By Elliott West
“The opportunity to serve our country—that is all we ask”.
John Smith
Introduction
There have only been a small number of occasions when I have cried due to a famous person dying. The passing that pulled my heartstrings was when the then Leader of the Opposition, John Smith suddenly died from a heart attack on 12 May 1994, aged 55. The then-leader of the Labour Party was the only member of the shadow cabinet who had tasted power before, a junior minister in both the Wilson and Callaghan governments. John got his opportunity to shine after Neil Kinnock stood down due to Labour’s defeat in the 1992 election, a result that defied the opinion polls that had them on the crest of a wave. Smith was cautious, not wishing to rock the boat, preferring to prod the John Major government that was gradually imploding due to divisions over Europe and misuse of expenses.
The Smith Way
John Smith was described by Margaret Beckett as “a mischievous man, fantastically intelligent, a brilliant debater, especially in the House of Commons”. Smith was a ferocious debater with a quick-witted sense of humour A man who put his family and faith above politics and put investment and training as the fundamentals of his vision for government. A committed Internationalist and Socialist who was the first to accept the principle of a National Minimum Wage. A close friend of Gordon Brown and someone who had the odd spat with his mentor but always held each other in high regard for their 20 years of friendship.
I would liken John Smith to Harold Wilson in his formidable years. A politician who was secretly loved and admired by politicians of every political persuasion. He had a devastating punch that was able to peel John Major like a tangerine, exposing his flaws and weaknesses on the floor of the house. His power lay in his expert choice of the English language, forensic from his days as a lawyer/QC and many years of treading the campaign trail. A defender of the UK’s membership of the European Union. Yet someone who revalued his priorities in life after his first heart attack in 1988. Smith decided to eat healthily, gave up smoking and took up Munro bagging, the pursuit of climbing the mountainous terrain of Scotland.
On the Cusp
Smith’s opportunity to become Prime Minister couldn’t have come at a better time. Margaret Thatcher had been told to go by the men in grey suits in 1990 and the Conservative Major government, now only had a wafer-thin majority of 21. Yet privately Tony Blair and Gordon Brown waiting in the wings, patiently sitting on their hands until his ‘one more heave’ approach unravelled. With the general election rapidly approaching, a poll in May 1994 suggested that Labour had a 23 points lead over the Conservatives.
Leaving too Soon
John Smith’s death in 1994, rocked a party and a nation. Smith who had made a speech at a fundraising dinner at the Park Lane Hotel the previous night, suffered a massive heart attack at his Barbican flat the following morning. Despite his wife, Elizabeth calling for an ambulance, John was declared dead at St Bartholomew’s Hospital an hour later. Smith had only visited the hospital a fortnight before to campaign against the proposed closure of the A&E unit and had raised it as a question at PMQs later that day.
When his death was announced by John Major in the House of Commons, he revealed that he often shared a drink with the other John, sometimes tea, sometimes not. Such was the outpouring of grief in the chamber that you hear the sound of weeping. Smith was buried on the island of Iona and the Labour Party headquarters in Walworth Road was subsequently changed to John Smith House. It is thought that if John had lived, Labour would have had an election result similar to Tony Blair’s later landslide victory in 1997. This was largely due to the turmoil in the Conservative Party with the economic disaster of Black Wednesday and internal wranglings over Europe. The Conservatives would probably have had just over 200 seats, a result similar to Labour’s share of seats in the 1983 election.
