Just another Smith?
The politically observant Oxford student will have noticed that there are two anniversaries being celebrated and commiserated at this time. One is the 25th anniversary of Margaret Thatcher's election as Prime Minister, the other is the 10th anniversary of the death of John Smith. Now is not the time to debate the relative merits of these two characters.
However, it is worth taking the opportunity to pay tribute to one of Labour's most significant leaders; a man whose premature death robbed the British people of a Prime Minister who may well have been ranked among the greatest.
Born in 1938, John Smith studied law at the University of Glasgow, before serving as a barrister and entering Parliament for North Lanarkshire in 1970. He served as Secretary of State for Trade during the turbulent period of the 1970s Labour governments, yet it is not his ministerial career - as distinguished as it is - for which he will be most remembered.
Analysis of any Labour politician from the time cannot be removed from the context of the party's position between the late 1970s,and early 1990s, the period of Labour party history during which he was promoted.
Plagued by the socialist group Militant, the Labour party was fighting an internal battle not just for its soul, but its very existence. The brave work of such people as John Golding, Denis Healey and others only slowly paid dividends. Labour was entering general election campaigns on unelectable manifestos, and had a clearly unelectable leader in the figure of Michael Foot.
However, towards the end of the 1980s things began to change. Neil Kinnock developed in Smith the streak of resolve that allowed him to do as much as anyone in returning the Labour party back to the political mainstream. The glorious expulsion of Militant in 1985 heralded a new era in the party - it was returning to its roots as a party of ordinary people; of fairness, social justice and opportunity for all.
And one man that was coming to the forefront was the Shadow Chancellor, John Smith.
Although he was blamed by some for the 1992 General Election defeat because of his responsibility in formulating Labour's unpopular economic policy, he had no problem in succeeding Neil Kinnock as party leader. Whereas Kinnock had marked his leadership by fighting the battles that needed to be fought, Smith was a unifying presence. His deep-seated socialist convictions and his warm and witty personality made him trusted, respected and liked by many in the House of Commons, on all sides of the political divide. He helped to guide Labour's two most promising young MPs through the ranks.
Smith was especially close to Gordon Brown, yet both Brown and Blair would have played key roles in a Smith cabinet. Neither reclusive or uncomfortable like Foot, nor prone to damaging displays of excitability, he was a man who could command respect from the British people. He had convictions and he had the pragmatic sense to realise the only way in which they could be carried out - by a Labour government in power.
Smith spent his life striving for this end, and played a large part in its eventual success. The tragedy is that he never lived to see it as a reality. He suffered a massive heart attack on May 12th 1994, a day after he had uttered his famous phrase: "the opportunity to serve our country - that is all we ask." Britain and Labour were robbed of the chance to elect a man of hue rarely found within the highest levels of politics.
John Smith is a politician who has been represented by different people in many different ways, often as a means of justifying their own opinions. It has become common for arch-Blairites to denigrate his achievements, as if his leadership was merely a footnote to an inexorable rise of the Labour party. Others argue he would have struggled, perhaps failed, to win the 1997 election.
This lacks a consideration of contemporary public opinion. John Smith may not have enjoyed unilateral cross party support, but he undoubtedly would have carried the weight of public favour. Like Hugh Gaitskell in 1964, John Smith never became Prime Minister because he died prematurely.
The question that should be asked, however, is what would have been different now?
Though any such consideration is bound up in conjecture and speculation, some good approximations can still be made. Brown would still be Chancellor and Blair would have become Home Secretary.
Much of the government's redistributive and poverty-defeating measures would still be in place, although it is likely that there would now be a higher top rate of income tax.
Brown is most obviously Smith's natural successor, a man with the same passionate commitment to ending child poverty and lifting up those at the bottom end of society. Both are of the same background of Scottish Christian Socialism that has produced so many of Labours leading figures. Both are men of whom the British Labour movement can be proud.
History is full of considerations of what may have been, what should have happened and what would have happened under different circumstances. There is no point in worshipping a past political leader purely to lament their current lack of presence. John Smith was by no means a perfect man and, if Prime Minister, he would no doubt by now have made his fair share of mistakes and failures.
However, it can be said that he was a great man whose lack of opportunity to prove this does not diminish the qualities that he possessed as a political leader. It is possible to see his spirit and his determination to see Labour in power in child poverty reforms, social security and newly created jobs. It is not difficult to argue that he would probably have made a great Prime Minister.
This anniversary, raise a glass to the memory of John Smith. A man who never shaped history - but not due to a lack of aptitude or effort. He was a man who asked for a chance to serve - and cruelly never received it.
Stephen Longden is Secretary of Oxford University Labour Club
13th May 2004