Labour Before Blair Anthony Howard On a Life of the Leader Who has Been Airbrushed From His Party's History

The Sunday Telegraph London (June 19, 2005)

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Summary

ALTHOUGH NOT quite the shortest-serving party leader of the 20th century, John Smith led Labour for rather less than two years. He died at the age of 55 in May 1994, his death provoking a tidal wave of grief that took the media distinctly by surprise.

Since then the more ardent Blairites and unrepentant advocates of New Labour have done their best to see to it that his memory no longer lingers in political history - a history which, in their eyes, has to start with Tony Blair becoming Prime Minister in May 1997 or, better still, with his bodily assumption into the Party leadership in succession to Smith in July 1994.

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Extract

Labour Before Blair Anthony Howard On a Life of the Leader Who has Been Airbrushed From His Party's History

With the Prime Minister at just about the nadir of his fortunes it is not a bad moment to bring out the first full-scale biography of his predecessor. Mark Stuart, a young academic with a previous life of Douglas Hurd ...

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