UFO Info Week-End

But he couldn’t free himself from his background as a minor trade union official

But he couldn’t free himself from his background as a minor trade union official – just about the only non-Westminster job he’d ever held.As Home Secretary, he sided with the union leaders against Wilson, and his Employment Secretary, Barbara Castle, in their attempt to reform union law Callaghan triumphed. His time as Foreign Secretary (1974-76) is best typified by a scandalous act of nepotism: appointing his son-in-law, Peter Jay, ambassador to Washington.Despite this, he was the man at the right spot in the political game of musical chairs. In 1976, early signs of Alzheimer’s disease ended Harold Wilson’s prime ministership. Callaghan took over, but then couldn’t win a single general election. Even John Major, a comparably hopeless prime minister, managed to do this once.

Callaghan’s bumbling administration went down in flames after the Winter of Discontent – and the Thatcher years began.There was nothing accidental about all this. He was a man who loved power but didn’t know what to do with it. This was the watchword of those who rushed to praise Lord Callaghan. Among them was Tony Blair, who called him “one of the giants of the Labour movement”. If he was, it helps explain why Blair invented New Labour in order to get away from such an inheritance.
Callaghan is the only man who held the four great offices of state: Chancellor of the Exchequer, Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary and, finally, for a brief three years in 1976-79, Prime Minister. Before history gets overlaid in posthumous syrup, remember that he is also the only man to have failed in all four offices.His term as Chancellor (1964-67) collapsed in ignominy after he made the wrong decision about devaluation, which eventually he was forced into.

As Home Secretary (1967-70), he sent troops into Northern Ireland – which was a lot easier than getting them out, and probably led to greater terrorism. He was motivated by the finest values of that tradition, of egalitarianism and national unity. He did not always see eye to eye with Tony Blair, but showed admirable discretion towards his successors generally He seemed to accept that his party had moved on. The most important battle that he fought as Prime Minister, to hold the line against the use of unemployment as an instrument of policy, marked him out as a most compassionate leader of the nation. For all the compromises that public life requires, he remained a man of dignity and stature, driven by a spirit of public service and hatred of poverty. Respect for his memory should extend way beyond the Labour Party.. Speak nothing but codswallop about the dead.