Labour leader, Ed Miliband, has been fending off claims that his leadership is in crisis, with at least four MPs, including Ian Austin and Simon Danczuk reportedly telling David Watts, chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party, that Mr Miliband must go. Miliband is not the first party leader to face somewhat pathetic challenges to his leadership. Here are six other times when politicians tried and failed to remove their leader.
Honest Harold (Harold Wilson, Labour, 1963)
One of the more unique attempted coup stories began in 1963 when a Soviet defector claimed Harold Wilson was secretly a KGB agent. While few MI5 officers believed this claim, CIA Deputy Director of Operations James Jesus Angleton did. Former MI5 officer Peter Wright claimed in his memoir, Spycatcher, that 30 MI5 agents collaborated in an attempt to undermine Wilson. James Miller, a former agent claimed that the Ulster Workers Council Strike in 1975 was instigated by MI5.
Getting in early (Tony Blair, Labour, 2004)
With Tony Blair entering the latter stages of his second term, it was widely presumed that the role of Prime Minister would be passed to then-Chancellor Gordon Brown as part of an agreement between the two. This was not the case. While Brown was in Washington at a meeting of the International Monetary Fund, Blair seized his moment and announced an intention to stand for a third term. Described as “akin to an African coup” by those in Brown's camp, this revoking of their agreement seems fairly insignificant when compared to other aspects of Blair's legacy.
Big trouble in little curry house (Tony Blair, Labour, 2006)
In September 2006 Tom Watson, MP for West Bromwich East, was part of a plot to arrange a vote of no confidence in Tony Blair, with a letter signed by 17 Labour MPs. Meeting in an Indian restaurant, the event earned the name “Baltigate” after those present signed their names on the visitor guest book, confirming a curry house in Wolverhampton as the place where Tony Blair's career was nearly polished off. The day before this meeting, Watson had visited Gordon Brown. The meeting linked Brown to the coup in the public's mind, adding even greater depth to the attempted betrayal. Watson later quit the Government after details of the no confidence letter were published.
A betrayal of a betrayer (Gordon Brown, Labour, 2009)
After poor local and European election results, on 4th June James Purnell, then Work and Pensions secretary, resigned and called on Gordon Brown "to stand aside to give Labour a fighting chance of winning the next election" in an open letter. Purnell was believed to have agreed with David Miliband that they would both quit for the benefit of the party. Miliband ignored the “let's jump together” rule, instead choosing to side with the Prime Minister. Purnell resigned alone, before quitting Westminster altogether within the year.
Timing is everything (Gordon Brown, Labour, 2010)
On 6th January 2010, mere months away from a general election, the Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon and Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt deemed it the perfect time to try and depose Labour leader Gordon Brown. Calling for a secret ballot on Brown's leadership, the two ministers utterly avoided any aspect of the ballot being “secret.” Instead of garnering support for a change of leader, the two were met with disdain and dismissal. Margaret Beckett called them “stupid,” while Lord Mandelson told Jeremy Paxman the coup had “blown through the corridors of Westminster and out of the window.”
Keep your friends close and your enemies Cable (Nick Clegg, Liberal Democrats, 2014)
An event Paddy Ashdown described as a “Shakespearean plot of deep malice” took place in May 2014 when it emerged Lord Oakeshott had been commissioning secret polls on Clegg's leadership, as well as how the party would fare under Lord Oakeshott's friend; Vince Cable. If sharing polls that damage your own party is not enough, Lord Oakeshott made matters worse by forgetting to remove his name as sponsor from the bill. Vince Cable released a statement condemning his actions as “inexcusable and unacceptable,” and the BBC's Political Editor, Nick Robinson, described it as the most “cack-handed” leadership coup he had covered. Lord Oakeshott eventually quit the party, while Cable later admitted being aware of the poll.
