Word: callaghans
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...relief was all but visible last week in the packed confines of Westminster Palace's Committee Room 14 when George Strauss, 74, an elder statesman of Britain's Labor Party, rose to address the assembled Labor M.P.s. By 176 votes to 137, Strauss announced, Foreign Secretary James Callaghan, 64, had, as expected, emerged as the third-ballot victor over Employment Secretary Michael Foot, 62, the voluble leftist ideologue. Thus ended the race for leadership of the party and occupancy of No. 10 Downing Street that had begun three weeks before when Harold Wilson resigned. After 13 years...
...Sunny Jim" Callaghan's first moves belied both his nickname and his avuncular reputation. Even before making the traditional visit to Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace for the "kissing of hands,"* the new Prime Minister sternly warned factions on both Labor's left and right wings that he intended to maintain party unity at all costs. Said he: "I want no cliques. None of you holds the Ark of the Covenant." But then, in a conciliatory gesture to Foot, who had done surprisingly well in the leadership contest, Callaghan named the Employment Secretary as party leader...
Rising Star. There were surprises in Callaghan's other Cabinet shifts. As Foreign Secretary, the P.M. chose Environment Secretary Anthony Crosland, 57, an aloof, cerebral party theoretician with credentials in economics rather than foreign affairs. The favorite had been Home Secretary Roy Jenkins, but Callaghan's heart is more in the relationship with Washington than with the EEC, whereas the eloquent, sophisticated Jenkins is an ardent pro-Marketeer. Expectations are that Callaghan may nominate Jenkins for presidency of the European Commission when it is Britain's turn to head it next January...
Within 48 hours of taking office, Callaghan seemed to be heading into a domestic political storm. The cause was the latest budgetary attempt by Healey to stabilize the listing British economy. Healey and Callaghan both believe that the new government's highest priority must be, as the fledgling Prime Minister declared in a nationwide television address, "the vital job of bringing down the rate of inflation." The rate, which in the year ending last June was as high as 26%, has dropped over the six months ending Feb. 29 to the less ruinous annual rate of 13.3%. This...
...Callaghan appealed to many Laborites as a pragmatic politician with a shrewd, intuitive sense of what the average voter wants. Some Labor M.P.s were bothered by the fact that, like Wilson, he seems impossible to pin down ideologically. Christopher Mayhew, a former Labor M.P. who entered Parliament with Callaghan in 1945, recalled that the new M.P. was even then a leader, hustling about to corral his fellow freshmen for a meeting. "But on the great issues of the day," recalls Mayhew, "there was no indication of where he stood...