Adrian Slade talks to the Liberal Democrat leader in the Lords, Tom McNally. THE PRO WITH PROVEN POLITICAL EFFECTIVENESS n he was a compara- of the radical Liberal coin, occa- Tom McNally What Liberal Democrats tively late convert from sionally clashing vigorously with outside the House sometimes forget is that, apart Labour to the newly trum- the more grassroots members of of Lords. from the party’s three famous peted SDP. He even stayed the party. ex-Secretaries of State – Roy in the Labour Party long And yet the sheer political Jenkins, Shirley Williams and Ienough to vote for Denis Hea- effectiveness of Tom McNally Bill Rodgers – Tom McNally has ley as Deputy Leader. Of the over a period of more than thirty been closer to the real levers of two SDP leaders he felt more at years has now seen him move power at Westminster than any home with David Owen than into the role previously occu- other active member of the party. with Roy Jenkins, although he pied by Roy Jenkins, Bill Rodg- It was he who, in at the was no acolyte to any member ers and Shirley Williams – that of age of just twenty-six, became of the original ‘Gang of Four’. leader of the Liberal Democrats International Secretary of the When Liberal/SDP merger came in the House of Lords – with the Labour Party, a job in which he under discussion, unlike his then almost full support of his peers continued for five years. It was he party leader, he supported the and certainly without having to whom Jim Callaghan picked out concept, but for many Liberals stand for election. It is a remark- in the early s to work in his at the time he was never their able achievement for a man office as his speech-writer and favourite Social Democrat, and in who, for all his outward affabil- one of his international advis- the nearly seventeen years of the ity and sense of fun, has not had ers, and he followed Callaghan Liberal Democrats’ existence he a smooth political or personal back into government in has often chosen to cast himself, life and is very much his own when Callaghan became Foreign almost deliberately, as the obverse person. Secretary and de facto deputy to Journal of Liberal History 46 Spring 2005 37 THE PRO WITH PROVEN POLITICAL EFFECTIVENESS Harold Wilson after Roy Jenkins’ been a tragedy for democracy I accept did not want to adopt me, and departure to the European Com- and for government if Labour at the other end of the line the mission in Brussels. McNally had fallen solely on the bank- that there party was supporting policies that travelled everywhere with Cal- ers’ ramp of the IMF crisis. In I could never have supported. I laghan, including Vietnam, the my view, that period of the pact was more cannot tell you what being in the Middle East and the Soviet was a period of very good gov- Labour Party was like at the time. I Union, meeting political names ernment. I accept that there was in the pact felt I had no firm ground to stand of now distant legend, such as more in it for Labour than there for Labour on. But I was not a natural Social Andrei Gromyko of the Soviet was for the Liberals, but that was Democrat. It took me six months Union. partly because, unlike the Liberal than there after the Limehouse Declaration In for the first time he Democrats today, the Liberals to make a move to talk to Bill also met Paddy Ashdown, when did not have the policy-making was for the Rodgers. I remember him saying Ashdown was notionally work- machinery to push their ideas. that he didn’t know what would ing as the ‘librarian’ at the Geneva Jim wanted to give them more. Liberals, happen to the SDP, but either it peace talks. ‘A dodgy cover for I think both sides can feel genu- but that would succeed and replace the a trained killer, if ever there was inely proud of what they did in Labour Party or the Labour Party one!’ comments McNally, but steadying the ship at a time when was partly itself would reform.’ the friendship that began to form people were talking about Britain You get the feeling that McNal- then later led to him becoming becoming “ungovernable”.’ because, ly’s move was more one of despair close adviser, speech-writer and Life in Downing Street obvi- than of positive conviction. ‘I a necessary purveyor of jokes to ously suited the political animal unlike the wasn’t a particularly active mem- Paddy Ashdown for the eleven that Tom McNally accepts he Liberal ber of the SDP. I was uneasy with years of his leadership. has always been. ‘My father was a some aspects of it, for instance its In , when Callaghan process worker for ICI, an active Democrats top-down nature. Nor, although I moved into Downing Street, trade unionist and a Labour Party admired him, was I a particular fan so did Tom McNally – to run supporter. He never ran for office today, the of Roy Jenkins. I was more a sup- his Political Office – and he but he loved talking politics and, porter of Owen. I even opposed remained there until Labour’s as I was the youngest of my fam- Liberals a move for merger after the defeat in , witnessing the full ily by fourteen years, he had did not election. I believe that Owen’s impact of the IMF crisis and the more time to do that with me. performance between and subsequent Lib-Lab Pact that kept The first election I was involved have the was one of the most brilliant Callaghan’s government in power. with was North Fylde in , individual political performances I It was a time that helped to for- when I was sixteen. Labour was policy-mak- have ever seen.’ mulate many of his views about the only political home for me McNally himself was not the future of British politics. in those days, although one of ing machin- closely involved with the internal ‘Jim Callaghan and I got to my closest friends at grammar ery to push workings of the Alliance between know each other very well,’ he school was Chris Walmsley. We and . ‘I was going says. ‘He was always extremely used to exchange provocative their ideas. through a lot of difficulties in my kind to subordinates but he could Labour–Liberal correspondence personal life at the time. I had left be very difficult and very tough with each other in the Blackpool Jim wanted Labour, both my parents had died, with people who were as big or Evening Gazette.’ I had lost my seat, my marriage bigger than him. I remember the After three years at Univer- to give was breaking up and I was drink- meeting with Gromyko in Mos- sity College London, where he them more. ing too much. I needed to sort cow. It was supposed to last an read Economics & Social His- myself out. My first real re-entry hour and went on for four. Gro- tory and was heavily involved into mainstream politics was in myko was playing very hard ball in student politics and debat- when Alec McGivan asked but Jim matched him minute for ing at every level, including the me to be Rosie Barnes’s minder minute and it was quite some- National Union of Students, Tom in the Greenwich by-election thing to watch these grizzled McNally applied for jobs with [won by her for the SDP–Liberal old pros battling it out with each the TUC, the Labour Party and Alliance]. That was also the time I other.’ the Fabian Society. In it was first met my now wife Juliet. She ‘I was an enthusiastic sup- Bill Rodgers who offered him his worked in David Steel’s office.’ porter of the Lib-Lab Pact. I liked first political position, as Assistant Unlike Owen, the result of David Steel from the moment General Secretary of the Fabian the election convinced him that I first met him, and so did Society. that merger was the best way to Jim,’ he says. ‘The saddest thing Surprisingly he did not stand combine in one political force is that, in all those discussions, for election to parliament until both the Liberal campaigning nobody ever thought that the best , when he won Stockport organisation on the ground that outcome of the pact could have for Labour. ‘That was not a happy the SDP had never had and the been to put it to the country as a time,’ he says. ‘There had always SDP’s more formal and less ‘anar- working coalition. It would have been a vicious faction locally that chic’ approach to policy-making, 38 Journal of Liberal History 46 Spring 2005 THE PRO WITH PROVEN POLITICAL EFFECTIVENESS which he believed had been the Liberal Party’s failing. ‘The SDP undoubtedly had been the cata- lyst for change in the Labour Party, but that change had already begun under Kinnock and Brian Gould in , and the Alliance had fallen back by ten points. We had to think afresh. The departure of Owen was sad in that we lost some good people but many of them have come back.’ He believes that the greatest difficulties in the early days of the merger had their roots in old SDP paranoia about controlling the party from the top and the Liberal Party’s natural, ‘anarchic’, again, inclination to want to do the opposite.