as 1993 by pledging a referendum before any decision on the euro, a pledge Labour later had to copy. It’s in the Conservatives 1997 manifesto, available online.
ReplyDeleteOf course they’d have found an excuse to kick the issue into the long grass and therefore never hold a referendum to preserve party unity. It was never going to happen. The only party leader who we know supported the euro was Tony Blair.
The Conservatives’ defused their party split as early as 1993
DeleteThey did what? Now I know for certain that you were not born.
Clarke could not have been refused the Chancellorship if Major had won, meaning that Britain would have joined the euro on day one, and if you believe that there would have been a referendum, then good luck with puberty if and when it ever hits.
ReplyDeleteUtter drivel-they stood on a manifesto pledge never to even consider joining without a referendum. And as we saw in 2016, the Tories keep their manifesto promises on holding referendums on Europe.
Unlike Gordon Brown-who reneged on his manifesto commitment to hold a referendum on the European Constitution (Lisbon Treaty)…
Bless.
DeleteAt which General Election was there a manifesto that promised, or could possibly have promised, a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty?
Clarke could not have been refused the Chancellorship if Major had won, meaning that Britain would have joined the euro on day one, and if you believe that there would have been a referendum, then good luck with puberty if and when it ever hits.
ReplyDeletePolitical illiterates thought the same when the Conservatives pledged an in-out referendum if they won the 2015 election as they’d pledged a referendum on the euro in 1997.
But unlike Gordon Brown (who reneged on Labour’s 2005 manifesto commitment to hold a referendum on the EU Constitution) when the Tories won a majority in 2015, they course honoured their pledge. And then took us out of the EU and the Single Market to boot.
The Conservatives, for all their faults, actually believe in keeping their manifesto promises.
Bless. That is all that can be said to that. Bless.
DeleteAt which General Election was there a manifesto that promised, or could possibly have promised, a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty?
ReplyDelete2005. The Labour manifesto. The EU didn’t even pretend the Lisbon Treaty wasn’t the EU Constitution (they only changed the title after the Irish voted against it).
Bless indeed.
Ah, but it was not exactly the same text, so they were technically in the clear there.
DeleteYou cannot imagine how boring most people found the whole subject of the EU in those days. As they do again now, in fact.
Gordon Brown, the clown who supported a second EU referendum, happily reneged on Labour’s pledge to hold a referendum on the EU Constitution, but as the world saw in June 2016 (and in 2019 when we finally left the EU), the Tories actually keep their manifesto promises. They would also have done so had they won in 1997.
ReplyDeleteI agree that is an alien concept to the Left hence you find it so hard to believe.
There was absolutely no chance of such a referendum. There was more chance of Clarke as Prime Minister by the middle of that Parliament if his party had won. There were 22 Maastricht rebels in that party, and the reelection of Major and Clarke would have been the end of the matter in those ranks.
DeleteAfter pledging no euro without a referendum, at the subsequent 2001 General Election the Conservatives under Hague stood on a platform of “24 hours to save the Pound.” And as we saw in 2016 they honour their manifesto commitments, There was never the slightest chance they’d have ever joined the euro.
ReplyDeleteThe referendum was written in stone because it was a central manifesto pledge, hence they would definitely have held it. I agree there wouldn’t have been a referendum however since the Tories would have found an excuse to kick the issue into the long grass to preserve party unity as Labour did. By 2001, the Tories had hardened and were campaigning on an explicit rejection of the euro and declaring “24 hours to save the pound.” There was never the slightest chance they’d have joined.
ReplyDeleteIt was not a central manifesto pledge. In fact, it never came up at all in the conversations of normal people, nor did the Tories themselves try and promote it. It had been included to keep no more than two dozen MPs relatively sweet.
DeleteHad the Tories won, then we would have stayed out only over Ken Clarke's dead body, and he is not dead yet, whereas Labour would have gone in only over the dead body of Gordon Brown. There would never have been a referendum. The composition of a Major Cabinet would have rendered that unthinkable in practice.
And the pound was saved. Not by William Hague. Nor in any way because of him. You really should not hold up the 2001 Tory campaign as a good example of anything.
Pure nonsense. Ken Clarke had to accept their manifesto pledge to hold a referendum (a promise made long before Labour copied it) as Cabinet members such as Michael Portillo were passionately against the euro and supported John Redwood’s campaign against it. There was no way they’d have let the issue split the party again as it did in 1995. As I say, the Tories are the only party in recent times to keep all their manifesto pledges on the EU, in 2016 and 2019. Only Labour (under Gordon Brown) has won a majority and then reneged on a manifesto promise to hold an EU referendum.
ReplyDeleteI spat out my tea laughing at that. Portillo supporting Redwood is comedy gold. The idea of any Cabinet Minister, at any time, knowing who Redwood was, is quite amusing.
DeleteRedwood was in the Cabinet and got over 80 votes when he stood against Major for party leader in 1995. Both he and Portillo were and are anti-euro. As I say, there was never any chance of us joining.
ReplyDeleteRedwood was briefly in the Cabinet and has never been brought back as anything in the 13 years that his party has been back in office. How many of those 80 are still in the Commons? How many are still alive? 60 of them would in any case have voted for him only as a stalking horse. 20 is a high estimate of those who would have wanted him to have become Prime Minister.
DeletePortillo and his camp always despised the Redwoodites as a bunch of weirdos who were bad for the cause. Portillo would not have been anti-euro if, as would have been the case, that would have cost him his seat in the Cabinet of Major and Clarke after a 1997 General Election victory.
On the contrary, Redwood was by far the most intellectual and articulate opponent of the euro in Parliament. His “Just Say No: 80 Arguments Against the Euro” pamphlet remains the best case ever made against it. Your counterfactual history goes against the known facts-as I say, the party had repeatedly pledged no decision on a single currency without a referendum ever since 1993. They simply wouldn’t have ever joined. They’d have done anything to avoid another schism as happened over the issue in 1995.
ReplyDeleteThere was no such commitment in 1993, before you were born. By Major, Clarke, Heseltine, Rifkind, and all the rest of them? Don't be ridiculous. And no matter how good it might have been, who do you think read Redwood's pamphlet? Anyone at all?
DeleteIf the Tories had won in 1997, when they had fought on the basis that they were economic wonder-workers whose miracles the population had somehow failed to notice, then Clarke would have had whatever he had wanted, and nothing that he had not. We would therefore have joined the euro at the start, and there would have been no referendum.
But from September 1992 onwards, long before almost anyone had heard of Blair, there had been no chance of a Tory victory. Gordon Brown was always set to be Chancellor, initially under John Smith. Like far more Labour than Tory MPs, Brown was implacably opposed to the euro. Thus were we spared it.
Indeed there was much debate between all the anti-euro Cabinet Ministers such as Redwood, Michael Howard, Peter Lilley and Michael Portillo as to which of them were John Major’s three “bastards” from his famous outburst. Major pledged a referendum to put the issue to bed but 86 MPs still voted to remove him because he wouldn’t go further and explicitly rule out joining the euro as Redwood and co wanted.
ReplyDeleteThere wasn’t a cats chance in hell the Conservatives would have joined or even called a referendum. They’d have buried the issue to keep the party and Cabinet together.
As we saw in 2016, they do honour their manifesto commitments on the EU, because they know their rightwing MPs, members and voters demand it.
Their what? Oh, stop it, you are just being silly now. Cameron had assumed either a Labour victory or the continuation of the Coalition, or there would have been no such commitment.
DeleteIf it had been left to areas that had returned Tory MPs in 2015, then we would still be in the EU. Most of those MPs campaigned for Remain, and most of the rest have not had much in the way of political careers since.
Major didn't know who Redwood was. He possibly still doesn't.