Tony Benn in the first 5 minutes of The Wilderness Years gives the only honest & correct diagnosis of said years. His words still apply today.
'Labour hasn't appeared to stand for anything since 1974 & people are not fools; they see that, so they say better the devil we know.'

All the other politicians influenced thus far, Blair, Brown and Hattersley are breathtakingly self-serving. Utter ghouls, the lot of them. Shameful.
Watch, remember, and apply the lessons to today.

The BBC narrator easing from Benn's campaign to democratise the Party, to <1 minute later> revolutionise the Party.

Healey going full authentocrat, much as Kinnock would later. Benn, almost alone among his collegues, *did* realise that the world was changing, and had a diagnosis that wasn't more of the same, but worse.

The coward Hattersley:
'I think many of Tony Benn's ideas are crazy, I think he's pursued them with an unscrupulousness which is deplorable, I think he's a great believer in personal aggrandisement.'

The ideas? Party democracy.

The appalling Kaufman:
'They wanted to turn the Party into a Stalinist Party which was not controlled by the people, but was controlled by a number of inner party organisations, which then imposed their wishes on the govt.'
The irony of the Labour Right's democratic centralism.

Corbz! (who was hench).

Healey haughtily dismissing activists and CLP members as 'not representative of the rank-and-file'.

Benn 'the term 'activist' became a term of abuse....if you're an entrepreneur, you're a capitalist activist, if you're an editor of a paper, you're a journaist activist.'

David Owen, displaying the remarkable contempt for democracy, Labour voters, and Labour members,that continues to inform the PLP.
He's simply astonished by Benn's commitment to democracy.
'This is what he really thought' he decries, wide-eyed.

On MP's as delegates rather than representatives:

'that was the ominous and, in my view, absolutely outrageous aspect of their campaign.'

Apparently re-selection wasn't about giving power to constituencies!

Glad you did one, mate.

Next!

Jenkins, now here's some elision:

'The Party was taken miles away from the sort of social democratic, internationalist, pro-Nato view, that I had been brought up in.'

True, but what on earth is internationalist or social democratic about <deep breath, curses> fucking Nato?

Owen (after lying about the EU as the cause of the split):

'We raised the question (having dismissed a Centre Party) about whether or not if Labour couldn't represent a democratic socialist point of view then a social democratic voice would have to emerge.'

Bullshit merchant.

'but again, it was never with any intention to do anything other than fight.'

You wouldn't buy a used car from David Owen.

Astonishing even by Hattersley's style, talking about Conference arrangements:

'There we were sat in a hen coop, which looked exactly like the gulity men at the Nuremburg Trial.'

Let that sink in.

The narcissism and insensitivity are off the charts.

Hattersley:

'The great cry of treachery was a speech made by Tony Benn in which he listed all the promised that the Labour Party in government had broken.'

Ah yes, accountability and transparency = treachery.

Unreliable narrator:

'Right-wing MPs were outraged at the Left's proposals to give more power to Trades Unions and party members: a recipe, in their view, for a Trotskyite takeover.'

He's talking about party democracy.

All this sounding familiar yet?

Smethwick (now there's a constituency to conjure with) MP:
'I represent the true Labour Party in Smethwick <voice tremors>, not the Workers' Revolutionary Party, nor the Militant Trots...Madame Chairman, the baying of the beast betrays it's presence.'

Let's be clear, the waxed moustached MP for Smethwick is calling Labour members 'beasts'.

Joe Ashton is at least honest about his opposition to mandatory reselection: Right-wing MP's would defect because they would be democratically voted out over time (no thought to being a good MP).
That's the Labour Right for you, Smithers.
Rabid anti-democrats. Plus ca change.

On Benn effectively winning Conference, having defeated the block vote, the war criminal Jack Straw giving Hatterley a run for his money:

'It was appalling,there was poison in the air, there was a real sense of triumphalism by...the Bennites.'

Democracy is poisonous & appalling

At least Straw is consistent.

David Owen delivering the worst rallying call I've ever seen. It contains the word passion and fight x 3, 'fudge, smudge, and mudge (what is mudge?) and no reference to strategy or politics. He's ringing it in already, the fraud.

Owen:
'Callaghan wasn't going to fight and why should he? Jim Callaghan had had a distinguished record as Chancellor (devaluation), Home Secretary (Troops to Ulster), Foreign Secretary, Prime Minister (Winter of Discontent, Thatcherism, IMF).
Some judgement.

Callaghan then committed a typical act of Right-Wing contempt for rules, promises, members and democracy, by ignoring Conference (having promied to abide by decisions) & resigning before the new rules were applicable thus ensuring Tony Benn remained at a disadvantage.

Bryan Gould on <cliche alert> 'the best leader Labour never had' Denis Hinterland Healey:

'He is a thug, and he over the years, I think, gratuitously or otherwise, offended large numbers of his colleagues on one occasion or another.'

The sleekit Kinnock makes his first ghastly appearance. Like an unwelcome guest.
The vile Hattersley once again making sexist remarks: this time about Jill Craigie who he accuses of vaulting ambition.
Benn, very badly advised by his colleagues.

Waiting for the Shitehouse Declaration now.

Owen: 'it was clear that the machinery of the Party had been taken over'.

He's talking about democracy again, lads. By taking over, he means votes were cast at conference and the side he didn't like, won said votes.

Benn, reasonably:

'I mean it is about democracy. Is democracy about giving people a chance to participate, or is it all vetted and approved, and you've just got to sit back and do what you're told...The more I think about it democracy is what is controversial in Britain....

not Socialist rhetoric, nobody cares about Socialist rhetoric any more than they care about what a Bishops say on a Sunday about brotherhood...but when you raise the democratic question, then I tell you, you're in trouble.

That was what the whole thing was about, and still is within the Labour Party.

Ain't that the truth.

Kinnock singing the Red Flag like John Fucking Terry, the fraud.
The Shitehouse Declaration.
Benn: 'the reality is that 10% of the PLP left the Party and then tried their best to destroy it and had full media support.'

'They provided a focus of former Labour Cabinet Ministers who could be used to destroy the Labour Party. That's what they did. That was their only function. They never had the slightest prospect of winning electoral victory at all.'

Remember: Labour led in the polls from 1980-81

End of Part One.
I shall return to this, narrative steering apart, fairly well balanced documentary.
You should watch it: