James Callaghan

I mean, what we're basically now having is a kind of relitigation of the 1970s and the 1980s, right? You've got the Conservative Party, which, you know, in my view actually has never truly come to terms with or analyzed the defaults of Thatcherism and what happened in the '80s, right? So, you know, Badenoch Is basically what she's offering.

If I was, like, concerned about, you know, sort of, uh, if I were around her and sort of thinking about the prospectus that, that I was offering, I think but, uh, her big problem is that she is basically offering a re-- If, if, if Andy Burnham is, is offering a kind of reheated Jim Callaghan-esque, Harold Wilson-type Labourism-

He'd say it's Clement Attlee, wouldn't he?

Well, he would, but yeah, sure, sure.

Um, I also put in a long section in the EP episode, the live show episode, about, uh, Harold Wilson being the prime minister of the UK at the time.

It's more or less irrelevant 'cause he switches over to, I think, James Callaghan short- around this time.

Mm.

The only reason I put Harold Wilson in that episode is because he is a great man for a pipe.

This had happened a few times, but not in the modern age, and, uh, this is, you know, people, people are panicking, naturally enough.

So the Irish government, there's a massive manhunt.

Liam Cosgrave declares, "This atrocity fills all decent Irish people with a sense of shame." The UK Prime Minister, who is James Callaghan at this stage, he condemns the assassins as the common enemy whom we must destroy or be destroyed by.

Um, we might do an episode about Callaghan at some point, but, uh, he, he was a, a dirty Mick.

the paramilitary suddenly saw their opportunity to tool up, defend their areas, because they perceived, rightly or wrongly, that the RUC had failed to defend the various communities.

Jim Callaghan was the Home Secretary and Harold Wilson was the Prime Minister.

And the decision was made, fatefully, to deploy the British Army into Belfast and into Derry and into some of the other towns where there was conflict.

Outbreaks of violence? The Irish Justice Minister had nothing to say to reporters as he arrived with his security advisers at the Northern Ireland office.

ambassador.

Jim Callaghan's son-in-law.

And he

was ambassador

It was, uh, expanded significantly through the '50s, '60s, and '70s.

And you do have to, I think, i-e-even if you are someone who thinks, um, you know, uh, the, the Thatcher revolution was a wrong turn, you know, the '60s and '70s were underrated, you do have to sort of confront this question of, okay, why did it, why did it fall apart? And why did it fall apart before Thatcher came to power? Why was it that, uh, you know, um, Jim Callaghan was giving speeches in the late 1970s basically saying the old Keynesian consensus is not working anymore, where you respond to every slowdown by just throwing more public money into, into circulation.

Like, and also the question of why is it that almost every country in the developed world ended up having some version of, of the Thatcher era reforms.

In, in the United States, you get this starting under, um, uh, Jimmy Carter.

Somebody had to grasp it and he deserves respect for doing that.

Well, in your column, Danny, you refer to a very different conference speech given by James Callaghan almost exactly 50 years ago.

He told the party that the cosy world where things can be put right with the stroke of a chancellor's pen no longer existed.

Here are a few key bits of that speech.

But, of course, history's kind to that speech.

It was very compelling.

And also, I don't know about anybody else, just as a political geek, I could listen to Jim Callaghan make speeches, you know, for almost an infinite length of time.

He's just got this incredible authority and style.

And then he jumps to the 1980s when the ghastly neoliberal capitalist privatization, all that stuff comes and ruins this wonderful social democratic paradise that Labour has created.

But as you say, Liam, he has missed out the bit in the middle where Labour In fact, I think you shared, there was Jim Callaghan, who was the prime minister in that, what, we had a three-day week.

I remember the power cuts.

Inflation was absolutely astonishing.

So he glides over inflation.

you know, this period of Labour calamity.

And there was some footage during the rounds of Jim Callaghan.

I think you just mentioned that at that Labour Party conference.