I was myself very doubtful about the title Social Democrats in the early stages, but it seems to have caught on quite well, and in any event the momentum is now such that I do not think we could change it. ‘Labour’ obviously has historic advantages, but it may also have disadvantages for an appeal to the ‘soft’ Conservative vote, of which there is a good deal at the moment.78, fn7
A desire to appeal to Tory voters might also be thought to have influenced the choice of party colours; but in fact the logo was the brainchild of Mike Thomas – a marketing man before he entered Parliament – who was more interested in targeting the patriotic Labour vote. As early as 2 February Thomas proposed that they should follow the example of the West German SPD and simply use the three letters (in their English order) in red, white and blue (instead of black, red and yellow) and underlined in red. This, he suggested, would tap into an established and successful social democratic pedigree with positive associations with Willy Brandt and Helmut Schmidt:
The use of the red, white and blue would not have any ‘Empire Loyalist/Union Jack’ implications . . . but would touch on a national desire to pull Britain up by the bootstraps that people really do feel in the present economic mess.
It would also be cheap, quick and easy to do and avoid all the tedious arguments that might otherwise ensue about a symbol.80
This brilliantly simple solution was accepted with no recorded discussion, and the logo was designed in good time for the launch.
Meanwhile Ian Wrigglesworth found temporary offices in Queen Anne’s Gate, where the twenty-eight-year-old Alec McGivan was installed as national agent. One of his first tasks was to prepare a breakdown of the thousands of letters pouring in, ensure that they all received a reply from the Gang of Four inviting them to join the new party and enter their names on a central register: to much mockery from the old parties the SDP set out to be the first computerised party, with subscriptions paid by credit card. There was a lot of discussion at the early meetings of the steering committee over the level at which to fix the subscription, balancing the need for money with the wish to maximise membership and appear open to all: the decision was eventually made to ‘suggest’ a £9 subscription but allow members to pay as much or as little as they could afford. Thomas was given charge of arranging the launch and brought in advertising agencies and professional event organisers to give it as much impact as possible.
Jenkins played relatively little part in these details, though he chaired the steering committee in the four weeks up to the launch. He concentrated on his policy brief. First he drew up a seven-point statement of aims, based on his well-trailed ideas, to which Shirley Williams added some more down-to-earth matters like training, social services and education in which he never took much interest, as well as a commitment to gender and race equality: this eventually became ‘Twelve Tasks for Social Democrats’ in time for the launch.81 More importantly, he made several major speeches designed both to flesh out the party’s alternative to Thatcherism and Bennery and assert his claim as leader presumptive.fn8 First, at the Institute of Fiscal Studies on 23 February he delivered – with the authority of a former Chancellor widely regarded as the most successful since the war – a comprehensive demolition of Mrs Thatcher’s monetarist experiment, which was threatening to destroy Britain’s industrial base, comparing his own record on jobs, inflation and growth between 1967 and 1970 with Geoffrey Howe’s since 1979. Control of the money supply was important, he conceded; but it was only one ‘crude and flickering’ indicator among many, and trying to fly a modern economy on one instrument was ‘like trying to fly a Jumbo Jet on a small car’s speedometer’. The result of the government’s blinkered policy was that on present trends Britain would fall behind South Korea in five years and ‘soon cease to qualify as a major industrial country’:
I simply do not understand the attitude of those who believe that behind the façade of falling production and mounting unemployment something triumphant is occurring. There are certain fields in which, according to one’s beliefs, a purification of the spirit may be achieved through mortification of the flesh. The management of economic policy is not one of them. It is essentially a material process, using material means to attain material ends. Its success is to be judged by wealth creating results and not by moral purpose or virility tests.
What was his answer? Salvation lay in the windfall of North Sea oil. ‘The central issue is how we deal with the years of oil abundance in order to leave ourselves in the best possible position to live without the oil in the future.’ It was clear what a wise government should do:
It is essential that we use a large part of the oil revenue for productive public sector investment: railway electrification, public transport generally, the expansion of British Telecom, energy saving and insulation work, the development of renewable resources, the renewal of outdated water and sewerage systems.
‘In spite of the traditional objections to the hypothecation of revenue,’ he suggested, ‘a special North Sea Oil revenue Investment Fund may be the right way to proceed here.’
To contain inflation he tentatively proposed Professor James Meade’s idea for ‘an employment-oriented Pay Commission’, some way short of a full-blown statutory pay policy. (Meade was one of the 100 supporters listed in the Guardian.) ‘I do not pretend to a complete answer,’ Jenkins concluded modestly, ‘but I think this offers the right direction.’ No economic policy was ever perfect:
But the present mix is something very near to disaster. It will not destroy inflation, although at a great price it may modify it. It will permanently damage a large part of our economy and it will make the worst rather than the best use of the limited period when the oil is in flood.84
Then, at a public meeting at the Oxford Union on 9 March, he set out his historian’s vision of the opportunity to fundamentally reshape the landscape of politics:
Something approaching a geological movement is occurring. It is certainly the greatest period of flux in British politics for sixty years – since the break-up of the old Liberal Party of power and its replacement by the Labour Party of the Twenties.
More specifically he spelled out the new party’s modus operandi and its ambition, explicitly assuming alliance with the Liberals:
We look for a mass membership. We shall welcome the formation of local groups. We shall mount a major campaign of meetings. We shall be prepared to fight by-elections. But our sights will be essentially concentrated upon the next General Election – probably about 2½ years away . . . At the election, clearly working in close and friendly arrangement with the Liberals . . . our aim will be no less than complete victory: a majority in the House of Commons, a Social Democratic/Liberal Government of Britain. In the present state of public opinion . . . that is a perfectly feasible possibility.
The fallback position would be to hold the balance of power and force the introduction of proportional representation.fn9 But he saw no reason to be so modest. The response to the Limehouse Declaration encouraged him in his wider ambition to radically realign the centre left and draw a lot of talented new people into politics. ‘This we can do,’ he told his predominantly young audience. ‘It can happen in the next three years . . . I ask you to join us in this great venture.’86
The Gang of Four also did a lot of wooing of the press in these weeks. Jenkins’ engagement diary shows that he and David Owen lunched with the editor of the Daily Mail, David English, on 17 March and with Lord Hartwell, proprietor and editor-in-chief of the Telegraph, on 24 March; the same day he and Shirley Williams had three Guardian journalists for a drink at Kensington Park Gardens; he lunched with Fred Emery of The Times on 11 March and with Peter Jenkins of the Guardian at Brooks’s on the 25th; he also met Charles Douglas-Home and David Watt of The Times at Ann Fleming’s house on Sunday 22nd.fn10
Most crucially, perhaps, the whole Gang of Four were invited to lunch at Gray’s Inn Road on the 20th by Rupert Murdoch, who had just been allowed by a grateful Margaret Thatcher – g
rateful for the Sun’s support in 1979 – to buy The Times and Sunday Times in addition to the Sun and the News of the World. The occasion, unsurprisingly, was not a success. Hugo Young, who was there, recorded that Jenkins arrived last, rather grandly, looking ‘fat and sleek, and just like they say in the nasty newspapers’. He led off by summarising their critique of Thatcherism, which doubtless went down like a lead balloon. When Murdoch asked how they differed from Callaghan, Jenkins and Owen said they would be tougher on the unions and on public spending. But they differed among themselves when Owen and Shirley Williams insisted that they were not a centre party but still democratic socialists who wanted to introduce a wealth tax; Jenkins dissented, saying it would be too expensive to collect. After they had gone Murdoch characteristically declared them to be ‘all crap’, saying they had failed to answer his questions on policy, that only Owen had ‘delivered on toughness’ and they all clearly hated one another’s guts. Young thought this ‘quite wrong’. ‘Obviously they disagree,’ he noted, ‘but the main thing is their excitement at having got the show on the road so fast and so well.’88 Under William Rees-Mogg for the past fourteen years The Times had been strongly supportive of Jenkins’ positions on Europe and in the Labour party; and for a few months under Murdoch’s first editor, Harold Evans, it remained broadly sympathetic without actually endorsing the SDP. Within a year, however, Evans had gone and all Murdoch’s papers were thereafter staunchly supportive of Mrs Thatcher.89 Since the Guardian, despite the support of individual columnists, remained editorially faithful to Labour, no national newspaper ever positively endorsed the SDP – which rather belies the repeated allegation from both Labour and Conservative opponents that it was a party ‘of the media, by the media and for the media’.90
Nevertheless the launch on Thursday 26 March was an undoubted media event, brilliantly staged by Mike Thomas. The world’s press was summoned to the Connaught Rooms near Covent Garden at the early hour of 9 a.m. Five hundred journalists and television crews packed the hall and their reports and pictures dominated the news bulletins for the rest of the day (though Mrs Thatcher did her best to steal their thunder by making an announcement clearing the former head of MI5, Sir Roger Hollis, of suspicion of having been a Soviet spy). The four leaders sat on the platform with the red, white and blue letters SDP forming a frieze behind them: Jenkins at one end, Owen beside him, then Rodgers with Shirley Williams at the other end; and they spoke in the same order, each highlighting their own particular angle. Jenkins spoke with historical perspective about breaking the mould and bringing in those previously uncommitted or alienated from politics, and the signs that ‘we may succeed beyond our hopes’:
We offer not only a new party . . . but a new approach to politics; we want to get away from the politics of outdated dogmatism and class confrontation . . . to release the energies of the people who are fed up with the old slanging match.
He hoped for a realignment of the left-centre ‘without even a temporary weakening of the force of the anti-Conservative challenge’. Owen stressed the youthful, democratic character of the new party and its commitment to one-member-one-vote; Rodgers stressed his Liverpool working-class background and fidelity to traditional Labour values; while Shirley Williams recalled her education in the United States and her admiration for American classlessness. They answered questions, in the course of which Rodgers, off the cuff, stated that in an electoral pact with the Liberals the SDP would expect to fight ‘about half’ the seats.91 The four then left separately to spread the word around the country. Jenkins took a train to Cardiff for a 1.15 press conference followed by TV interviews, then flew to Manchester for another press conference at 5 p.m., an interview on Granada TV and a speech in the evening (and went on to Liverpool the next morning). Owen followed a similar schedule in Southampton and Plymouth, Rodgers in Leeds and Newcastle, and Shirley Williams in Birmingham and Edinburgh. Meanwhile Alec McGivan had set up banks of phones manned by volunteers to take the calls that poured in from members of the public keen to join the party.
Within days they had 43,000 members and some £500,000 raised in contributions, while the first Gallup poll after the launch gave the SDP 36 per cent on its own or 48 per cent in putative alliance with the Liberals, eclipsing both the other parties.92 Labour and Tory opponents tried to mock both the media hype and the pioneering use of new technology, as if it was merely trendy and elitist. ‘It’s very convenient,’ a cartoon in the Guardian jeered. ‘You can join with a credit card and at the same time write everything they stand for on the back of it.’93 Roy Hattersley scorned the vision of ‘a Britain free for credit card holders’.94 The Tory party chairman, Lord Thorneycroft, tried a different tack to dismiss the SDP with a cheap dig at Jenkins: ‘I rather thought of joining myself. After all, it isn’t a party, it hasn’t a programme, and I’m told the claret is very good.’95, fn11 But privately both parties were more worried than they admitted, each fearing that the impact of the new party would benefit the other: Labour thought splitting the left could only help Mrs Thatcher, while Tories worried by the SDP’s appeal to ‘wet’ Tory voters feared it could open a way to Downing Street for Michael Foot. As a result, while they tried to dismiss the alarming phenomenon as an evanescent media bubble, there was a lot of intensive analysis of where exactly the SDP’s support was coming from and which of the old parties it might damage most.
The answer that eventually emerged vindicated Jenkins’ belief in a new constituency of uncommitted voters waiting to be tapped, rather than his three colleagues’ hope for a Mark II Labour party. Analysis of the membership in November, at the height of the party’s electoral success eight months after the launch, found that 72 per cent had never previously belonged to another party; only 15 per cent had been members of the Labour party and many of those had long been lapsed, 36 per cent had voted Labour in 1979, 35 per cent Liberal and 27 per cent Tory.96 The SDP was thus an awkward mix: a core of old pros who bore the scars and cynicism acquired in internecine battles in council chambers and smoked-filled committee rooms over decades, and a membership of so-called ‘political virgins’ who brought idealism, valuable skills and expertise from outside politics but little or no political experience. The former tended to retain the habits and assumptions of their old allegiance – not least a dim view of the Liberals – while the latter aspired to a more inclusive, ecumenical, but sometimes naive approach. In every new area party, as they were quickly formed up and down the country – the SDP deliberately created area units comprising several constituencies to try to prevent the domination by small unrepresentative cliques which had corrupted the Labour party – the same coming together of odd bedfellows was repeated. In the enthusiasm and excitement of the early months these differences could largely be ignored; but over the next few years, as the going got harder, tensions arising from this fundamental difference of outlook came to poison some of the early idealism.
In one respect the SDP mirrored other political parties: the most active tended to be more committed to their particular hobby-horses than the broader membership, which had a vaguer faith in the power of goodwill and moderation. But even among the activists the party’s instant historians detected three distinct but overlapping strands associated with the four leaders. First there was an old Labour strand represented by Bill Rodgers, which wanted essentially to re-create the party of Attlee and Gaitskell, purged of the new hard left. Then there was a new self-consciously young, modern, classless party – avowedly ‘radical’ but light on ideology – which David Owen aspired to create in his own image. Shirley Williams sat somewhere between these two, splicing feminist, internationalist and green concerns onto her old Labour roots. And then there was Jenkins’ unashamedly centrist vision, seeking to draw in public-spirited supporters from all parties and none, to transcend the sterile tribalism of the old politics and build a new consensus around his long-held fusion of liberal, moderately progressive, Atlanticist and pro-European views based firmly on alliance with the Liberals.
These different visions raised acutely the question of which of them was going to be the leader. For the moment they had no choice but to talk up the benefits of the collective leadership. These were real, both in sharing the load of creating a new party and in maximising the party’s appeal to different strands of potential support. There were also practical reasons for postponing a decision until the party had approved its constitution and drawn up rules for the election of a leader; and a strong case in fairness for postponing it while the two most popular of the four founders still lacked seats in Parliament. But it was clear that the four-headed leadership could not continue for ever. It made life difficult for those struggling to set up the party organisation, leading to duplication and unclear lines of command; and there were continuing tensions between them, with Rodgers (clearly, as he wryly entitled his memoirs, the ‘fourth among equals’) frequently having to act as mediator between the other three. Above all, the media wanted to focus on a single leader. At first Shirley Williams was widely assumed to be the favourite. She had much the biggest personal following among Labour voters – much less among Tories who blamed her for abolishing grammar schools when Education Secretary in 1976–9 (though she actually closed fewer than Mrs Thatcher had in 1970–74). She also seemed more likely than Jenkins to be able to fight an early by-election to return to the House of Commons. She was certainly not unambitious: Bill Rodgers, who had known her since Oxford, thought her ‘the most ambitious person he knows in politics’.97 Nevertheless those who worked with her found her indecisive and maddeningly disorganised – not good qualities in a leader. She also lacked self-confidence to push herself forward, due largely to problems in her private life. Around this time an anagram of her name began to circulate around Queen Anne’s Gate (‘I whirl aimlessly’), which years later she admitted was ‘both wounding and clever’.98 She attributed it to ‘Roy’s acolytes’ – specifically Matthew Oakeshott, who she felt set out deliberately to undermine her, which sowed new seeds of resentment towards Jenkins and drove her temporarily towards David Owen.
Roy Jenkins Page 75
