historical clang

[calimac]

A British paper like the Independent ought to know its own history better than this. An article on Labour MPs losing faith in the leadership of Prime Minister Starmer includes this:

One senior Labour MP said: “No 10 think he [Starmer] is Blair, but the PLP think he’s Ramsay MacDonald with nicer hair.” MacDonald, Labour’s first PM, eventually took the party to its worst ever election defeat, and was later expelled from the party for forming a government with the Tories.

No, first he formed a government with the Tories that almost all the Labourites refused to go along with, then they suffered their worst ever election defeat without him. I think his formal expulsion may not have occurred until afterwards, but he was definitely on the other side in that election. This was 1931; you could look it up. I told the whole story here. My conclusion: though they lost, the rest of the Labour Party had the right of the matter. MacDonald was well-meaning but sadly mistaken.

Comments

[andrewducker]

Thank you, that was fascinating.

(And yes, lots of "We have to do the hard thing, for the country" frequently turns out to have been wrongheaded.)