What If... Callaghan Quit Right Away?

As the results flowed in from the May 1979 general election, it was clear that Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Party had beaten James Callaghan and his exhausted Labour government. Shortly after Mrs Thatcher appeared on the steps of No. 10 'quoting' St Francis of Assisi, Callaghan announced his resignation as leader of the Labour party, saying that a new leader was needed "to carry the fight into the 1980s." There had been rumours that he planned to hang onto the job, but in the face of the largest swing since 1945 it is hard to see how he could have carried on.

His resignation also had the benefit of catching the far-left elements within his party on the hop. They had been planning to use the conference in autumn 1979 to denounce the parliamentary party and push their ideas of greater internal democracy and a more radical socialist agenda. Instead, the conference was to mark the coronation of a new leader. And there was little doubt as to who this new leader would be. Denis Healey, the Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1974-1979, was Labour's biggest personality, a centrist very popular with the public. Against him, Peter Shore didn't stand a chance amongst MPs, getting 115 votes to Healey's 150. Left wingers were furious.

In his first address as leader, Healey made an impassioned plea for his party to unite to "face the real evil of Thatcher's 'sado-monetarism'." By keeping Michael Foot as his deputy, and promoting Shore to a senior Shadow Cabinet post, Healey proved that he was willing to give the left a role in the party.

But for many, especially left wing activists, this wasn't enough. With their figurehead of Tony Benn, they began to plot their next move. When they failed to get their hard left policies adopted by the party, many of them broke away and formed a new party, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) led by Benn. On Labour's other wing, the veteran Roy Jenkins moved to the Liberals. It seemed as if Labour was finished.

But not quite. Luckily for Healey, the majority of his party heeded the call of the Shadow Chancellor, David Owen, for Labour moderates to stay faithful. Shirley Williams led the attack on the SDP, warning it had no soul and no established principles. Crucially, Healey's assertion that, when offered extreme socialism, the public wouldn't want it, was proved to be right. Even as left-wingers rejoiced, the SDP failed to harm Labour in by-elections or the opinion polls. The departure of so many on the radical left also saved Healey the potentially painful fight to expel them.

As Mrs Thatcher's economic policies plunged the country into the abyss and her popularity plummeted, Healey went from strength to strength, riding high in the opinion polls and taking Crosby and Glasgow Hillhead from the Tories at by-elections. Not even the Falklands War could rescue Thatcher; a by-election in rock solid Tory Beaconsfield saw Labour's Tony Blair propelled into office even as the fighting raged. Despite retaking the islands, by 1983 the Conservatives had very little positive to show for their time in office. The election in that year saw Thatcher's majority cut to one; only a feeble economic recovery and the 2.5% taken by the SDP prevented Healey from winning. For the SDP the election was a disaster, with only 4 MPs surviving, and Michael Foot blasting their manifesto as "The longest suicide note in history." Benn lost his Bristol seat to the official Labour candidate, and his party slid into irrelevance.

Another election was clearly on the cards, and it was triggered by the attempt of Mrs Thatcher to silence her critic Ken Livingstone, the leader of the Greater London Council. The Bill to abolish the body was defeated in the Commons when some Tory MPs, including her arch-rival Michael Heseltine, voted against her, thus triggering a general election. In the ensuing election, Labour took 348 seats to Thatcher's 262, giving them an overall majority of 46. The SDP was wiped out, and suffered the fate of most far-left groups when it collapsed six months later.

Healey's 'new' Labour approach, which accepted the role of the free market but attempted to tame and direct it into helping the disadvantaged, proved very popular with a nation reeling from six years of Thatcherism. Economic growth slowly returned as the economy was rebalanced, while the plans for wide scale privatisation were shelved. In foreign policy, Healey was able to take much of the credit in helping to thaw the Cold War, which under Thatcher had veered at times towards nuclear war. However, the special relationship with the USA did not survive the gulf between Healey and President Reagan, so instead Britain turned to the EEC as its main ally.

After two years at the helm as PM, Healey retired on his 70th birthday, with Labour electing Shirley Williams as leader and therefore second ever female Prime Minister. Together they are remembered for the golden years of Labour rule until Ken Clarke brought the Tories back to power in 1999, albeit by promising never to return the country to its dark, free market days.

P.S. Healey Cabinet, 1985

Prime Minister- Denis Healey

Chancellor of the Exchequer- David Owen

Foreign Secretary- Shirley Williams

Home Secretary- Peter Shore

Defence Secretary- Bill Rodgers

Education Secretary- Neil Kinnock

Health and Social Security Secretary- John Smith

Trade and Industry Secretary- Roy Hattersley

Environment Secretary- Edmund Dell

Transport Secretary- Albert Booth

Employment Secretary- Gerald Kaufman

Energy Secretary- John Cartwright

Scottish Secretary- Robert Maclennan

Welsh Secretary- Ann Clwyd

Northern Irish Secretary- Tom Pendry

Leader of the House of Commons- Stan Orme

Leader of the House of Lords- Lord Cledwyn Hughes

Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food- George Robertson

Complaining Customer

I went to the sports centre on Thursday night to play badminton and short tennis with Network, and apparently managed to enrage the woman on the next court. her complaining was priceless:

Woman- "Excuse me, but I'm going to have to ask you to stop playing short tennis on that court, you're disrupting us and it frankly isn't safe."

Me- "Oh I'm really sorry, we'll be more careful with our serves in future, would it help if we swapped sides?"

Woman- "No, I'd prefer it if you stopped completely. That ball you're using is unsafe."

Me- "Well, it is safe really, it is a soft ball..."

Woman- "Look, if you're going to be like that, I shall have to complain to the centre manager."

Me- "I've actually already spoken to him, he told us it was OK to use it."

Woman- "Oh dear, well that is disappointing... I think that's a bad reflection on the staff, don't you?"

Me (in a moment of brilliance)- "I AM a member of staff at this centre."

Woman- "Well... I... Can you just stop playing?"

I finally agreed to do so, but when I went back to play badminton instead, it turned out the whole thing was so her children could play on my court for free... That didn't go down well...

Finally...

Finally, an intelligent response to the movement of history towards an "Our Island Story", boy's own-esque version of the subject:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/26/history-compulsory-right-reasons

It's just a pity there's no decent suggestion of what to replace it with... Any ideas?

What If... Ramsay MacDonald Refused to Serve?

The setting is January 1924. King George V has just sent a messenger to the Labour Party, asking them if they will form the next government, following the inconclusive election of December 1923. For the first time ever, a socialist party in Britain has come within sight of power. Yet at the last possible second, Labour blinked. Senior figures within the party couldn't agree on whether or not to take power, or if they did whether or not to try and implement a radical socialist agenda. MacDonald, unwilling to commit political suicide by leading a weak minority government, declined.

While it hardly seemed it at the time, this decision put an end to the meteoric rise of Labour as the new force in British politics. For it allowed the return of veteran Liberal Herbert Asquith to the premiership, and although his government only lasted 10 months, the symbolism was clear. The Liberals were the only real alternative to the Conservatives, and Labour didn't have the stomach for office. In the October 1924 election, Labour were pushed into third place, with the Liberals gaining seats and votes despite losing overall.

By relegating Labour to third place, the Liberal party was saved when many thought it had teetered on the brink of collapse. Instead it went on to boast many of the great political men of the twentieth century. The landslides of Archibald Sinclair and Jo Grimmond in 1945, 1950 and 1955 ushered in the public health insurance and decent welfare programme which remains the envy of the world, while Harold Wilson in the 1960s presided over a series of groundbreaking social reforms. However, his inability to tame the trade unions would cost him the premiership in 1969. Perhaps the most fondly remembered Liberal PM of them all, Michael Foot, was one of the greatest orators of his generation, while his successor David Steel was the youngest Prime Minister of the century. Paddy Ashdown and Anthony Blair in the 1990s and 2000s kept Britain on a staunchly pro-European foreign policy line, most notably by bringing in the Euro and distancing the UK from the United States.

But it wasn't just Prime Ministers the Liberal Party threw up. Other great men were Anthony Benn, Chancellor in the 1970s and pioneer of the co-operatives which dominate British industry, while David Owen will be remembered as one of the more colourful Health Secretaries in recent times. Shirley Williams is also held dear in the public mind, although her leadership of the party in the early 1980s was not its most successful phase. And the appearance of the Chancellor Charles Kennedy on Have I Got News For You as guest host meant that the criticisms over his Budgets never really stuck. However it produced its fair share of bores too; Paddy Ashdown drifting off during the 1991 conference speech by his Welfare Secretary John Major is the stuff of political comedy.

The survival of the Liberal Party also had a profound impact on the Conservatives. Headed as they were by an ex-Liberal in Winston Churchill, the party stuck to a broadly liberal agenda in order not to frighten voters, with leaders such as Rab Butler, Iain Macleod and Reginald Maudling being from the left of the party. At times the free market wing of the party did try and take over, such as when Enoch Powell ran to be leader in 1970 following the death of Macleod, only losing narrowly. However, the Powellites were never all powerful, and in 1983 the victorious Prime Minister Francis Pym dealt with their new figurehead, his firebrand Industry Secretary Margaret Thatcher, sacking her from Cabinet. Not until her protege William Hague became leader in 2004 would the Conservatives veer to the right again.

As for Labour, it entered a long period on the fringes of British politics, providing a useful home for those who were too socialist for the Liberals, or those who had risen from the very bottom of British society into politics. From time to time they managed to have some influence, such as during the Wartime Coalition, or when Denis Healey helped to prop up the minority government of David Steel in the mid 1970s. However, the 1980s and 1990s saw the party undergo a mini-revival, with Jack Straw, David Davis and then David Miliband increasing the number of MPs on a radical democratic socialist agenda. Under Miliband, the party came to play a central role in politics following the defeat of Hague's government in the 2011 election, when he became Deputy Prime Minister to Prime Minister Nick Clegg in the Lib-Lab pact. However, Clegg has made it clear some Labour measures are beyond the pale; "There can be no question of nationalising the hospitals, people are happy with the Health Assistance Service as it is" he maintained.

P.S. Prime Ministers, 1924-2011

1924- Herbert Asquith (Lib)

1924-1929- Stanley Baldwin (Con)

1929-1931- David Lloyd George (Lib)

1931-1935- David Lloyd George (Nat Lib)

1935-1938- Stanley Baldwin (Nat Con)

1938-1940- Neville Chamberlain (Nat Con)

1940-1945- Winston Churchill (Coal Con)

1945-1952- Archibald Sinclair (Lib)

1952-1959- Jo Grimond (Lib)

1959-1964- Rab Butler (Con)

1964-1969- Harold Wilson (Lib)

1969-1970- Iain Macleod (Con)

1970-1973- Reginald Maudling (Con)

1973-1976- Michael Foot (Lib)

1976-1978- David Steel (Lib, with Lab support)

1978-1985- Francis Pym (Con)

1985-1991- Michael Heseltine (Con)

1991-1999- Paddy Ashdown (Lib)

1999-2007- Anthony Blair (Lib)

2007-2011- William Hague (Con)

2011- Nick Clegg (Lib-Lab Coal)

P.P.S. Labour Leaders, 1924-2011

1924-1929- Ramsay MacDonald

1929-1935- Arthur Henderson

1935-1946- Clement Attlee

1946-1955- Herbert Morrison

1955-1963- Hugh Gaitskell

1963-1969- George Brown

1969-1978- Denis Healey

1978-1984- Stan Orme

1984-1991- Neil Kinnock

1991-1999- Jack Straw

1999-2008- David Davis

2008-2011- David Miliband

GP's Receptionists

A genuine exchange over the phone between me and my GP's surgery:

Operator: Can you confirm your name, date of birth and first line of your address please?

Me: Details here...

O: Ok Mr Murphy, what can we do for you?

M: Can I have an appointment with Dr Heatley please?

O: Oh, dear, um, you're only down as a temporary resident on the screen, you'll need to come in and fill out a form so we can put you back on the screen.

M: Um... ok... didn't you say I was on the screen?

O: Yes, but you're not there as well.

I appear to be suffering an existential crisis...