I came third when I first stood in 1983 (many Labour voters staying with the SDP-defecting ‘incumbent’ MP in the Tory landslide). I was second in 1987, winning back many anti-Tory voters but making few inroads into the ‘new Tories’ who had voted Tory from 1979 onwards. In 1992 we were doing better, but had we done enough? I started and ended the campaign saying we might win by a few hundred. Many voters still feared ‘the cost’ of Labour and the ‘tax bombshell’. But one thing seemed certain – if I won we would win Southampton Test as well and have a Labour government.
On the night, I won by 500, getting crucial support from ‘green’ voters appalled at my opponent Christopher Chope’s decision to drive the M3 through Twyford Down. The Greens stood in Southampton Test, Alan Whitehead lost by 500, and there was no Labour government. To the media, I became the ‘red blob in the south’, to Labour the inspiration for Third Place First. It’s a myth that New Labour was born that night; the defeated Labour party turned en masse to John Smith, architect of the shadow budget, as new leader in preference to the most ‘New Labour’ (irreconcilable anti-Europeanism notwithstanding) candidate, Bryan Gould. There was a tragic twist to history yet to come.
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Read more about the Third Place First campaign, rebuilding the party’s presence across the country
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John Denham is MP for Southampton Itchen
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I was at a conference for adult educators in London. The morning after the night before when the conference reassembled we just stared into space for something like 15 minutes still truamatised by the thought of 5 more years of the Tories.
Not sure I agree, WAS Watching the Coverage the other day and seeing Both Yourself John Hutton and Alan Milburn first elected, Plus Tony Blair pointing out the real problems why we lost- the Public still hadn’t forgot the Winter of Discontent, the GLC union militantism, reather than the Myth of Well alright at Sheffield.