The Two Davids Graham Watson examines how much the failure of the Alliance was due to the failures of its leaders.
The astonishing thing about the four years in which of the two. Owen was a moving star in the firmament, exploring new galaxies, picking up the Alliance was captained by Davids Steel and cosmic dust in the post-Keynes explosion. In Owen is the amount of time spent by hundreds of a new party, where many perceived the idealistic people in sterile argument about the manifesto to have been proven a losing propo- sition, he found room to develop these ideas. internal arrangements of the two parties’ Steel was firmly wedded to the John Rawls cohabitation. That their joint and several leadership ethic of social Liberalism, as was the Liberal failed to overcome this was without doubt its greatest Party whose policy-making process he never sought to dominate. failure. Steel and Owen failed to unite their followers Owen and Steel were never, in the latter’s behind a coherent vision of an alternative course to general election quip, ‘Tweedledum and Tweedledee’. On the contrary, they were de- Thatcherism. Why? cidedly ‘not bosom pals’. Relations ranged Richard Holme has described the Alliance from the acid spreading of stories by the Owen as a tragic comedy: in the first act (–) camp about Steel having suffered a nervous the political space opens for the Liberal Party breakdown to the farcical combined family to be taken seriously and the SDP to form; in lunch at Steel’s Pimlico flat where only claret the second (–) the two parties mount or whisky were on offer, while Owen liked the strongest third-party challenge since the lager and champagne. Nor were the woolly- war to the established two-party hegemony and jumpered Judy or the debonaire Debbie well almost equal Labour in the polls; and in the matched to smooth the course of conviviality third (the denouement, –) it all goes between their respective husbands. horribly wrong. No progress is made and the At work, both leaders were under attack. Alliance subsequently collapses in a hailstorm Owen was opposed in succession by Jenkins, of recriminations. Perhaps unjustly, but inevi- Williams and Rodgers and by a growing sec- tably, the buck stops at the top. tion of the SDP, in particular by those who A major difficulty lay in the similarity of their favoured merger with the Liberals. Steel’s strat- personal appeal. Both in their mid-forties, both egy of realignment was challenged ever more telegenic politicians, each ambitious and with a irately in a Liberal Party which, in Jo Grimond’s certain flair. They were natural rivals. But their words, tended at moments of greatest need to differences posed substantial problems too. Owen turn to putty in its leader’s hands. The furious represented the well-to-do, Oxbridge-educated, monotony of party controversy was a drag fac- English upper-middle classes. He was steeped tor in both men’s approaches to Alliance. The in the easy graces of money and cosmopolitan solidarity between them which it might have society. Steel sought refuge in a more calvinistic, engendered showed itself only in brief flashes self-denying, introverted Scots tradition. His was of uncharacteristic mutual generosity; the way of the campaigner for the common man. schadenfreude was the more ready emotion in While the differences might in other circum- both camps. stances have been complementary, each man Defence policy – the issue which, as Crewe tended to deny his hinterland and approach. But and King point out, disrupted the Labour Party these governed for each the ground rules on for much of the postwar period – became a which their relationship had to be based. And considerable problem for the Alliance. For the rules were different. For Steel, personal David Owen, a hawkish position was a talis- friendship was a prerequisite. For Owen, a busi- man. For Steel, it was a betrayal of mankind’s ness partnership would suffice. potential. Yet major decisions, such as the sit- The second determinant in the affair was ing of cruise missiles in the UK and the re- the difference between the political approaches placement for Polaris nuclear submarines, arose
36 journal of liberal democrat history 18: spring 1998 during the parliament. Steel, with one eye on public opinion and the other on Alliance unity, attempted to move the Liberal Party away from what he regarded as a dangerous course of unilateral nuclear disarma- ment. Liberal opponents, some with personal ambitions to the leadership and others in opposition to merger, exploited the issue successfully to promote their case by wounding their leader (in the case of the former, only to back down from their policy po- sition a year later). Steel then let slip some details of the contents of the report of the joint commission on de- fence policy and Owen hastily over- reacted, thus dashing a subsequent attempt at compromise too close to The end of the road: Richmond at the end of the 1987 campaign. a general election for recovery. Agreement between the parties On issues of constitutional re- medium for communicating a dis- on individual policies was rendered form, agreement between Liberals tinctive message was severely limited. all the more difficult by a fundamen- and their SDP counterparts was In defence of the media, however, tal difference of approach between never hard to find. Yet as an issue of there was rarely a distinctive Alliance their leaders. Thatcherism was the interest to the electorate, constitu- message to communicate. order of the decade. Owen was pre- tional reform never found the po- Nor were the two parties organ- pared to come to terms with it; Steel tency in the s which it was to ised in any synchronous fashion to was not. Nor was public opposition generate a decade later. Despite the fight a common campaign. Much to Thatcherism ever quite strong Alliance’s best efforts, it was not suf- can be ascribed to mutual fear. If the enough to catapult the Alliance for- ficient as a basis for a winning cam- imbalance in numbers of MPs had ward. The runes of the opinion polls paign in a general election in which favoured the SDP before , feed- were pored over and re-read. The the two parties still talked of the is- ing Liberal paranoia, the converse business community was tested. But sues which interested them rather was true from ’ to ’. An early class warfare was still a powerful de- than those which interested the vot- Alliance slogan had been ‘working terminant of the island’s politics. Mrs ers. Would a consistent message have together’: yet while in some con- Thatcher’s troops had survived their been possible on other issues? Re- stituencies party members were be- wobbly start. She was at the centre form of pensions policy, attitudes to ing told by party headquarters to of Thatcherism, and neither Owen’s the National Health Service, ap- work together against their wishes, sub-Thatcherite posture nor Steel’s proaches to crime and policing, the in others they were ordered not to steely opposition to its social conse- merits of public versus private trans- unite behind a general election quences satisfied the appetite of a port; all were areas where disagree- standard-bearer even where local middle class engaged in a nihilism ment was never more than papered agreement was possible. not seen in Britain since the s. over. For the local government The obvious question to any third The Tories were blessed by a di- elections, the SDP launched its party is: ‘faced with the choice, which vided opposition. The Alliance could manifesto without informing the of the other parties would you put make little headway against a Labour Liberals of either timing or content. in to government?’ This proved the Party whose low water mark had The parties were engaged separately rock on which the Alliance was to been met under Michael Foot. Neil in creative thinking. founder. Interviewed on Weekend Kinnock, though never to enjoy the It is tempting in a third party to World on April , before the credit, had put his party back afloat blame the media for failing to give election was announced, Owen skil- on a rising tide. The Alliance’s in- fair coverage to one’s ideas. In the fully refused to be drawn on which ability to appeal to Labour support- s such concerns were amply jus- party he preferred, as had Steel on a ers was clear from its very lack of tified, as a former editor of The Times number of occasions. But on May, clarity. While Steel met the Notting- has made clear in a seminal auto- in a lengthy general election inter- hamshire miners and the TUC dur- biographical work. With control of view on Panorama in which the two ing the coal dispute, Owen courted the public print and broadcasting Davids were interviewed together by coal boss Ian McGregor, the govern- media in fewer minds, and with the ment’s hatchet man. Alliance unable to open them, the Concluded on page . journal of liberal democrat history 18: spring 1998 37 Shirley Williams, Politics is for People (Penguin, ) Henry Drucker, ‘All the King’s The Two Davids Des Wilson, Battle for Power (Sphere Horses and All the King’s Men’, continued from page Books, ) in Paterson and Thomas (eds.), Sir Robin Day, Owen said he would Peter Zentner, Social Democracy in Social Democratic Parties in Western regard the Conservatives as ‘the lesser Britain: Must Labour Lose? (John Europe (OUP, ) evil’ and that Labour’s position (on Martin, ) S.J. Ingle, ‘The Alliance: Piggy in the Britain’s security) was ‘unacceptable’. Middle or Radical Alternative?’, The pass was sold. Articles Hull Papers in Politics , The Liberal-SDP Alliance never Vincent McKee, ‘Factionalism in the quite made the grade. While the Lib- Anon, ‘Social democracy doesn’t SDP, –’, Parliamentary Af- erals’ strength was growing, particu- thrive abroad,’ Economist fairs , larly in local government, the party March Michael Meadowcroft, ‘Eastbourne had not been able to consolidate its Te rry Barton & Herbert Doring, Revisited’, Radical Quarterly , new support. Nor had the SDP ‘The Social and Attitudinal Pro- caused sufficient defections from La- file of Social Democratic Activ- Michael Meadowcroft, ‘Steeling the bour to sustain a long-haul campaign; ists’, Political Studies , Party, Radical Quarterly , and it had failed almost entirely to John Bochel & David Denver, ‘The Alan Butt Philip, ‘Europeans first and attract prominent Conservatives. SDP and the Left-Right Dimen- last: British Liberals and the Eu- The two Alliance leaders found sion’, British Journal of Political Sci- ropean Community’, Political themselves locked in a pantomime ence , Quarterly : , horse, each pulling in different di- John Curtice & Michael Steed, ‘Turn- R. Pinkey, ‘An Active Political Strat- rections, with large sections of both ing Dreams into Reality: The Di- egy: Liberals in Power in English parties cheering the resulting con- vision of Constituencies between Local Government’, Local Gov- fusion. Just entering middle age, nei- the Liberals and the Social Demo- ernment Studies : , ther had the experience to analyse crats’, Parliamentary Affairs , Geoffrey Pridham & Paul Whiteley, his situation and plan a way out. John Curtice, Clive Payne and ‘Anatomy of the SDP: Is the Party Though Owen had served briefly as Robert Waller, ‘The Alliance’s Structurally Top-Heavy?’, Govern- Foreign Secretary after one or two First Nationwide Test: Lessons of ment and Opposition , junior ministerial positions, and Steel the English Local Elections’, William Rodgers, ‘The SDP and the had completed eighteen years in Par- Electoral Studies , Liberal Party in Alliance’, Politi- liament and seven as party leader, David Denver & Hugh Bochel, cal Quarterly , neither had substantial experience of ‘Merger or Bust: Whatever Hap- Colin Seymour-Ure, ‘The SDP and life outside politics. Nor was either pened to Members of the SDP?’, the Media’, Political Quarterly , entirely convinced that the game was British Journal of Political Science , worth the candle. In a cruel symbi- otic twist to their relationship, how- ever, each was determined to pre- Books on Liberal History and vent the other from scooping the prize. If there was ever a prize to British Politics scoop, they succeeded. In any event, the third force had to wait a decade We sell second-hand and hard-to-find books and before beginning to realise again the potential it had shown in the ephemera on Parliament, elections, politicians, Lib-Lab agreement. parties, and women in politics at competitive prices. Graham Watson was head of the Liberal Visit our website: leader’s private office in the House of Com- http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/ mons –. In he became the first 6196/ Liberal Democrat to be elected to the Eu- ropean Parliament. He is currently seek- or ask for a catalogue: ing a publisher for his book on the Alli- phone 01372-376002 or write to: ance in the – Parliament. Notes: Jaime Reynolds The quote is David Steel’s, in a televi- Political Bookcase, 10 Yarm Court Road, sion interview. Ivor Crewe and Anthony King, SDP: The Leatherhead, Surrey KT22 8PA Birth, Life and Death of the Social Demo- cratic Party (OUP, ).
52 journal of liberal democrat history 18: spring 1998