Michael Foot
March 3, 2010 by David Torrance · 1 Comment
So farewell then, Michael Foot, who died today aged 96. There’s a fine obituary already on the Daily Telegraph’s website, with undoubtedly more to follow tomorrow, but his death has reminded me of perhaps his finest House of Commons performance, his winding up speech on a motion of no-confidence in James Callaghan’s government on 28 March 1979. In this he combined wounding humour with a solid analysis of where British politics was at.
A motion prompted by the SNP’s unhappiness and Sunny Jim’s inability to deliver devolution to Scotland, Foot said that no matter how misguided Donald Stewart, the SNP’s Westminster leader, ‘may be if he adheres to his apparent resolution to vote in the Lobby with those who are most bitterly opposed to the establishment of a Scottish Assembly, hon. Members who heard his speech must acknowledge the remarkable allegiance that the right hon. Gentleman commands from his followers. It is one of the wonders of the world. There has bean nothing quite like it since the armies of ancient Rome used to march into battle. It is only now that we see the right hon. Gentleman in his full imperial guise. Hail Emperor, those about to die salute you.’ As Callaghan remarked in his own contribution to the debate, the SNP Members were like turkeys voting for an early Christmas.
Foot then turned, most memorably, to David Steel, the youthful leader of the Liberals, who also proposed to vote with the Conservatives and against the Labour government. ‘What the right hon. Lady has done today is to lead her troops into battle snugly concealed behind a Scottish nationalist shield, with the boy David holding her hand.’ Steel, he added, had ’passed from rising hope to elder statesman without any intervening period whatsoever’.
The always-eloquent Foot had good Scottish credentials. His mother was the daughter of a Scottish doctor named Mackintosh – Foot always stressed this as his middle name on visits to Scotland – while his brother, the improbably named Dingle Foot, was the Liberal MP for Dundee between 1931-45. Last, but by no means least, Foot, as Lord President of the Council in the ill-fated Labour governments of the late 1970s, was in charge of the equally ill-fated devolution legislation for Scotland and Wales. With his keen sense of history, Foot feared that by not devolving power to the Celtic fringe then the UK government risked repeating its mistakes in Ireland a century before.
The Red Duchess
March 2, 2010 by David Torrance · Leave a Comment
An interesting, if rather brief, documentary by the former political reporter Elizabeth Quigley on BBC Scotland this evening. Called The Duchess and the Fuhrer, it tells the much neglected story of the Duchess of Atholl, the Unionist (or Tory) MP for Kinross and West Perthshire in the 1920s and ’30s, who instigated a by-election on appeasement in 1938 and lost, mainly due to bad political timing. Liz Quigley also wrote an accompanying article for the Sunday Times on the programme. It’s well worth a watch.
Thatcher/Scotland
February 14, 2010 by David Torrance · Leave a Comment
I’ve been looking through the recent release of Margaret Thatcher’s private political papers from 1979 and distilled the following relating to Scotland:
FULSOME press coverage, enthusiastic crowds and increased political support – that is how Scotland must have appeared to Margaret Thatcher as she negotiated her first year as Prime Minister 30 years ago. But newly released private papers also reveal signs that the honeymoon would not last long.
Although the Conservatives had gained six new Scottish MPs and increased their share of the vote to more than 30 per cent, Scotland’s economy was on the verge of a deep recession and the political battle lines over the constitution, industry and what became known as “Thatcherism” were already being drawn.
Among the papers – hundreds of which have been made public by Cambridge University’s Churchill Archives Centre – is a wistful letter from Teddy Taylor, who would have become Mrs Thatcher’s first Scottish Secretary had he not lost his Cathcart constituency to Labour at the 1979 general election.
Offering “a few thoughts on the Scottish scene and the election result”, Taylor expresses disappointment that the Conservatives made no impact on the Labour vote in west and central Scotland. “The Labour Party ran a furious campaign to imply that there would be a jobs collapse if the Conservatives were to be elected and cut off aid”, he wrote, “and there was also the implication that we didn’t care about Scotland We tried to counter it…But we didn’t succeed.”
Taylor then warned the Prime Minister that this “basic problem could be the beginning of a Labour campaign in opposition”, particularly against the closure of Clyde shipyards, which would soon run out of work. Taylor wrote that without an appropriate gesture, “Labour could run a simple campaign on the basis that Labour kept the shipyards open and the Conservatives closed them down!”
Taylor – who returned to the House of Commons as the MP for Southend East in 1980 – also expresses reservations about the government’s plans to sell off council houses. “If we are going to change the face of Scottish housing,” he wrote, “I think that it is vital that we sell some houses and flats in the more difficult areas. Otherwise they will become massive ghettoes.”
He concluded by telling Mrs Thatcher that he had decided not to attend the Scottish Tory conference in Perth the following week, fearing that he would be “a distraction and minor embarrassment”, with the media focussing on “the human interest aspect of the ‘sad man’ when all attention should be paid to the optimism and hope of a new Prime Minister and a new team.”
Preparations for the 1979 Scottish Conservative conference, at which Mrs Thatcher made her first public speech as Prime Minister, also feature in the declassified papers. Enthusiastic Tories mobbed her at the Station Hotel in Perth, while one young activist even presented her with a “blue Tory rabbit” to celebrate the election victory.
But one spectator was less than amused. Mrs Rachel Drew wrote to complain that Mrs Thatcher “could have spared a moment to pause and give a wave of the hand in greeting to the patient people – it would have been greatly appreciated. As an Englishwoman living in Scotland I sense the atmosphere at times and this greeting would have been welcome.”
Generally, however, the new Prime Minister’s reception in Scotland was favourable. Sending copies of uniformly positive press coverage following the conference visit, a Downing Street aide attached a note which read: “You will notice that for once, at least, the Glasgow Herald coverage is fulsome.”
The Prime Minister’s next visit to Scotland was scheduled for 11 July, although advisers feared that this might be “an unfortunate time to be seeking to turn public attention to Scotland” as the repeal of the Scotland Act – which would have established a devolved Scottish Assembly – was also scheduled to take place in the House of Commons that day.
In the event, the repeal debate took place two weeks earlier and the Scottish visit went ahead as planned, although a proposed tour of St Andrew’s House – the Edinburgh HQ of the Scottish Office – also proved politically sensitive. While Mrs Thatcher would meet union representatives, she was advised to “avoid a separate special meeting with union representatives: there are still difficulties in the Scottish Office in the aftermath of the Civil Service industrial action earlier in the year.”
Finally, it fell to Mrs Thatcher to appoint a new chairman of the Scottish Development Agency (SDA, later Scottish Enterprise); an interventionist government body many Scottish Tory MPs wanted to abolish altogether. Lewis Robertson, the serving chief executive, was considered too close to “the old SDA which the Party disliked”, so the Prime Minister opted for Robin Duthie, the chairman of tent supplier Black and Edgington, whose “commercial experience” was considered “essential”.
This was probably an appointment Mrs Thatcher came to regret. Two years later, Duthie likened her government’s monetarist economic policy to a “blunt instrument”.
Indications that Scotland was not warming to Mrs Thatcher came in November 1979 when the Conservative Research Department sent the prime minister a summary of opinion polling since the election. While this was good across much of the country, a party official warned that “support for the Conservatives in Scotland is continuing to drop, whilst support for Labour is increasing at the expense of both the Conservatives and SNP”.
The Margaret Thatcher Foundation and Churchill Archives Centre intend to digitise all of the former Prime Minister’s official and private files, many of which can already be viewed at www.margaretthatcher.org.
ENDS
Jim Murphy as Scottish Secretary
January 29, 2010 by David Torrance · Leave a Comment
I was on Newsnight Scotland last night, talking about Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy and how he compares with other, post-devolution, Scottish Secretaries.
From the archives…
December 30, 2009 by David Torrance · Leave a Comment
Some interesting coverage in today’s newspapers of what has been released under the 30-year rule at the National Archives in Kew. Not much, however, on Scotland, although David Perry of the Aberdeen Press and Journal has obviously been through what must be one of the last Whitehall files on the Callaghan government’s plans for devolution in 1979.
History repeats itself?
December 26, 2009 by David Torrance · Leave a Comment
I have an article in today’s Times, detailing a hitherto unknown offer from the SNP to prop up Ted Heath’s faltering Conservative government following the inconclusive result of the February 1974 general election. In the context of next year’s general election, which could also produce a hung Parliament, might history be about to repeat itself?
Tories destroy Hampden
December 13, 2009 by David Torrance · Leave a Comment
Well, not quite, but yet another story to confirm everyone’s worst prejudices about Margaret Thatcher and Scotland – not only did she want to destroy the country, but the wicked woman wanted to bulldoze its national football stadium. Marc Horne of the Sunday Times (Scotland) has obviously been trawling through recently-declassified Scottish Office files at the National Archives and has come across a curious proposition from the former Shadow Scottish Secretary Teddy – now Sir Teddy – Taylor to demolish Hampden after Glasgow District Council withdrew funding for a planned revamp. Cue all the usual predictable nonsense about Thatcher and Scotland: “It says it all for the Tories’ attitude to Scotland that they seriously considering scrapping the national stadium,” says Alex Salmond, “just as they bulldozed jobs and industry during their 18 long years in power.” While Iain Emerson, editor of the Famous Tartan Army Magazine, said “It is well known that Thatcher had little love for Scotland”. Sir Teddy, however, is unrepentant and still thinks it “would have been terribly good to replace Hampden”.
Shereen
December 13, 2009 by David Torrance · Leave a Comment
I was on BBC Radio Scotland’s ‘Shereen’ programme this morning as a guest pundit. You can listen to it on BBC iPlayer for the next week:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00pbmsn/Shereen_13_12_2009/
Devolution debates
December 12, 2009 by David Torrance · Leave a Comment
Interesting stuff in yesterday’s papers about Justice Secretary Jack Straw vetoing the publication of Cabinet minutes of a debate on devolution just after the 1997 election victory. Straw was a well-known, and articulate, opponent of the constitutional reform agenda which was then Labour orthodoxy. You can read more in either the Scotsman or the Herald.
Lord Forsyth
December 7, 2009 by David Torrance · Leave a Comment
Another new onslaught from the former Scottish Secretary, Lord Forsyth, this time about the Calman Commission’s proposals on tax (”crazy”) and the prospects for an independence referendum (bring it on, in short). BBC News online has more details.