Exposed: Tensions between the two Davids

Friday 5 October 2012

THE full extent of tensions between "the two Davids" during the SDP/Liberal Alliance have been revealed for the first time in a new biography of the former Liberal leader David Steel.

IMAGE: David Owen and David Steel appeared in public to be united

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Ellen Thomas

Previously unseen archive material shows that Mr Steel, now Lord Steel of Aikwood, and the SDP leader David Owen, now Lord Owen, often did not speak to each other for weeks on end, while there were major divisions over strategy.

David Torrance's book, which is not authorised, also details Mr Steel's attempted resignation in 1983 and his troubled time as the Scottish Parliament's first Presiding Officer, which included control of the Holyrood building project.Polling often revealed the Liberal leader as Britain's most popular party leader during the 1980s, when his party was in an alliance with the Social Democratic Party, which split from Labour in 1981. But while the public image of the two Davids was one of co-operative bonhomie, behind the scenes the two party leaders were often at loggerheads. When, in April 1984, the pair exchanged memos on the future of the Alliance, these tensions were laid bare. Mr Steel said his preferred option was a gradual growing together of the two parties, leading to "possible union in the indeterminate future". The status quo, he added, was not "workable" and would "lead to increasing disaffection".Replying two weeks later, Mr Owen flatly rejected his counterpart's suggestion. "I see no viable alternative," he wrote, "than to continuing an equal partnership between our parties and between you and me as leaders."Often, the two Davids did not meet or speak to each other for several weeks. "Do you realise that until today we had not spoken for a month?" Mr Steel wrote to Mr Owen in early 1985. "Even allowing for Christmas, etc, this just is no way to keep the show on the road."And in another memo later that year he attempted to persuade Mr Owen to abandon their joint leadership and let him be recognised as leading all Alliance MPs either in government or opposition.It took Mr Owen a month to respond, saying he was baffled and amazed by Mr Steel's proposition. "We must obviously talk soon," he wrote. "But why throw this firecracker into the pot when we are doing well and consolidating our position?"The Alliance lasted until 1988 when the SDP and Liberal parties merged to form what eventually became the modern Liberal Democrats. Mr Steel opted not to stay on as leader and was succeeded by Paddy Ashdown.Mr Steel's 12-year leadership of the Liberals was often rocky, not least when he forged the Lib-Lab Pact with James Callaghan's Labour government in 1977, and also after the 1983 General Election.Exhausted and disappointed at not having "broken the mould" of British politics, Mr Steel, now 74, attempted to resign his leadership. In a previously unseen letter to his deputy, Alan Beith, he set out the "precise timing" of his departure."The announcement should, I think, be made next weekend," wrote Mr Steel, "certainly before the [Liberal Party] executive and council the following weekend, which I do not now propose to attend." Mr Steel, however, was persuaded to withdraw his resignation letter and instead took a summer sabbatical to recover from what was officially "post-viral depression". Scottish politics occupied the last phase of his political career, although his four years as presiding officer of the Scottish Parliament were bedeviled by ill-health, rows about the new institution and, most of all, the rising cost of the Parliament's new home at Holyrood. Since the 2010 General Election he has been a high-profile critic of the Coalition's plans to reform the House of Lords, of which he has been a member since 1997.l David Steel: Rising Hope to Elder Statesman by David Torrance is published today by Biteback, price £25.

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Exposed: Tensions between the two Davids

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