By Frank Noakes
I first heard the late John Smith speak when he addressed the British Labour Party's conference in the windswept seaside town of Blackpool in September 1992. It was his first address to conference as leader, and much was expected by the uninitiated. His speech would be broadcast live in the middle of the day to a nation with 4 million unemployed, at home tossing up between him and Coronation Street. The Winter Garden, decorated in old music hall style, replete with gaudy chandelier, hushed as the electronic cue card rolled, slowly.
One and a quarter hours later, but none the wiser, the great hall, alerted that he had finished by applause from journalists checking the text of Smith's speech against delivery, obligatorily arose as one to cheer. Bruised by much back-slapping and hand-pumping, Smith, beaming, resumed his seat.
Serious journalists interviewed each other and moderate Labour politicians, searching for the deeper meaning of Smith's speech. It was not great, they concluded, but John Smith steady. He had passed the moderation test — nothing to upset anyone.
Social mores dictate that one should not speak ill of the dead; no need. In fact, John Smith was reputedly a pleasant and sincere man. But politically speaking, the outside observer was struck that, with Smith, the emperor had no clothes.
After Margaret Thatcher's plummet in popularity, the Conservative Party chose the most boring among themselves, John Major (now the most unpopular prime minister on record). Labour trumped them.
John Smith was a conservative of the old order prevalent within the labour movement worldwide in the '40s and '50s. A very upright moral and religious man, the Scottish lawyer was inoffensive to all; Smith was a compromise between the trade union right and the younger, radical soft-left-cum-new-right brigade, known as the "modernisers".
The modernisers are led by the media-friendly young and able duo Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, who do look dynamic compared to what else is on offer in British politics. But the modernisers are the ones most influenced by the radicalism of Thatcher. Law and order, free market economics, anti-union legislation — a "caring" capitalism is their illusory platform.
(As conference votes record, at the leadership level the left, always more principled and resolute than the Labor left here, is almost completely marginalised.)
John Smith's death by heart attack at the age of 55 opens the way for a leadership contest that could be the beginning of the end of British labour movement politics as we've known and inherited it. The deadly embrace of US Democratic Party-style politics, the Clintonisation of British Labour, may be only a vote away.
Labour Party politics was dictated by a force more powerful than itself for over a decade — Margaret Thatcher. Even when Thatcherism became tremendously unpopular, Labour was unable to seize the initiative. Smith replaced Neil Kinnock, who led Labour to four successive defeats, the last against Major, but the policy of presenting the smiling face of conservatism remained and was epitomised by John Smith.
Under Kinnock all traces of radicalism in the Labour Party were attacked: all that was necessary was to sit pat, do and say nothing, and sooner or later the public would embrace Labour because they weren't the Tories. This was the plan.
Unfortunately for Kinnock, his verbosity ruined the script. His refusal ever to say in one word what could be said in 10, made him unsuitable for the sound bite but perfect for the satirist. Smith overcame his predecessor's shortcoming by cleverly saying nothing.
The Tories' poor showing in the recent local government elections might appear to vindicate Labour's strategy, but then it was confident of beating an "unelectable" Conservative Party last time round — and lost.
Smith's passing is a tragedy for his family and friends, but history will quickly forget him.