I know this WON'T happen, but it would be the decent thing...

[Ken Burch]

...If David Owen, Shirley Williams, William Rodgers and any other surviving members of the so-called "Social Democratic Party" were to apologize for ever forming their party, stabbing Labour in the pack after decades in which it was the only party that could possibly have been their political home, the only party that would ever have given them the chance to be Cabinet ministers, and thereby making it impossible to get Thatcher out of office until removing her no longer mattered.

They had no excuse for what they did...all that had happened was that the Labour party democratically chose to go further then they wanted it to go...and it's especially despicable in Shirley Williams case, since she was the daughter of a legend of the UK peace movement(Vera Brittain)who went on to give Thatcher and her mob additional years in power to harm the poor, the workers, and the children of the UK, just to save the Bomb(a device that was essentially useless for the UK to have after Gorbachev came to power and it was clear that the USSR was no longer trying to take over the world-if it ever really had been).

It's not as if anything positive came of letting Thatcher crush the unions, unless you're in the 1%. It's not as if the UK actually benefited from the social values of Harvey Nigel Baines becoming the consensus view of both the Tories AND New Labour(the demon spawn of the SDP).

And the barbaric cuts the EU is trying to force in the social wage of its members proves that the Labour Left was right to be wary of joining Europe.

And I hope that, at least privately, Dr. Owen, as a physician, feels some shame for giving Thatcher more time to chip away at the NHS just to make sure that the UK went on having a "robust&quot i.e., murderous)defence policy.

They won't...they STILL think they were right to cause the misery they caused...and, really, they STILL think they had the right to act as if they shouldn't ever have had to listen to the rank-and-file party workers that did all the work of keeping them in parliament...but it would be what grown-ups would do.

[LeftishBrit]

1. Even if they did, it wouldn't have much influence on current issues

It would have to be current LibDems repudiating Clegg and the Coalition. And this may happen, but by the time it does there may be practically no LibDems left.

It should be noted by the way that Owen (who is a cross-bencher, not a LibDem, in the House of Lords) certainly has many faults BUT he was very active in joining with Labour to fight the NHS 'reforms' by the present government.

[Ken Burch]

2. I know that Owen is a cross-bencher(independent) in the Lords

Last edited Sun Apr 14, 2013, 05:24 PM - Edit history (1)

Owen was NEVER a LibDem, btw...he opposed the Lib/SDP merger, then led his own rump SDP against the LibDems in 1987, then deserted even his own rump party to endorse the Tories in 1992.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

3. the Labour right had spent the 1970s undermining the unions

We shouldn't forget that the attack on trade unions began in 1976 under the Callaghan government. Trade union bosses had previously negotiated 'social contracts' with the Labour government where the unions would abide to wage restraint in return for public investment in industry and public services.

The Labour government decided to tear up previously-agreed wage claims and demanded that unions agree to less-than-inflation pay rises while the government cut back on public spending.

It's little wonder that the unions rebelled against the government while that Labour right-wing core would cheer on Thatcher as she used legal and extra-legal means to defeat the unions.

I doubt we'll hear little in the way of apology. The Lib Dems, Blairites, Brownites and liberal Keynesians like Will Hutton think Thatcher was right when it came to the trade unions. They think a Foot-Benn government would have been bad for Britain, thus the first and second Thatcher governments being supposed as an "evil, but necessary measure".

[Ken Burch]

4. Good points and good history, there.

Michael Foot almost became prime minister in 1976(he only lost very narrowly to Callaghan in the balloting of Labour M.P.'s, who still chose the party leader in those days).

I've often wondered if Foot could have pulled things together had he prevailed in that contest, rather than in 1981, before those same Labour rightists(including Roy Jenkins, who was already discussing the idea of a center party by 1978 or so) had had the chance to organize their Thatcher-enabling little cabal.

[LeftishBrit]

5. I believe that a lot of the original mess...

was in fact the result of the Labour government essentially selling itself and the country out to the IMF in 1976 in exchange for a loan. An all too familiar scenario today!

This helped to pave the way for Thatcherism. However, I still think that if Thatcher had never existed, and assuming that she not been replaced by someone similar, things would never have got anything like so extreme.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

6. agreed

The City and big finance managed to bluff Callaghan into the arms of the IMF where they had failed with Harold Wilson.

Callaghan just needed a couple of years before the Pound became a petrocurrency, thus solving balance-of-payments issues.