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Prime Ministers
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1976 - 1979 |
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| James
Callaghan |
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| Party - Labour |
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Born: 27 March 1912 (Portsmouth, Hampshire)
Nicknames: "Big Jim"; "Sunny Jim"
Education: Portsmouth Northern Secondary School
Family: James Callaghan is the only son and
younger of 2 children. He married Audrey Elizabeth Moulton, and
has 1 son and 2 daughtersAge at appointment:
64 years, 9 days
First entered Parliament: 5 July 1945
Maiden Speech: 20 August 1945 during the Debate
on the Address about the situation in the Pacific following the
Japanese surrender
Total time as PM: 3 years, 29 days
Quotes:
"You never reach the promised land. You can march
towards it"
"A lie can be half-way around the
world before truth has got its boots on"
"We used to think that you could spend your way out
of a recession, and increase employment by cutting taxes and
boosting Government spending. I tell you in all candour that
that option no longer exists"
Biography:
The son of a naval chief petty officer, James Callaghan left
school at 14. He worked as a tax officer and was later employed
by the TUC. After serving in World War Two he was elected as a
Labour MP for Cardiff South in the post-war Labour landslide,
and later represented Cardiff South East.
He rose steadily through the party in Opposition, and stood for
the leadership after Gaitskell's death in 1963, losing with
respectable minority support.
As Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1964, Callaghan's decision
not to devalue the pound proved disastrous. After devaluation
the discredited Callaghan resigned as Chancellor, to become Home
Secretary, where he salvaged his reputation. During this time he
sent troops to Northern Ireland in 1969 to cope with worsening
violence. As a staunch defender of trade unions, he opposed
efforts to reform them, earning the title 'keeper of the cloth
cap'.
In Opposition Callaghan became Shadow Foreign Secretary, and in
government after 1974 it was his job to renegotiate the terms of
Britains EC membership.
When
Harold Wilson resigned unexpectedly, Callaghan was
not the favourite to win the leadership, being the oldest
candidate at 64. However, he was the least divisive candidate,
and won the vote.
As Prime Minister Callaghan presided over a sterling crisis,
which led to negotiations with the IMF for a rescue package, but
he did keep his Cabinet team together during the controversy
over the conditions set. Spending cuts and pay restraint were
demanded, but the left wing Labour conference nevertheless voted
for more spending.
Things were made more difficult still when Labour's small
majority disappeared in 1977, making Labour dependent on the
support of the Liberals. However, Callaghan persevered in office
even when this pact broke down. During the 'Winter of
Discontent' in 1978, industrial action over pay policy severely
damaged the governments authority.
The government lost a confidence motion on 28 March 1979 by just
one vote a classic piece of high-tension political theatre.
Callaghan was obliged to hold a general election, which was won
by
Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Party.
As Labour's left wing gained strength in the early 1980s,
Callaghan's influence waned, and he resigned as leader after 18
months. He retired from the House of Commons in 1987 and has
since been active in the House of Lords as a life peer. |
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James Callaghan (born 27 March
1912) was Labour
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from
1976 to
1979.
Callaghan was an old-style socialist, lacking any higher education, and
served as MP for Cardiff North. He was
Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time of the devaluation of the
pound in
1967 and resigned this office in the aftermath. Having been
appointed Home Secretary, his background in the trade union movement
meant that he served as a focus for opposition to the employment laws
proposed by his cabinet colleague
Barbara Castle in
1969. In this struggle (called The Battle of Downing Street)
he ultimately prevailed, and the proposals (set out in the
White paper In Place of Strife) were dropped. Callaghan was
the first prime minister to have held all three leading Cabinet
positions - Chancellor of the Exchequer, Home Secretary and Secretary of
State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs- prior to becoming prime
minister. He was never expected to reach the latter position, having
taken a back seat to the younger and more charismatic
Harold Wilson for many years. However, when Wilson unexpectedly
announced his retirement in 1976, Callaghan was the most experienced
candidate to replace him. His time as prime minister was one of more
open government, but the public was dissatisfied with his relaxed
response to high inflation and the increasing industrial unrest
(culminating in the Winter of Discontent) and replaced Labour with a
conservatism government under
Margaret Thatcher. Returning to the United Kingdom from an economic
summit held in
Guadeloupe in early 1979, Callaghan was asked:
- How do you respond to the mounting chaos that greets your
return, Prime Minister?.
His response:
- I see no sign of mounting chaos
was claimed by
The Sun to justify the attribution to him of the headline:
- Crisis? What Crisis?.
Callaghan resigned as leader of the party eighteen months later, on the
occasion of the 1980 party conference. He remained an MP for some years
before being elevated to the
House of Lords as Baron Callaghan of
Cardiff. Callaghan's resignation as party leader ignited a power
struggle between the left and right wings of the party which culminated
in the defection of the
Gang of Four to found the SDP. Many commentators hold the view that
this struggle was inevitable and even blame Callaghan for not resigning
earlier. Callaghan's admirers maintain that had he remained as party
leader his position would have been respected by both sides and that by
avoiding a split in the non conservative vote he could have restored the
Labour Party to Government by the mid-1980s.
This disagreement is illuminated by the fact the Callaghan's successor,
Michael Foot, a compromise candidate from the left of the party, was
unable to prevent
Tony Benn from challenging his right wing deputy
Denis Healey. |
b-March 27, 1912, Portsmouth, Hampshire, England
Owing to poverty, Callaghan entered the civil service at age 17 as a tax
officer. By 1936 he had become a full-time trade-union official. After serving
as a lieutenant in naval intelligence during World War II, he entered Parliament
in 1945, representing the Welsh constituency of Cardiff South.
Between 1947 and 1951 Callaghan held junior posts at the Ministry of
Transport and at the Admiralty. When
Harold Wilson's
Labour government was formed in 1964, Callaghan was named chancellor of the
Exchequer. In this capacity he helped secure in 1966-67 international agreement
to a system called Special Drawing Rights, which in effect created a new kind of
international money. He resigned from the Exchequer in 1967, when he was forced
to devalue the pound sterling. He then served as home secretary until 1970. In
Wilson's second government in 1974, Callaghan was named foreign secretary; and
in 1976, upon Wilson's resignation, Callaghan succeeded him as prime minister,
largely because the Parliamentary Labour Party considered him the least divisive
candidate.
Throughout his ministry (1976-79), Callaghan, a moderate within the Labour
Party, tried to stem the increasingly vociferous demands of Britain's trade
unions. He also had to secure the passage of unpopular cuts in government
spending early in his ministry. His reassuring public manner came to be
criticized as complacency when a series of labour strikes in 1978-79 paralyzed
hospital care, refuse collection, and other essential services. In March 1979
his government was brought down by a vote of no confidence passed in the House
of Commons, the first such occurrence since 1924. At the subsequent general
election, Callaghan's party was defeated. On Oct. 15, 1980, he resigned as
leader of the Labour Party, to be succeeded by Michael Foot.
Callaghan's political papers are held jointly between the
Archives Division of the
London School of Economics and the
Bodleian Library at the
University of Oxford. More specialised material, most notably his correspondence
on colonial issues from 1945 to 1959, is held by the University of Oxford's
Rhodes House Library.
