Labour Who’s Who – 1970s style

The Paul Richards column

One of the joys of spring-cleaning is the discovery of long-forgotten Labour ephemera. In amongst the back-issues of Marxism Today, Annual Conference reports from the 1950s and Fabian pamphlets I have unearthed a dog-eared publication, priced at five shillings, published by the Labour Party, Transport House. Labour’s Election Who’s Who was published in the last days before the 1970 general election, which Labour was widely predicted to win, but lost to the Tories. It served as a biographical guide to the party’s candidates in every seat. Today, as we face the Tory threat once again, it stands as a reminder of how far we’ve come as a movement in the past 40 years.

The first grouping is the ministerial stars of the 1964 – 70 government. Anthony Wedgewood Benn, George Brown, James Callaghan, Barbara Castle, Tony Crosland, Richard Crossman, David Ennals, Patrick Gordon Walker, Judith Hart, Roy Hattersley, Denis Healey, Douglas Jay, Roy Jenkins, Roy Mason, Fred Mulley, Merlyn Rees, Ted Short, Michael Stewart, and of course the party leader and prime minister Harold Wilson. These were the men and women who left their Whitehall departments when Wilson called the election, and confidently anticipated seeing their officials again after polling day.

Then it is fun to spot the rising stars: politicians who went on to make a mark, who were elected in 1970, or stood and lost. Twenty-eight year old Antony Louis Banks (East Grinstead) was better known to us as Tony. Jeremy Beecham stood in Tynemouth before becoming the leader of Newcastle council, leader of the LGA and Labour NEC member. Robin Cook was just 24 when he stood for Edinburgh North. Two future leaders were elected for the first time: Neil Kinnock and John Smith. Future New Labour ministers John Prescott, Donald Dewar, John Spellar, and Chris Mullin were all candidates in 1970.

The left-wing of the party, including the remaining Tribunites, Bevanites, and future Bennites, was represented by Tom Drieberg (listed as ‘married’), Michael Foot, and his father Dingle, Eric Heffer, Les Huckfield, Jennie Lee, Michael Meacher, Ian Mikardo, Dennis Skinner, Frank Allaun and Norman Buchan.

At the other end of the Labour spectrum is the kernel of the Social-Democrat Party (SDP) – those who owed their careers to the Labour Party in 1970 but then betrayed it eleven years later. Dick Mabon, Bob Maclennan, David Marquand, Eric Moonman (the only SDP-er to resign his seat when he defected), David Owen, Dick Taverne, and Shirley Williams.

Lastly there are the weird, wonderful, and notorious: Richard Balfe, currently David Cameron’s liaison man with the trade union movement; John Horam, who is standing down at this election as the Conservative MP for Orpington, having been a Labour, SPD, and Tory member of parliament; Robert Maxwell, rather more famous as a larger-than-life press baron; Robert Kilroy Silk, the TV presenter; Brian Walden, the distinguished television interviewer; Christopher Mayhew who was the first Labour MP to cross the floor to the Liberal Party for several decades, filmed himself tripping on mescaline for Panorama, and resigned as navy minister when Harold Wilson cancelled an order for aircraft carriers; John Stonehouse, who faked his own death by piling his clothes on Miami beach and provided the inspiration for Reggie Perrin; Woodrow Wyatt who became a fan of Thatcher and columnist for the News of the World; the wonderfully-named Motel Burstin (about whom I know nothing other than he or she was born in Poland in 1920 and stood in Southend West); Maureen Colquhoun, listed as married with three children in 1970, but later came out as Britain’s first lesbian MP; and a young Labour hopeful standing in Glasgow Hillhead, with interests including ‘general economic management’ and ‘politics’ called John Vincent Cable, who of course went on to become the guru of global recession Vince Cable.

Some complain about the party’s middle-class takeover by ‘New Labour’. A glance at the hobbies listed by the class of 1970 suggests that many of the party’s candidates were hardly immersed in proletarian culture. Their pursuits included wine, exploring French villages, cricket umpiring, golf, bowls, opera, lawn tennis, shooting, skiing, sailing, and collecting antique pistols. One hopeful cited ‘spreading socialism’ as a hobby, another ‘watching TV’. Eric Petro Deakins wanted the voters in West Walthamstow to know that he spent his time ‘taking out attractive girls.’

I counted only 24 women candidates out of over 600. There were very few with anything other than Anglo-Saxon sounding surnames. Jewish candidates included Ian Mikardo, David Weitzman, Maurice Edelman, Harold Lever, Leo Abse, Alf Dubs, John Silkin, Joel Barnett, Edmund Dell, Reg Freeson, Robert Maxwell, Paul Rose, Eric Moonman, and Gerald Kaufman. Missing from the Who’s Who is Greville Janner, who was Labour’s candidate in Leicester West, but was selected after the publication of the candidates’ list. There were no Black or Asian candidates in 1970.

The class of 1970 beats the class of 2010 in terms of the variety of backgrounds, trades and professions, with far more candidates who had served in the armed forces, worked in industry, lived abroad, and came from the places they sought to represent. There were very few MPs’ researchers, special advisers, or staff of think tanks. But the class of 2010 contains more women, openly gay candidates, and men and women from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, representing the diversity of the modern British population.

In a few weeks’ time, a new PLP will be elected. Who will be the ministerial stars? Who the rebels? Who will go on to host chat shows? Or defect to other parties? And who will pile their clothes on a beach and fake their own deaths? We may not have to wait another 40 years to find out.