John Smith had been leader of the Labour Party for just under two years when he suffered a fatal heart attack on May 12, 1994.His death occurred one week after local elections that had seen the Tories, then in government and led by John Major, suffer heavy losses. National opinion polls from the same month implied the Conservatives were deeply unpopular, showing them trailing behind Labour by as much as 20%.
It is intriguing to wonder how different a PM John Smith might have been in contrast to the man who replaced him as Labour leader, Tony Blair. It was widely known that Smith had no time for Peter Mandelson or his particular brand of spin, choosing not to employ either. Smith was less of a pragmatist than Blair and entertained decidedly frosty attitudes towards the sort of pro-market, pro-choice views of his successor. It is also likely there would have been no cosying up to the Spice Girls, no exhortation that "Labour's coming home" and certainly no Cool Britannia-themed parties at Downing Street had John Smith become prime minister in 1997.
Would he have sucked up BUSH'S ARSE and taken us into two wars we could not win? Would we now be in the financial turmoil we are now in?
I believe that the country would have been in a better state, we would probably not have had CYCLOPS as the worst PM for 100 years, NOT HAD THE TOTALITARIAN COUNTRY WE NOW HAVE and more importantly we wouldn't have had to endure 10 years of that FUCKING ARSEHOLE, TONY BLAIR!
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John Smith seemed to be a decent man. I saw his grave on a visit to Iona and I always wondered why he was so dead against Independence. He had such a strong knowledge of Scottish history and it's centuries old fight against tyranny yet never thought we were good enough to stand up as an independent country. He supported devolution and said that was as far as it would go. Strange.
It's always made me wonder why so many Labour supporters are so dead against independence. You would think that in a mostly socialist country, they would be jumping at the chance to rule witout the possibilities of the Tories being elected. I am much more likely to vote Tory and I am in favour of independence. Strange.
Did you get the chance to piss on his grave or were there other people about?
The image of John Smith as a decent , no nonsense man is certainly appealing .
He was , however , the MP for Monklands East (Airdrie) . He allowed his constituents to be discriminated against by the sectarian cabal which dominated the Monklands Labour Party .
Knowing this , I find it hard to venerate him as saint , as the Labour Party in my part of the world tend to do with their deceased leaders .
Yeh Y.O. It's a left wing thing. Lenin and Breshnev are still lying stinking like fuck some where in Moscow, although on the plus side they don't seem to be aging too badly although they have lost a kilo or two.
Funny thing Anonymous, (please stick a name on so that I know who I am speaking to), but I have always thought that if the Tories drop the Unionist thing they could do quite well in Scotland. I used to be a Tory party member some time ago and I remember being at a meeting when the speaker was giving it the old how great the Union was speech and how interesting it was watching the reactions from the assembled faithful. One or two (and me), weren't clapping and that included one who later became an MSP. I wonder what would have happened if that mood had prevailed, it could be SNP, Libthingies and the Tories against Labour as an independence movement. Now that would be class in a glass!
Yeah I used to vote Lib Dems until I went to a meeting in a town hall in Fife where Ming Campbell was speaking. After a good speech about how devolution would be brilliant etc someone asked if he would be standing for the Scottish Parliament. I sat thinking ' what a dumb question of course he is you fuckwit'. And he said No he wouldn't as he thought his role at Westminster was more important and he didn't think it was worth it etc . Didn't vote Lib Dem after that.
Welcome, N.A. I must admit I've never seen the npoint of voting for the Libthingies but I would vote for them before those labour bastards. I did once vote for those cosmic flying twats as a protest. Whatever happened to them and to Tommy Sheridan for that matter.
DL, amazing what a squirt of Vit K will clear.
I also have wandered along the lines you've left. He wouldn't have stood for any shit and he wouldn't have allowed any crap because he knew what the hell he was talking about and had a back bone. I was no fan though.
He'd have stuck the boot into any foundation boybitch spouting about endogenous growth theory and nutted Alan Greenspan for amusement.
He had to die.
His death I suppose becomes one of these really what if scenarios. Still it is amusing to speculate. I think your right. He wouldn't have stood for fucking Mandelson and the rest of the nancy boy brigade and Blair would never have risen to prominence in my opinion, but Brown would probably have been deputy leader under him. Would we have had devolution? I don't think that was in his thinking either. But who knows.
He said devolution was the 'will of the Scottish people' so he probably would have gone for it.
What would John Smith be doing if he was alive today?
It takes very strong fingernails to get through granite...
Yes, Conan, Butn it is rumoured that the grave was built by Hammer Films inc., so only one drop of blood and............!
Well A.A. we'll never know. We seem to be stuck at the moment in a halfway house with no-one knowing if we can borrow money, ban air rifles, put minimum prices on drinks, etc. All in all it's a mess.
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