spqr
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Post by spqr on Mar 8, 2021 2:24:50 GMT
"The Strange Re-birth of Liberal England" was by David Walter. Stuart Mole wrote a book with David Steel. Is Tony Greaves still a secondhand book dealer? If so he's probably got copies of both of them. I don't. There was also a book by Ian Bradley called "The strange re-birth of Liberal Britain" which I still have on my shelves. Ian Bradley was / is a Church of Scotland minister who has written a whole range of books, on Victorian history, Celtic spirituality, hymns, one of the early " as it was happening" histories of the SDP. He wrote a good book on evangelicalism in Victorian Britain, which I think was based on his Ph.D. thesis That book was called Breaking the Mould? (highly original!). As it was written in the same year that the SDP was founded, it's quite useful for finding out about the roles played by several minor but influential characters who have since been mostly left out of the narrative. The more famous book on the party by Crewe and King, although much longer, focuses retrospectively on the Gang of Four and the 20-odd defecting MPs rather than these people. Bradley was a political correspondent for the Times in the early 1980s, so the book was based on many of the articles he wrote then. I didn't know anything about his subsequent career though, which sounds fascinating. |
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Post by johnloony on Mar 12, 2021 0:46:12 GMT
Arthur Horner (1894-1968)
President of the South Wales Miners Federation
General Secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers
Communist candidate in Rhondda East, 1929, 1931 and 1933 (by-election) in which he got 15%, 32% and 34% of the votes (respectively).
He was replaced as CPGB candidate by Harry Pollitt (the General Secretary of the CPGB) in the 1935 and 1945 general elections.
Pollitt got 45% of the votes in 1945 and was defeated by a margin of only 972 votes; if Horner had been kept as candidate, he would have got more support from the local miners and would probably have won the seat - and the CPGB would have got 3 MPs instead of 2.
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Post by greenhert on Dec 16, 2021 20:12:16 GMT
Fred Barton. He was an Independent Labour Party candidate in Newcastle upon Tyne Central in 1950, and Ormskirk in 1951, and later joined the official Labour Party. He was selected as Labour candidate for Liverpool Kirkdale a year before Labour won it in the 1964 general election, but Mr Barton died from kidney disease, aged only 46, 10 months before that election took place.
Also John Morrison-Hardie, who famously lost the Berwick upon Tweed by-election to Alan Beith by 57 votes; regarding the same seat Charles Baker-Cresswell failed to win it for the Conservatives by 73 votes in October 1974, and unusually when he contested the seat in 1979 the aforementioned Alan Beith managed a 7.9% swing in his favour.
Michael Cowan, who on Labour's behalf lost the 1977 Ashfield by-election to the Conservatives, although he was very unsuited to the constituency.
I could go on.
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
Posts: 15,774
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Post by john07 on Dec 22, 2021 23:42:06 GMT
Michael Cowan, who on Labour's behalf lost the 1977 Ashfield by-election to the Conservatives, although he was very unsuited to the constituency. I would have said that Cowan single-handedly lost the seat for Labour as he was a disastrous candidate. However the credit has to be shared with the previous MP, David Marquand, whose resignation to join Woy in Brussels triggered the by-election. On the same night, Austin Mitchell held the far more marginal Great Grimsby by-election, seemingly against the odds. Ashfield was one of the various self-inflicted by-election losses suffered by the Wilson/Callaghan administration of the mid to late 1970s. The incompetance to send Fred Peart to the Lords in 1976 only to lose the subsequent by-election. |
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neilm
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Post by neilm on Dec 23, 2021 22:01:14 GMT
Why did Peart get booted upstairs? There must have been Labour peers suitable for HoL Leader rather than risk a by election.
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Post by Davıd Boothroyd on Dec 23, 2021 22:16:38 GMT
Why did Peart get booted upstairs? There must have been Labour peers suitable for HoL Leader rather than risk a by election. On the day of the reshuffle Tony Benn commented for his diary about Peart's continuing in a Cabinet post "How he survives, I do not know". |
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Post by finsobruce on Dec 23, 2021 22:43:17 GMT
Why did Peart get booted upstairs? There must have been Labour peers suitable for HoL Leader rather than risk a by election. As a train based aside, in the previous year he had been involved the Nuneaton train crash. |
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The Bishop
Labour
Down With Factionalism!
Posts: 38,889
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Post by The Bishop on Dec 28, 2021 11:52:14 GMT
Michael Cowan, who on Labour's behalf lost the 1977 Ashfield by-election to the Conservatives, although he was very unsuited to the constituency. I could go on. Became a Labour councillor in Nottingham later, before defecting to the Tories in the Blair years. He died in 2008. |
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neilm
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Post by neilm on Jan 3, 2022 15:21:12 GMT
Apropos of nothing, but thinking of Ashfield, I found out a few months ago that David Marquand joined Plaid about five years back. I assume he left Labour without rancour.
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Post by mattbewilson on Jan 3, 2022 16:11:58 GMT
Some people from the Conservative A List of candidates who probably assumed they would be an MP at some point: James Bethel- now Health Minister as Lord Bethel Dr David Bull - television doctor and former Brexit Party MEP Joanne Cash - infamously bad Westminster North candidate in 2010 Iain Dale - LBC host and author who contested Norfolk North in 2005 Wilfred Emmanuel Jones - The so-called "Black Farmer" who contested Chippenham in 2010 Jacqueline Foster - former MEP and now Baroness Foster David Gold - prominent candidate in Eltham in 2010 Annunziata Rees Mogg - former Brexit Party MEP Kulveer Ranger - Boris Johnson's former Transport Adviser when Mayor of London Adam Rickitt - former Coronation Street actor Caroline Righton - stood in St Austell & Newquay in 2010 and former TV Am presenter Iain Dale was almost selected to stand instead of Theresa Villiers but missed out on shortlisting. To this day he says he thinks its because in the shortlisting interview he was asked if there was any thing they should know before they consider his candidacy and he blurted out he was gay |
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Post by mattbewilson on Jan 3, 2022 16:18:15 GMT
I think ive said this before but prior to Kerry Pollard being selected in St Albans he went for selection in Luton North and lost out to Kelvin Hopkins. When he was selected in St Albans he was run close by Malcolm Macmillian who was a similar pedigree. Both county and district councillors. Both served as group leaders. I think Malcolm actually led the council in the early 90s. Malcolm had been mayor but the Lib Dems had actually voted against Kerry being mayor, so he missed out
In the selection they were both asked if they were unilateralists. Malcolm who was said no. Kerry who wasn't said he was and Kerry was selected.
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Post by finsobruce on Jan 3, 2022 16:39:49 GMT
I think ive said this before but prior to Kerry Pollard being selected in St Albans he went for selection in Luton North and lost out to Kelvin Hopkins. When he was selected in St Albans he was run close by Malcolm Macmillian who was a similar pedigree. Both county and district councillors. Both served as group leaders. I think Malcolm actually led the council in the early 90s. Malcolm had been mayor but the Lib Dems had actually voted against Kerry being mayor, so he missed out In the selection they were both asked if they were unilateralists. Malcolm who was said no. Kerry who wasn't said he was and Kerry was selected. You have told this one before, but it is a great story. |
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stb12
Top Poster
Posts: 8,367
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Post by stb12 on Jan 3, 2022 19:00:35 GMT
Jimmy Buchan celebrity fisherman achieved a big swing from the SNP to the Tories in Banff and Buchan after Alex Salmond stood down in 2010. Still a few thousand short or winning but the seat did of course end up being gained by the Tories just seven years later, probably due to Brexit
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neilm
Non-Aligned
Posts: 25,023
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Post by neilm on Jan 6, 2022 13:46:12 GMT
Some people from the Conservative A List of candidates who probably assumed they would be an MP at some point: James Bethel- now Health Minister as Lord Bethel Dr David Bull - television doctor and former Brexit Party MEP Joanne Cash - infamously bad Westminster North candidate in 2010 Iain Dale - LBC host and author who contested Norfolk North in 2005 Wilfred Emmanuel Jones - The so-called "Black Farmer" who contested Chippenham in 2010 Jacqueline Foster - former MEP and now Baroness Foster David Gold - prominent candidate in Eltham in 2010 Annunziata Rees Mogg - former Brexit Party MEP Kulveer Ranger - Boris Johnson's former Transport Adviser when Mayor of London Adam Rickitt - former Coronation Street actor Caroline Righton - stood in St Austell & Newquay in 2010 and former TV Am presenter Iain Dale was almost selected to stand instead of Theresa Villiers but missed out on shortlisting. To this day he says he thinks its because in the shortlisting interview he was asked if there was any thing they should know before they consider his candidacy and he blurted out he was gay I think its more that Dale is an out and out pillock. He's less pillocky now, but he was just utterly dripping with smugness and pseud-ness as well back then whereas now he's merely damp with them. I met him in 2004 and wasn't impressed. |
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Chris from Brum
Lib Dem
What I need is a strong drink and a peer group.
Posts: 9,729
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Post by Chris from Brum on Jan 6, 2022 21:10:06 GMT
Apropos of nothing, but thinking of Ashfield, I found out a few months ago that David Marquand joined Plaid about five years back. I assume he left Labour without rancour. I hadn't realised that he was Welsh, but it seems he was born in Cardiff. |
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Post by peterm on Jan 6, 2022 23:51:32 GMT
I believe his father was Hilary Marquand MP Cardiff East 1945 to 1950 and later Middlesbrough East until 1962.
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bsjmcr
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Post by bsjmcr on Jan 7, 2022 22:56:14 GMT
Jimmy Buchan celebrity fisherman achieved a big swing from the SNP to the Tories in Banff and Buchan after Alex Salmond stood down in 2010. Still a few thousand short or winning but the seat did of course end up being gained by the Tories just seven years later, probably due to Brexit Looks like sharing your surname with the constituency’s name doesn’t seem to pay any additional dividends (“Buchan for Buchan?”) - the Labour candidate in Dudley North was called Dudley and lost on a large swing. |
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Post by spirit on Jan 8, 2022 21:42:46 GMT
David Mercer lost Swansea West by 401 votes in 1979. He went on to umpire a Wimbledon men's single final and a career as a BBC and Eurosport commentator instead.
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Post by yellowperil on Jan 8, 2022 21:52:00 GMT
Jimmy Buchan celebrity fisherman achieved a big swing from the SNP to the Tories in Banff and Buchan after Alex Salmond stood down in 2010. Still a few thousand short or winning but the seat did of course end up being gained by the Tories just seven years later, probably due to Brexit Looks like sharing your surname with the constituency’s name doesn’t seem to pay any additional dividends (“Buchan for Buchan?”) - the Labour candidate in Dudley North was called Dudley and lost on a large swing. If Banff and Buchan works like most two name constituencies I know, any votes gained by Buchan in Buchan would have to been offset by the ones lost in Banff. |
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Post by No Offence Alan on Jan 9, 2022 17:08:29 GMT
Hugh Pym (BBC economics editor) contested Wiltshire North for the LDs in 2001.
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