The Prime Minister is in Burnt Oak

For a pleb, I'm rather lucky. I've met two Prime Ministers out on the campaign trail!

Only one was actually Prime Minister, my meeting with Lady Thatcher in 1974 (documented elsewhere in this blog) walking home from School occurred when she was merely MP for Finchley.

The other meeting occurred in 1979. James Callaghan was Prime Minister and he was on the campaign trail. I was pondering this visit and how times have changed. At the time, Hendon North was a safe Tory seat, with John Gorst as MP (would Brown bother with a safe Tory seat today). There are many parallels between 1979 and today. Callaghan and Brown were both not elected, they took over from people who had won three elections each (Wilson and Blair). They had both been involved in Labour governments which had huge fiscal crises (IMF Bailout and the Credit Crunch). They had both been viewed as good chancellors by the nation. They both were accident prone  (Callaghan "Crisis, what crisis?". Brown - Bigotgate).

Having said that, there are differences. Callaghan was generally liked in the country. He wasn't seen as the problem. Most people preferred Callaghan to Thatcher personally at the time. He was a warm character, often called "Sunny Jim". They were just sick of the Labour government. The Liberals were seen as a minor irrelevence. They were expecting to get a dozen or so MP's and their only real hope of power was to hold the balance of power and force the introduction of PR, propping up a minority government. Today the Lib Dems are poised to get the largest number of seats since the second world war. Whilst Thatcher was a hard right Tory with a clear agenda and presented a clear change from Callaghans government, nobody really seems to know what David Cameron stands for (least of all himself).

Anyway, I was in the sixth form common room at Orange Hill Senior High School when someone said "Jim Callaghan is visiting the Labour hall in Burnt Oak to make a speech at midday". Myself, Boz Boorer, Phil Bloomberg and a few others immediately trudged off down. It's fair to say that some of us were more motivated by a desire to get on telly than any deeply held political views. As it turned out, the Prime Minister turned up an hour late. He was given a raptuous ovation for five minutes, then said "thanks for your support. I can tell you that we are going to win" and then left again. Outside a line of dignitaries was formed to shake hands, but we all pushed in front. The Prime Minister said as he shook hands "Thanks for all your hard work". I replied "my pleasure". We were given a roll of Labour stickers, which we went out and plastered the common room with. Phil Bloomberg then suggested we go out canvassing. We made our way up to the Stonegrove Estate and the first door Phil knocked on, when asked if he was voting Labour, replied "No mate, I'm National Front". At this Phil punched him in the face. A year or so later I was in a pub in Dean Street, The Sound and Vision, that had a video jukebox - probably the first in the country. They had "John, I'm only dancing" by the Polecats on - the band in which Phil Bloomberg played bass. As they were mates, I played the track. One of my mates, who was in a hard core, very political punk band said "Why are you playing this. I can't stand this sort of music". I relayed the Phil Bloomberg canvassing story and he said "Sorry mate, I stand corrected".

Times change.  I'm pleased to say that I've not resorted to such measures in my campaign for the Lib Dems.