Jim Callaghan is dead and no one seems to care

Classic, and a skilled politician, for managing to govern the country for three years without a majority.

Jim Callaghan was about as left wing as Blair, just not as posh.

He was further to the left than Blair is, but was certainly right-wing for a Labour politician of his period.

See I don't think this is true, caitlin. Wilson wasn't left-wing, Atlee wasn't particularly left-wing, Ramsay Mac certainly wasn't left-wing. Left-wingers very rarely get to lead the Labour party because the Left is effectively a minority of the party and pretty much always has been. Callaghan wouldn't have been leader if he hadn't been the acceptable compromise choice, i.e. didn't carry any dangerous baggage like ideas, passion, etc.

I assume then that Callaghan gained his "right-wing for Labour" reputation because he, more so than other Labour PMs, was brought down by the trades unions.

He was brought down by the zeitgeist.

I guess it's not stirring people's 'sympathy' in that the chap had clearly lived a very full life; 92 years and all, and even a few years ago, was perfectly on the ball and lucid. And indeed, most people under, say, 35 or 40 probably won't even have a clear idea of who he was...

I myself would say that... he was actually both a very good and very bad prime minister; a few key strategic mistakes (actually in his other previous govt. jobs too) that blighted the big picture, but he did actually rescue the country from potential meltdown from 1976-8... all accounts point to his and Healey's economic management being very effective indeed in this period, and then, well... one step too far in retaining the 5% pay increase limit past its original remit. Although, if they had caved in and relaxed the rules, there would have been no Winter of Discontent, it might have stored up problems for the future... it may yet have prolonged the 'Post War Social Settlement', mind; especially if they had been able to somehow moderate the unions - not easy, of course!

He stands as a less shrewd - and short-termist - politician than Harold Wilson, but almost definitely a more principled one, with the *key* exception of "In Place of Strife", in which "Big Jim, the Hard Man Union Fixer" turned up instead of the later One Nation Labourite PM.

I think it's very hard to feel sympathy for the man who sent troops into Northern Ireland, or am I just being reductionist about this?

The reasoning behind that can't be painted in too black-and-white a way, I don't think. BBC reports yesterday made the point that *initially* the *intention* was to protect Catholics who were at serious risk at the time.

I don't know enough about how the whole thing exactly progressed, in between 1969 and Bloody Sunday, c.f. the British Govt. and Callaghan's involvement - of course, no direct influence 1970-2.

I met Callaghan three years ago in my bar where his grandson was celebrating his 30th birthday in a private party. I cleaned some glasses off of his table. He was very fragile. But seemed to eminate good vibes.

This clears the decks for the death of Maggie of course, but yes, there was a general feeling when the news flash came up after Doctor Who that it probably could have waited for the actual news.
(We thought that perhaps the Nestene Consciousness had taken over the world and hence the news flash but...)

I don't think his importance should be underestimated; the tributes/news reports have rightly spoken of him as a man who almost embodied the trajectory of the Labour movement. Yet... they could emphasise more just how close the line was between his potential-probable success in an Oct. 78 election, and the actual May. 79 election. And indeed that even in Jubilee-Punk England he was by far the most personally popular of the party leaders: *even actually during the 1979 election campaign*, as is indicated by polling.

Hmm..I don't think his importance should be over-estimated.

Tributes are the last place to look for an accurate assessment. Potential-probable success is cold-comfort in politics (and I still feel the tide of politics had turned with an irresitible momentum).

I am always sceptical of these "he was never left-wing!" bellowings, usually because they always seem to be directed by those who on the left who, generally speaking, live solely within the textbook against those who actually have to work in the real world (ie battling broadly speaking inherently right-wing Britpublic).

Wasn't this Callaghan's big problem? That he couldn't reign in the far left hijacking of the unions who couldn't see the real enemy thus discrediting everything they stood for at least the next two decades?

Or is this NuLab propaganda speaking to me? (Sinkah, Carmody, Enrique etc to thread?)

The only likeable human being to have been Prime Minister in the last 50 years or so?

I think the left/right debate is subtler than the idea of Callaghan as a right-winger would suggest. Pre New Labour I *any* minister in a Labour government, even Jenkins, say, would have been well to the left of Blair. And, as Matt suggests, the real battle was often between a Left that wanted radical measures NOW and alleged right-wingers like Healey or Williams or Hattersley who had long-term egalitarian goals but thought a more gradualist approach was pragmatically necessary. Wilson was certainly on the Left before he became PM, and part of the reason Callaghan got the job of taking on the unions was because his political roots were in the union movement and the unions regarded him as being on their side. Even in old labour terms he wasn't on the right in the sense that, say, Jenkins was.