The current leadership battle for the Tory leadership has raised the issue of other occasions of when a Prime Minister resigned and was replaced by someone else from the same Party without an Election.
One such occasion was the resignation of Harold Wilson as PM on 16th March 1976.
For those of a certain age it may be recalled that the resignation gave rise to any number of conspiracy theories involving MI5 the KGB and so on. The reality was probably more mundane. Wilson feared signs of the Alzheimers that ran in the family. He had after all won 4 Elections for Labour, 1964, 1966 and 1974 twice.
Tony Benn records in his Diary that Wilson’s announcement stunned the Cabinet and it led to a leadership Election.
It being 1976 the election was confined to Labour MPs.
The first round on 25th March 1976 saw the following results:
Foot 90
Callaghan 84
Jenkins 56
Benn 37
Healey 30
Crosland 17
All of the contenders were men(!) with considerable political and Ministerial experience who had run Government departments.
The second ballot on 30th March produced the following result:
Callaghan 141
Foot 133
Healey 38
Callaghan became leader and PM. It was a victory for the Labour right, though Healey arguably played a key role once Callaghan was in No.10. Foot became leader after Callaghan lost in 1979 and duly lost in 1983. Crosland sadly died in 1976, Jenkins left for the SDP and Benn continued to tack left.
Perhaps the lesson from all this 45 years on is that for the wider public while WIlson’s resignation was a complete surprise those who sought to replace him and their record in Public Office over some years was well known (if not liked). Certainly none had the baggage of several of the current Tory leadership contenders….
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