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May 12 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
#OTD 1994. Death of John Smith

"The most important message of all is that no society, no country can ever survive without a profound sense of social justice – and unless we bring social justice back to this country, this country cannot be healthy and cannot be successful”
Thread on his final speech

Thread on his leadership

Thread on his battle against the Tories on the ERM

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More from @labour_history

Tides of History Profile picture
May 1
#OTD 1997. Election. Landslide. Labour win 418 seats giving Tony Blair a majority of 179.

In their worst election defeat since 1906, the Conservatives retain just 165 MPs, with their smallest share of the vote since 1832.

Thread on the end of the Conservative Era 👇
Labour lost the 1992 election despite the pollsters and the bookmakers calculating that they would win

thecritic.co.uk/how-labour-los…
But the Conservative victory turned out to be a pyrrhic one.

Within weeks the David Mellor scandal derailed trust in the Major Government.
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Jul 10, 2021
“Austerity is repealed for a day as Britons swarm to the pubs”

Wilson, economic collapse, austerity and a “once in a lifetime” football match....

A thread on the events of July 30th 1966 - the last time England were in a major final 👇
Harold Wilson launched the tournament at a meeting of FIFA in London and claimed England had a good chance of winning.

“England are playing together as a team. They will face the best you can put against us with great confidence.”
He admitted that “I have my own hopes for who should win the cup but I propose to keep it secret”

Hosting a dinner a few days later, he stood by the World Cup and said it was there “by courtesy of the British police and a dog of doubtful ancestry”.
Read 28 tweets
Tides of History Profile picture
May 11, 2021
#OTD 1994. John Smith delivers a speech at Labour's European Gala Dinner

Leading by 20pts in the polls, he tells the audience: “There is a great hunger amongst our people for a return to the politics of conviction and idealism”

The speech would prove to be his final act. 👇 Image
“Britain’s future depends on investment in the skills of our able people, investment in our industry, particularly our manufacturing industry”
“One of the ambitions of the next Labour Government is to create the best educated and trained workforce in the whole of Europe. In workforce – I include management” Image
Read 18 tweets
Tides of History Profile picture
Feb 23, 2021
#OTD 1950. General Election. Labour add over one million votes – but reduce their majority from 146 to an unworkable five. 84% turn out to vote.

Despite winning big in the party’s industrial heartlands there is a major swing to the Tories in Middle England

Full Thread 👇
In 1945, Labour had become the party of whole nation – bringing middle class voters with it for the first time.

thecritic.co.uk/1945-at-75-lab…
Infamously, the MP for St Helens, the Attorney General, Sir Hartley Shawcross declared:

“We are the masters at the moment, and not only at the moment, but for a very long time to come”
Read 29 tweets
Tides of History Profile picture
Jan 20, 2021
The Special Relationship: President's and Labour Prime Minister's

From MacDonald and Hoover to Brown and Obama (and the one that got away @JoeBiden ) ImageImageImageImage
Ramsay MacDonald became the first British Prime Minister to visit the United States as a guest of the President

US media were excited by his daughter Ishbel - as people "lined the streets of broadway" to observe her fashion taste ImageImage
MacDonald claimed that ‘both nations have a great role to play in the advancement not only of disarmament but of many other democratic and moral issues with which their history is associated’

His aim was to agree a Naval treaty that would ‘narrow the Atlantic’. Image
Read 35 tweets
Tides of History Profile picture
Oct 8, 2020
#OTD 1959. General Election. Shock as Labour suffer third defeat in a row and 'SuperMac' triumphs

Despite Suez - and eight years of Conservative rule - voters agree that 'they've never had it so good'....

A thread on the result that triggered the question: ‘Must Labour Lose?’
Gaitskell and Bevin were in Leningrad when news was announced that Harold MacMillan had called a General Election.
In the years prior to 1959, many had expected Labour to win the next election.

In February 1957, Labour won the seat of North Lewisham in what was their first by-election gain from the Tories in almost twenty years.
Read 68 tweets

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