tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/michael-foot-13643/articlesMichael Foot – The Conversation2024-03-06T17:14:56Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2213582024-03-06T17:14:56Z2024-03-06T17:14:56ZHow the 1984 miners’ strike paved the way for devolution in Wales<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577265/original/file-20240222-24-1zfxh1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2000%2C1310&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Miners from different collieries gather in Port Talbot in April 1984.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/alandenney/2457055287">Alan Denney/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>March 2024 marks the 40th anniversary of the start of the <a href="https://www.history.ox.ac.uk/miners-strike-1984-5-oral-history">miners’ strike</a>. In Wales, particularly within the south Wales coalfield, it was more than an industrial dispute. This was a major political event that reflected deeper cultural and economic changes. </p>
<p>These changes, alongside discontent at the emphasis of the then-UK prime minister <a href="https://academic.oup.com/cje/article/44/2/319/5550923">Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government</a> on free market economics, <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk-strikes-how-margaret-thatcher-and-other-leaders-cut-trade-union-powers-over-centuries-186270">stifling trade unions</a> and reducing the size of the state shifted how many Labour heartlands viewed the idea of self-government for Wales. This was due to Thatcher’s actions hitting at the heart of many working-class Labour voters’ existence, leading to threats to livelihoods and communities. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/what-thatcher-did-for-wales/">Many started feeling</a> that some of the devastation wreaked by Thatcherism could have been avoided had there been a devolved Welsh government. That government would, in all likelihood, have been Labour controlled, acting as a “protective shield”.</p>
<p>Instead, by the time of the May 1979 general election (five years before the miners’ strike), Wales was a nation divided. Only weeks earlier, it had overwhelmingly <a href="https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/RP97-113/RP97-113.pdf">rejected</a> the Labour government’s proposal to create a Welsh Assembly, which would have given Wales a certain degree of autonomy from Westminster.</p>
<p>Many Labour MPs, such as Welshman Neil Kinnock, had vehemently opposed devolution and favoured a united British state. However, it was now this state, through a National Coal Board overseen by a Westminster Conservative government, that was aiming to further close Welsh coal mines. </p>
<p>The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) was both a political and workplace representative for miners and their communities. For a politician like Kinnock, balancing party and local interests was difficult. </p>
<p>Thatcher’s Conservative party won a large majority at the <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/globalassets/documents/commons-information-office/m09.pdf">1983 election</a> and the Ebbw Vale MP, Michael Foot, had been Labour leader during its defeat. His left-wing manifesto had been <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8550425.stm">dubbed</a> the “longest suicide note in history” by Gerald Kaufman, himself a Labour MP. It led to Foot’s resignation and the election of Kinnock as the leader of the opposition. </p>
<p>As a miners’ strike looked more likely, the national context made Labour party support for the strike problematic. Despite his political and personal ties to the NUM, Kinnock <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/509387">disagreed</a> with its leaders, such as Arthur Scargill, and their strategies for the strike. However, the Labour leader supported the right of the miners to defend their livelihood. </p>
<p>In a period of difficult deindustrialisation across nationalised industries, Labour was caught between unstoppable economic restructuring and job losses that affected its traditional voters.</p>
<h2>Thatcherism and Wales</h2>
<p>Gwyn A. Williams, a Marxist historian, <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/When_was_Wales/QUJ0QgAACAAJ?hl=en">described</a> Welsh people as “a naked people under an acid rain”. This acidity had two main ingredients: Thatcherism and the “no” vote for a Welsh Assembly in 1979. </p>
<p>According to this analysis, the absence of devolution in Wales had left it exposed to the vagaries of Conservative governance in Westminster. The dangers of this were illuminated during the miners’ strike and in high unemployment rates of <a href="https://www.gov.wales/digest-welsh-historical-statistics-0">nearly 14% in Wales</a> by the mid-1980s. </p>
<p>However, it would be a fallacy to argue that Wales was a no-go zone for the Conservatives, even after the strike. In the <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/globalassets/documents/commons-information-office/m11.pdf">1987 general election</a>, although their number of MPs dropped from the 1983 high of 14 to eight, they were still attracting 29.5% of the Welsh vote. </p>
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<img alt="Black and white photo of Margaret Thatcher with her hands raised in front of a union flag." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577951/original/file-20240226-24-onf851.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577951/original/file-20240226-24-onf851.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=843&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577951/original/file-20240226-24-onf851.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=843&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577951/original/file-20240226-24-onf851.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=843&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577951/original/file-20240226-24-onf851.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1059&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577951/original/file-20240226-24-onf851.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1059&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577951/original/file-20240226-24-onf851.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1059&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Was Margaret Thatcher one of the unwitting architects of Welsh devolution?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/levanrami/43795237465">Levan Ramishvili/Flickr</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It would take several more years of Conservative policies such as the poll tax, the tenure of John Redwood as secretary of state for Wales (1993-95) and the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13689889808413006">scandal-riven sagas</a> of the party during the 1990s for them to gain zero seats in Wales in 1997. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, the strike, and the febrile atmosphere of the period, had carved out a Welsh distinctiveness to anti-Conservative rhetoric. Several organisations and conferences during the 1980s laid the groundwork that shaped new questions about Welsh nationhood. They contributed to the swing towards a narrow “yes” vote in the 1997 Welsh devolution <a href="https://law.gov.wales/constitution-and-government/constitution-and-devolution/executive-devolution-1998-2007">referendum</a> offered by Tony Blair’s Labour government, which came to power in 1997.</p>
<p>In February 1985, Hywel Francis, a historian and later Labour MP for Aberafan, published an article in the magazine, <a href="https://banmarchive.org.uk/marxism-today/february-1985/mining-the-popular-front/">Marxism Today</a>, suggesting that the miners’ strike was not merely an industrial dispute but an anti-Thatcher resistance movement. </p>
<p>Central to his argument was the formation of the <a href="https://archives.library.wales/index.php/wales-congress-in-support-of-mining-communities">Wales Congress in Support of Mining Communities</a> the previous autumn, which formalised some of the “unexpected alliances” heralded by the strike. The Congress coordinated the demonstrations and activism of some of the diverse groups that both supported the miners and simultaneously resisted many of the policies of the Thatcher government. These included trade unionists, religious leaders, the women’s peace movement, gay rights campaigners, as well as Labour members and Welsh nationalist activists. According to Francis, the latter two realised that “unless they joined, the world would pass them by”.</p>
<p>The congress aimed to stimulate a coordinated debate about Welsh mining communities, moving the narrative away from picket-line conflict and towards a democratic vision of Wales’s future. </p>
<p>While the strike ended only a month after Francis’s article, and the organisation itself dissolved in 1986, the congress had bridged many chasms in Welsh society. It showed old enemies in Labour and Plaid Cymru that solidarity could reap more benefits than the overt tribalism that had blighted the devolution campaign of the 1970s. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A large modern building with a large roof that juts out." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578555/original/file-20240228-24-bi5coh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578555/original/file-20240228-24-bi5coh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578555/original/file-20240228-24-bi5coh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578555/original/file-20240228-24-bi5coh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578555/original/file-20240228-24-bi5coh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578555/original/file-20240228-24-bi5coh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578555/original/file-20240228-24-bi5coh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Senedd in Cardiff.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/cardiff-wales-united-kingdom-06-17-2335002765">meunierd/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<h2>Legacy</h2>
<p>In 1988, the campaign for a Welsh Assembly was <a href="https://academic.oup.com/manchester-scholarship-online/book/29790/chapter-abstract/251892249?redirectedFrom=fulltext">established</a> in Cardiff by Siân Caiach of Plaid Cymru and Jon Owen Jones of Labour. It was a direct descendant of this collaborative ethos, feeding an altogether more mature debate around Welsh devolution than had been seen in the 1970s. </p>
<p>For example, Ron Davies, an arch-devolutionist in 1990s Labour, <a href="https://www.iwa.wales/wp-content/media/2016/03/acceleratinghistory.pdf">had voted “no”</a> in 1979. This was predominantly because he saw devolution as a Trojan horse for Plaid. </p>
<p>However, seeing the consequences of the miners’ strike and Thatcherism on his constituency of Caerffili drove him towards a drastic re-evaluation of devolution as being a protective buffer for the people of Wales. He became leader of Welsh Labour in 1998, eventually joining Plaid in 2010.</p>
<p>Historian Martin Johnes <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-16315966">has described</a> Thatcher as an “unlikely architect of Welsh devolution”. Indeed, her inadvertent <a href="https://www.iwa.wales/agenda/2013/04/we-voted-labour-but-got-thatcher/">help</a> in orchestrating the Welsh Assembly rested in the forging of Labour and Plaid Cymru cooperation, with the miners’ strike as a watershed movement. </p>
<p>The strike remains a vivid memory in many Welsh communities. It stands as a reminder to 21st-century politicians that today’s Senedd (Welsh parliament) was built on cross-party cooperation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221358/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The strike saw different political factions uniting, which eventually led to a more collaborative form of politics in Wales.Mari Wiliam, Lecturer in Modern and Welsh History, Bangor UniversityMarc Collinson, Lecturer in Political History, Bangor UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1034902018-09-20T11:46:33Z2018-09-20T11:46:33ZMichael Foot spy allegations and why MI6 should come clean about the past<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237093/original/file-20180919-158243-63m9yd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Comrades and friends: Michael Foot with his election agent Ron Lemin.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">JLemin22 via Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>According to <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/useful-idiots-zhc2tc62c">The Times</a> the late Michael Foot, the former leader of the Labour Party, was a Soviet “confidential contact” on the payroll of the KGB to the tune of £37,000 (in today’s money). This might come as something of a shock to followers of British espionage news, who have long assumed that such claims were nonsense – especially after this was found to be the case in the <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/sunday-times-pays-foot-damages-over-kgb-claim-1590325.html">High Court</a> in 1995.</p>
<p>This latest fuss precedes the publication of a <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/253399/the-spy-and-the-traitor-by-ben-macintyre/9781101904190/">biography</a> of the KGB defector, Oleg Gordievsky, by Times journalist and spy writer Ben Macintyre. From 1974, Gordievsky leaked KGB secrets to British intelligence before defecting to the West in 1985. Among his many revelations to the British secret services were the claims regarding Foot. </p>
<p>Gordievsky first publicised his allegations against Foot (supposedly codenamed “<a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/leader-of-the-opposition-known-to-the-kgb-as-agent-boot-s88b98ztg">Boot</a>” by the KGB) in his 1995 <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=6_PeAAAAMAAJ">autobiography</a>. The Labour leader denounced them as a “big lie” and successfully sued The Sunday Times, which had serialised the work, for libel.</p>
<p>Now, 23 years later, anonymous intelligence officers have spoken to Macintyre, confirming that MI6 took the issue seriously and feared a scenario – Foot becoming prime minister – where they would be forced to inform the Queen. This has proven sufficient for The Times to contend that they had been right all along: “Foot served as a confidential contact for the KGB.” </p>
<p>Of course, the problem is that we are required to place our faith in claims of retired or anonymous spies. While both the Security Service (MI5) and the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) have steadily begun declassifying historical files, MI6 has released very little. So, we can’t check what MI6 actually believed about Foot. Nor has MI5 released any files it might have held on the case. </p>
<p>In terms of Soviet evidence, over the years there has been some limited access granted and <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Deadly_illusions.html?id=aW5pAAAAMAAJ">carefully</a> <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Philby_Files.html?id=OQ5DNAAACAAJ">selected</a> <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_crown_jewels.html?id=Cp4gAQAAIAAJ">releases</a> provided by the Russian Federation, but in recent years this has dried up. So what we are left with is rumour.</p>
<h2>Gordievsky, master spy</h2>
<p>Without documents, be they British or Soviet, we need to assess Gordievsky’s credibility as the progenitor of these claim. Gordievsky was a senior KGB officer, head of its London station from 1982. Yet, at great risk to both himself and his family, he also acted as a double agent, passing secrets to MI6 from 1974 onwards. In May 1985, he was recalled to Moscow and interrogated, having come under increased suspicion from his superiors. Later that year, he escaped to the West. </p>
<p>A glorious catch for Western intelligence, he was to provide considerable insights into the KGB and its secrets. He <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/KGB.html?id=SCIFAQAAIAAJ">confirmed</a>, for instance, that John Cairncross was the “fifth man” of the Cambridge “Ring of Five”.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237274/original/file-20180920-129868-1245ehw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237274/original/file-20180920-129868-1245ehw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237274/original/file-20180920-129868-1245ehw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237274/original/file-20180920-129868-1245ehw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237274/original/file-20180920-129868-1245ehw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237274/original/file-20180920-129868-1245ehw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237274/original/file-20180920-129868-1245ehw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ronald Reagan meeting with MI6 asset Oleg Gordievsky in 1987.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Reagan%E2%80%99s_meeting_with_Oleg_Gordievsky_in_the_Oval_Office_(04).jpg">Mary Anne Fackelman (White House photographer)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As the The Times has noted, MI6 was very impressed by him and placed great faith in his revelations. One officer recalled that: “Oleg was completely reliable, honest and driven by the right motivations.” Given his record, that faith is unsurprising. Yet was he always perfect in his judgement and recollections? Specifically for us, did he get it right about Foot? </p>
<p>According to other former Soviet intelligence officials, the answer is complex: Gordievsky reported what was indeed in the KGB’s historical files from London. But the reports from London upon which those files are based included a good deal of salesmanship. </p>
<p>For instance, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/the-sorry-tale-of-agent-boot-1574439.html">Mikhail Lyubimov</a>, the KGB officer said to have <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/spy-story-that-fails-the-credibility-test-1574005.html">ensnared</a> Foot, contended: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Gordievsky is not telling lies. He merely reflects all the ridiculous fuss inside the KGB kitchen and makes it sound very serious. Inside the secret services, and not just the KGB, there is always a lot of fantasy.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>KGB officers, it transpired, inflated the extent of dealing with high-profile British figures. “If we had no real agents, we mentioned agents of influence instead,” Lyubimov told The Independent in 1995. Why? To get a pat on the back from Moscow. As <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/the-sorry-tale-of-agent-boot-1574439.html">Viktor Kubeykin</a>, another London-based KGB Officer, told the same newspaper:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It was all just a camouflage for doing nothing, a bureaucratic game. The more people you mentioned, the more credit you got, the higher your promotion.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Critically, Lyubimov denied providing Foot money, adding: “I met hundreds of people … The idea that Foot was any kind of agent is a ridiculous smear.” </p>
<p>So, if the contents of the KGB archives was reported accurately by Gordievsky, and assuming Lyubimov and Kubeykin were being honest, what does this tell us? Essentially, that Gordievsky believed his predecessors in London and that MI6, in turn, believed Gordievsky. But the truth is that, until archival evidence becomes available, it is very difficult to draw any firm conclusions. We also don’t really know what MI6 made of this – we only know what some anonymous individuals have informed a journalist.</p>
<h2>Daylight disinfectant</h2>
<p>Given all this, surely we should have access to the MI6 records which could clear at least some of this up? The arguments against the release of such files is, typically, that to do so would jeopardise national security. Apparently even Cold War files dating back decades (indeed, many <a href="http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/intelligence-and-security-services/">withheld files</a> are as old as MI6 itself) need to remain withheld – yet can be openly discussed in the press. </p>
<p>And, as the late Bletchey Park veteran and senior civil servant <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/image/260277646/">Sir Stuart Milner-Barry</a> argued in 1985, often the case to maintain “ancient secrets” (in that instance technical cryptanalytic secrets from the World War II) is “just not credible”.</p>
<p>If Milner-Barry’s assessment was true in 1985, so it remains in 2018. The fact is that we have already seen the publication of monumental authorised intelligence histories, including one of MI6 by <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/MI6.html?id=_bZZIVf5YxAC">Keith Jeffery</a> and MI5 by Sir <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=njWH7cW3aLAC">Christopher Andrew</a>, laying bare many historic secrets. There have also been mass releases of historical intelligence files, albeit from earlier periods and largely not from MI6. Of course, there are times when it is right and responsible to withhold “ancient secrets”. But it is hard to see how cases such as this – from more than three decades ago, where the accused has died and anonymous MI6 officers have elected to air the case in public – are among them.</p>
<p>The intelligence services need to be more open about their past than they are at present. They have come a long way since the 1980s, but there is much further to go. Keeping “ancient secrets” of this nature does not serve the public interest. Rather, as this instance demonstrates, they can provide a shield to destroy a reputation without the tiresome bother of presenting evidence.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103490/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Was the former Labour leader a paid-up Soviet spy? It’s time the security services told us once and for all.Chris Smith, Lecturer in Modern History, Coventry UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/720212017-01-27T16:58:13Z2017-01-27T16:58:13ZTam Dalyell never held office, but he was Margaret Thatcher’s sternest critic<p>That he was singular – from the name onwards – and also a great parliamentary character are both true, but they do not get one very far in appreciating Tam Dalyell. They lend themselves to lampooning a person of profound seriousness, yet easily parodied. </p>
<p>It’s hard to situate him in a broader historical or political context. He was simply “Tam” – just as his most renowned intervention in the House of Commons, often after a flatulent or self-satisfied ministerial statement, was simply “Why?”</p>
<p>Few parliamentarians who came nowhere near holding office – Dalyell soared to shadow minister of science under Michael Foot in 1980 – have had such a profile. <a href="http://spartacus-educational.com/PRboothby.htm">Bob Boothby</a> comes to mind; and others such as <a href="http://thedabbler.co.uk/2014/03/sir-gerald-nabarro-mp-the-abominable-showman/">Gerald Nabarro</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2000/jun/01/guardianobituaries.obituaries">Andrew Faulds</a>, though they belong on the other side of that thin line separating character and caricature. </p>
<h2>Man of principle</h2>
<p>One can comfortably situate Dalyell in the Labour Party as both a Scot and a product of public school (Eton) and Oxbridge (Cambridge). But once again he was notable here: many leading Labour figures have been one, but few both. It somehow followed that Dalyell stood out, after his election in 1962, as an MP preoccupied with idiosyncratic causes. </p>
<p>In 1967 he saved the wildlife on Aldabra, an Indian Ocean atoll, by preventing the building of an RAF base. In 1968 he leaked information about Porton Down chemical warfare laboratory to a newspaper, causing classic scenes of parliamentary uproar. It would not be the last time.</p>
<p>It was that indefatigability that counted against Dalyell in terms of a wider press and public (not that he minded). The former Labour MP <a href="http://www.chrismullinexmp.com">Chris Mullin</a> had similar interests, but leavened his devotion with a self-deprecating humour; Dalyell’s often apparently one-man campaigns made his name but rendered him too easily as an eccentric whose predictable protestations were easy to discount.</p>
<p>Dalyell was and remained the most prominent anti-devolutionary Scot. In the late 1970s, his opposition to his government’s part-principled, part-desperate legislative courting of nationalist support in the Commons was based on a straightforward political principle which Enoch Powell ensured should become known after Dalyell’s constituency: the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2012/jan/17/what-is-west-lothian-question">West Lothian Question</a>. It essentially asks why MPs from devolved regions have the same voting rights in the Commons as English MPs now that English MPs are excluded from voting on devolved issues. </p>
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<p>As with many of Dalyell’s questions, for those in power it was a question they’d really rather weren’t asked. Certainly the then prime minister James Callaghan, whose administration fell in part through the consequences of Dalyell’s exertions, wished he hadn’t. Forty years on, despite <a href="https://constitution-unit.com/2016/11/28/one-year-of-evel-evaluating-english-votes-for-english-laws-in-the-house-of-commons/">some interest in the subject</a>, it still hasn’t been answered.</p>
<h2>Stalking Thatcher</h2>
<p>Dalyell’s concerns were with <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1208880.Misrule">Misrule</a>, as he called his 1987 book: “the personal behaviour on public matters of one particular party leader and prime minister. It is about her truthfulness to people, press and parliament. And on being ‘personal’ in this matter I offer no apology”. </p>
<p>He accused Margaret Thatcher of serial dishonesties. There was the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/may/2/newsid_2480000/2480241.stm">sinking of the Belgrano</a> during the Falklands crisis (1982), in which he held that the Royal Navy had been ordered to sink the Argentinian cruiser to scuttle an incipient peace process. There was the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/january/9/newsid_2516000/2516187.stm">Westland affair</a> in 1986, when Dalyell harried Thatcher over undermining her secretary of state for defence – Michael Heseltine – more effectively than did his party leader Neil Kinnock. </p>
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<p>On Libya (1986), Dalyell vociferously doubted the stated reasons for Britain accommodating US president <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/15/newsid_3975000/3975455.stm">Ronald Reagan’s air strikes</a> against Colonel Gaddafi. He defended the BBC against <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/historyofthebbc/research/culture/bbc-and-gov/zircon">attempts by</a> the government to prevent broadcast of a documentary about the spy satellite Zircon (1986-7). He also defended the former intelligence officer <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-peter-wright-1617351.html">Peter Wright</a> after the government tried to prevent publication of his Spycatcher memoirs about his years in intelligence. For Dalyell, <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1208880.Misrule">Thatcher was</a> “a bounder, a liar, a deceiver, a cheat and a crook”.</p>
<p>A constant presence in broadcasting studios and the Commons – expulsions permitting – Dalyell’s tirelessness deserves, at the very least, several footnotes in the history of 1980s Britain. No critic of Thatcher was so assiduous. It was more revealing of her than of him that she omitted mention of him in <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Downing_Street_years.html?id=Ar0Yvc3-ukAC">her memoirs</a>.</p>
<p>Dalyell’s time in parliament spanned Labour’s years of power in the 1960s and 70s, the internecine impotence of the 1980s, and the morning glory of New Labour in the 1990s. An inveterate critic of his final prime minister, he was happy to <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1451960/I-have-changed-my-mind-on-Blair-hes-worse-than-I-thought.html">declare</a> Tony Blair the worst he had known. Standing down in 2005, Dalyell happily missing the disintegration of the last Labour government.</p>
<p>Dalyell wrote a good biography of his Labour Party mentor <a href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/v11/n20/ian-aitken/tam-dick-and-harold">Dick Crossman</a>. He was a regular obituarist for The Independent, seemingly accounting for every parliamentarian who died in the last 30 years. </p>
<p>Lugubrious of manner, distinctive of accent and with a bone-dry wit (his 2011 autobiography was entitled <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12778862-the-importance-of-being-awkward">The Importance of Being Awkward</a>). For all that he evokes a bygone age of licensed eccentricity where unbiddable private members challenged the Treasury bench, Tam Dalyell wasn’t really a “type” at all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72021/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Farr does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The unique parliamentarian who coined the West Lothian question.Martin Farr, Senior Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary British History, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/627192016-07-20T12:57:04Z2016-07-20T12:57:04ZLabour is turning the tragedy of 1981 into a very modern farce<p>As the Labour Party begins its leadership contest, it may be a faux pas to mention Karl Marx. But many party members must be thinking of his observation that everything in history happens twice – the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.</p>
<p>Take Labour’s current predicament: an elderly, leftist leader faces a new Conservative Prime Minister. He is burdened by divisions over his own competence, his policy on Europe, the economy and defence, and wrangling over his party’s constitution. Change Jeremy Corbyn for Michael Foot, Theresa May for Margaret Thatcher and have the nation enthralled by Brideshead Revisited instead of Downton Abbey and you’re back in 1981.</p>
<p>The Labour Party is in some ways better off today than in 1981; in others, worse. Either way, the resonance is not a good sign for the opposition in the near future.</p>
<h2>Divided again</h2>
<p>Foot, the Labour Leader in 1981, was on the anti-nuclear, anti-European wing of the party. And, like Corbyn, he was mocked for his dress sense and eccentric demeanour. </p>
<p>The issues of Europe, the economy and defence divided the party then, as now. Back then is was <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/27383/Cm6994_Factsheet5.pdf">Polaris</a> rather than trident, tax increases rather than wage ratios, and the EEC instead of the EU. </p>
<p>Yes, the intensity of the debate is less toxic today than it was back then. The absence of the threat of spontaneous superpower conflict takes some of the urgency and purism out of the nuclear debate; the economic context has been comprehensively reconfigured by Thatcherism; and on Europe almost all Labour MPs, including the leader, and most Labour voters, supported membership.</p>
<p>The policy issues are always difficult for Labour, but not more so today than on many occasions in the past.</p>
<p>Foot was, though, in a far stronger position than Corbyn. He had won the votes of the majority of Labour MPs the previous autumn, and 29 of his (presumed) opponents subsequently left to <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/sdp">form the SDP</a>, strengthening his position among those who remained.</p>
<p>He was also a more credible figure than Corbyn in terms of service in office. Foot had shown loyalty to cabinet colleagues as a senior minister, so much so that his chief rival, former chancellor Denis Healey was prepared to take up the position of deputy leader. Corbyn has fewer years in parliament, none as a minister and four out of five of his MPs have declared against him. He cannot populate a shadow cabinet. In that sense, the crisis is undoubtedly more serious.</p>
<h2>A question of constitution</h2>
<p>The argument about the party’s constitution is certainly as serious as it was on 1981, if not more so. Back then, the issue was complicated. First, there was the question of whether the extra-parliamentary party should have any role at all in leadership elections (a novelty in those days); and thereafter whether the trade unions should have a discrete role in the election, or whether a postal ballot of all full members should be used.</p>
<p>The left won a guaranteed role for union block votes in elections. This triggered the split which led to the formation of the SDP. It was the final straw for those MPs who were already distressed by Foot’s leadership and the party’s direction of travel.</p>
<p>Labour now faces a similar conflict of opinion, made worse by the need to hold a leadership election using a system which highlights the divisions in the party. It has always been possible for ordinary party members to choose a leader that MPs wouldn’t like, but other parties haven’t fallen into quite such a hole as a result.</p>
<p>This was visibly true of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-35848899">Iain Duncan Smith</a> when he became Tory Leader in 2001. But the Conservatives have a mechanism for removing a leader not accepted by their MPs – and a membership deferential enough to accept it.</p>
<p>Labour members now face an unenviable dilemma: do they dethrone the leader they put in place so emphatically (through all sections of the Party, not just the new registered supporters) and thereby accept that the PLP are the real decision-makers? Or do they defy the Labour MPs who represent millions of the party’s voters, and the potential voters with whom Corbyn is apparently unpopular, and risk a split in the Party like the one of 1981?</p>
<p>The SDP project sliced nine points off an already losing Labour share of the vote from the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/basics/4393311.stm">1979 election</a>. Labour did not win again until Tony Blair, advised by SDP founder Roy Jenkins, led it to victory in 1997. It is perhaps Labour’s best hope now that there is no Roy Jenkins or any other credible-looking former Labour ministers waiting in the wings to start a new party. Yet.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62719/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Cole does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Similar issues divide the party today as in the 1980s – the question is whether it can survive them this time.Matthew Cole, Teaching Fellow, Department of History, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/585162016-04-27T13:08:32Z2016-04-27T13:08:32ZFact Check: are 60% of UK laws really imposed by the EU?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/120358/original/image-20160427-30967-11frlg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tangled up in blue and yellow. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&autocomplete_id=&search_tracking_id=dEvcx2B3sBdCeQcboZD-uA&searchterm=eu%20law%20UK&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=406309600">Lucian Milasan</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Today it is a tragedy that the European Union – that body long ago established with the high and noble motive of making another war impossible – is itself beginning to stifle democracy, in this country and around Europe. If you include both primary and secondary legislation, the EU now generates 60% of all the laws that pass through Westminster.</em></p>
<p><strong>Boris Johnson, <a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/politics/7095695/UK-and-America-can-better-friends-than-ever-Mr-Obama-if-we-LEAVE-the-EU-says-Boris-Johnson.html">writing in</a> The Sun, April 21</strong></p>
<p>Among the headline-grabbing claims repeatedly made by campaigners for the UK to leave the EU is that a substantial majority of British law is now imposed by Brussels – providing crucial “evidence” to back up their core arguments about a loss of sovereignty and an assault on democracy. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/120360/original/image-20160427-30970-1or92bz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/120360/original/image-20160427-30970-1or92bz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/120360/original/image-20160427-30970-1or92bz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120360/original/image-20160427-30970-1or92bz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120360/original/image-20160427-30970-1or92bz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120360/original/image-20160427-30970-1or92bz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=794&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120360/original/image-20160427-30970-1or92bz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=794&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120360/original/image-20160427-30970-1or92bz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=794&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Bluster, bluster.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/surreynews/6779397940/in/photolist-bk5bPo-briCx5-briDMm-brish3-bEdhNV-hDfSP2-5NHpq4-6Yo92o-brizAU-bk53ty-jxMso6-bEdNNp-bCHbSz-e4TsXz-6djunX-8y4CVC-bEdgjX-brijRG-brikhJ-bEdeVT-e4TsT6-briiuu-brim9j-brijzY-briiWh-fddKbA-fLyg6c-cCdaLC-bEdzdz-e4SttF-4AUUDT-fLQJUY-jxMoSi-aaRsj1-22qJSt-6Ypvrs-jxPxM7-8jbwne-22q9wK-fjFbMK-9oTK3U-58L4Mx-6pYWcK-briH8m-4KDYDW-bCGZgv-cCdaXW-52QBTQ-6YkuXB-d9QCeN">Surrey County Council News</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>This particular claim varies as regards both the alleged figure and its supposed source. UKIP has again and again <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/2j19kc/nigel_farage_repeated_his_75_of_our_laws_are_made/">asserted that</a> Brussels makes 75% of UK law – a figure that appears based on nothing more than some unsubstantiated <a href="http://www.ukip.org/75_of_our_laws_are_made_by_eu_institutions_says_senior_european_commissioner_viviane_reding">press remarks from</a> EU Commissioner Viviane Reding. Appearing before the House of Commons Treasury Committee in March, Boris Johnson <a href="http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/treasury-committee/the-economic-and-financial-costs-and-benefits-of-uks-eu-membership/oral/31014.html">cited</a> what he called new evidence that put the true number at 60%. This turned out to be a gross misrepresentation of House of Commons Library research <a href="https://commonslibraryblog.com/2014/06/02/how-much-legislation-comes-from-europe/">dating from 2014</a>, though as can be seen from the quote at the beginning, he is still repeating it.</p>
<p>Perhaps the most important and influential backing for the Leave campaign’s claims comes from a <a href="http://businessforbritain.org/2015/03/02/definitive-study-reveals-eu-rules-account-for-65-of-uk-law/">Business for Britain report</a> of March 2015. Touting itself as “definitive”, it decreed that between 1993 and 2014, 64.7% of UK law was EU-influenced, and EU regulations accounted for 59.3% of all UK law. </p>
<p>But closer analysis <a href="http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/treasury-committee/the-economic-and-financial-costs-and-benefits-of-uks-eu-membership/written/24249.html">reveals that</a> this report is utterly flawed and misleading. BfB included in its calculations all EU regulations without distinguishing between legislative regulations and non-legislative ones. </p>
<p>EU legislative regulations are comparable to primary legislation in the UK, but they are relatively few in number. Certain EU non-legislative regulations are comparable to statutory instruments in the UK – <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A12012E%2FTXT">such as</a> many of the “delegated regulations” adopted under Article 290 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union – so they too could in principle be included in any attempt to quantify the domestic impact of EU law. </p>
<p>But the great bulk of EU non-legislative regulations are adopted in order to implement technical, administrative decisions at the EU level This includes things such as updating the scientific registers of chemicals and food additives; adjusting specific anti-dumping duties on cheap imports from third countries; confirming the regular continuance of UN sanctions on named individuals suspected of involvement in terrorism; and entering specific foodstuffs in the register of protected designations of origin. </p>
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<span class="caption">Pears are from Mars …</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&autocomplete_id=&searchterm=apples%20and%20pears&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=401945668">Yulia Koshchiy</a></span>
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<p>It is simply not credible to include such measures in any purported calculation of the volume of UK law which derives from the EU. Or at least: if BfB counted those EU regulations in its sums, it should also include their proper domestic comparators – the vast numbers of UK decisions taken by public officials in a wide range of public bodies across the entire country. This would surely render the EU component of any statistics on the volume of “UK law” virtually negligible. As it stands, this is comparing apples with pears. </p>
<p>To be fair, any competent legal scholar would confirm that attempts to quantify the amount of “UK law”, or the amount of “EU law”, let alone the statistical relationship between the two, could never be anything more than an inaccurate guess guided by contestable research methods. </p>
<p>But there is a broader and more fundamental point here. This is far from the only example of the Leave campaign relying on and then reiterating claims which have proven upon closer inspection to be partially or even wholly false. </p>
<p>Think of Michael Gove’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/goves-vision-for-the-uk-out-of-the-eu-welcome-to-vote-leaves-parallel-universe-58169">rosy but entirely spurious</a> vision for the UK’s post-withdrawal trade relationship with the EU. Or <a href="http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/treasury-committee/the-economic-and-financial-costs-and-benefits-of-uks-eu-membership/oral/32135.html">watch</a> the fantastical claims of Vote Leave’s Dominic Cummings falling apart under the slightest scrutiny by the Treasury Committee. Those following the referendum debate from a perspective of informed expertise may rightly feel frustrated and dismayed by such blatant skulduggery.</p>
<h2>Verdict</h2>
<p>The only way to produce a figure anywhere approaching 60% for the amount of British law that comes from the EU is to follow a seriously flawed methodology. If this sort of work were submitted for academic peer review, it would be rejected at the first hurdle as manifestly unscientific. The real worry is that substituting the dissemination of misleading propaganda for honest evidence-based argument, on an issue of fundamental importance for the future of this country, risks further undermining public trust in our political institutions as well as inflicting serious damage upon the quality of our national democracy. </p>
<h2>Review</h2>
<p><strong>Kenneth Armstrong, Professor of European Law, University of Cambridge</strong></p>
<p>Fans of <a href="http://the-big-bang-theory.com">The Big Bang Theory</a> will be familiar with Sheldon Cooper’s webcast Fun with Flags. The EU referendum campaign has brought us Fun with Fractions with Boris Johnson suggesting that the percentage of UK law that emanates from the EU is “60%”.</p>
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<p>The 60% figure derives from a methodology <a href="https://commonslibraryblog.com/2014/06/02/how-much-legislation-comes-from-europe/">reported by</a> the House of Commons Research Library, and as the report’s author admits “it is impossible to achieve an accurate measure”. The methodology includes EU “regulations” which can have immediate effect in UK law without being implemented by Westminster, the idea being that a methodology which only focused on directives and decisions that require formal adoption into national rules would underestimate EU influence. But as our commentator notes, this also risks including a large number of technical regulations and amendments.</p>
<p>As Sheldon would claim, methodology matters. The mere fact that methodologies are contestable does not mean that any given one is wrong, unless it is wrong in terms of the question asked. Is it a narrow question of how much EU law is implemented or are we evaluating broader EU influence? Does volume equate with significance? And how do we factor in change over time? Does anyone really care? Distractions with fractions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58516/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Boris Johnson has made this claim repeatedly – and he’s not the only one.Michael Dougan, Professor of European Law and Jean Monnet Chair in EU Law, University of LiverpoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/345552014-11-21T14:19:15Z2014-11-21T14:19:15ZMili no mates – mocking Labour leaders is what tabloids do best<p>Another very bad week for Ed Miliband, which has ended with resignation of the shadow attorney-general, Emily Thornbury, over her <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30139832">“sneering”</a> tweet during the Rochester and Strood by election, got off to a shaky start on Monday when, while appearing on<a href="http://www.jomec.co.uk/blog/wp-admin/www.itv.com/news/topic/the-agenda/"> ITV’s the Agenda</a> he debated Labour’s mansion tax with pop singer Myleene Klass. </p>
<p>The following day the <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2838759/Just-couldn-t-worse-Ed-takes-TV-battering-Myleene-Labour-leader-humiliated-taken-task-singer-proposed-mansion-tax.html">Mail </a> described the Labour leader as looking “lost and bewildered” as Klass took Miliband “to task” leaving him “humiliated”. <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ed-miliband/11237414/Singer-Myleene-Klass-wipes-the-floor-with-Ed-Miliband-over-mansion-tax.htm">The Daily Telegraph</a> reported that Klass had “wiped the floor with him” and the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/11/18/ed-miliband-myleene-klass-video_n_6176472.html?1416307444&utm_hp_ref=uk">Huffington Post</a> described the debate as “painful”. </p>
<p>All manna from heaven for David Cameron who at <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xiq_ctmXRko">Prime Minister’s Question Time </a> gleefully announced:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This was the week when Myleene Klass wiped the floor with you on TV and this is the week when a poll in Scotland showed more people believe in the Loch Ness monster than in your leadership. The only problem for the Labour Party is you actually exist.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But if you watch the exchange between Klass and Miliband you will see that it was hardly contentious at all. An exchange of views certainly, but nothing to merit the ridicule, scorn and general air of disdain that seems to cascade down upon Miliband from most sections of the press – whether he is eating a <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ed-miliband-fails-to-look-normal-while-eating-bacon-sandwich-ahead-of-whistlestop-campaign-tour-9409301.html">bacon sandwich</a>, giving <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ed-miliband-fails-to-look-normal-while-eating-bacon-sandwich-ahead-of-whistlestop-campaign-tour-9409301.html">money to the poor</a> or attempting to <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ed-miliband-fails-to-look-normal-while-eating-bacon-sandwich-ahead-of-whistlestop-campaign-tour-9409301.html">articulate Labour party policies</a>. </p>
<p>It has become increasingly apparent – and this has occurred to those staunchly affiliated to the Labour Party, such as the <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/staggers/2014/11/week-s-new-statesman-running-out-time">New Statesman</a> and the <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ed-miliband-has-until-christmas-4594216">Mirror </a>newspapers – that Miliband’s stock is irreversibly low.</p>
<p>That Miliband finds himself the enemy of the Daily Mail and the Murdoch press is hardly a surprise. It was only last year that the Mail ran its infamous <a href="https://theconversation.com/daily-mail-attack-on-milibands-father-is-hardly-a-new-low-18802">“Man who hated Britain”</a> story about Ed’s father Ralph – and don’t forget that in the early days of the phone-hacking scandal it was Miliband, in an interview with the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2011/jul/16/rupert-murdoch-ed-miliband-phone-hacking">Observer</a>, who spoke out against Murdoch’s influence. He said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I think it’s unhealthy because that amount of power in one person’s hands has clearly led to abuses of power within his organisation. If you want to minimise the abuses of power then that kind of concentration of power is frankly quite dangerous.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Brave words, when no other leader had been so bold, which saw Miliband’s approval ratings rise. But from that moment on any sort of positive relationship between the Murdoch press and Miliband vanished. </p>
<p>So now we are here – months and years of personal attacks and the steady drip, drip of criticism. “Mili no mates”, ran the Sun’s page two story on November 13. Britain doesn’t want him said the editorial and, furthermore: “His own party doesn’t either.”</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65197/original/image-20141121-1037-qqn15t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65197/original/image-20141121-1037-qqn15t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65197/original/image-20141121-1037-qqn15t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=690&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65197/original/image-20141121-1037-qqn15t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=690&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65197/original/image-20141121-1037-qqn15t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=690&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65197/original/image-20141121-1037-qqn15t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=867&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65197/original/image-20141121-1037-qqn15t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=867&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65197/original/image-20141121-1037-qqn15t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=867&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Not a big fan of Miliband: The Sun.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To emphasise the point, next to an announcement stating that “Ed is the most unpopular leader EVER” was a picture of Miliband in a Michael Foot wig. Michael Foot being, in the Sun’s view of course, the ideological father of the current Labour leader: the two of them united ineptitude and equally as unelectable.</p>
<h2>Shot in the Foot</h2>
<p>Twas ever thus and there has been much written about the “monstering” of Labour leaders by the press. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/nov/10/ed-miliband-crisis-monstering-campaign-british-press-labour-leader-rightwing-newspaper">Roy Greenslade</a> in his excellent Guardian media blog recently made the point that every leader with the notable exception of Tony Blair has suffered at the hands of the Tory press. He singles out Gordon Brown, Neil Kinnock and the aforementioned Foot as being particularly harshly treated. </p>
<p>It is the vilification of Foot that sticks in my mind. Mercilessly lampooned for his decision to wear a donkey jacket to the Cenotaph on Remembrance Day (when he wore nothing of the sort – it was, in fact, a <a href="http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/truth-foots-donkey-jacket-2233856">smart coat chosen by his wife Jill</a>) this most principled of leaders was completely unsuited to running an election campaign against the sophisticated Thatcher media machine and a particularly feral Kelvin Mackenzie-edited Sun newspaper, <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=jE6QAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA90&lpg=PA90&dq=%E2%80%98DO+YOU+SERIOUSLY+WANT+THIS+OLD+MAN+TO+RUN+BRITAIN&source=bl&ots=pdyXAtaz7J&sig=pJTKfva_ecVAgIhWHaA-2Z4pehU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=dfttVK_eF4bUaqW1gagH&ved=0CD4Q6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%98DO%20YOU%20SERIOUSLY%20WANT%20THIS%20OLD%20MAN%20TO%20RUN%20BRITAIN&f=false">which asked,</a> incredulously: “Do you seriously want this old man to run Britain?”</p>
<h2>Lights out for Labour</h2>
<p>For many, it was the constant attacks on Neil Kinnock from 1983 up until the election defeat of 1992 which seriously undermined his credibility as a potential PM. James Thomas in his book “Popular Newspapers, the Labour Party and British Politics” refers to Roy Hattersley’s contention that the tabloids “destroyed” Kinnock’s hopes of being prime minister and ensured an “extraordinary warped public perception of him”. </p>
<p>Perhaps there are parallels between Miliband and Kinnock when we consider the refusal of the Sun, in particular, to take Kinnock seriously. In the run up to the 1992 election the <a href="http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/7474#.VG37TPmsV8E">Sun asked a psychic</a> to contact dead celebrities and ask them who they would vote for. Under the headline: “WHY I’M BACKING KINNOCK, BY STALIN” the readers learned that Uncle Joe was joined by comrades Mao and Trotsky. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65198/original/image-20141121-1040-21hs1i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65198/original/image-20141121-1040-21hs1i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65198/original/image-20141121-1040-21hs1i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65198/original/image-20141121-1040-21hs1i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65198/original/image-20141121-1040-21hs1i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65198/original/image-20141121-1040-21hs1i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65198/original/image-20141121-1040-21hs1i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65198/original/image-20141121-1040-21hs1i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">How The Sun ‘won it’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When John Major won the election of 1992 and Mackenzie proclaimed it was: “the Sun wot won it” few outside of <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/it-wasnt-the-sun-wot-won-it-official-1364910.html">academia</a> saw fit to disagree.</p>
<h2>‘Very powerful people’</h2>
<p>That Tony Blair escaped the treatment afforded to his predecessors and successors is in large part due to the fact that he was willing to court the editors and press barons. As he told the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18228898">Leveson enquiry,</a> he <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tony-blair-admits-cosy-links-851911">met Murdoch in the Hayman islands</a> in 1995 with the intention of winning the News International titles away from the Tories.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I would not have been going all the way round the world if it had not been a deliberate, strategic decision that I was going to try to persuade them.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For Blair the whole point was cultivating a relationship with, in his words: “very powerful people who had a big impact on the political system”.</p>
<p>For good or ill, Miliband has seemingly alienated forever “the very powerful” people – and it would appear now he is losing the support of the Labour press as well. His perceived failures have become the currency of the news about him. In the age of social media and instantly available opinion, tweets about Myleene Klass “wiping the floor” with Miliband become the headlines of the next day as journalists, once again, wilfully conflate twitter public opinion with the real thing – missing the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/19/mansion-tax-myleene-klass-ed-miliband-self-deception-rich">indicators</a> that most voters are behind the substance of the mansion tax.</p>
<p>The BBC has not escaped criticism in this respect. A recent edition of <a href="http://www.conservativehome.com/video/2014/11/watch-how-the-bbc-reports-miliband.html">Newswatch</a> was devoted to many viewers’ disquiet concerning the BBC’s willingness to follow newspaper agendas on Miliband. One viewer complained: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I must protest at the avalanche of hostile coverage about Ed Miliband, based as it is on nothing more than rumour, speculation and unattributed rumour … Your programmes are with great relish mimicking the Tory press by running extended features on the subject of ‘Is Ed up to it?’. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In response, Sue Inglish, the BBC’s head of political programmes, defended the Corporation’s coverage vigorously and refuted the notion that the BBC dwelt too much on the “bacon sandwich” episodes. The fact that the issue was debated at all, though, indicates – if nothing else – that there is a body of opinion which sees the coverage of Miliband as too personal and trivialised.</p>
<h2>Is anyone listening?</h2>
<p>Measuring whether or not negative coverage has an effect on voter behaviour is a notoriously difficult undertaking and in the past perhaps all parties have conveniently hidden behind the prejudices of the press as a reason for their unpopularity. But the polls tell their own story – as <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/10/labour-problem-not-ed-miliband-voters-dislike-party">Peter Kellner of YouGov</a> has pointed out, according to the latest figures just 18% of the public think Miliband is up to the job of prime minister; 64% do not. As of this November, among people who voted Labour in 2010 only 34% think he is PM material – a huge drop from his 51% rating just one month earlier.</p>
<p>And this latest “Klass war” won’t have helped matters one iota for Ed Miliband or Labour.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34555/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Another very bad week for Ed Miliband, which has ended with resignation of the shadow attorney-general, Emily Thornbury, over her “sneering” tweet during the Rochester and Strood by election, got off to…John Jewell, Director of Undergraduate Studies, School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.