Tag Archives: political party funding

How did His Majesty’s Government get itself in such an integrity-destroying tangle over Peter Mandelson’s appointment as Ambassador to the USA? The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, 10 Downing Street, Cabinet Office, Security Services and the senior Civil Service have all faced serious potential reputational damage. What’s at the root of this?

Flashback to the late 1970s and early 1980s. To an extent the early 1970s was the heyday of Soviet Socialism. There was much admiration of the Soviet system even among the British middle classes, albeit more in theory than in practice. At my university there were several active political groups; the Revolutionary Workers Party, the Revolutionary Workers and Trotskyists, the Spartacist League, and the Communists, with the Labour group dominated by Militant. There was a small Tory contingent (mostly engineering students) and three Liberals.

The Labour leadership, including PM Callaghan, struggled with limited success to keep the party mainstream and less ‘ideologically left’. Thatcher countered successfully with a quasi-ideological ‘free market/small government’ approach in 1979, appealing to working class ‘cloth cap-italists’. Notwithstanding, the leftward drift of Labour continued and the leftist Michael Foot became leader, badly losing the 1983 election. Neil Kinnock replaced him and, blaming the far left for the defeat, took on the radicals. The infighting crippled the party and they lost the 1987 and 1992 elections (with much help from the right wing anti-Labour media).

Two years after Thatcher was elected, the Labour Party divided between those who wanted to stay and attempt to seek power without the left, and those that saw Labour as unreformable. The latter formed the SDP (later merging with the Liberals) and the former seeing future Labour success in recognising the power of big business and media moguls

Peter Mandelson was the exemplifier of the ‘recognise where power lies’ approach. He had seemingly agreed to join the SDP (he handled my national publicity when I was elected as a Liberal Councillor in Lambeth) but in the end decided to stay with Labour and implement the ‘power-realism’ approach. On the night of my election, at a party in Albert Square, out came his now famous Black Book and he almost ‘instructed’ editors and journalists to write up the story ‘along the lines suggested’. Mandelson was very effective indeed. He appeared to know every journalist, editor, and media owner in the UK (and their foibles), and could apparently make or break careers.

This approach formed part of the idea that if Labour didn’t get cosy with the media bosses, and big business and finance behind them, they would never enjoy power again.

Not all Labour moderates agreed, but Mandelson and colleagues had a logical ace up their sleeve. If Labour were out of power permanently, they couldn’t do anything for the poor or “working people”. Being close the big business meant that they could at least do something, and something is better than nothing.