Defeat from the Jaws of Victory: Inside Kinnock's Labour Party

"Defeat from the Jaws of Victory" takes the reader behind closed doors to witness the Labour Party hierarchy in action - rigging votes, stage-managing meetings, dispensing patronage to favourites, and settling scores with enemies. Riding high on the backlash against the Bennite rebellion of the early 1980s, Neil Kinnock built the most autocratic regime in Labour's history. Centralizing power in his private office, he destroyed the Party's democratic structures, stripped it of anti-establishment policies and purged it of radical members whilst allowing a new careerist clique to install itself in every nook and cranny of the Labour machine. Under his aegis the party lost tens of thousands of members, ran up a #2.5million overdraft and proved incapable of removing an unpopular Tory government, even in the midst of the worst recession since the War. Using extensive research in Labour's archives, interviews with shadow cabinet members, Labour Party employees and rank and the file activitists, "Defeat from the Jaws of Victory" is packed with hitherto untold stories, revealing anecdotes, and concise analysis.