Abstract
In their new edited collection, James Callaghan: An Underrated Prime Minister?, Hickson and Miles offer a balanced reappraisal of a Labour prime minister who governed during the 1970s, a period that saw significant social, political and economic disquiet and is a decade which is increasingly considered as influential in the making of the modern Britain. Building on existing literature which evaluates Callaghan’s premiership, the editors and their impressive range of pertinent contributors serve a diversity of opinion: from leading academics such as Lord Norton of Louth and Professor Jane Martin, to Callaghan’s contemporaries who offer their personal accounts. Although the editorial view is implied in the sub-title, both the successes and failures of Callaghan’s premiership are considered with the express intent of enabling the reader to form their own conclusion.
The book refines a thematic structure used in previous publications by Hickson, similar re-evaluations of prime ministers Harold Wilson and John Major, with the material split into three sections: contexts, policies and perspectives.
The first section places the Callaghan government in historical context. Several contributors highlight the challenges faced by Callaghan and attest to his mastery of political tactics, illustrated by his minority government continuing to hold office and the successful cabinet discussions during the 1976 IMF Crisis.
A particularly strong chapter that encapsulates the broader themes present is Eric Shaw’s ‘Callaghan and the extra-parliamentary Labour Party’. Shaw contends that, despite Callaghan’s talent, position in the party and wider trade union movement, the Labour Party became increasingly divided during his leadership. Shaw outlines how institutional and environmental factors decisively influenced Callaghan’s leadership. The growing dominance of the left within the party and Callaghan’s disregard for party democracy both contributed to greater fragmentation, despite attempts by him to assuage relations. Shaw correctly identifies this fracturing as being exacerbated by the breakdown of the post-war consensus of Keynesian economics and significant welfare spending, a commitment which had previously mitigated internal divisions was now challenged openly by the distinctive responses adopted by Callaghan and the left within the party.
The second section addresses the policies of the Callaghan government. Two insightful chapters are by Jasper Miles and Jane Martin. Miles provides a particularly pertinent examination of Callaghan and Europe. He begins by making an important distinction, that Callaghan’s stance cannot be ascribed the dichotomy of pro- or anti-Europe. Instead, Miles argues that Callaghan approached the subject dispassionately, seeking instead to evaluate Britain’s prospects in each matter. This method is examined through Callaghan’s decision making on direct elections to the then European Assembly, the Common Agricultural Policy and the European Monetary System. Miles offers a convincing interpretation of Callaghan’s approach. By recognising the basic political reality of the importance of Europe, Callaghan utilised his detachment and political skill to take key strategic decisions while pursuing an approach to maximise Britain’s interests at every opportunity.
The most original contribution in the book is the chapter by Professor Jane Martin on education policy, which utilises the newly available material of Caroline Benn, a lifelong education activist and supporter of comprehensive education, to trace Callaghan’s education agenda. Martin demonstrates the significance of Callaghan’s 1976 Ruskin College speech and subsequent ‘Great Debate’, which initiated serious thinking within the Labour Party about the importance and impact of education, as well as the need to move the discourse beyond comprehensive education and administrative structures. Martin posits that it was potentially Callaghan’s self-conception of his own educational background manifested through conservative values that informed his stance on education policy. Although this is not an unfamiliar conclusion, it is not uncontroversial, with other authors attributing Callaghan’s actions to genuine concern for the education of working-class pupils, and a desire to open the subject to wider discussions than any that had previously taken place.
The third section, perspectives, captures three concise first-hand accounts by Callaghan’s political contemporaries and four commentaries. The most notable chapter by Polly Tonybee recites the argument that Callaghan’s opposition to trade union reform a decade earlier was the source of his own downfall, an interpretation strongly rebuffed by Kenneth Morgan.
In An Underrated Prime Minister?, with no chapter surpassing 20 pages, a breadth and depth of knowledge is demonstrated which successfully captures the essential elements of James Callaghan the man and the contrasting nature of his premiership. A politician with conservative values cast in the mould of the politics of post-war consensus of Keynesian economics and social democracy, under whose tenure it began to collapse; the party man, who as leader struggled to hold an increasingly fractious party together; and the keeper of the cloth cap, whose government’s handling of industrial relations was a major factor in its loss at the subsequent general election. Hickson and Miles, along with their contributors, provide an eminently readable evaluation of Callaghan and his government.
