What really happened in the 80s?

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

Everyone has the own opinions on what happened in the 1980s, and how the “difficulties” (to put it mildly) of that decade led to the birth of New Labour in the mid nineties. But thanks to the latest (e-book) edition of Peter Mandelson’s “The Third Man”, we now know exactly what senior Labour people were saying.

On November 20th 1987 – few months after Labour’s third successive election loss – the NEC and shadow cabinet held a joint meeting and discussed a presentation from Philip Gould on Labour and Britain in the 1990s. Considering how divided this group of people was (ideologically at least), it’s interesting to see how well Gould’s ideas were received. Tony Benn described it as “very useful” and Mandelson records him discussing “media propaganda” which helped explain why we lost. In contrast Ken Livingstone – now of course back on the NEC – said something that he might still be arguing today. Mandelson’s notes report him saying:

“Presentation is a damning indictment of last 4 years, “couldn’t run economy” is most important factor, won’t win til this is corrected.”

Livingstone also argued that the party needed to decide how they were going to deal with the Hard Left, and said the party either needed to expel them or defend them. Meanwhile Roy Hattersley said something few Labour politicians would argue for today, that the party needed “a stronger ideological dimension to our propaganda”. I can’t imagine any of the current shadow cabinet arguing that today.

What is perhaps most interesting though is what these notes reveal about the younger Mandelson. This isn’t the all-seeing, all-knowing, arched eyebrow Mandelson. He’s still a political operator of course, but this Mandelson is more adept observer than the proactive political lynchpin he would later become. That’s what gives these notes real value – not just what they tell us about the party in the 1980s, but what they tell us about Mandelson the man, before he became Mandelson the character…

Read Mandelson’s notes here.

The e-book edition of The Third Man is out today. You can buy it here.