JAMES CALLAGHAN AND ME M AT T H E W H O L L A N D
Capitalism is based on two principles: opportunity and possibility; if we are presented with opportunities and our goals seem possible, we pursue them with unthinking enthusiasm. For this reason, we tend to revere those historical figures with whom we feel a tangible connection, because we feel that their success makes our success even more possible. Being from Portsmouth, I was spoilt for choice by local figures who went from rags to riches: Charles Dickens, who is so revered in Portsmouth that a council ward is even named after him, Arthur Conan Doyle, who played goalkeeper for Portsmouth Football Club; actor Peter Sellers, who made his debut at the Theatre Royal, where I watched the annual pantomime; and the man who is the subject of my interest and this article; James Callaghan, nicknamed Sunny Jim by his contemporaries, whose only recognition in Portsmouth is a road named after him as far from the centre of Portsmouth as possible, that still has a postcode beginning with the letter P. Most historians have a similar opinion of James Callaghan, that he was an incredibly important and influential man in an incredibly historic government, renowned for the liberalisation of abortion, divorce and homosexuality, the abolition of the death penalty, Equal pay for women and greater legal protections against racial discrimination. Callaghan rose to prominence in the Labour Movement as a Trade Union official and serving predictably as an officer in the Royal Navy during the Second World War. While maintaining strong Union links throughout his political career, it was the irony of his fate that the Unions would
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contribute to his downfall with the Winter of Discontent in 1978-9 showing his impotence at controlling the militancy of Unions, which provided the justification for Margaret Thatcher’s ascendancy. Looking at Callaghan’s career within the Wilson Governments, his legacy seems even more chequered. While Chancellor between 1964-7, he failed to deal effectively with the issue of ‘stagflation’ which led to the embarrassment of the devaluation of the pound.
When he was then shuffled to Home Secretary in 1967 as a result of his incompetence, he would then perform that job even worse by sending in paratroopers to Northern Ireland in 1967 which would lead to a heightening of tensions and Bloody Sunday just 5 years later, while also instituting bans on immigration from non-white countries in response to Enoch Powell’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech. His time as Foreign Secretary when Labour returned to office in 1974 was too short to be controversial, although his support for a referendum on membership of the EEC proved a smart political move that silenced Euroscepticism for decades afterwards.
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