[Militant No. 812, 29th August 1986, p. 2]
Defectors from the Labour Party follow a well-known pattern. Robert Kilroy-Silk, who is resigning his Knowsley seat to join BBC Television, follows in the footsteps of a long line of middle-class extryists who have used the parliamentary Labour Party as a vehicle for their careers.
The Labour Party has served its purpose. Fame and fortune, especially a fortune in the form of a media contract is assured. But it looks disloyal, not to say mercenary, to desert the Party so blatantly. Not good for a media-person’s image!
So blame the Party! “Of course, I remain absolutely committed to the principles I’ve upheld all along (self-promotion, self-aggrandisement, etc.). But the Party’s changed out of all recognition (they’ve seen through me!)”.
The MP then reveals that the Party has been virtually taken over by dangerous extremists. This reassures prospective bosses that their man has not been tainted by any dangerous tendencies. Fees from the sale of these inside stories to TV, tabloids, publishers also help cover removal expenses, new suits etc.
The classic example is Brian Walden who dumped his Birmingham Ladywood seat in 1977 to become presenter of LWT’s Weekend World.
The real Labour Party, for Walden, was the one led by right-wing social democrat Hugh Gaitskell. According to an in-depth profile by the Sunday Times (18 September 1977), Gaitskell “cultivated” the up-and-coming Brian in Oxford and in 1961 “wangled him the Labour nomination in the Oswestry by-election”.
Once in Parliament however, the ambitious Walden failed to flourish. Harold Wilson took over the leadership, but did not provide Walden with the expected “encouragement”. Denied ministerial perks, Walden augmented his MPs pay with a few consultancies.
One of these was a £5,000 a-year “parliamentary runner” to the National Association of Bookmakers. He also was a consultant to a computer firm, a public relations firm, the Business Equipment Trades Association, the Amusement Trades Association, and the Amusement Caterers Association. All this helped Walden get by until he was offered the lucrative LWT job, rumoured in 1977 to be worth £40,000 a year.
Of course, it was the party which had changed: “Gaitskell meant what he said, Wilson didn’t”. “Red Fascists” purported to represent the Labour Party, “Marxism represents evil, does evil and will go on doing evil”. His heroes? “Men like Roosevelt and Churchill who … saved civilisation.”!
After his resignation, Walden discretely let it slip that, “I was disenchanted before I even took my seat … But, he told the Sunday Times, he remained implacable about his most cherished principle – loyalty! “Disloyalty: destroys all reasonable human intercourse, to me a traitor is ten times worse than a murderer”!
What more can you say!
By Lynn Walsh
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