Hammer of the Left: The Battle for the Soul of the Labour Party

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"We went into the general election with an unelectable Leader, in a state of chaos with a manifesto that might have swept us to victory in cloud cuckoo land, but which was held in contempt in the Britain of 1983. We thought that things could only get better, but they got worse." John Golding The election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader has signalled a lurch to the left in the party. His ascent will, for many, trigger unhappy memories of the dark days of the 1970s and '80s, when a bitter struggle for ideas raged within the party. In that battle, moderate elements fought the illiberal hard left for the soul of Labour. That they won, paving the way for later electoral successes, was down to men and women like John Golding. This extraordinary book describes how Golding took on and helped defeat the Militant Tendency and the rest of the hard left within the Labour Party in the early 1980s. Golding saw Tony Benn, Eric Heffer and their colleagues on the left as having played a key role in the loss of the 1979 and 1983 elections, cementing the foundations of eighteen years of Conservative government.

John Golding was the Labour MP for Newcastle-under Lyme. He served in the governments of Wilson and Callaghan, and was a whip in opposition. He later became General Secretary of the National Communications Union. He died in 1999.

"A cracking read for anyone with a taste for raw politics." - Neil Kinnock