FELLOW TRAVELING:

How my party was betrayed by KGB boot-lickers (Gerald Kaufman, 04 November 2009, The Spectator)

When in 1983 I described Labour’s manifesto as ‘the longest suicide note in history’, I was drawing attention to the party’s apparently irreversible meltdown as an electoral force. As leader, Michael Foot was wedded to policies such as unilateral nuclear disarmament and leaving the European Economic Community. The strategy, if there was one, seemed to be to lose as many votes as possible.

The remarkable revelations published in the Chernyaev diaries make this attempted political suicide easier to understand. It is clear that key elements in the Labour party structure were determined to ingratiate themselves with Moscow — regardless of any adverse electoral impact in Britain. They show, vividly, how Labour was being poisoned by key officials who were laying the groundwork, apparently deliberately, for the debacle of 1983.