In 1958 a group of us interested in Labour politics invited the MP Roy Jenkins to dinner. We asked him who would be in the next Labour cabinet. We all assumed, as the polls indicated after the Suez disaster, that Labour was bound to win the coming 1959 election.
“What Labour government?” was Jenkins’ reply. Harold Macmillan, the new Conservative prime minister, was beginning to assert his authority (in fact he was about to become “SuperMac”). A boom was on the way. Labour was deeply divided between Bevanites and Gaitskellites over nuclear disarmament and nationalisation. Jenkins thought Labour would lose.
At the 1959 general election the Conservative majority was 100. The general view was that there would never be a Labour government again. Jenkins, one of whose numerous gifts was a strong sense of history, then wrote an article arguing that, while the outlook for Labour was not good, its recovery could not be ruled out. We should remember what happened to the Conservatives after the Boer war: in 1902, there was not a cloud on the horizon for Lord Salisbury’s government; the Liberal opposition deeply divided over the war. Four years later, the biggest anti-Conservative landslide in history.
Of course, circumstances in 1959 were very different from today’s. Labour’s leader Hugh Gaitskell, despite losing, fought a campaign that enhanced his stature. Gaitskellites, organised by Bill Rodgers (one of our group), succeeded in reversing Labour’s commitment to unilateral nuclear disarmament. And after Gaitskell’s sudden death in 1963, Harold Wilson proved a brilliant opposition leader. Labour duly became the government in 1964.
Today, Corbynistas control Labour’s levers of power, and if the new leader is from the same wing of the party its recovery looks highly improbable. Again, after Michael Foot’s disastrous election of 1983, firm leadership by Neil Kinnock made the party once again electable. But Militant Tendency, which flourished in Foot’s days and was defeated by Kinnock, was never as strongly entrenched in the party as the Corbynistas are today. And no leader who might repeat Kinnock’s success seems likely to emerge as Corbyn’s successor.
However, the Conservatives also face formidable obstacles. Most experts expect the free trade negotiations to be difficult and prolonged, and believe Brexit will be far from “done” by the end of 2020. If forecasts that Brexit – whether based on Johnson’s deal or worse, no deal – will seriously damage manufacturing and service companies prove correct, if there is a recession, or if the United Kingdom breaks up, present Conservative euphoria and Johnson’s honeymoon may prove short-lived. I am not making forecasts, since the future remains as uncertain as ever. But those who are now ringing their bells may well end up by wringing their hands.
• Dick Taverne is a Liberal Democrat peer
